SOUNDTRACK: WRXP, 101.9 FM, New York City (45 days later).
The past two weeks I have been listening to this station more because I have been doing work in the garage (building a chicken coop). Without going into my neurotic music listening, I’ll just say that I listen to the radio rather than CDs when I do noisy work. And so, WRXP.
I haven’t listened that much since my last post, but the most dramatic difference to me is that they seem to have real commercials now. Wal-Mart seemed to be advertised a lot, and there were one or two other name brand items (with effective ads obviously). They still have all of those weird ads for services rather than products (in fact if you need full term life insurance, just listen in for 20 minutes and you’ll hear that one). But I guess they must be doing well if the real companies are showing up.
They still play way too many commercials. But heck, that’s commercial radio for you.
They also seem to rely a lot on a few bands that surprise me: Dave Matthews in particular. I’m not a big fan of his, so I’m surprised to hear him so much; however, overall I think their selection is quite good. They seem to be off Pink Floyd and on to Zeppelin now, which, frankly would be a neat idea for this station: pick a classic rock artist that you will overplay for a week, and then move on. What a cool thing: you could do all kinds of back catalog stuff, and less popular songs and then, just as people got sick of them, switch to someone else, and repeat. Genius!
Anyhow, the other thing I wanted to mention is that the only person with any credibility to ever be on MTV, Matt Pinfield, is a morning DJ on the station. He and his co-jock do a bit too much DJ banter for my liking, but mostly he’s just a dude who loves music and will tell you more or less fascinating stories about whoever he’s going to play, and then play good stuff. I heard a fun interview with Supergrass the other morning, which was good. Pinfield also knows his music enough to ask good questions and still be fun.
Hilariously, he also committed the hilarious gaffe that I used to commit in high school: pronouncing the Police album: “Outlandos DE Amoor” rather than the more accurate Outlandos Damoor (surely he must know that by NOW). (Like pronouncing the Plasmatics album COOP DE AY-TAT, rather then Coo DAY TAH (I’m guilty of that too). And, I found out that he grew up in East Brunswick, NJ, merely a few miles from where I now work. So, Matt, if you ever used the North Brunswick Library, well, you should come back and see how nice we look now.
[READ: August 13, 2008] “The Real Work”
This piece was recommended by two people who commented on my post about Alex Stone in Harper‘s Magazine. They both said that this was a far better, far more appreciative article about magic. And they were right. I won’t really compare it to Stone’s except to say that Stone’s piece (whatever his credibility may be) was designed as a suspenseful tale following the events and the winner of “The Magic Olympics.” He also gave away some secrets to some of the tricks he did and saw there.
Gopnik’s piece is more of a loving appreciation for magicians and their work. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 