In a fit of insomnia last night, I decided to fiddle around with finding something new to listen to. I’ve had the itch to do a bit of musical exploration lately, expand my horizons as it were, but I’m not quite sure what my next “phase” should be. Neo-classical? Electronica? Lounge? Sure, I could go through the MP3 collection — which totals something like 240 days worth of music at last count — but there seems to be precious little in there to surprise me anymore. Well, I guess I did recently discover that I purchased and downloaded the Twisted Sister Christmas Album five years ago, which apparently was so forgettable that I filed it away without ever listening to it. In general, however, the process of picking out, locating, and choosing what I’m going to listen to takes longer than actually playing it. Let’s face it, this country can elect a President (including primaries and caucuses) faster than I can decide what music I want to hear for the fifteen minutes it takes me to do the dishes. This is exactly why I like chaos and surprise — and why I continually find inspiration in the random and unexpected.
So, that pretty much leaves me with radio. No, not that pre-programmed, corporate-serving, stuck on the same half-dozen artists for the past 25 years crap that passes for radio around here — that’s literally about as random as the card that magician makes you pick that he will later get pull out of his rabbit’s lower intestines. And, no, not independent/public radio either. They’re having their bi-weekly pledge drive/grovel for money marathon. You know, that one where they take the regular hosts off their mood stabilizers and throw them in a pit with all of these rich lawyers who, in between plugging their practices on the air, will threaten to eat a puppy unless 20 people call the station and donate $1500 in the next hour (which is irrelevant, because lawyers love to eat puppies, and nobody really gives money during those pledge drives — I know, I’ve worked phones at them). Yeah, radio has been dead to me ever since WKLU found Russ, and Russ found God … like two thirds of the other station owners in this town.
No, instead, I decided to get saucy and explore the world of UK community radio, which as near as I can gather, is similar to our public radio — only with less grovelling and cooler music, because they actually let the volunteers of the community run the station and pick the format. Fortunately, as in America, nobody in England was interested in hearing the Boston Pops play the music of Kenny G over the weekend. Quite the contrary, in fact, a lot of the stations I discovered are what I would call good old classic radio — or at least something very similar to the type of radio that was popular back when I was a kid. You know, stations that have a distinct personality to them, jocks that seem to be talking to and interacting with the audience — even (*GASP*) talking over song intros and “hitting the post” with that last wisecrack. Even the playlists seem to be thumbing their nose at modern convention as they are pulled completely out of thin air on the fly with no real regard for any demographic, genre, or style. Incredibly enough, I heard classic 50’s bubblegum, 70’s hard rock, and modern house and trance numbers being played back to back on some of these stations — well, I said wanted random, didn’t I? Who in their right mind would listen to this? Well, in my mind anyway, I’m picturing an entire town where everybody, young and old, listens to the same station, and you can go from car to store to house to pub all through town without missing a minute of what’s going on — like it’s the soundtrack for the community. The Clearchannel programming department must pull their hair out when they hear about stuff like this, because really it’s the sort of fun, event programming that they’ve been determined to suck out of radio for the past 20 years.
As you know, however, I’m nothing if not annoyingly cerebral and meticulously all-encompassing when it comes to music. Heck, I not only have to get out and hear every band in town, I have to take them out for drinks and interview them as well. So, as you would expect, while I listened to a dozen or so of these small town UK radio stations, I started researching the communities themselves, thanks to Wikipedia. I took virtual drives around the towns, courtesy of Google Street View. (You at least have to find and look at the buildings the stations were broadcast from, right?) When available, I even peeped in on the latest gossip from some of the local residents, via Facebook. At one point I got so wrapped up in the whole “virtual tourist” concept, I even dropped a quick line to one of the disc jockeys with the answer to his demented little “name that tune” challenge — he was having trouble finding people at 4:00 AM to join in anyway. Of course I got it right, but more importantly, I actually got a shout out on radio for it. That hasn’t happened to me since I was 13 years old and won a coupon for free Chicken McNuggets on WKOR. Okay, maybe this one lacked the magic tingles I got when hearing “Marty with the Party” praising my phone dialing skills at being caller #9 back in 1982, but the fact that this time it was coming from a guy halfway around the planet — and no doubt earning me respect and admiration of the people of Barnard Castle, Teesdale, UK — it still had a bit of that “connected to the world by the dim glow of a radio dial in a darkened room” feel to it that I used to relish as a kid. Wonder if I’ll make the morning edition of The Mercury.
