Deirdre O'Donoghue

Deirdre O'Donoghue (1946 - 2001) was the creator and host of "SNAP!," a late-night radio program which ran on KCRW from 1982 to 1991. O’Donoghue was the most influential American DJ you've never heard of, a day-zero adopter of countless artists, from Shawn Colvin to Syd Straw, from Ride to Lush, from Del Amitri to the Innocence Mission. She hosted Suzanne Vega’s second-ever radio appearance prior to the release of her debut album in 1985. She gave over her DJ chair to Tom Waits, Don Cherry, and John Zorn. Vaunted musicians would arrive in informal pairings, like Bob Mould and Vic Chesnutt, or Syd Straw and Marc Ribot. And she could find beauty in the explosive maximalism of Austin’s Glass Eye or the droll starkness of Lyle Lovett.

“No categories, no definitions, no pigeonholes,” she declared in January 1984, “just combinations of things that seem to go together.”