West Coast Live to the heart
by Evan Karp, Society & Culture, San Francisco Examiner
"Even when the audience erupted into bursts of laughter (and this happened regularly) Sedge maintained his focus on the guest(s) in question and really, although he was doing everything out in plain view, seemed to be invisibly directing the show as though in the back room control booth of a large live television production. Fun, attentive and pertinent, Sedge is somehow able to weave guests and questions in and out of a completely unscripted time frame while still reaching to get as much out of them as he can. Clockwork. And they consistently delivered."
WCL: A glimpse of old-time radio
by Sam Whiting, Entertainment, San Francisco Chronicle
"I'm surprised more people don't know about it because it is such a quintessentially Bay Area event and tons better than going to a movie," says Maryann Miller Novak, 48, an Oakland city planner who has been coming for four or five years. "I find it very addictive. It's sort of like going to a really good dinner party. You come away with a new perspective."
In Praise of West Coast Live
by James Fallows, Atlantic Monthly
"Instead of skits and monologues it has interviews conducted by Thomson -- and at the moment I can't think of anyone who is his equal at getting guests off their normal schtick and talking about something interesting and surprising. (Ie: the opposite of Larry King.) He does it without notes, but obviously with careful preparation and with enough time to get the guest away from anything like a canned theme."
Radio Show Makes Cultural Waves
by Rick DelVecchio, East Bay Life, San Francisco Chronicle
"What gives the wavy procedure gravity is Thomson's interviewing. It's a skill he's famous for in public broadcasting. He works with a pace, temper and volume so unobtrusive as to seem almost ambient, like the fog. For a long time, the host with the voice of a gently bowed upright bass didn't even mention his name on the show."