KCRW WCKR WDCE WFMU During Thanksgiving 2007

Posted on November 24th, 2007 by Dave

These are stations I listen to all the time when I’m NOT listening to KXLU. But they did some things that I found interesting these last 2 days. Last year this time I had people. This year all I’ve got is a house to finish renovating and sell so I can make a movie in a few months, so I just work through Holidays now, but luckily the radio has never let me down.

Wow. I started working on this piece a week ago, and today I’m going to finish it! But hey, I’m doing a major post everyday; it’s tough. But let me see if I can remember what was going on last Thursday, aside from the fact that it was Thanksgiving. Yeah, it was mostly about radio for me.

On KCRW

I believe the first thing I began listening to was the first half of a 2 day special of This American Life. The program that looks at odd slices of life via radio interviews. It’s produced in Chicago, but I listen to a station in Santa Monica. Really a fantastic program, and there’s a great old article about the origins of the program here. The programs for this special were supposedly picked as listener favorites, but they weren’t really favorites to me. The most poignant episode, as a recent survivor or a cheating girlfriend, was ”Get Over it.”

On WFMU

Next I listened to Diane’s Kamikaze Fun Machine. This is in odd show coming out of New Jersey that I’ve heard off and on for months. But a couple of weeks back while painting the house outside I listened to an entire show. It’s weird as hell. Here’s the deal; I like metal (music), and she plays metal. But it’s weird because she doesn’t sound like a metal person. I imagine I don’t either. And that’s where the connection comes in probably. As an aging punk rocker who fell into metal there are probably lots of people like me out there and this lady has a radio program. She plays other music too, but she plays the most hardcore, gut wrenching, evil metal that I’m aware. It’s very odd.

Usually near the beginning of her show she also reads off a list of birthdays and odd facts about that day in history. So here are the odd facts she read off. Jamie Lee Curtis is listed her as 49-but I’m 40 and I don’t know…Stephen Geoffreys from Fright Night had a birthday-he’s is really the only memorial character from that movie, Terry Gilliam from Monty Python is 67, Mariel Hemingway is 46 (I can believe that one), Scarlett Johansson is 23! Blackbeards head was cut off on this day 1718. It’s the first day of Doctor Who went on the air, the first time they played “Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the day Mt. St. Helens erupted. It’s the anniversary of the first interracial kiss on TV; it was 1968 and Captain Kirk and Uhura made history. Shemp died 1955. As did Mae West 1980 and 1997 INXS killer was found dead (suicide?)

On WCKR

In the middle of the night around 1AM I tuned in for the best Hip Hop show in the country. It’s done at my Alma Mata, Columbia University in New York City. And it used to be hosted by Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito the Barber. But now it’s Sucio Smash and Timm See. Anyway, that night they had some great guest (DJ Eclipse) and great music.

On WDCE

By this time it was Friday and I decided to tune in and listen to my old friend Fontaine, out in Richmond, Virginia. Well I stayed with her the whole show. When I first tuned in she was about 20 minutes in and sounded kind of down, and maybe with the School she does the show from being closed and many people being out of town she thought nobody would be listening. But I’ve got the internet! So she had just finished a set of Chess music label favorites (done here in Chicago way, way back in the day). So I emailed a list of things I was interesting in hearing:

Raymond Scott, because it’s very cinematic and comical

I was watching some Mark Mothersbaugh interviews and then Oingo Boingo on the gong show on Youtube, (they won by the way) and it got me thinking about “odd” music, so Iasked for that.

Combustible Edison

Esquivel

The Tubes

And some local Richmond guys called the Good Guys

So she got the email and played some of the stuff. Then asked how did Mark from Devo connect to the Pee Wee Herman show, and I told her how Cyndi Lauper sang the theme song but Mark had done music from the show, and the intro from the theme song was Martin Deney’s Quiet Village. And it was weird how Danny Elfman from Oingo Boingo had also gone on to do so much music work (he also worked on the Pee Wee show). As did a guy I knew in NYC named Rob, who was in a band called White Zombie-I think he’s directing movies now…

And then we got into a long night of me emailing her, and her answering over the air. I had lived in Richmond in the late 80’s and so she decided to play local bands who were around when I was there like Mudd Helmut, GWAR, Brainflower ButerGlove, X-Cops. Lot’s of my friends from that time have gone on to bands like Tulsa Drone, Labradford and Some of the Confessor guys have formed a band with Tannen and the great Pen Rollins.

We even recalled some old shows, like when the Mentors came to town, and many years later when I moved to LA I’d run into El Duce all the time-and show him shortly before he got run over by a train in El Segundo.

So it was a good night for her, people started calling in and instant messaging her. And she even stayed on air an EXTRA HOUR. So I think she had a good time.

Now you see why I kept putting this long ass post off-its LONG!

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