So who is Walter Martin?

I’m a songwriter, a musician and a music enthusiast. I’ve been in the bands The Walkmen and Jonathan Fire*Eater in one form or another since I was 12. Literally. I also make a lot of music under my own name and on the side I write songs for film and TV. You can lean all about my work here.

What’s your radio show about?

In May 2024, I started a weekly radio show on Sunday nights on my favorite radio station, WEXT in upstate New York. I play records from my record collection and talk about why I like them and why other people might like them.

It’s an informal hour-long show recorded live with my favorite scratchy records. I provide some mostly accurate background for the songs (no Googling or prep research allowed), along with some deep and shallow commentary.

New episodes are made available on this Substack every Friday.

Why do you think you are qualified to do a radio show?

I don’t know… I mean, I’ve been collecting records since I was 15 or so and over a few decades as a touring musician I think went to basically every record store on planet Earth and I’ve got a ton of great records. I’ve always been the guy in my friend-group who finds the music and makes the mix tapes and all that so now I’m doing that for anyone who wants to listen. Does that qualify me?

What kind of music do you like?

I like every kind of music but I guess my musical world revolves around early rock ‘n’ roll - but I really listen to everything. Once I fell in love with early rock ‘n’ roll, I starting researching who made it and what else did they make and what were they listening to when they made it and who played what on what record and what were they inspired by and who wrote what and what else did they write….etc. So in answering all those questions, I guess I figured out how to find more and more great music. And now I have a lot. And that process spread my tastes across most of the world.

What else is going on here?

What do you mean?

Like, what else are you going to put on your Substack to make it not boring?

Oh.. I’m not really sure. But I’m sure I’ll add some more stuff before too long. I’m working on a lot of new music these days. So I’ll figure out how to share that. And also, I like telling people about good music they might not know about, so yeah I’ll figure out some fun ways to do that too.

Do you think you have better taste in music than most people?

That’s a weird question…I’ve never thought about it that way before..

Well…do you?

Ummm. I don’t know…No…? I mean…I think I might listen to a lot more music than most people.

So does that mean you like better music than most people?

Not necessarily. But I mean, I listen to music all the time basically so I guess, when you do that, you end up getting sick of the mediocre stuff pretty quick and, by necessity, you have to find more great stuff and then you wind up knowing about a lot of great stuff. I dunno…does that make sense?

I guess… but I think that’s just a clumsy way of saying yes you do think you have better taste in music than most people…

Ok I don’t know what to say I guess…

Do you like new music?

Yes.

Like who?

I like Sza. And Adrienne Lenker. And I like Sam Gendel’s records a lot. And I dunno, I like a lot of new stuff. Oh and I love that new song called Million Dollar Baby. I forget who sings it but it’s so good.

Yeah I agree. Million Dollar Baby rules.

Yeah totally.

Ok, if you know so much about music, tell me a song I’ve never heard before that will blow me away.

ok…

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