A Throwback Thursday post:
It was always fun, on my old alternative show, to play throwback tunes.
Funny to think that it was nearly 20 years ago, that I was playing this song as a Throwback, then!
Hear the song on Youtube.
Showing posts with label what's the alternative?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label what's the alternative?. Show all posts
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Sordid Humor "Barbarossa"
A Throwback Tuesday post:
I'm sure there is some kind of rule that states if you're going to post some kind of Throwback song, it should be a tune that people at least vaguely remember.
I don't think this was much of a hit anywhere, though I did play it a ton on my Alternative show in the mid-90s.
It lives on as a curiosity, since some of the members of Sordid Humor went on to become Counting Crows, and this particular track features Adam Duritz as a guest back-up vocalist.
Hear the song on Youtube.
I'm sure there is some kind of rule that states if you're going to post some kind of Throwback song, it should be a tune that people at least vaguely remember.
I don't think this was much of a hit anywhere, though I did play it a ton on my Alternative show in the mid-90s.
It lives on as a curiosity, since some of the members of Sordid Humor went on to become Counting Crows, and this particular track features Adam Duritz as a guest back-up vocalist.
Hear the song on Youtube.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Elastica "Stutter"
Having grown up as the child of a teacher and a coach, it was not uncommon to see young adults come up to my Dad and thank him. They'd let him know that his guidance in math or sports really made a difference in their lives. It was something Dad is always quietly, clearly proud of.
While my job isn't as profound or important as a teacher, every now and then I get a taste of what my Dad experiences with each bit of gratitude shown to him.
I got this email on Wednesday:
Take care,
Jesse Whitt
Mt. Carmel, TN
If you look closely, "Stutter" is one of the tracks on this casette. And if you search on the blog, you'll find that almost every other track listed on the cassette, has appeared as a fond memory/Weekend Post.
Hear the song on Youtube.
While my job isn't as profound or important as a teacher, every now and then I get a taste of what my Dad experiences with each bit of gratitude shown to him.
I got this email on Wednesday:
Hi P.J.,
I found your blog a few months ago
by searching for the key words Whats The Alternative, WABN, 92.7, and
Abingdon. My friends and I grew up in Saltville, VA about 20 minutes
north of Abingdon. We loved WTA and listened to it regularly. To this
day I still listen to many of the bands that I heard for the first time
on WABN. The reception in Saltville was pretty bad so me and my skate
rat/punk rock friends connected tin foil and unraveled coat hangers to
our stereos and hung them from our walls and ceilings in an effort to
improve our listening experience and to record better quality tapes. We
had several volumes of tapes that we recorded from Whats The Alternative and traded them with one another. I was very excited to see
your blog and read some stories about WABN. I had always wondered what
happened with the station. I moved away in 2000 and eventually came
back and settled in the Tri-cities. To this day the area still lacks a
station that's like WABN. WABN was a huge part of my early teenage
years as it was always on in our rooms and on our car stereos. Again, I
enjoy the blog and I hope all is well for you. Attached are two photos
of a tape I recorded from the show. The tape will not play anymore due
to warping from sun exposure. It is dated 7/28/1995.Take care,
Jesse Whitt
Hear the song on Youtube.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Camper Van Beethoven "Take The Skinheads Bowling"
Here's another Weekend
Post:
Well this just seemed like a nice companion piece to Saturday's post. These were fun ones to play during "What's The Alternative?" for an injection of silly energy.
Hear the song on Youtube.
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.
Well this just seemed like a nice companion piece to Saturday's post. These were fun ones to play during "What's The Alternative?" for an injection of silly energy.
Hear the song on Youtube.
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.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Tony Bennett "Fly Me To The Moon"
The first radio station I worked at was a very small, independent, family owned-and-operated outfit. We did a lot with a little.
But in my early days with them, we didn't have the resources to be a 24 hour station. And since I worked the last shift, it was my job to sign off the air, shut off the transmitters and close down the building for the night.
On weeknights, I had an alternative music specialty show, that ran from 10 to 12, but on Fridays and Saturdays, I got to expand it to a full 6 hours---on at 8pm and off at 2am.
It was a joyful and exhilarating task, to build that much live programming, on the fly, playing CDs and keeping the night moving. By 2am, I was usually a little punch drunk.
I had a ritual to close out the night.
There was a checklist of things I was supposed to do throughout the building before walking out the door. Shutting down certain computers, turning of certain lights, checking certain locks, and finally, turning off the transmitter.
And I did it to the strains of Tony Bennett.
Tony Bennett isn't particularly alternative, but this was the little window in the mid-90s, when he had gone through an image rehab. He'd appeared with The Red Hot Chili Peppers and performed with kd lang and recorded an MTV Unplugged CD.
And let's face it, there just weren't that many people listening to an alternative specialty show on a 3,000 watt rural Virginia radio station at 2 in the morning. So why not do something weird.
"Fly Me To The Moon" the MTV Unplugged version, was about 2:30 minutes long, and when I hit play on the track, I had just enough time to walk out of the studio and weave in and out of the other rooms in the building, flipping switches and securing locks, all while singing along with Tony, at the top of my lungs.
My loop around the building would get me back to my chair just as the song was ending and the roar of the audience surged.
The album left nearly 30 seconds of clapping, where I had time to say something along the lines of:
"That's What's The Alternative? for tonight, I'll be back on Monday at 10pm for more. We'll be back on the air tomorrow morning at 6am. For now . . . you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. WABN concludes another broadcast day."
And I'd fade out the track, walk to the transmitter and shut it down, and then head out the front door and into the night, my throat a little scratchy from the Bennett-belting and my mind a little fuzzy from the fun.
Hear the song on Youtube.
Hear the Sesame Street version on Youtube.
But in my early days with them, we didn't have the resources to be a 24 hour station. And since I worked the last shift, it was my job to sign off the air, shut off the transmitters and close down the building for the night.
On weeknights, I had an alternative music specialty show, that ran from 10 to 12, but on Fridays and Saturdays, I got to expand it to a full 6 hours---on at 8pm and off at 2am.
It was a joyful and exhilarating task, to build that much live programming, on the fly, playing CDs and keeping the night moving. By 2am, I was usually a little punch drunk.
I had a ritual to close out the night.
There was a checklist of things I was supposed to do throughout the building before walking out the door. Shutting down certain computers, turning of certain lights, checking certain locks, and finally, turning off the transmitter.
And I did it to the strains of Tony Bennett.
Tony Bennett isn't particularly alternative, but this was the little window in the mid-90s, when he had gone through an image rehab. He'd appeared with The Red Hot Chili Peppers and performed with kd lang and recorded an MTV Unplugged CD.
And let's face it, there just weren't that many people listening to an alternative specialty show on a 3,000 watt rural Virginia radio station at 2 in the morning. So why not do something weird.
"Fly Me To The Moon" the MTV Unplugged version, was about 2:30 minutes long, and when I hit play on the track, I had just enough time to walk out of the studio and weave in and out of the other rooms in the building, flipping switches and securing locks, all while singing along with Tony, at the top of my lungs.
My loop around the building would get me back to my chair just as the song was ending and the roar of the audience surged.
The album left nearly 30 seconds of clapping, where I had time to say something along the lines of:
"That's What's The Alternative? for tonight, I'll be back on Monday at 10pm for more. We'll be back on the air tomorrow morning at 6am. For now . . . you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. WABN concludes another broadcast day."
And I'd fade out the track, walk to the transmitter and shut it down, and then head out the front door and into the night, my throat a little scratchy from the Bennett-belting and my mind a little fuzzy from the fun.
Hear the song on Youtube.
Hear the Sesame Street version on Youtube.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Foo Fighters "This Is A Call"
My friend Lori had this up as a status on Facebook last week:
WABN was a small, family owned AM/FM. Sometime later I'll write the story of how I walked through their door, and was a DJ on the radio not long after.
Lori was an avid listener, who became a volunteer at WABN, then an intern, and then a board operator, then a fill-in DJ and by the time she was a senior in high school, she became the Saturday night host of my show.
Sometime later I'll write the story about how this little family-owned independent radio station ended, with all of us saying a tearful goodbye and turning the transmitter off, as the station had been sold to a larger group.
Lori posted the above last week, because it was the anniversary of that day when we all said goodbye to the only station in the small town of Abingdon, Virginia. The company that took it over used the FM signal to rebroadcast their syndicated Talk station, and they simply turned off the AM signal. 12 years later, the building remains empty and no one is covering local sports, or broadcasting from the Abingdon Relay For Life or bringing in local teens to train them to be the next generation of broadcasters.
So then it was a shot in the gut to hear the news, on the same day that Lori posted the above status, that WFNX in Boston had been sold to Clear Channel. Friday, I listened to Julie Kramer, who'd been on FNX for 25 years, play her last shift for the station and it brought back some pretty dark feelings.
There just aren't that many independent radio stations left anymore. And there are those who think radio is dead, or who want radio to be dead, or who don't give a shit if radio dies.
Why rely on radio, when there are iPods and Spotify and Pandora and Youtube and you can program all this technology with songs YOU want to hear?
And the answer is simple. It's in Lori's statement.
ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, fifteen years from now will say, "I vividly remember the first time I heard that song shuffle randomly on Pandora!"
I work for an independent radio station now, one that is struggling just like any other small business effected by the Recession. So I do take it personally.
But I also have some firsthand knowledge that most people don't have, or don't consider. I've seen what happens when a community, or an audience, loses an independent station in their midst.
Radio, even independent radio, is not perfect. Sometimes it sucks. It isn't for everybody.
But if you are a person that misses your local record store, because it's gone, or can't stand that the restaurant chains have replaced your local eateries, or have found that the places that used to have live music don't bring concerts to your town any more, or that you can't walk into a video store and ask a clerk for a recommendation because the damn video stores don't exist any more . . .
If you are that person, then this is a call.
If you love human interaction when you make a purchase, make a musical connection or want to put something in your damn stomach, then this is a call.
If you don't want to wake up one day and find that you and your neighbors have no participation in the process, the management or the creation of what is around you to consume, then this is a call.
Drive the extra mile for the cup of coffee from the local bakery, instead of the chain drive through. Spend the extra 2 bucks on the CD at a downtown record store instead of having some online service ship it to you. And support your local, independent radio station, by listening, by telling their advertisers when you frequent their business, by supporting their fundraisers when they have them.
There is so much human interaction slipping away from our every day existence, and people rarely celebrate it when it's here---they only complain when it's gone.
I can tell you that at no time in the last 6 months, did I hear anyone say "Thank God we still have WFNX." But the web was filled with anguished cries over its demise when it was announced. Too little too late.
This is a call.
Hear the song on Youtube.
I was in my bedroom up sorta late listening to the radio when I heard P.J. introduce a new tune from a new band that was fronted by that stringy-haired guy from Nirvana. It was the first time he had played it on the air, and I shared his giddyness. "This Is A Call." What a fresh new sound: poppy, upbeat & full of frenzy. I must admit, I haven't been too impressed with a Foo Fighters record in several years, but that song, that night, ignited a spark in me that I haven't forgotten in the 15 years since.She's writing about 1995, when she was a kid still in school, and I was the host of a nightly alternative rock show on a local radio station.
WABN was a small, family owned AM/FM. Sometime later I'll write the story of how I walked through their door, and was a DJ on the radio not long after.
Lori was an avid listener, who became a volunteer at WABN, then an intern, and then a board operator, then a fill-in DJ and by the time she was a senior in high school, she became the Saturday night host of my show.
Sometime later I'll write the story about how this little family-owned independent radio station ended, with all of us saying a tearful goodbye and turning the transmitter off, as the station had been sold to a larger group.
Lori posted the above last week, because it was the anniversary of that day when we all said goodbye to the only station in the small town of Abingdon, Virginia. The company that took it over used the FM signal to rebroadcast their syndicated Talk station, and they simply turned off the AM signal. 12 years later, the building remains empty and no one is covering local sports, or broadcasting from the Abingdon Relay For Life or bringing in local teens to train them to be the next generation of broadcasters.
So then it was a shot in the gut to hear the news, on the same day that Lori posted the above status, that WFNX in Boston had been sold to Clear Channel. Friday, I listened to Julie Kramer, who'd been on FNX for 25 years, play her last shift for the station and it brought back some pretty dark feelings.
There just aren't that many independent radio stations left anymore. And there are those who think radio is dead, or who want radio to be dead, or who don't give a shit if radio dies.
Why rely on radio, when there are iPods and Spotify and Pandora and Youtube and you can program all this technology with songs YOU want to hear?
And the answer is simple. It's in Lori's statement.
ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, fifteen years from now will say, "I vividly remember the first time I heard that song shuffle randomly on Pandora!"
I work for an independent radio station now, one that is struggling just like any other small business effected by the Recession. So I do take it personally.
But I also have some firsthand knowledge that most people don't have, or don't consider. I've seen what happens when a community, or an audience, loses an independent station in their midst.
Radio, even independent radio, is not perfect. Sometimes it sucks. It isn't for everybody.
But if you are a person that misses your local record store, because it's gone, or can't stand that the restaurant chains have replaced your local eateries, or have found that the places that used to have live music don't bring concerts to your town any more, or that you can't walk into a video store and ask a clerk for a recommendation because the damn video stores don't exist any more . . .
If you are that person, then this is a call.
If you love human interaction when you make a purchase, make a musical connection or want to put something in your damn stomach, then this is a call.
If you don't want to wake up one day and find that you and your neighbors have no participation in the process, the management or the creation of what is around you to consume, then this is a call.
Drive the extra mile for the cup of coffee from the local bakery, instead of the chain drive through. Spend the extra 2 bucks on the CD at a downtown record store instead of having some online service ship it to you. And support your local, independent radio station, by listening, by telling their advertisers when you frequent their business, by supporting their fundraisers when they have them.
There is so much human interaction slipping away from our every day existence, and people rarely celebrate it when it's here---they only complain when it's gone.
I can tell you that at no time in the last 6 months, did I hear anyone say "Thank God we still have WFNX." But the web was filled with anguished cries over its demise when it was announced. Too little too late.
This is a call.
Hear the song on Youtube.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Tin Machine "Under The God"
Here's another Weekend Post:
By the time I was hosting "What's The Alternative?" (in the mid-90s), this David Bowie side project was an already largely forgotten anomaly.
But I thought it kinda rocked.
Hear the song on Youtube. 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.
By the time I was hosting "What's The Alternative?" (in the mid-90s), this David Bowie side project was an already largely forgotten anomaly.
But I thought it kinda rocked.
Hear the song on Youtube. 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.
Monday, April 9, 2012
The Cramps "Bikini Girls With Machine Guns"
My wife and kids and I went over to a friend's house a couple of weeks back. Married couple with a son a little older than our oldest.
With dinnertime rolling around, we decided to order some pizzas. It was from a place that didn't deliver, so John (the other Dad) and I got in his car to go pick up dinner.
On the way out the door, he grabbed an album by The Cramps.
"I haven't heard these guys in years," I smiled.
I mean, I used to hear them all the time on the Florida non-commercial station I listened to, and played them from time to time on my Alternative specialty show, but these days, I just haven't been listening to much Punk-y rock.
That was the impetus for digging out the CD, John told me.
For the last bunch of years, whenever he was in the car, he and his wife and son would be listening to family friendly fare.
And the same for us.
We've been listening to Dan Zanes and Kimya Dawson and other kid albums, but also The Beatles and Queen and silly Pop songs.
Rocking CDs, just for me, had fallen out of rotation. And they had for John too.
So as a treat to himself, when he gets in the car alone, he's been blasting The Cramps.
It's great to be a Dad. But it's also great to be "a drag racer on LSD" from time to time, too.
Hear the song on Youtube.
With dinnertime rolling around, we decided to order some pizzas. It was from a place that didn't deliver, so John (the other Dad) and I got in his car to go pick up dinner.
On the way out the door, he grabbed an album by The Cramps.
"I haven't heard these guys in years," I smiled.
I mean, I used to hear them all the time on the Florida non-commercial station I listened to, and played them from time to time on my Alternative specialty show, but these days, I just haven't been listening to much Punk-y rock.
That was the impetus for digging out the CD, John told me.
For the last bunch of years, whenever he was in the car, he and his wife and son would be listening to family friendly fare.
And the same for us.
We've been listening to Dan Zanes and Kimya Dawson and other kid albums, but also The Beatles and Queen and silly Pop songs.
Rocking CDs, just for me, had fallen out of rotation. And they had for John too.
So as a treat to himself, when he gets in the car alone, he's been blasting The Cramps.
It's great to be a Dad. But it's also great to be "a drag racer on LSD" from time to time, too.
Hear the song on Youtube.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Ben Folds Five "Best Imitation Of Myself"
This week, I'm looking at artists that we came to play later in their career, asking the question "should we go back and play the band's earlier tracks?"
What a fun coincidence!
Ben Folds was one of the first names I thought of, when I planned this week's theme. I am a huge fan of his early work, but understand why we never really played any Ben Folds Five tracks on mvyradio, in the band's late-1990s incarnation.
How amazing is it that just yesterday came word that Ben has reunited with Darren Jesse and Robert Sledge (the original Ben Folds Five) to record a couple of new tracks for a Best Of Ben Folds set?!
Okay, so going back . . .
I loved Ben Folds Five's albums, because they seemed to fit perfectly into my life at the time.
In the mid-and-late-90s, I was young and single. I was listening to a lot of melodic pop (like Matthew Sweet) and a lot of melodic Punk (like The Descendants). And, like much of my generation, I was awash in a weird mix of irony and detachment and drama.
Ben Folds Five seemed like the ideal of my musical world. I loved the noise, I loved the tunefulness, I loved the smart and I loved the snark.
And I played the hell out of these records on my Alternative specialty show on WABN in Virginia.
But as the 90s gave way to the 2000s, I knew that Ben Folds Five wouldn't translate to my new station, mvyradio.
mvyradio's audience was slightly older than the average Alternative Radio listener. The artists we were playing a decade ago were not of the generation of detached irony. They were not noisy. They were not snarky.
Increasingly, neither was I. As my 20s gave way to my 30s, and maturity took hold, a gentler sound gradually entered my life.
And all along, I knew that it would happen to Ben Folds, too.
He had disbanded the Five, and gone solo, and I knew that as he grew and matured and moved from his 30s into his 40s, it was likely that his sound would evolve to something more in-line with mvyradio and Triple A Format station.
"Landed" from his 2005 album "Songs For Silverman" was the first Ben Folds tune that seemed to really make sense for the station. It's a song about marriage and old friends and epiphanies and reconciliation. Not theme you write about, or relate to, as an single 20-something.
But now looking back over his full career, are their songs from the early days that we could play? Are there tunes that would fit easily?
Funny enough, Ben is looking back over his career too, with the release of the 3-Disc set "The Best Imitation Of Myself," featuring the song of the same title.
Is there anything about this song that makes it sound like something we wouldn't play?
And now that Ben has worked again with his old band---the group that made a joyful noise, too snarky for mvyradio---are they making music that sounds like their young selves, picking up where they left off a decade ago? Or are they reconvening as adults, not the same guys they were in the 90s?
What do you think? Is the new song, or the old song, something we should be playing?
Hear the new Ben Folds Five song, "House."
Hear the song on Youtube.
Hear the song on Youtube.
What a fun coincidence!
Ben Folds was one of the first names I thought of, when I planned this week's theme. I am a huge fan of his early work, but understand why we never really played any Ben Folds Five tracks on mvyradio, in the band's late-1990s incarnation.
How amazing is it that just yesterday came word that Ben has reunited with Darren Jesse and Robert Sledge (the original Ben Folds Five) to record a couple of new tracks for a Best Of Ben Folds set?!
Okay, so going back . . .
I loved Ben Folds Five's albums, because they seemed to fit perfectly into my life at the time.
In the mid-and-late-90s, I was young and single. I was listening to a lot of melodic pop (like Matthew Sweet) and a lot of melodic Punk (like The Descendants). And, like much of my generation, I was awash in a weird mix of irony and detachment and drama.
Ben Folds Five seemed like the ideal of my musical world. I loved the noise, I loved the tunefulness, I loved the smart and I loved the snark.
And I played the hell out of these records on my Alternative specialty show on WABN in Virginia.
But as the 90s gave way to the 2000s, I knew that Ben Folds Five wouldn't translate to my new station, mvyradio.
mvyradio's audience was slightly older than the average Alternative Radio listener. The artists we were playing a decade ago were not of the generation of detached irony. They were not noisy. They were not snarky.
Increasingly, neither was I. As my 20s gave way to my 30s, and maturity took hold, a gentler sound gradually entered my life.
And all along, I knew that it would happen to Ben Folds, too.
He had disbanded the Five, and gone solo, and I knew that as he grew and matured and moved from his 30s into his 40s, it was likely that his sound would evolve to something more in-line with mvyradio and Triple A Format station.
"Landed" from his 2005 album "Songs For Silverman" was the first Ben Folds tune that seemed to really make sense for the station. It's a song about marriage and old friends and epiphanies and reconciliation. Not theme you write about, or relate to, as an single 20-something.
But now looking back over his full career, are their songs from the early days that we could play? Are there tunes that would fit easily?
Funny enough, Ben is looking back over his career too, with the release of the 3-Disc set "The Best Imitation Of Myself," featuring the song of the same title.
Is there anything about this song that makes it sound like something we wouldn't play?
And now that Ben has worked again with his old band---the group that made a joyful noise, too snarky for mvyradio---are they making music that sounds like their young selves, picking up where they left off a decade ago? Or are they reconvening as adults, not the same guys they were in the 90s?
What do you think? Is the new song, or the old song, something we should be playing?
Hear the new Ben Folds Five song, "House."
Hear the song on Youtube.
Hear the song on Youtube.
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