WCSB 89.3 F.M.

If there is a better college radio station on earth, I’ll eat my hat. Such diversity of such high quality and such rarity, if you listen to anything else, at any time, you are missing something new every single second. Long time home of Bob Dobb’s Church of the SubGenius, need I say more. Best local hip hop. Best garage junk. Best reggae. Best weirdo freak freeform. Just lock the radio here. You’ll thank me.

«I’ve got a pretty intense game of Chinese checkers going with a guy who claims to be the shift manager at a Church’s chicken in Parma, so I’m just going to let the show run itself.»
That’s a quote from a WCSB DJ during a midday shift.
WCSB is somewhat like a guide to me when I make my annual visits to Cleveland each summer. It’s something that my radio dial never wavers from in the car, except, maybe, when the high school kids take over and play Adam Levine, or the Indian trance music just becomes too much. But most of the time, the music on WCSB is a beautiful, eclectic but unknown mix of older and contemporary music, flanked by awkward PSAs and often college-​aged DJ banter. More often than not, they’re playing a gritty variety of obscure 60’s/70’s music, punk or garage rock that could not suit my drives through the city better. Anything from The Cramps to the original Spanish version of «Be My Baby.» Something to compliment the rows of idle brick factories, abandoned apartment complexes, potholed streets, and forlorn, shirtless old men wandering the streets. I cherish these drives through Cleveland’s gritty neighborhoods, and being able to stream this station while elsewhere only helps to remind me of what I really like about the city and why I continue to come back.

It is like rolling dice when you set the dial to 89.3 FM. Most of the time you will hit that 4−5−6. Cee-​Lo!

Great college radio station in the «heart» of Cleveland. I like that I never know what I’m going to get when I turn my car radio on and dial in 89.3 FM – will it be Hungarian folk music, crunchy indie pop, or dubstep? Sure, I could look at a schedule, but that takes all the fun out of trying new things. Eat your greens, kids.