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You Can't Hear it on the Radio is a blog about the current golden age of music. At no time since the 1960s has there been such an output of quality music by so many varied artists. Add to that technology that makes it easier than ever for the curious to find good music today. But, like an unlimited selection at an all-you-can-eat buffet, there's no table service. You will have to seek it out. The old model is dead. Generally speaking, you can't hear it on the radio. You can learn about it here, though.

When I was nine-years-old, a friend of the family gave me a Christmas gift that stayed with me more than almost any other gift from childhood. The gift was a tape of Bill Cosby’s stand-up and for years, I listened to it literally every night as I fell asleep.

As far as I can tell, it was essentially a Cosby mix tape - none of the routines that were on it seem to appear together on any Cosby release, so there was obviously some thought that went into it. I basically wore it out. This was the mid-'80s, long before burned CDs and iPods, so even if I still had the cassette tape I was given, I wouldn’t have a single place to play it in my house.

To the best of my memory, the tape started with the three “Noah” tracks (part of the motivation for the gift, no doubt), “Noah: Right”, “Noah: And The Neighbor”, “Noah: Me And You, Lord”; then moved on to “The Chicken Heart”, “Tonsils”, “To Russell, My Brother Whom I Slept With”, and then “Fat Albert (Buck, Buck)”.

It was fantastic and I would kill for that cassette tape now -- just as a sentimental item. Fortunately, in the age of digital music I can pretty much re-create the mix tape’s playlist. Each of those routines are hilarious - Cosby, then as now, is an unparalleled storytelling comedian. I believe it was my first exposure to stand up comedy.

Cosby is a groundbreaking comedian in a lot of ways, but what's most telling about his skills is the reverence that other comics have for him. In Jerry Seinfeld's documentary on stand up, Comedian, there's a scene where Seinfeld, Chris Rock and other comedians are sitting around a table discussing Cosby's skills, stamina and command of an audience and it's very clear they are in awe of him.

A few years later, I would discover Steve Martin’s A Wild and Crazy Guy in a pile of my stepmother’s cassette tapes. It remains an absurdist masterpiece, performed by a man whose audience knew every beat, every word, every punchline, and yet still manages to keep the performance fresh and funny. In Martin's autobiography - Born Standing Up - he explains that, oddly enough, his immense popularity would basically force him to quit stand up. It's a great book and fascinating window into the development of Steve Martin as a comedian and actor.

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