Alex Cohen
Alex Cohen is the reporter for NPR's fastest-growing daily news program, Day to Day where she has covered everything from homicides in New Orleans to the controversies swirling around the frosty dessert known as Pinkberry.
Though based at NPR West in California, she's traveled to Des Moines to cover the first-in-the-nation caucus in 2008; to Paris (Texas, that is) to report on a devastating drought and to the far corners of the Navajo Nation to profile a politician forced to choose between his tribe and the New Mexico Senate.
Cohen also fills in as the host of Day to Day. With her colleagues Alex Chadwick and Madeleine Brand, she has anchored live breaking news coverage of Benazir Bhutto's assassination and the Minneapolis bridge collapse. She's interviewed Nobel Laureates, members of Congress, Grammy-winner Lucinda Williams and some people you may not have heard of, like the inventor of scratch-n-sniff wallpaper and David Depto (U.S. champion of the new intellectual and brutal sport of chess boxing.)
There is little Cohen won't do for Day to Day listeners. She's braved the the war zone of the "All You Can Eat" seats at Dodger Stadium. She played countless hours of Guitar Hero II to get audio from the game's last level — Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird." And she grooved to the Beach Boys while drinking several varieties of Chardonnay to test a theory about the effect of music on wine. (It was worth it: The piece wound up being one of NPR's Most E-mailed Stories.)
Cohen started her career at NPR as an intern with Weekend Edition Sunday, where she also launched the first-ever "Intern Edition." Since then, she has worked just about every angle radio has to offer. She's been a bureau chief, show host, newscast anchor, director, producer and editor at member station KQED, at NPR and for the American Public Media programs Marketplace and Weekend America.
She graduated from Brown University where she studied Eastern Religions and went on to get her Masters of Journalism at the University of Berkeley at California. Cohen has won awards from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.
She lives in the LA neighborhood of Atwater Village with her husband Rich and their two dogs Buddy and Bosco. When not making radio, Alex plays banked track roller derby under the nom de guerre Axles of Evil.
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Stiller performed in a comedy duo with wife Anne Meara and appeared in films and on Broadway and television. Onscreen, he was George Costanza's father; in real life, he was dad to actor Ben Stiller. -
Jerry Stiller's son, Ben Stiller, tweeted his dad died of natural causes. Jerry Stiller began his career in the 1950s and remained popular with his featured roles on Seinfeld and King of Queens.
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A new book tells the story of Bobby Fuller, who was best-known for the song "I Fought the Law." He was a talented guitarist and producer who moved from El Paso, Texas, to LA. He was on the verge of his big break when his body was found in his car doused in gasoline. The Los Angeles police ruled it an accidental death.
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Facing a fatal diagnosis, Wilko Johnson made what was to be his final album with singer Roger Daltrey of The Who. Then doctors intervened. "Maybe," Daltrey says, "there's a Part 2 to this record." -
Parks has arranged music for artists of just about every genre, from the the Beach Boys and Bonnie Raitt to U2 and Skrillex. But every now and then he makes time to focus on his own material, most of it with a distinctive old-time feel. His latest is called Songs Cycled. -
On an album released nearly 50 years ago Harry Taussig demonstrated an accomplished, self-taught style of improvisational guitar. This week in Austin, Texas Taussig will perform in public for the first time. -
Kira Roessler and Mike Watt first emerged as the bassists of two massively influential punk bands, Black Flag and The Minutemen. But on and off for three decades, they've joined forces as a bass-only duo called Dos. -
"If You Let Me" captures the dangerous, exhilarating beginning of an unlikely relationship. The song immediately plunges into a thumping beat, accompanied by the feverish wails of JP Jones, who kicks off this upbeat duet by daring Chrissie Hynde to resist his charms.
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For a 24-year-old singer who's just releasing her first full-length album, Jaffe has a knack for reflecting on the past with the benefit of clear hindsight. "Clementine" may wind down to an easygoing conclusion, but Jaffe's immensely promising career is just getting started.
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As everyone prepares to surge into a new decade, Cloud Cult is diving back into its past one last time: The Minneapolis band has just reissued its first two albums. "Man on the Moon," from 2003's They Live on the Sun, starts off quietly: Craig Minowa's voice sounds strained and distant, as if he were crooning over a tin can and string from the lunar landscape. But the song gradually builds and explodes into a full-blown rock tapestry.
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Listen carefully to "Good Luck," and beneath a seemingly happy tune lies a tinge of something cynical. "Good luck, don't you feel so bad," Lerche croons mellifluously, before adding, "Just don't get your hopes up." Written after what Lerche describes as a particularly rough year, the song mixes upbeat consolation with grim realism.
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The Ettes' "Take It With You" packs two great tunes into a single song. The first opens with raw guitar, rousing handclaps and a simple melody that sounds sweet enough to sing in a schoolyard. But just when it seems to have settled into a nice groove, "Take It With You" becomes a brand-new song the second the chorus hits.
