WHEN ART AND RADIO

“San Diego is always getting a bad wrap about its cultural blandness, but San Diego is not a cultural cul-de-sac.”

So says Philip Swenson, co-host of the local Internet radio show, Art Rocks! And Swenson, aka Philly Joe Swendoza, should know. He, along with Alexandra Rosa, aka Ally Bling-Bling, records Art Rocks! live every Wednesday night from 7 to 8 p.m., a show dedicated to the San Diego art scene.

“It's where art, fashion and music collide,” said Swenson.

The duo, which has been doing Art Rocks! since 2002, has interviewed the likes of Tim Field, executive director of the San Diego Art Institute's Museum of the Living Artist, and Ann Berchtold, founder of SanDiegoArtist.com. Berchtold now appears on the show every first Wednesday of the month.

Both Swenson and Rosa said the San Diego art scene is kicking. They don't have any trouble coming up with content for the show, they said, because they tend to cover subjects that generally slip by the mainstream media.

And because Art Rocks! uses the Internet as its medium, all their shows are automatically archived. Rosa said the show has thus become a “recorded history of the San Diego art scene.”

“The Internet is so tremendously powerful,” said Rosa. “The next step is creating a live, streaming Art Rocks! Internet television show.”