I think one of the natural tendencies of students working in college radio is to spend the time building their own personal music collections. I don’t mean that the theoretically student in question plays something new and exciting on their radio program, inspiring a trip to the friendly neighborhood record store. Instead, it it done somewhat illicitly, spare copies of CDs or vinyl records going straight from mailed packages to bookbags. I use the qualifier somewhat because, in my experience, the representatives of the labels and the distribution companies were often complicit in this practice, actively encouraging music directors to … Continue reading One for Friday: Juliana Hatfield, “Everybody Loves Me But You”

As I’ve noted before, my time as a student in college radio was a prolonged musical education. Many people walk through the doors of a station like that convinced that they have unique reservoirs of knowledge that they are duty-bound to share with the world. I was certainly opinionated and had my flashes of ego when it came to matters of musical taste (especially when contrasting my interest in, say, Husker Du against the adherents of godawful hair metal prevalent among the population of the wing I lived in during my freshman year), but I was also always keenly aware … Continue reading One for Friday: American Music Club, “How Many Six Packs Does It Take To Screw In A Light”

I think most music fans want to have songs, albums, artists that they can think of as theirs. We can connect with music so deeply that we almost want to find a pathway to a relationship that feels a little reciprocal. This instinct, this desire leads to favorite artists, well-worn albums, cries of “that’s my song,” when a certain tune starts emanating from the radio or jukebox. We’re all people in the audience, watching Tom Frank sing “I’m Easy,” convinced it’s a personal message. That’s the extreme. There are levels to this, and one of the simplest (and safest) is … Continue reading One for Friday: Fire Town, “Carry the Torch”

My first three decades, I was a Wisconsinite. I was born in Madison, went to college in Stevens Point. On my thirty-first birthday, we climbed in to a big moving van and departed for a completely different part of the country. Since then, I’ve lived in Florida for six years and North Carolina for two. Through it all, America’s Dairyland still feels like home. For a long time–and still now, I suppose–I was especially attuned to any mention of Wisconsin in the pop culture. It’s the natural convergence of state pride and pop culture obsession. This included to a special … Continue reading One for Friday: Dead Milkmen, “Living in Wisconsin”

I came into my music fandom clumsily. As a young kid, I was surrounded by music, sometimes literally. I lived in a home dominated by a record collection, my stepfather’s vinyl effectively serving as the walls of the living room. Each and every night, whatever new rock record was dominating his attention served as the soundtrack. The Dark Side of the Moon was released when I was two-years-old and its gloomy lushness was such a constant presence that I would sing along to “Money” while I played with my Tonka trucks. Despite this, I wandered into my teenage years with … Continue reading One for Friday: Graham Parker, Get Started. Start a Fire

For quite some time, I operated under the theory that every college radio station had their one artist, the band or performer that the whole population of DJs tirelessly championed despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that no one else out there in the big, boundless musicverse understood the greatness contained within their records. I didn’t have a lot of empirical evidence to back this theory up. I’d peruse individual station charts in the back of CMJ and notice the occasional obscure outfit charting in the upper reaches of someone’s list, or have a label rep push some release … Continue reading One for Friday: Too Much Joy, “Hey Merlin”

I was always a little envious of the bands that Minnesota could claim as their own. At the college radio station, we always tried to take great pride in Wisconsin bands, figuring that supporting our home state was one of the moral obligations of celebrating the under-celebrated at the left end of the dial. Problem was, we didn’t have that many bands to get excited about. Sure, Milwaukee had someone as iconic as Violent Femmes, but their self-titled debut was six-years-old when I started college, ancient history to us then. Madison’s Fire Town released their sophomore album during my freshman … Continue reading One for Friday: Gear Daddies, “Dream Vacation”

I had something different in mind for this week’s “One for Friday,” but this song was lodged in my head this morning, begging to be shared. I’ve previously shared about the old 90FM C Stacks. There was always a keen sense of discovery that accompanied a venture into that area, combined with an even more alluring shared secret quality. These were, after all, the most obscure records in the station. Playing a song off of one of those–especially a really good song–was like giving radio listeners a audio glimpse inside the diary of modern music. Still, not everything housed on … Continue reading One for Friday: Hunters & Collectors, “Back on the Breadline”

During winter break after my first semester of college I asked the Program Director at the college radio station to tell me his pick for the best album of the year. He paused and thought about it, clearly not as trained as I was (by the nefarious influence of Rolling Stone) to always have a clear, decisive response at the ready whenever the opportunity arose to rank the offerings of pop culture. Eventually he answered “Soul Asylum’s Hang Time.” This caught me by surprise. I’d fiercely studied the handful of “best of” lists that were available during that era–what a … Continue reading One for Friday: Soul Asylum, “Heavy Rotation”

When I made it to the college radio station in the fall of 1988, I was focused on those performers who knew how to make their guitars do wonderfully noisy things. I came late to the stirring population of artists who populated the subgenre of “college rock” after flailing around all over the radio dial during my teenage years. When I arrived, I was especially susceptible to the guiding judgment of my peers, and when the less tolerant denizens of my high school (a phrase you may accurately read as “every other student in my graduating class”) deemed a band … Continue reading One for Friday: Alison Moyet, “And I Know”