Citizen Kafka (also known as Sid Kafka and The Citizen) was the stage name of New York-based radio personality and folk musician Richard Shulberg (November 20, 1947, Brooklyn, New York – March 14, 2009).
Beginning in the late 1970s and continuing through much of the 1990s, Citizen Kafka produced and hosted a number of radio programs on
Pacifica Foundation
Pacifica Foundation is an American non-profit organization that owns five independently operated, non-commercial, listener-supported radio stations known for their progressive/liberal political orientation. Its national headquarters adjoins st ...
's
WBAI-FM
WBAI (99.5 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York, New York. Its programming is a mixture of political news, talk and opinion from a left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoint, and eclectic music. T ...
in New York, presenting an eclectic range of live and recorded music, comedy and poetry. One such program was the monthly "Citizen Kafka Show", which Kafka co-created in 1979 with then-unknown actor
John Goodman
John Stephen Goodman (born June 20, 1952) is an American actor. He gained national fame for his role as the family patriarch Dan Conner in the ABC comedy series '' Roseanne'' (1988–1997; 2018), for which he received a Golden Globe Award, an ...
and musician
Kenny Kosek
Kenny Kosek (born 1949 in The Bronx, New York), is an American fiddler who plays bluegrass, country, klezmer, folk music and roots music. In addition to his solo career, he has performed with many other well-known performers and contributed to ...
. The Citizen Kafka Show, which ran during much of the 1980s, featured live improvisational sketch comedy by Goodman and Kosek along with music DJ'd by Kafka.
Kafka later co-hosted a program with Pat Conte called ''The Secret Museum of the Air'', which ran on WBAI from
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...
to
1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...
. This show presented unusual music from various genres and cultures, most of it recorded before 1948. Kafka and Conte moved the show to
WFMU
WFMU is a listener-supported, independent community radio station, licensed to East Orange, New Jersey. Since 1998 its studios and operating facilities have been headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey. It broadcasts locally at 91.1 Mhz FM, in ...
, 91.1 FM in
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
. Archived shows, comprising hundred of hours from ''The Secret Museum'', are available here: http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/SM
Parallel to his long radio career, Citizen Kafka also performed actively as a bluegrass musician. This included a stint as a leader of perennial New York bluegrass band the Wretched Refuse String Band.
References
*Kelly Crow, "Free Tales From Mr. Kafka's Crypt (And Thousands of Records, Too), New York Times, 28 October 2001, p. CY8.
*Jon Kalish, "A Musical Voyage to Lost Worlds", New York Times, 18 June 2000, p. AR33.
*Jaime Wolf, "No Hits, All the Time", New York Times, 11 April 1999, p. SM74.
*Franz Lidz, "Down Mean Alleys with John Goodman", New York Times, 8 March 1998, p. AR15.
*Peter de Jonge, "Being the Big Guy", New York Times, 10 February 1991, p. SM44.
*Ken Hunt, Obituary in Independent (UK) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/richard-shulberg-musician-and-radio-presenter-known-as-lsquocitizen-kafka-1651830.html
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kafka, Citizen
American radio personalities
Pacifica Foundation people
1947 births
2009 deaths