Chris Ross "Mostly Sober"

When we were advocating to Save mvyradio, you might have been thinking "Will the station be able to survive?" and "Will I still be able to hear them?" and "Will they have to change their format?"

A question that perhaps didn't cross your mind was, "Will they still be getting service from the record labels?"

It's an interesting, sometime strange arrangement we have in the world of Radio and Records.  And if you're not in it, you may not know how it works.

Here's how it works.

Record companies sign artists and release records.  Their promotions departments (or hired freelancers, called independent promoters) promote the record to radio stations.  Meaning, I get phone calls every week from promoters saying, "We sent you the record.  Have you heard the record?  Do you like the record?  Will you be playing the record?"  Ultimately, their goal is to get mvyradio to put the record in regular rotation on the radio station, because regular airplay (generally speaking) leads to sales, which allows the artists to get paid, and the label to make enough money to sign new artists and release new records.

How do they quantify success?

Here's where industry trade magazines come it.

Each week, I am expected to send a list of what songs we played, and how many times we played each song to Billboard/R&R and Triple A Radio/Mediabase and FMQB, all trade magazines.  The list includes all the current songs we play (not all the older tracks).  For instance, last week, mvyradio played Grace Potter's "Stars" 15 times.

That 15 is added to all the the other spins that Grace got, on all the other radio stations that report.  The song with the most spins, is the Number One song of the week.  Right?

Having a high charting song lets the label know that the promoter is doing a good job, lets the band know that the label is doing a good job, and lets radio know that a band is succeeding elsewhere (and might prompt the station to increase airplay).

So having radio airplay be an accountable thing, is vital to the whole Radio and Record ecosystem.

What happens if you don't report to the trades?

Well, all those times you spin "Stars" aren't counted by anyone.  The bands and the labels have no proof that you are supporting them.  And the promoters lack incentive to even send you records, because there is no proof that you play them.

Stop reporting, and the records stop coming to your mailbox.

Way back when, when I hosted an Alternative specialty show, I'd try to get service from the record labels.  I wanted to be on their mailing list and be shipped their regular releases.  But I was often just blown off.  The nice ones would say, "I can't put you on my list, but if there is something you really want, send me a request and if I have an extra I will send it to you."  Imagine not being able to get a copy of "Nevermind" in 1994?

To get on these lists, you have to be a real radio station, with a real reach and impact.

Going off the FM dial was putting mvyradio's status in jeopardy.

Two pieces of good news happened:

First, we were able to work out a deal that keeps us on 96.5FM in Newport.  So for the sticklers, we ARE on a real FM radio station.

Second, attitudes (inside and outside the industry) are changing. 

If we had left the FM dial a few years ago, many Record folks would have treated the fact that we were a stream-only station the same way they treated my Alternative Specialty show:  not significant enough to be on the radar.  It wouldn't have matter to them mvyradio's online listening audience is much bigger than many of the terrestrial FM stations that do report.  We would have been off the reports, off the mailing lists and kicked down to a second-class status.

But today, industry minds are finally coming around to the fact that some of the old measurement systems really don't accurately represent the world today.

Perhaps the most notable shift in all of the business occurred a couple of weeks ago, when Billboard Magazine announced that they would add Youtube data to how they calculated their Hot 100 charts, which historically was based on radio airplay and sales of the record.

It makes sense.  The new math allowed the song "Harlem Shake" to leap to the Number One spot on the singles chart, propelled by the viral nature of videos featuring the song.  More and more people are hearing, discovering and sharing songs in this way.

Keeping mvyradio on the charts, due to its long reach and influence, I know makes sense to a lot of folks in my business.

In fact, Marc Ratner, a former Major Label guy who know runs his own operation, spoke on our behalf to the folks at Billboard.  He talked about how everyone may still call them "records" even though they might be CDs or MP3 or a stream or whatever.  It's still music, the delivery system is just a little different.  mvyradio should stay as a reporter.

mvyradio is still radio, it's just delivered a bit differently.

And that brings me to this Chris Ross song.

Ross is a singer-songwriter from Maine, and a client of Ratner's.  I got a kick out of "Mostly Sober" the very first time I heard it, enjoying the humor, liking his voice and rolling with the lyrical twists and turns that remind me of a Beck song.

After deciding "We like the song," the next question asked, on the path to adding it to rotation is, "Will the audience care?"

Chris Ross is nowhere on any chart.  He's unknown.  There is no data, from traditional sources, to indicate if we played the tune, music fans would be interested.

So it's all the more striking that his Youtube Channel has about 200,000 views of his self-produced videos.

He's not charting, but someone is listening.  And folks are reacting.

I played "Mostly Sober" at 2:50pm on Wednesday.  By 3pm, an mvyradio listener in New Jersey had written on Ross' Facebook page that she'd just discovered him by listening to mvyradio.   And a few minutes later, Ross had emailed Ratner in Maine, and Ratner forward the message to me.

The modern world!

"Mostly Sober" is no "Harlem Shake."  It's not about to rocket to the top spot on the chart due to Youtube play.

But it's good that we are recognizing that "records" are more than just a plastic disc, and "radio,"---what it is, what it does and what it means to people---isn't limited to a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum.



Hear the song on Youtube.


See a "Harlem Shake" compilation on Youtube.

Imperial Teen "You're One"

At the same time Imperial Drag was out, so was Imperial Teen. I always thought that was unfortunate. It's so damn hard to pick a band name---it sucks when a band with a similar name comes out at the same time.

Roddy Bottom was in Faith No More, and left to form this sweet quartet. A great 90s pop tune about his late friend, Kurt Cobain.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Nirvana "Heart Shaped Box"

It was some kind of amazing teenage Rock N Roll fantasy come true. I was on the radio.

Better yet, after only a couple of weeks on the air, I was getting my own specialty program, and it started tonight! It was April 8th, 1994.

I'd been hired to work at a small, independent radio station near the Virginia/Tennessee border, as a part-time evening DJ. They needed someone to cover their nightly 2-hour call-in request program. But in the interview, I pitched the idea of having an Alternative specialty show.

It's kind of hard to imagine this, but in 1994 much of the country still didn't have radio stations for Modern Rock. Classic rock station were playing Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, but as "Alternative" got punkier and/or weirder, there wasn't a place for it on the radio dial yet.

And in Southwest Virginia, there was nowhere on the radio to hear Beck or Smashing Pumpkins or this up-and-coming little band called Green Day. But that was about to chance.

I was positively giddy at the notion that I'd be sharing this great music with an audience that (I believed, anyway) hungered for it. So I spent the week preparing and refining the playlist for my first program, Friday, April 8th.

Unfortunately, the pickings were pretty slim at the station. WABN was a Top 40 station, so the CD selection for Alternative tracks was limited. I used a ton of my own CDs, but there were still gaping holes between what we had, and what we needed.

Still, I had crafted a playlist for an amazing tour-de-force of a debut program, and bounded into the station Friday evening, ready to set the world on fire.

Rita, one of the station owners, stopped me dead in my tracks.

"PJ, Kurt Cobain is dead. I'm sorry."

She said "I'm sorry" with a seriousness that made it feel like I had known Cobain personally. That this loss was real and profound and near.

The wind was definitely taken out of my sails.

Instead of hitting the airwaves like a gleeful pirate, spreading musical anarchy to southwest Virginia, I now had the unpleasant duty of being the guy who came on the radio and told you about a terrible human tragedy.

Worse, we only had one Nirvana song in the building: "Heart Shaped Box." It had crossed over to Top 40, so the station owned a copy of that, and nothing else.

In the ensuing years, I would do a Cobain tribute on April 8th, and play songs from throughout the band's career: "Lithium," "About A Girl," "Sliver."

And I would play that one song that I had played (and replayed) on that sad day in 1994, that represented a small and feeble gesture in the face of incomprehensible sadness.

R.E.M. "Let Me In"

Here's another Weekend Post:

I didn't have a chance to write about the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death this week, but I'll do a longer post on Monday. This weekend I'm just posting a couple of "lost in the 90s" Cobain tributes.

This one was buried deep into R.E.M.'s "Monster" record. As usual, it's pretty hard to decipher what Michael Stipe is talking about, but you have to appreciate that this is a tribute done by someone who truly was a friend of Kurt's, who knew him and cared about him.



Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show. They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

For Squirrels "Mighty K.C."

Here's another Weekend Post:

I didn't have a chance to write about the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death this week, but I'll do a longer post on Monday. This weekend I'm just posting a couple of "lost in the 90s" Cobain tributes, including this one from a band that had it's own tragic story.



Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show. They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Extreme "Hole Hearted"

It was one of the biggest hits of 1991, and yet, I can't tell you the last time I heard this bit of ear candy.

Why?

History is written by the victors, isn't it?

In 1991, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was released and suddenly Hair Bands were out of fashion and Grunge Rock was in. Or, at least, that's how history is written.

In reality, the Grunge era was populated with songs like this. But here in 2010, it's not what we're nostalgic for.

If you are in Boston and you listen to that station that used to sound a lot like mvyradio, but now only seems to play Weezer and Live and other such 90s fare, you'll still never hear this tune.

It may have been out of fashion (and the people in the video sure can't dance) but THIS was the early 90s, no matter what the Rock History book says.

R.E.M. "Crush With Eyeliner"

I was in the car, flipping through stations, and I hear a familiar riff.

I'm sure this happens to you all the time. You catch a portion of a song on the radio, and the familiarity bells ring, even if you don't have the artist and title right away. And a lot of times, from the feel and the style and the instrumentation, you can hazard a guess as to who the artist is.

I heard this rockin' feedbacky jangly guitar, that screamed mid-90s, and my first thought was Nirvana.

And I laughed a few seconds later when the vocals came in, and I recognized R.E.M.'s "Crush With Eyeliner."

On the surface, it's hard to imagine confusing the two. "Everybody Hurts" would never be mistaken for "Rape Me."

But for 1994's "Monster," R.E.M. DID go loud and rockin' and Nirvana-y, almost as if to remind the world, "Hey, we were alternative long before 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' came out."

Two other Nirvana connections---"Let Me In" on "Monster" was Stipe's song to Cobain (with whom he'd become friends) after Cobain's death. And Courtney Love claimed that SHE was the "Crush With Eyeliner" that Stipe was singing about (though Stipe has since said the song was a tribute to The New York Dolls).

Hear clips of all songs mentioned in this post:

Reel Big Fish “Everything Sucks”

Hitting Random on the iTunes list . . .

This is the sound of 1996 calling. Ska. Silly. Ironic. Ironic. And Ironic.

I enjoyed the mid-90s ska revival like I enjoy barbecue chicken. A little sauce on the meat on a hot summer day tastes delicious.

But hearing this track today, was a little like swallowing a big ladle of barbecue sauce, without the context of the chicken.

In the 90s, when bands exciting young bands paved the path to pushing away the over-serious excesses of hair metal, U2 and classic rock, part of the groups charging forward used irony and sarcasm as their weapons against self-importance. And things became drenched in irony.

“Everything Sucks” wasn’t just a song, it felt like a mantra meant to take the piss out of what the musical movement was against, as well as the movement itself.

The only problem was that there WERE bands like Nirvana---who might have used a dash of irony---who didn’t feel like the punk-based-rock they were performing wasn’t weighted with a serious message.

I saw Reel Big Fish at a Warped Tour stop in Atlanta. They had to follow Social Distortion, lead by the glowering, bad-to-the-f’ing bone Mike Ness, who’s neck bulged with tattoos and lyrics brimmed with righteous anger. And then Reel Big Fish came out with Day-Go shorts and beach balls and songs about “Doin’ The Fish,” and somehow, somehow, they seemed pretty inconsequential.

Fun, but no more than a little bit of sauce on the meat of the era.



See the very 90's music video for this song, here

Buy the Reel Big Fish album, "Turn The Radio Off"