Rockin’ Robin: Sharing an Inside Perspective on The Music Industry
By Everly Orfanedes
Classic rock fans need to be tuning into “Rockin’ Robin” on Friday’s at 2pm to 3pm on WECB. On air, Robin-Sailor Zander (she/her) plays a series of themed playlists, and switches off every other week to a more podcast-like style where she tells personal stories from her experiences growing up around the music industry, and on occasion features guests. On “Rockin’ Robin,” Zander shares her perspective on the music industry, as well as altering between more classic rock to modern pop-indie music. As a third year Theater and Performance major here at Emerson, “Rockin’ Robin” allows a platform for Zander to connect with the music loving part of herself. As a musician and singer-songwriter, Zander uses her platform on WECB to express her values and beliefs regarding music and the industry.
“I really value who can put on a good show, for me personally that means a band, that means the people who wrote the songs are on the stage, and that just makes the experience so much better. I think a lot of what I value is what I can enjoy live.”
When asked about her experiences with radio, she explained “I am a musician, my dad’s a musician, my brother’s a musician, and we’ve done radio. A lot of the radio I have been listening to the past few years was really only giving ‘here’s music history, here’s the backstory,’ and I wanted to do something that was a little more personal, because I do have a lot of stories from my childhood and stuff about artists, and I wanted to integrate that part.”
While keeping a strong theme of classic rock, “Rockin’ Robin” also features a series of different artists and genres, including many folk and indie artists. She also includes reviews of new music that she wants to try out or hasn’t heard before. As a musician herself, she includes some of her own influences, such as Andy Shaw and The Strokes, and also naming artists she frequently grew up listening to such as Coldplay, Oasis, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. It is also important to note Robin is in fact a “George” girl.
When curating playlists for her show, Zander focuses on creating playlists based on stories, moods, and tones. This also applies when picking topics for the more podcast styled shows. “I had a Thanksgiving episode where I talked about this weird Thanksgiving I had with Aerosmith, Guns and Roses, and Billy Gibbons, so we will talk about crazy stuff,” she recalled.
When asked about her relationship with music as a whole, Zander explained: “It finds its way into everything I do. It’s one of those things, everybody has a way of communicating, but this is mine. So no matter what I do in life or what I do here, it is just going to be a part of it.”