The WREK Merzbow marathon is over, but until late next week it will
still be available in their week-long MP3 archive.
Here’s something I found out from John Bartley
(from whom I’m getting a lot of these links lately) in a newgroup
post:
There is a station in Research Triangle, NC called WBZB 1090 AM that has an odd and
wonderful programming philosophy – they only play local music. Here
is an article about them. In fact, since I’ve been writing this
entry I’ve been listening to their webcast and heard a song so good
that I called them up to ask who it was (finding today’s band of the
day in the process.) It’s almost a throwback to stations of 50 years
ago in the era of early rock and roll. The programming is loose enough
that they are playing trippy psychedelic rock (the song I called
about) alongside alt.country or even straight raw country, blues,
southern rock, etc. It’s kind of like a toned-down commercial version
of what WREK does. I strongly applaud this and I really hope this
works out for them. Their slogan is “It’s all about the music”, which
is a rarity in modern commercial radio. The CNN story has some quotes
from radio consultants basically giving WBZB no chance. I’d love to
see them eat their words and WBZB make it – radio consultants are why
commercial radio is now unlistenable. Screw those guys and their
cynical horseshit.
There’s a second level to this, which is that the station has a pretty
small signal range but I in fact really wanted to live in it. When we
moved from Oregon, my wife was going into grad school at either
Georgia Tech or NC State. I really was rooting for the latter, as I
wanted to live in the triangle. I like Atlanta and all (less now than
I did 15 years ago) but Atlanta was the choice of the comfort zone. We
had friends here, history, etc. Raleigh would have been a leap into
the unknown but one I wanted to take. I love the music there – a lot
of bands I really dig come from that area. I just wanted something
different and didn’t think I would have any problem coming up with a
job there. I’ve never even been in the area other than driving
straight to the airport once, but I had in my head that I’d enjoy
living there. I’m impulsive that way. I was completely and totally
prepared to load up the truck and head there. As it played out, the NC
State offer sucked compared to the one Georgia Tech made, so as much
as I wanted to live in the area I really wouldn’t have asked my wife
to make any decision differently than she did. She has worked out a
deal where she is going to be doing an intercomparison of her
atmospheric measurement stuff up there this summer, and maybe
I’ll fly or drive up and visit while she is there. That way my desire
to live there can hopefully be coupled with some empirical data. It’s
still in the south (and frankly, living in Atlanta is less like living
in the south every day as it becomes an island full of transplanted
carpetbaggers), it is close to some family, drivable to the rest. I’m
dreaming a little dream.