Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child

09/09/2025

Here we goooooo!

K*TX Rock the Park returns to Mueller Lake Park this fall with free, family-friendly concerts featuring The Tiarras, Tribe Mafia, Tele Novella, Joe McDermott, and more. Now in its 15th season, the Austin tradition brings neighbors and music lovers together for high-energy live performances under the...

05/09/2025

what a party!

We’re putting on a festival at First Avenue & 7th St Entry in Minneapolis, MN! It’s called Silly Shindig and it takes place on December 28th. Six bands. Two stages.

We’ll be playing alongside five of our favorite kids bands at our favorite venue. You can expect music, games, antics, and nonstop fun!

Featuring sets from:
🍕 Koo Koo (We play last)
🐯 Peelander-Z
📚 Mega Ran
🚀 Superfun Yeah Yeah Rocketship
🫥 Louis and Dan and the Invisible Band
🍽️ Derry & the Dirty Dishes


Doors are at 11am and the show will wrap at 2pm (just in time for a nap).


Tickets on sale now! https://www.axs.com/events/1116585/koo-koo-tickets?skin=firstavenue

02/09/2025

Let’s gooooooo! Family musicians and others in the scene will want to come to this, presented by us and Mayers Consulting:

Tickets: https://www.viewcy.com/event/hootenanny_family_mus

15/08/2025

Occasionally we’ll get a note that is effectively my mission statement, if I had one. This is one of those:

My son and I started listening to your show in 2022. I was commuting 40 minutes to work each way and my son was in preschool on the campus where I worked. Spending 80 minutes in the car, five times a week with a 3-year-old was NOT one of my best thought-out plans, but it meant that in my desperate s...

13/08/2025

Happy twentieth birthday to us. On this date in 2005—just a few days after Valley Free Radio launched—we went down Pine Street to the dusty basement studios and came on the air, with the first song being Laurie Berkner Band’s “Victor Vito.” We moved over to WRSI - 93.9 The River after a couple of years, and then, for the last ten years, the mighty K*TX 98.9 has been our home. This was back in the days when we didn’t all have cameras (or phones!) in our pockets; this photo is from about a year later, taken by someone from the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

The kids are of course all out of college and out of the house, though they come on any time they’re home. It’s objectively weird to still be doing this. But I’m still having fun. So I dunno if it’ll be another twenty years, but let’s see what we can do.

Put another way: are you prepared to rock?

09/08/2025

Haven’t watched this in forever; what a fun chat with the nice folks from Rockaroni and Cheese!

"Spare the Rock doesn’t, and that’s why everybody loves it."– John Flansburgh, They Might Be GiantsSpare the Rock, Spoil the Child, is a weekly radio show fo...

01/08/2025

Longtime friend of the show Jeff Giles was kind enough to write some words about our 20 years and why radio matters.

Jeff Giles has been a friend of mine for a very long time now—as he notes below, it’s been a long time since he stopped away from doing anything related to family music, but the friendship has remained. He’s also the mind behind and coproducer of Keep Hoping Machine Running, a fantastic Woody ...

31/07/2025

As you know, we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary on the air—but not coincidentally, it’s also the 20th anniversary of our first home, Valley Free Radio—the only station that’s had Spare the Rock for those full 20 years. They’re gonna have a great party in just over a week and people in the Pioneer Valley should go celebrate!

Come celebrate our 20th Anniversary. Valley Free Radio is having a celebration - open to all ages - on Saturday August 9, 2025 from 4-8 PM at the Northampton Elks Lodge on 17 Spring Street in Florence, Mass. The celebration will feature live music by Kalliope Jones and Shokazoba. Crooked Stick Pops....

23/07/2025

23/07/2025

What a great event and lineup! Join our friends at K*TX 98.9 next month and celebrate MeadowFest!

18/07/2025

In addition to sending us some memories about our twenty years on the air, if you really want to do something to celebrate, make an extra donation to K*TX 98.9 or your local community or public station. It's never been more important to support your local public radio station. Help keep us and everything else you love about public media strong and going.

Congress just voted to cut public media funding, and K*T and K*TX stand to lose an estimated $1.2 million a year. Your support is more critical than ever. Every dollar fuels the local reporting, music and podcasts you value. Donate today at donate.kutx.org.

31/03/2025

Hey. What's up. Happy Trans Day of Visibility, friends. Rock on.

“You don't owe them anything!”