His shows… There is was nothing like what he did. He just forged a new genre: his own.”
GRACE ZABRISKIE, ACTOR
YOUR CART
REVIEWS OF JOE’S WORK
GRACE ZABRISKIE
IRA GLASS
"[Joe Frank] is one of the great, original radio performers. He's created a sound and style for himself - a complete aesthetic that's entirely his own. I first heard him when I was 19 and it changed everything for me. His work demonstrated the intensity and emotion that the medium is capable of; ingenious…fantastic."
IRA GLASS, THIS AMERICAN LIFE
DAVID SEDARIS
"To me, he's what radio is really for... his show makes me think he's getting to some great truth... so completely captivating and just unlike anything else."
DAVID SEDARIS, WRITER
SALON
"Although commonly categorized as radio drama, Frank's work bears very little resemblance to the stagy artifice of plays performed over air. Frank wanders deeply into the unconscious, producing Dionysian stories with a fairy-tale intensity whose effect is often funny, disturbing and deeply memorable."
SALON Magazine
LOS ANGELES TIMES
"In an arena in which formats are sacrosanct, Joe Frank has charted new territory with his literate, frequently bizarre, wildly funny essays and parodies... He can be funny, poignant, serious and off the wall - sometimes within the framework of the same piece. Unique is one word to describe it. Brilliant is another."
LOS ANGELES TIMES
CHARLIE KAUFMAN
"Joe Frank is a singular voice in radio. What he has done is hypnotic, psychotic, neurotic, sad, terrifying, and some of the funniest stuff I have ever heard anywhere. I can't think of another radio performer who has come close to achieving this kind of alchemy."
CHARLIE KAUFMAN, FILMMAKER
ROLLING STONE
"Frank [is] the apostle of radio noir... His free-form radio dramas... are sometimes moving, often funny, but always manage to confound the listeners' expectations. A maestro of verité, Frank exploits the power of radio..."
ROLLING STONE
HARRY SHEARER
"Joe Frank was guest-anchoring 'Weekend All Things Considered.' The last five minutes of the broadcast, they allowed Joe to do an essay of his own. And it was like a fistful of nihilism just shot through the speaker. "
HARRY SHEARER, WRITER, ACTOR
THE VILLAGE VOICE
"[Joe Frank is] the most imaginative, literate monologist in radio today... If a microphone could capture the nether recesses of the modern psyche, it would sound like Frank's absurd comical excursions: Radio Vertigo."
THE VILLAGE VOICE
TERRY GROSS
"Joe Frank is an original whose work has helped form some of the most eccentric, dark and interesting parts of public radio's personality. "
TERRY GROSS, FRESH AIR
LA WEEKLY
"The world of Joe Frank is a wildly entertaining surrealistic universe...hilarious, unsettling, zany, powerful, moving and perhaps the most unique, inventive and effective use of radio since Orson Welles convinced much of America there was a War of the Worlds."
THE L.A. WEEKLY
WASHINGTON POST
"[Frank] travels in the emotional landscape of Bergman and Fellini; there's a tension and sense of mystery halfway between Kafka and Chandler... and a satiric edge worthy of Firesign Theatre and Woody Allen... No one else in radio is doing what Frank does."
WASHINGTON POST
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
"I came upon Joe Frank's work by accident a number of years ago while driving to my home in the Napa Valley late at night. I couldn't believe the originality and sheer brilliance of what I was hearing. From that moment on I became a dedicated Joe Frank fan. Joe Frank's shows raise the most interesting and enduring questions in new and original ways and are consistently thought-provoking and very funny."
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA, FILMMAKER
LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
"Joe Frank's often bizarre scenarios for the mind are decidedly offbeat radio fare...part surreal satire, part bizarre meditation, part fever dream."
LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
IRA GLASS
"[Joe Frank] is more comparable to movie auteurs from the 1970s than to storytellers like Jean Shepherd and Garrison Keillor. Mr. Frank's tales throw listeners into a gritty world where it won't all come out so clean and the moral lines won't be clear. And it will be a little philosophical."
IRA GLASS, THIS AMERICAN LIFE
GUARDIAN
"Frank has created a series of dead-pan radio monologues so sharp and intelligent that during the quiet bits you can almost hear God taking notes."
THE GUARDIAN
DAVID RAPKIN
“He once said in a program of his that he is afraid of nothing. And the counterpart says, ‘What do you... So, you’re fearless!’ He said, ‘No, No, that’s not what I mean. I’m afraid of——nothing.’”
DAVID RAPKIN, COLLABORATOR
WALL ST JOURNAL
"Radio's Prince of Darkness Rules the Freeways. [Frank is] alternately dark, bizarre and very funny - but always hard to turn off."
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
TERRY KINNEY
“You identify all of the vicissitudes and you start to realize that that’s normal. What people go through, the darkest thoughts you have, and the level of pain that it takes—to just be alive. That’s the kind of thing that he is the spokesman for.”
TERRY KINNEY, ACTOR
WASHINGTON POST
"You don't have to close your eyes to appreciate Joe Frank's dense audio universe cascading out of your radio. It helps, though, because there are so many layers - of sound, philosophy, of reality-coursing through his dramas... Come to think of it, after awhile, you won't want to close your eyes because in Frank's short stories for the radio, the tension and pathos are as enveloping as they are intriguing... "
WASHINGTON POST
