Desert Oracle Radio

Ken Layne

Desert Oracle Radio is a weekly road trip through the weird American desert from the publisher of Desert Oracle, the pocket-sized field guide published in Joshua Tree, California. Hear tales of mysterious lights, missing tourists, lost mines, venomous creatures, weird history and weirder people. Hosted by editor Ken Layne and featuring a cast of intriguing mystics, oddballs, scientists and artists, Desert Oracle Radio is your soundtrack for a desert night. The program is broadcast on Friday nights at 10 p.m. on KCDZ 107.7 FM in the Mojave high desert, with field reports from around and across the desert lands, and is distributed by Public Radio Exchange (PRX).

  • 28 minutes
    Surrounded in the Night

    A winter storm cut loose from the mountains, the cold wind whipping around the creosote, rain dripping down through the swamp-cooler vent: 2025 came in like a Lion and it’s the Year of the Snake. We’ve got both out here, in the Mojave Wilderness. Mountain lions, or cougars. And snakes, too, although it’s still a bit early to see our reptile friends up here at 4,000 feet elevation. (Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver, written & hosted by Ken Layne.)

    Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025  DesertOracle.com

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    15 February 2025, 3:59 am
  • 28 minutes
    One Chants Out Between Two Worlds

    It's a cold, cold night in the wind-blasted desert, and we hear there's snow a-comin', can't come soon enough. Listen to the harrowing sounds of the 1961 Bel Air Fire, prepare for Mojo Nixon's anniversary (of death), and join us in remembering our favorite Intermountain West surrealist, the late great David Lynch. Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Suitable for some families.

     

    Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025 http://DesertOracle.com

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    25 January 2025, 9:54 pm
  • 28 minutes
    Hills Are Filled With Fire

    Another wild and windy night in these first strange days and nights of our new year. We are monitoring the infernos & catastrophes, but also celebrating the creation of Chuckwalla National Monument in the vast weird desert east of Coachella, all the way to the Colorado River. Plus: A phone call from our High Desert pal Herbie Benham, and soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

    Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025 http://DesertOracle.com

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    12 January 2025, 2:16 am
  • 28 minutes
    Christmas Amongst the Joshua Trees

    We've heard some weird news about Saint Nicholas that turns out to be a few years old, but that's all right. Christmas itself is old news, after all. That’s why we love it, because it’s ancient and beautiful, the time for silent walks in the cold night, just the sound of your boots crunching through the snow, the half-moon glowing through the Joshua trees.

    Plus: Which phrases and words shall be banned in the new year? And: Seasonal soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this advertising-free show at Patreon.com/DesertOracle.

    Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2024 http://DesertOracle.com

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    20 December 2024, 9:28 pm
  • 28 minutes
    Ravens, Quail & Turkeys

    Is it Thanksgiving time already? Well let's pack up the car and head out to Joshua Tree, everybody's favorite Thanksgiving destination if they live exactly three hours away and don't have anywhere else to go. Plus: What are the ravens up to now? Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

    Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2024 http://DesertOracle.com

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    26 November 2024, 3:47 am
  • 28 minutes
    Up From the Grave

    Happy Hallowtide, the three-day festival of the Dead and their various souls & spirits. Tonight we are riding down the nocturnal highway, listening to ghosts of times past crackling through the car-radio speakers. With new soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this commercial-free show at http://patreon.com/desertoracle.

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    28 October 2024, 11:48 pm
  • 28 minutes
    Strange Rituals of Halloweens Past

    Be not a-feared of our yearly remembrance of the dead, of ghostly visits from our beloved and maybe not-so-beloved relations and ancestors. Know Death as an old friend who always eventually comes around, for you and everyone else. If your belief in the immortality of the soul is secure, do not shudder and sputter over the enjoyment of pumpkins and haystacks and comical gravestones made of scrap wood and whitewash. It's October, as long as you ignore the weather, and that means it's time for spooky tales on Desert Oracle Radio.

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    8 October 2024, 12:48 am
  • 28 minutes
    Greenwashing the Great Basin

    Have you heard what the "green energy" corporations are doing to the Great Basin Desert, with your government's approval, on your public lands? The plan is to cover the pristine basin-and-range interior of Nevada with industrial electricity factories over endless thousands of acres of desert woodland. And the people who should be out protesting this, chaining themselves to the desert trees marked for annihilation, etc., well they don't really care. Because they've been told  "environmentalism" now means destroying the last wild places in America, the last wild landscapes, so a fly-by-night solar corporation can get free land to scrape clean, free from the U.S. government. New soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    16 September 2024, 4:00 am
  • 28 minutes
    Ghost Riders and Death Valley Rangers

    Forest ranger, park ranger, Navy sailor, lumberjack, and cowboy — those were some of the jobs Stanley Jones worked before accidentally becoming a movie actor and composer of classic western music. PLUS: Weird Annie had a bunch of weird raven children. Deus Pascit Corvus. New sounds by RedBlueBlackSilver.

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    1 September 2024, 4:14 am
  • 28 minutes
    Hot August Bites

    A summertime tour through "strange and weird places," where they held their annual rituals. This is Episode #228. It's on the level.

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    16 August 2024, 5:35 am
  • 28 minutes
    Capricorn Full Moon: When Presidents Quit!

    Did you know the current (?) president's Quiet Quitting (via Twitter) on this Sunday in July was foretold by an astrologer on Twitter, two weeks prior? That's no lie, and you can check it for yourself. The same seer predicted, back in August 2020, that the current vice president would be the party's nominee in 2024, because it coincides with the VP's Second Saturn Return. Which is also hitting your Desert Oracle Radio host right about now. This is an Emergency Broadcast about Prophecy & Portents, with astrologically appropriate soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.

    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    22 July 2024, 5:38 am
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