my last show of the year for WPRB. see, this would have worked awesomely except that we didnt have the records for fiery furnaces and teeth. well, they were locked away in the music office for some weird reason. even when shows are superstructured and i know what im playing, sometimes it still gets a bit hectic. i got my first call from an inmate! he requested antony & the johnsons, which i was gonna play after the last two songs but i ran out of time. would have been a good closing set. regardless, this was a really fun show!

kinski - hot stenographer - alpine static - #10
golden ball - signature abstract - 7″ - N - #10
jennifer gentle - i do dream you - valende - #9
audible - sky signal - sky signal - #9
fiery furnaces - tropical iceland - EP - #8 (sub for rehearsing my choir)
the teeth - when someone hits you - s/t - #8 (sub for “carry the wood”)

sleater kinney - whats mine is yours - the woods - #7
hail social - get in the car - s/t - #7
electrelane - one two three lots / bells - axes - #6
espers - flaming telepaths - the weed tree - N - #6
blood on the wall - stoner jam - Awesomer - N - #5

oxford collapse - proofreading - a good ground - #4
b.c. camplight - blood and peanut butter - hide, run away - #4
the a-sides - sidewalk chalk - hello, hello - #3
mary timony - 9×3 - ex hex - #3

spoon - i turn my camera on - gimme fiction - #2
sympathizers - american tourister - dread at the control - #2
the spinto band - oh mandy - nice and nicely done - #1
Constantines - love in fear - Tournament of Hearts - #1 - the friggin’ best record

volcano suns - opening - 7″ - now, its time for the “honorable mentions”
the hold steady - stevie nix - separation sunday
Coyote - sugar - split 12″ w/ bottom of the hudson
Fireball - archangels thunderbird - Blessed Be - N - this is the band i want to be,
free kitten - party with me punker - our band could be your life - C - minuteman tribute from 1995
the joggers - ziggurat traffic - with a cape and a cane
hockey night - for guys eyes only - keep guessin
lee, jae-won - hayley - s/t - N

matthew sweet - teenage female - superdeformed ep - recorded in princeton, circa 1990!
the blow - hey boy - mp3

if you want to hear my top three records of 2005, tune into WPRB today. i’ll be on the air from 2:30 to 5:00pm EST. you can listen in online here or find it at 103.3FM on your radio dial. but you knew that already, right?

[ps: no worries, ill post the final three here as well]

during thanksgiving break i covered the top ten show, which i rather liked. it was nice going into the station knowing that half my show was somewhat mapped out and then id only have to cover an hour’s worth of programming otherwise. i took this opportunity to bust out some 1980’s flannel rock, for the most part. i played the 7″ of “alex chilton” rather than the full length because i was noodling around in the 7″ section and saw that. plus, i like the 7″ format better. i wanted to play some spiral jetty but i forgot to do that. ditto for dogzilla’s “lunch with ed”, which would have made my friend ann laugh.

10 silver jews - the poor the fair and the good - Tanglewood Numbers - drag city
09 sun kil moon - neverending math equation - tiny cities - caldo verde
08 vashti bunyan - here before - Lookarftering - dicristina
07 devendra banhart - now that i know - cripple crow - xl

06 the go! team - ladyflash - thunder, lightning, strike - columbia
05 Books on Tape - Upon Rock City - Dinosaur Dinosaur - alien8
04 deerhoof - running thoughts - The Runners Four - Kill Rock Stars

03 lady sovereign - a little bit of shhh - vertically challenged - Chocolate Industries
02 Animals and Men - dont misbehave in the new age - Revel in The Static - Messthetics
02 Animals and Men - we are machines - Revel in The Static - Messthetics

method and result - private eyes - songs from the sixth borough - plain parade
a-sides - expressway to your heart - songs from the sixth borough - plain parade

01 animal collective - grass - feels - fat cat
01 animal collective - The Purple Bottle - feels - fat cat

[and now an hour of non-top ten music]

clem snide - i cant stay here tonight - you were a diamond - spinART
volcano suns - sea cruise - 7″ - Homestead
oxford collapse - land! - some wilderness - kanine
flower - beauty pt II - concrete sky - bear
crippled pilgrim - people going nowhere - head down hand out - fountain of youth

the feelies - the last roundup - the good earth - coyote
electric light orchestra - showdown - all over the world: the very best of - erpic/legacy
olivia tremor control - courtyard - dusk at cubist castle - flydaddy
oh OK - brother - wow - db records
sky saxon - starving for your love - destiny’s children - PVC
the replacements - alex chilton - 7″ - sire

busker soundcheck - perfect foil - 7″ - fullgroan

after spending the last few days in washington dc attending the future of music policy summit, two things seem pretty clear: a) no one gives a shit about college radio anymore; b) localism in radio seemingly doesnt exist. so, i guess its kind of special that two states exist. sure, philadelphia has a wide variety of stations, aiming to please any sort of listener but what’s left off the map is any sort of dedication to local musicians. now, there’s been local programs in the past, but two states is the only one existing at the moment. just like everything else in my life, im sure some station will come along, steal my thunder and whip up a local show of their own. but will they have their own top 50? unlikely.

god bless the pivot table, because there’s no way i could have calculated this on my own. it was fairly ambitious to do 50 songs in a show where i average 40, but i sat down and did the calculations. [songs could not go over 3:30 to accomplish this, for the curious, though there were a couple moments where i broke the rule and paid dearly for it] thank heavens for the following dj, who showed up late, because i ran over my alotted time. but whatevs! despite the fact that it was a list, it didnt feel like it was. couple of strange transitions but overall, pretty nice.

also entertaining was the roots giveaway — ive never seen the lights flash up in the studio like that. its a good thing i dont have epilepsy.

last but certainly not least id like to thank all the bands featured on the show. were it not for your creativity and passion, i’d be stuck with three hours every week of dead air.

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uh. hm. not much to report about this show, except that i managed to BLAZE through it, both on and off the air. i even got home to philadelphia early! its like the gods are smiling down on me, finally. i just wish they’d smile down on hurricane katrina victims. they could use it more than me. [anyone notice the next hurricane was called maria?]

lots of silly referential songs: “do the allentown”, detention’s “beach” [manville, nj's finest!], automat and of course, the “theme song” to two states, “tale of the city”.

i cant believe next week’s the last show of the summer. B-U-M-M-E-R-! setlist after the cut.

(Download 09-06-2005)
this week’s show is not available. damn you, itunes!

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here’s what sucks: not being sure as to whether i should continue this show during the fall or not. no no, i want to but it has to do with time & financial commitments. its easy to take a day off mid-week for a show because my workload is lighter when summer break is in session. during the school year, im not so sure i can afford the day off.

the thing is, this show needs to happen — lack of local programming on radio, etc, blah blah — so i need to find a way to make this work. most importantly, i love doing it. if i had a car, this wouldnt be an issue but i have to take the train to my show and ultimately, thats where the timesuck is.

let’s do some quick math: 2 + 3+ 2 = 7. thats the amount of time i spend on my radio show. whats not factored in is that i arrive at the station 1-2 hours earlier than my show, so that i dont worry about mass transit screwing me over.

is there anyone out there who wants to drive me? i know, its sad begging for a ride on my blog. but you know whats sadder? realizing i spend more time traveling than being on-air. driving to princeton takes 45 minutes, traffic willing, but i havent a car. and renting a car every week sounds ridiculous.

here’s the deal — if you think you can do this, ill gladly cover the cost of gas, treat you to snacks and you get to learn how a radio show is put together. we can come up with a better name for you than “intern”.

its moments like this i wish there was a chinatown bus to princeton.

anyway, this week’s show. now that ive got some excel spreadsheet action happening, putting together shows is a piece of cake. but its the end of a season, thats why i feel like im in my groove. new this week: us funk team, patternismovement, aquila rose, windsor for the derby. played an unreleased [in the states] track by the feelies and received a lovely phone call from a miss julia factorial. pretty psyched to throw in some res, a favorite of mine from a few years back. word is that she’s got a new record coming soon. the capitol years track might be the unofficial theme song to this show. yes, thats the notekillers covering jefferson airplane. dont you love how i edited the swear out of the track? fear is technically not a philly band, but when you have a frontman like lee ving, its difficult to not play something by the group.

playlist is behind the cut, as always.

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im positive the transit gods are conspiring against me because there’s no other way to explain the amount of bullshit i have to deal with when i head to princeton for my show. every week, its something else, something new — a train delay, system shutdown, etc etc.

despite this setback, i managed to put together a pretty awesome show in the span of 20 minutes. totally loving the new cd selection method, seems to make things easier.

i got the new annie hayden album and im loving it to death. yes, there’s a replacements cover. its beautiful. im sorry to whoever called up requesting mazarin and heard my sigh. i like that record but im tired of people requesting that one song. yknow? im very thankful for whoever requested b.c. camplight, even though i played it. the record’s so good im more than willing to play it again.

afterwards, andrew of the trolleyvox was recording a set for jon’s show, so i hung around. its pretty sweet folks. big thanks to him for the ride home!

playlist after the cut.

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if you’ve ever wondered what the top 40 artists played on my radio show this summer were, well, here they are. thanks to the wonder of microsoft excel and pivot tables, i was able to determine how many times a song was played. ive got a few more weeks before the end of my show, so this could always change!

in the meantime, this should squelch all debate about the best local music. if not, feel free to voice your concerns.

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this show got off to weird start. as you know i have this little loop of music that i talk over [it helps eliminate um, dead air, um] but it wasnt in the same spot on the instant replay machine. so my show starts off with some bumbling around. laugh if you want, go ahead. its OK.

otherwise, not too bad. i took a new tack with programming this week. after pulling a bunch of cds, i placed them in groups of six. i took each mini set of records and figured out a playlist from there. this way i didnt risk blowing my load too early or too late in the show, especially when it came to new stuff.

also, can anyone spot the hawk? i entered the wrong code on the instant replay machine and there was a hawk sample, all ready to go. everyone knows i cant resist goofy sound samples. many many summers ago, i did a radio show with bubble noises during talk overs. hmmm…..

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dont fucking mess with me, im a streetwalkin’ cheetah with a heart full of napalm and im gonna bust. blame septa for this psychotic twist. i dont know what happened but it took me two hours to go ten blocks on my train ride home. i should mention that i left the station at 8pm, so i had a two hour train ride back to philadelphia as well.

i wish this variety of snapping could produce such literary beauty as my treatise on springsteen, but its not happening. after a two week break, im back at the station and my on-air demeanor was more like a person who had not done a radio show in years. i spazzed and stuttered all over the place; thankfully audio hijack decided to only tape 30 minutes of my show this time around so you’ll never have any idea as to how bad it really was. but im telling you — it was bad.

[what i currently hate about recording my show -- i have to leave my computer in PA and trust that audio hijack wont screw up. i wish there was a place i could plug in at the station and just record there. because i cant hear the sound of my voice, im on the verge of tears otherwise.]

things that were good: new records [mazarin, thee minks, denison, melron recs comp], a visit from ex-wprber jannon [have a safe trip to LA!] and this week’s show seemed to fly by in record time. its moves much quicker when i break every half hour to read the playlist, as opposed to my usual 45 - 60 minutes. [eh, im lazy.]

very psyched to play the believer comp, although the constantines & spoon tracks are off-limits, even though the cons recorded the track at soundgun in philly… i wonder if i can use that as a loophole?

proposed specialty shows within my specialty show:

playlist after the cut.

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