Drunken Owls and Other Delights

With my current obsession with the station Channel 92.3 (which I have to say is bordering on my past obsession with WAMH), I have to say I'm kind of surprised by some of their light rotation songs...I understand they're going all retro by throwing older songs (read: alt.rock songs from my high school years) into the mix like "Love Will Tear Us Apart", "Inbetween Days" and the like, but it kind of surprises me that lately they've been playing "Crash" by the Primitives! It's the '95 remix version from the Dumb and Dumber soundtrack and has some goofy half-assed guitar licks thrown on it, but still...pleasantly surprised that they're playing a great song from back in the day that is criminally forgotten now! :)

Did a quick trip down to Target and Bed Bath & Beyond this morning to buy some more apartmenty stuff (as well as a side trip to B&N so Emm could by the new Pratchett book), had lunch and football (Vikings/Ravens) over at Tiernan's. Am not getting ready to move some more stuff to the new place. Will probably only make two trips today, but I'm thinking that taking some of the odd-sized boxes might be a good idea.

Also, Channel 92.3 is our latest favorite not-Live-105 station due to its habit of sounding like the Music Director pulling songs at random (new Pearl Jam followed by Love & Rockets' "So Alive" followed by Sneaker Pimps followed by Foo Fighters followed by U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday")...good stuff on this station!

Oh, and I currently LOVE this song they're playing:



(sorry, you can skip the first few seconds of TV Guide promo)

They've been playing this on that station a lot lately, while I've been moving stuff to the new place. The singer reminds me of Toni Halliday of Curve, the music reminds me of a bass-riff-centric melody I would have written for the Flying Bohemians, and, well, it's just a cool song. :)

Okay, enough dawdling...I got stuff to do!

I've been around the dial so many times, but you're not there
Somebody tells me that you've been taken off the air
Well, you were my favorite DJ, since I can't remember when
You always played the best records, you never followed any trend
FM, AM, where are you?
You gotta be out there somewhere on the dial...
--The Kinks, "Around the Dial"


(Hat tip to head58 for pointing this out this morning via email...)

WBCN is losing its terrestrial station as of August 19.

Those of you in the New England area probably know 104.1 FM as one of the biggest mainstays of rock radio in Boston for YEARS. Its first broadcast was March 15, 1969, playing Cream's "I Feel Free". A fitting first song to play, come to think of it, considering their original format was progressive freeform, much like how New York City's WNEW started (actually, within a few years of each other). They changed to album-oriented rock in the mid-seventies, classic rock in the eighties, and a foray into various versions of alternative rock in the nineties up to today. It was also Boston's outlet for Howard Stern, one of the premier stations for local bands to get their start, and one of the best stations to broadcast local live shows.

It was also a station full of very well-known DJs and production teams, including Peter Wolf (of the J. Geils Band--his online moniker was Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth--yes, that's where it comes from), JJ Jackson (of early MTV fame), and Billy West (the Ren & Stimpy voice actor), as well as locally-familiar names Charles Laquidara, Nik Carter, Duane Bruce, Matt Siegal, Oedipus, Carter Alan, Bill Abbate, overnight guy Albert O, and Mark Parenteau...I'm sure some of you recognize those names if you listened to Boston radio as much as I did.

I always thought of 'BCN as the older frat-dude brother of Boston radio--the station that knew the rules but broke them anyway and got away with it (for the most part), the station that demanded to be cranked up, the one that always sounded like it was being broadcast in the back room of someone's house while the rest of the place was partying it up. In my years living in Boston, I spent most of them listening to WFNX, but between 1993 and 1995, I'd switch between the two. WFNX's music selection had started getting repetitive, and 'BCN's newly minted alt.rock playlist had a much wider selection that I could really groove to. I listened to the station almost exclusively in the summer of '95 when I was living at the Allston apartment, staying up way too late playing Solitaire and writing True Faith and its variants, and having a good time despite being broke most of the time. I also remember the day Carter Alan--the man who, by the way, championed U2 in the States back in 1980 when no one else would play them--had the world premiere of their song "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" from the Batman Forever soundtrack.

I still have some of the radio tapes from that summer, most of which were indeed taped off of that station. Songs that I equate with that summer, and thus with WBCN:
--U2, "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me"
--Ned's Atomic Dustbin, "All I Ask of Myself Is That I Hold Together" and "Stuck"
--Belly, "Super-connected" and "Now They'll Sleep"
--White Zombie, "More Human Than Human"
--Radiohead, "High & Dry" and "Fake Plastic Trees"
--Weezer, "Buddy Holly", "My Name is Jonas", and "Undone (the Sweater Song)"
--Presidents of the USA, "Lump"
--Silverchair, "Tomorrow"
--Hum, "Stars"
--Filter, "Hey Man, Nice Shot"
--Everclear, "Santa Monica"
--Soul Asylum, "Misery"
--Blur, "Girls & Boys"
--Foo Fighters, pretty much their entire first album
--Garbage, "Vow"

I'll admit that I rarely if ever listened to the station once I moved back to Athol, mostly due to the fact that the station didn't come in that far out in the state. I've popped onto their website and listened to the streaming station now and again, and they still play the rock music I expect from them. They've even re-embraced the classic rock they were known for in the 70s and 80s, incorporating Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, and all the staples you'd expect (come on, any Boston straight-ahead rock station worth their salt HAS to play Aerosmith, right?).

But I have to say that it's kind of sad to see such an institution fading away...I know most stations have done this by now--WNEW is nowhere near the station it used to be--and it's pretty much par for the course in the radio business, but still...I'm sure it'll be strange for people to land on 104.1 and not hear rock anymore. It'll be replaced by its sister station WBMX, playing "hot adult contemporary". Can't get any further from the original than that.

WBCN will still be playing rock at their website, and for the most part I think that looks like where most stations are going that are still terrestrial but aren't satellite yet.

Still...shocking to see them go...and they will be missed on the dial. :(

The weirdest thing happened to me the other day at work.

I have an old radio/tape player that I snagged from a coworker when he left, and I like listening to music while working. I keep it on very soft, just enough for me to listen to and my coworkers would have to really strain to hear it over the cubicle walls.

I was getting a bit frustrated with hearing that All American Rejects song "Wish You Well" for the tenth time on Live 105 that morning, and wasn't really in the mood for listening to NPR (which I usually do in the morning, simply to avoid the endless-chat-and-little-music of the 'morning drive' shows), so I took a chance and searched for local college radio stations. For most, that basically entails going to the left of the dial and searching for any station playing something other than classical, news, or jazz...although over the course of many years, this isn't necessarily true anymore. Many college stations aren't about the alternative and indie anymore, but are more along the lines of shoehorning as many styles and genres of music as one can into their schedule, leaving indie for a precious few hours of the day. But I digress--I'll skip on that gripe for now.

So anyway, I found KUSF 90.3, which is of course University of San Francisco's station. I knew it was a college station because I heard something vaguely indie (as opposed to commercial alt.rock), followed up quickly by Joy Division's "She's Lost Control". Score!

It took me about three songs to realize that--just like that, without any preamble--I was listening to college radio again. I hadn't done that in years for one reason or another. I have listened to college radio now and again via streaming audio on the internets, but not for a long stretch, and there's also the fact (as stated above) that a lot of college stations play anything but my beloved alt.rock when I want to listen to it.

( Notes on College Radio, past and present )

This all ties in with the current audio project of mine, in which I'm 'ripping' my old radio tapes into mp3 form--basically to preserve them, to be honest--and comparing college radio back then to what it sounds like now. It's really interesting to listen to, considering that the alt.rock that you'd only hear left of the dial back then in the 80s has become somewhat the norm now. Hell, there's a national commercial out there right now that uses Tones on Tail's "Go!" as background! And now, the indie stuff that gets played on college stations today are benefiting from the internet age--there are blogs and streaming stations out there playing all sorts of indie songs, giving these bands a LOT more airplay and word-of-mouth than terrestrial radio ever did back in the day. It took the genre a good couple of decades to return to its original state, but it's back again.

It may not be in the mainstream, but never mind that.

College radio is where it was born, and where it feels most at home. And I like that idea.

Damn, Seether's version of "Careless Whisper" is pretty kick-ass...!! O_O...

Just heard this bit of silliness on Live 105...



I'm thinking one of the following:
--Eminem with a good sense of humor
--Weird Al Yankovic's "White & Nerdy" by way of Cake
--even nerdier brothers of Flight of the Conchords

Anyone?