Well, not often, anyway. But occasionally, twice in one night.
Last night, Indie 103.1 (yes, they’re still on the air) played a listener request for “Bohemian Rhapsody” – and then didn’t play the song.
Later on, they played a string of people calling in and saying things like “You guys suck!” and “Why don’t you play a little trance and techno while you’re at it!”
At least they’ve got an attitude.
There was an article in this morning’s LA Times about the latest radio station to broadcast on FM 103.1. Calling themselves Indie 103.1, and billed as “alternative alternative,” they have a lot of the things that were great about the “world class rock” format: a wide-ranging playlist, spanning several decades and including deep album tracks instead of just singles. Mainstream radio is so focused on new-new-new, with the occasional flashback to a small list of songs from the 80s and 90s.
Anyway, we tuned in on our commute this morning: so far, so good. And just in time for KCRW to go into full pledge-drive mode. Who knows how long they’ll last, but between this and Ryan Seacrest finally leaving Star for TV, the state of LA/OC radio is considerably better than it was a year ago.
I had a slightly jarring experience on my way back from lunch today which provides a perfect introduction to something I had already planned on writing. I absent-mindedly tuned my car radio to a station that until this week had been an English-language rock station and was briefly surprised to hear a commercial in Spanish. I then tuned to a Spanish-language rock station, and was surprised to hear a song in English. (It was by Shakira, who usually sings in Spanish – and IMO, her Spanish work has been considerably better than the English songs she’s released so far.)
This week’s passing of Cool 94.3 marks the fourth time in just three years that I’ve lost a station from my radio presets. It’s becoming harder and harder to turn on the radio and hear music I like without sitting through too much that I don’t.
Musically I’m down to Star 98.7, which suffers from the binge-and-purge method of playlist scheduling (play the hell out of a song until the audience is sick of it) and an increasing shift toward personalities over music. I can’t hear any music during my morning commute because they run the extremely annoying Jamie and Danny show, and during my evening commute Ryan Seacrest spends more time talking than playing music. To make matters worse, Continue reading
