I have, in recent history, pretty much forsaken FM radio. But some of it is good!
I am a sports nut in a sports nutty town (Boston) so Sports radio has been ‘my thing’. And, it still is ‘my thing’ a great deal of the time.
I was listening to sports talk radio so much though, that I was becoming woefully out of touch with music. I would hear a song and have no clue what it was. Not that I was all that interested in keeping up with Top 40 music, but it was still becoming disconcerting.
Last year, I started working a part time night shift gig. For five hours a night I push electronic paper. Once I became comfortable enough with the workload/expectations/feel of the place I realized that the job provides ample opportunity for radio/music listening.
I was not fond of listening to sports talk, it either required too much attention or the callers were flaming IDIOTS. I started to station surf. Before long I found UMASS Boston’s station. Good old public radio.
They carry a NPR show produced out of Philly called World Cafe ( www.worldcafe.npr.org ). It’s a University of Pennsylvania product, WXPN. The host is one David Dye, a guy who seems pretty encyclopedic about it all, while still staying cool. Would be a cool guy to have a beer with and you could just listen and soak it all in.
World Cafe is on two hours a night, here on WUMB (UMASS’s station) it is 9-11PM. Works well since I get off work at 11.
If you have never heard of World Cafe and you like music, especially “indie rock” for lack of a better label, you owe it to yourself to check it out.
Sure, come summertime I will still listen to a Red Sox game over World Cafe. There is just something about baseball on the radio! Otherwise though, I am all about World Cafe. It’s two hours of greatness most nights.
Benefit of World Cafe?
….Spoon
The Cat Empire
Steve Earle (never gave him a chance before)
Feist
Okkervill River
Josh Ritter
Ray LaMontagne
The New Pornographers
Glenn Hansard & Marketa Irglova (if you haven’t seen the movie “Once” go out and get it)
Iron and Wine…
…all bands/artists that I either never heard of or never gave a chance. They are all artists that are now in heavy rotation for me.
OK, I am done gushing now.
4 responses so far ↓
1
Rick Astley
// Dec 7, 2007 at 5:40 am
I stream woxy.com all day, every day at my desk. Highly recommend giving it a try during World Cafe’s off-hours.
Formerly an indie radio station out of Miami OH, the visionary owners of woxy decided to retire a few years back, selling the rights to FM97.7 to a conglomerate which immediately switched the format over to generic frat-boy-shout-rock, calling it ‘alternative’.
Just kill me.
But with the glorious help of a generous (and anonymous) donor, woxy survived via the internet for a year or so until the funds began to dry.
Advertising was a non-starter, listener-based donations weren’t adding up. It looked (again) like the end of woxy.
But at the last moment the founder of lala.com - a creative dot-commer and fan of the station’s format - heroically stepped in and saved the day. Woxy.com continues to thrive, and they have even returned to the radio waves via digital radio.
http://woxy.lala.com/about/
Bottom line: Real DJ’s playing real variety even taking real requests, spotlighting local, national and international bands of whom I’d never hear without woxy.
I think it’s radio as it was meant to be.
2
struglas
// Dec 7, 2007 at 4:08 pm
nice list. some of my hometown peeps listed. way to represent austin!
3 Searching For Transnormal Skiperoo // Mar 7, 2008 at 10:13 am
[...] When it’s not baseball season I am usually don’t miss NPR’s World Cafe, I have posted about it before. Wednesday’s guest was Jim White, only I didn’t get to hear Wednesday’s show [...]
4
Piper of Love
// Aug 13, 2008 at 1:45 am
ditto strugla, NICE LIST
Excellent post too!
Piper of Loves last blog post..Mole Woe
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