So I get to leave work early tonight because we're dead as hell - a good way to make sure you have no weekend business is to open not one, but two, non-Michael Moore documentaries - and I'm listening to Prairie Home Companion, one because I like it and two because there are no FM stations other than 90.1 that don't suck, and I roll down the street to Trader Joe's for some miscellaneous items. When I get back in the car, Vinyl Café has replaced Prairie Home Companion.
As I'm zipping along 465 on my way home, they play a song called "88 Radiate," by a guy called John Sheard, the musical director of Vinyl Café, and also a pianist. The tune is a medley - a mishmash, if you will - of twenty-odd other pieces of music, played at an almost dizzying speed by this piano person. Before playing the song, they challenged listeners to jot down as many of the works included in the song as they could. The listener to submit the most complete list wins John Sheard's latest CD. And they posted the song on their website so listeners could download and listen to it over and over again while trying to figure out as many of the 27-29 other works referenced in this one little song.
"88 Radiate" (Note: MP3 file - Option-click to download)
Driving on 465 is not the best place to be jotting things down, so I did not participate as I listened to the song, although I recognized half a dozen or so of the bits that he played. On the off chance that anyone listens to the song and is interested in sending in an entry, you're supposed to go to the Vinyl Café Contact Us page.
Had I been listening to Q95, there's a pretty good chance that I would have heard something horrible, like Aerosmith or Bob Seger; even a quasi-respectable station like WTTS would more than likely have subjected me (yet again) to the new R.E.M. song (which sucks) or the new Counting Crows song (which sucks even more than that) or "Please Read The Letter" (which I like, but which is becoming so overplayed that it may well be included on the next re-release of Jagged Little Pill; but by putting on NPR, I got to hear a neat little piano number I would never have heard otherwise and which may never be heard on the radio again. Long live public radio.
3 comments:
Oh come on, Q95 hasn't played Aerosmith in at least 10 hours. WTTS has really gone down the shitter, pretty much since 2000. They used to have a section set aside for true independent bands, but no more. I used to work with a lady who was deep into the local scene and WTTS refused to play any songs she was pushing. Don't forget, they play Dave Matthews Band ad naseum.
You guys are playing Expelled? Wow, I'm surprised you let that sucker in the building.
Don't know if you remember Rob Guernsey and Matt Chandler (or Bipolar Bear and the Campbell Soup Kid) but they had a radio program on U of I radio. They played nothing but independents they are probably still on the air but I'm rarely by a radio at midnight on a friday. I'm usually at a bar.
Nope - we opened Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden and First Saturday In May. Expelled probably would have done more business than either.
I think I saw Rob working at Half Price Books a few months ago. Haven't seen Matt in some time.
Bipolar Bear, eh?
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