Little Steven’s Underground Garage

By: Jake A.

The advent of satellite radio has created an array of “specialty stations” that are dedicated to one particular genre or niche of music.  Without having to conform to corporate playlists or the pop hit flavors of the week, satellite radio programming has offerings from A to Z in the musical spectrum.  One of the most intriguing and grooviest of these specialty stations is filed under ‘G’. G….for Garage Rock!

Tune to Sirius XM channel 21 and you will find an oddly titled station known as the Underground Garage.  This station is the brainchild of Little Steven Van Zandt, best known as guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s ‘E’ Street Band and star of hit drama The Sopranos.  

Little Steven’s concept for the Underground Garage is simple. He spins the coolest songs in the world, whether they are “50 years or 50 minutes old.”  So, in other words, it is quite ordinary to hear a rock-n-roll pioneer such as Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, or Little Richard immediately followed by a contemporary act such as Green Day, Weezer, or countless fledgling bands churning out good, old fashioned rock-n-roll straight from their ……..garages.

The Underground Garage actually materialized from Little Steven’s one hour nationally syndicated radio program of the same name.  His weekly show was originally distributed to terrestrial radio stations and grew to appear on over 200 markets and 1.2 million listeners worldwide.  Little Steven then expanded his one hour weekly show into a 24 hour/seven day-a-week satellite radio station on satellite radio, where corporate muckety-mucks have no influence on playlists.

The station is a critical success, with many accolades thrown in its direction.   Rolling Stone Magazine called it “mind-blowingly great,” adding that, “Quite simply, Underground Garage is the most exciting thing to happen on rock and roll radio in years.”  

Additionally, MTV named Little Steven "the coolest DJ in the country, a proud throwback to the late-night hipster jocks of long-gone 1960's and '70s FM Radio."

Little Steven’s original Underground Garage program still exists and premieres every Sunday night on the show’s namesake and has encore broadcasts throughout the week.  However, the majority of air time is hosted by some legendary figures in rock-n-roll history such as Andrew Loog Oldham (former manager of the Rolling Stones), the late Kim Fowley(renown producer and writer), the “world’s greatest entertainer” Handsome Dick Manitoba (The Dictators), Famous DJ Kid Leo, and female musical icon Genya Ravan.  Additionally, each month Drew Carey hosts a three hour show on the Underground Garage.

Many people don’t quite understand the style termed as garage rock.  Little Steven describes it as “white kids trying to play black music and failing gloriously!”  In other words, if we were to take the Beatles’ pop sensibilities, the Rolling Stones’ soulful groove, and the Ramones’ sneer, we would have a perfect example of garage rock.  A simple example is the official anthem of the Underground Garage, and the official garage rock anthem, Louie Louie or the seminal hit Wild Thing.  No other songs serve as better examples as garage rock.

Now, if you are thinking that this is an oldies station for your grandparents, you are absolutely mistaken.  At least 50% of the cuts played on the Underground Garage are songs released in the past 5 years, if not more recently.  Also, the station features a weekly “coolest song in the world”, which is a brand new song from an emerging artist that deserves to be the showcase song on the station for a week.

So, what are all of you cool cats and fine felines going to do?  Listen to the pre-fabricated, manufactured playlists on terrestrial radio that some smuck behind a desk thinks will bring in better ratings? Or jump on into the sultry, soulful sounds of Little Steven’s Underground Garage  That’s channel 21 on Sirius XM radio.  Everybody’s going….See you there!.