Mark Lynch

Inquiry, 9-10pm, Sunday

Mark has been with WICN in some capacity since the very early 1970s, when the fledgling station started at WPI. His early shows included the bizarre Psychic Journal and the extremely questionable Put Your Head On My Shoulder, WICN’s only “advice to the lovelorn” show. Not content with these short strange spots, he heard “Never Mind The Bullocks” and immediately joined the Rock Department in the late 1970s. He and Bob Mercer soon became the department heads and together they rapidly turned WICN’s alternative take on contemporary rock into one of the most cutting edge shows in New England. The late nightly show Positive Noise garnered recognition and praise from bands and press all over the world by being the first on any radio station to play bands like The Galloping Coroners from Hungary and promoting artists like Laurie Anderson. All the while that Mark was on the air till 3 a.m., he was simultaneously getting up early to study birds and to teach at the Worcester Art Museum. This schedule could only go on for so long, and he retired from Positive Noise in the mid-1980s. It was then that he decided that the best way to understand his bifurcated life in art and science was to listen to artists and scientists speak, and so Inquiry was born and has been on the air ever since. Besides hosting Inquiry, Mark still teaches (and is a docent) at the Worcester Art Museum, typically offering classes on Contemporary and Modern Art. He is an ecological monitor, teacher and trip leader at the Massachusetts Audubon Society at Broad Meadow Brook and is currently writing an ornithogeography of the Blackstone National Corridor. He is the Book Review Editor at the ornithology journal "Bird Observer".

Email: marklynch@wicn.org