Radio Radio

There's a tower in the heart of London/With a radio station right at the top/They don't make the city beat/They're making all the action stop...


I love radio, I hate radio. 

I listen intently to radio. I mildly tolerate radio.


Going back to cassettes my Dad had of old time radio programs through my formative years listening to WLS-AM out of Chicago to today when I can pretty much listen to any station in any country at any time, radio has been a major part of why I love music. 


I remember  waiting, waiting, waiting on a boring weekend day in the 1970s with my AM radio headphones on for the local station to play "Easy" by the Commodores (more another time about my "Commodores Phase" but we don't know each other well enough yet). I remember making my Aunt Millie sit in her car in her driveway so I could hear all of "Long Time" by Boston. I remember when I first moved to Washington, DC in 1988 and the local "alternative" station actually played a song by Naked Raygun (I had just moved from Chicago). 

Specific moments tied to radio are touchpoints for me, even today. Yet they are less and less as radio becomes more and more homogenized. 


Warning, looks like this post will become a screed against corporate radio. Here comes the music snob rearing his ugly head and demanding we all bow down to the purity of HIS music...


Actually, no. Yes, most radio is warmed over milk. Yes, radio is the same in Seattle as it is in Portland (Maine - get it? Other side of the country!). Yes, you can't tell one radio personality from the next, because half the time it's the same guy broadcasting to hundreds of stations nationwide out of a studio in Los Angeles. Yes, radio plays the same songs over and over and over.* 


That doesn't bother me. I understand radio is a business. It's people doing a job and making a living. Kind of how our system works. The business side of radio has discovered that certain formats work better than others, people want to hear certain songs more than others, and goofy morning shows with sound effects sell BIG! Booooiiiinnngggggggg!!!!


I listen to commercial radio, especially people like Bret Saunders and Ginger on KBCO and Mike Casey on The Mountain. These are DJs who are not only talented broadcasters, they know and love music; it comes through to the listener. Though I'm waiting for the day Bret gives us a KBCO Morning Show consisting of four hours of Sun Ra. 





There are plenty of other options out there, from apps like TuneIn Radio (ever listen to the traffic reports from South Africa?) to Pandora to Spotify. But the move to more and more internet options often leaves the human element behind. I want some thought to go into the musical selection. I want someone to tell me what I'm hearing. What's the context? Which is why I'm spending more and more of my radio time these days with Colorado Public Radio's OpenAir.


One of these days I will bore you with a complete dissertation (maybe even footnotes!) on why I'm really loving OpenAir. What station do you hear Radiohead in the morning, and not what you'd expect but something like "The Daily Mail?" What station goes Tokyo Police Club>The Monkees>Pavement? What station has major, major music geeks (and I say that in the most complimentary of ways) as DJs? 


Listening to "Capital Radio One" it reminds me of a scene in The Future Is Unwritten, the documentary about Joe Strummer. At one point, Strummer stops by a radio station to promote a local gig. If I'm remembering the scene correctly, the weekend DJ spends his entire time asking about "Rock The Casbah" and "Should I Stay of Should I Go." It's clear the guy has no clue about the depth of Strummer's work with both The Clash and afterwards. And it's not the DJs fault; he's a broadcaster hired to play a bunch of songs decided by someone in a city far, far away. Joe Strummer is the guy who sings on two of those songs; what else would he ask about?


If you're looking for something more, try OpenAir: 1340 AM or streaming on the website. It's important that creative radio still have a home on dial (and not just left of it). 




*Did you know Cheap Trick has written a few more songs than "Surrender" and "I Want You To Want Me"? You wouldn't if you listened to the radio.

Revenge of the Sixth

It's the sixth of July. What better day to post about my favorite Fourth of July song?

So, I'm a few days late. It's one of those crazy holiday weeks where everything is thrown off by the day off in the middle of the week. Monday and Tuesday were like Thursday and Friday. Then we had a mini-weekend with Wednesday playing both Saturday and Sunday. And Thursday and Friday were like Monday and Tuesday. Yet now it's the weekend again. I'm just going to crawl into a shell until we get this all straightened out.*

Regardless, it's like the entire country took Thursday and Friday off this week. So technically most of you are still in a holiday weekend mode. Which makes this post completely legit by timecop standards.

Earlier this week, people with a better sense of timeliness posted about the best July 4th songs. Many of the lists are more traditional. But there's also a list for your folky Uncle Bob. And here's one for the shitkickers (more another time about how I really don't hate country music). I like this one from The Denver Post's local music site, Reverb.

However, they're all missing one song that should be (have been) part of every Independence Day celebration this year.



"Franklin's Tower" is one of the greatest and most uniquely American bands celebrating the birth of America.  Dead lyricist Robert Hunter explained it this way:

note that this song appeared in 1975, the year after my son was born and the year before the American Bicentennial. Both facts are entirely relevant. The allusion to the Liberty Bell and the situation of the Philadelphia Congress in the hometown of Ben Franklin has not gone unnoticed by other commentators.This song is a birthday wish both for my son and for my country, each young and subject to the winds of vicissitude. Individual and collective freedom, liberty, conscience, all that is conjured by those concepts, is suggested in the image of the tolling bell.

The live version from The Great American Music Hall (08/13/75) is one of my favorites. You're got Bill Graham introducing each band member as they build into the recently recorded Help On The Way>Slipknot>Franklin's Tower suite. There's a clarity and live urgency to this performance that makes it better than that on Blues for Allah. The Dead could often take their time getting warmed up for a show, sometimes not even hitting a good stride until the second set. Not this show - the entire band burns from the start.


OK - it's a few days late. And you can't put it on and light any fireworks (because if you do in my home state of Colorado, you deserve to have all your fingers blown off, you effin' bastard). But I'd argue this is better than just about any other ode to American Independence you can find. 


*And considering the storm raging in Conifer right now, that shell may be the only dry spot around. Can I express to you my absolute joy to not be at Red Rocks right now for String Cheese Incident? I really like the band and of course I love Red Rocks. And I hope all my friends there have a great time. But I decided to pass up this run. And as I watch the torrent of rain coming down right now, I'm amazingly OK with sitting on a couch, writing a bit, and listening to Twin Shadow.