I was the Program Director at WWSP-90FM throughout the 1990-91 academic year, a span I shared a house with five other station “executive staff” members, a house we incongruously dubbed “The Terrordome.” I remember a lot of things about that house–including several messy, messy parties–but one of the clearest memories involves my bedroom being filled with records. At this time, the Program Director also held significant responsibility for the music that went into rotation at the radio station, and we were getting so much material that it was often a practical impossibility to review every new album at the station. … Continue reading One for Friday: The Soup Dragons, “Lovegod”

By the time I reached my second radio home–my stay in commercial radio didn’t count as a home, I was just renting–I felt a little detached from music. I still listened, I still collected, I still tried, but it was incredibly difficult to stay in tune with new material. Like a lot of people, I suspect, I wound up largely sticking with familiar artists from my college days, even when their releases constituted an ongoing audio demonstration of the concept of diminishing returns. Without the constantly updated wall of new that resides someone in every good college radio station’s broadcast … Continue reading One for Friday: Death By Chocolate, “Magpie”

Over the years, I’ve devoted far too much mental energy towards the machinations behind late night television talk shows. I watched with rapt attention when Johnny Carson unexpectedly abdicated his throne, and NBC was left to make a public choice between the mercurial genius who’d spent about a decade patiently auditioning for the job and the devoted company man who’d proven his willingness to subvert whatever edge he had in the name of crafting happily bland entertainment. I raced through Bill Carter’s book on the subject and found myself draw to the skillful HBO movie adaptation whenever I caught it … Continue reading One for Friday: Matthew Sweet, “Do Ya”

In the spirit of Phish’s Halloween costumes (which is the only thing I find interesting about Phish), we today present a musician in disguise. This song has made many, many travels around the Interweb, but it looks like it’s been a bit of time since anyone’s posted it anew. Not much else to note about it, largely because I’m a few hours from getting on a plane, and I’m terribly strapped for time. I’ll do better next week. Ted Leo, “Since U Been Gone” (Disclaimer: Correctly or not, I operate with the assumption that this cover has never been properly … Continue reading One for Friday: Ted Leo, “Since U Been Gone”

I’ve been involved with two different college radio stations, one as a student and the other as an advisor and General Manager. Both those experiences gave me tremendous exposure to the newest of new music, shaping my tastes and instilling in me a welcome aversion to complacency. Back in my student days, a friend of mine was on the air and took a call from a listener requesting a Grateful Dead song that was originally released at least two decades earlier. My friend hung up the phone and said “I hope I’m not sitting around twenty years from calling the … Continue reading One for Friday: Honey Cone, “Are You Man Enough, Are You Strong Enough?”

I’ve never been an especially provocative person. I have my pointed opinions and passionate beliefs, but I’m also a pronounced introvert. As a matter of instinct, I’m not interested in calling attention to myself. Cars, clothes, really any outward trappings are chosen for functionality rather than flashiness or any sense of style whatsoever. This makes it a little curious that a regular member of my collegiate t-shirt rotation had the phrase “Fuck = Love” emblazoned across it. The t-shirt referenced the title of the 1989 single released by the Australian band The Trilobites. They were on an independent label Down … Continue reading One for Friday: The Trilobites, “Minibar of Oblivion”

When I was a naive, scruffy undergrad working away at the college radio station, I spent a lot of time on the phone with record reps. We ran a relatively modest station, but a fair number of the labels still called us on a weekly basis. We got a lot of attention from Mercury/Polygram and regularly related the details of our charts to duly appointed representatives for the likes of Alias, Giant, SBK, Virgin and Geffen. These were our conduits to the music that we loved, and, in some sense, people who were working in our dream jobs. They were … Continue reading One for Friday: The Aquanettas, “Love With the Proper Stranger”

As I’ve previously confessed, I came to my musical taste relatively late. I’d love to report that I was precociously listening to cool Joy Division music or bouncy, catchy Ramones songs when I was a kid, but during the era those albums were coming out, I was still childishly clinging to lesser fare. It certainly didn’t help that the only adult in my immediate household who even bothered to listen to music was drawn to highly problematic choices, making it that much harder for me to find a pathway to the excellent material that was emerging in the part of … Continue reading One for Friday: The Rainmakers, “Small Circles”

The music I write about in this space tends to be from my days as a student, toiling happily at the college radio station in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. This is partially because I want to stick to posting music that’s out of print, and the songs in my possession that fit that criteria are largely from this era. But it’s also because this is the music that sticks with me the most, the music that has stories associated with it, the music that leaves the strongest impression and has the strongest associations. The songs are the anthems of my youth, … Continue reading One for Friday: The Judybats, “Down in the Shacks Where the Satellite Dishes Grow”