…but tomorrow we’ll be heading across The Bridge to Mill Valley to see The Verve Pipe! I’m really looking forward to this as they’ve been one of my favorite bands for ages, and Villains is one of my top favorite albums of the 90s. (And no, not just because of That Hit Song.)
I think the last time I saw them was in 1997 when they played in Boston with Tonic opening up (remember them as well?). They put on a great show then and I’ve heard their current tour is a lot of great fun too. They’ve mellowed out somewhat but Brian Vander Ark is still one of my favorite songwriters. I’m looking forward to this show!
I don’t even remember when I started paying attention to the radio. It might have been my dad listening to classical or jazz on NPR, or us listening to pop on the car radio whenever we went somewhere, or my sister’s alarm clock radio, or the family stereo. All I know is that the music bug finally bit me in late 1977-early 1978, and that’s when the obsession started. Hardly a day goes by where I’m not listening to it in some shape or form.
Radio has a very fascinating and often heartbreaking history. I’ve lost count of how many stations seen as ‘groundbreaking’ and highly beloved by its listeners end up getting swallowed by corporate ownership and turned into Yet Another Soulless iHeartRadio Station. It’s a media format that had advertising baked in as its sole moneymaker since its beginnings, and it’s a format that chose not to evolve for decades, perhaps to its own detriment. The internet upset all of that, first with its streaming and downloading and then with its digital broadcasting formats like SiriusXM — which started out embracing freeform but soon relied on music rotation programming to remain relevant to the high number of passive listeners.
Still — I do see that there’s newer generations of radio stations, both digital and terrestrial, who are not so much bringing back the old days of freeform but creating their own iterations of it. College radio isn’t just about alternative rock anymore but all kinds of music styles. Stations like KEXP are commercial-free and rely on listener contributions like most public stations have always done. [And they’re doing so well that they bought the 92.7 signal here in San Francisco, where they have a strong listenership thanks to their online streaming and excellent programming.]
To me, I feel a lot of station owners don’t understand that they’re an entertainment and a service to its listeners and its communities, and not something that can — or should — be seen simply as a business venture for making money. The entertainment field was never really built to survive like that, not without major sacrifice in one way or another. Radio stations come and go in one way or another, but the sad fact remains that several of them end up going the same way: forced programming change enforced by the corporate level to please the shareholders.
But here’s the thing. Several stations lose listenership not because listeners grow out of it; they lose it because they play that same fucking Red Hot Chili Peppers song from ten years and four albums ago Every Single Fucking Day. Listeners get bored with strict programming and give up on the station. Overreliance on algorithm programming nearly ALWAYS brings out listener boredom. I’ve seen it several times with several stations over several years. Believe me, I’ve witnessed the downfall of a LOT of stations I loved because of exactly this.
Sure, we like our favorite songs and sometimes we’re fine with hearing them a lot…but come on. I’ve heard That Same Fucking Red Hot Chili Peppers Song From Ten Years Ago on your playlist for the last six years straight. Why are you not playing something from one of their newer albums and making that song the next track to enter heavy rotation? That’s how it’s supposed to work! Y’all are stuck on the same three albums and haven’t bothered to change for decades.
*AHEM*
Anyway.
Happy National Radio Day, y’all. For those of us looking for something new and exciting to listen to, it’s out there if you’re willing to search for it. You might need to stream it online, but do whatever you need to do to keep radio alive.
One weird downside to living in the Bay Area in the summer, specifically on the west side of San Francisco, is that it’s often overcast, highly humid and stuck somewhere in the mid-50s — and there’s also a high chance of various allergens floating in the air to give me a migraine. All this adds up to me feeling sleepy and lazy most days.
So yeah, that’s my excuse for not being entirely on point with my writing, journaling and blogging recently.
Hopefully I’ll have my head together a bit more next week.
…I often think about this particular song by The Clockworks, which remains one of my top favorite songs of the last five years.
Why does this song remind me of the pandemic? Actually it’s the video.
There’s a day-end drone shot of the Bay Bridge here in San Francisco at around the 2:20 mark (and again at 3:05) that brings up the memory of my thirty-mile commute to and from Concord in the East Bay, and whenever I see it in this video, I wonder if my car is somewhere in that shot, heading westward into the city at the end of yet another hellish day. Even though the band released this track in late 2021, at least a year after I’d quit that particular job, the song perfectly encapsulates what that job had been doing to me over the last decade.
This was also around the time I’d been listening to KEXP almost religiously at this point, already an Amplifier (I still donate to them on a monthly basis!), and this track had gotten some major airplay, and I don’t blame them for putting it on heavy rotation as it’s still a hell of a banger. That station got me through a hell of a lot over the last five or so years.
It’s been over four years since I left that job in March 2020 (and I’m still glad I did), and a few years since the peak of that particular pandemic wave (and I’m still wearing a mask to work and still Covid-free) (knock on wood), so this song definitely emulates a feeling of weariness and uneasiness for me, reminding me that none of us really know what the hell was going on at the time, or how long it would last.
When every choice that I make is yours Keep telling me what’s right and what’s wrong Don’t you ever stop to think about me? I’m not that blind to see that you’ve been cheating on me
Every now and again I think about this song, especially during tense political climates. Sure, it’s a song about a failing relationship, but sometimes you can read lyrics different ways. Sometimes this particular lyric pops into my head whenever I hear conservatives go on about how much they know what I need. Despite never asking ahead of time for my input.
Which is why I’ve stopped listening to that party quite some time ago.
[And as an aside, I absolutely love the piano work on this track. One of my all-time favorites.]
I’ve decided I no longer want to be a doomsayer on socials. I want to be an island of calm for others instead. Someone needs to be the rock, yeah? I’ve been told I’m kinda good at that. — Me, on Threads, 2 July
I’ve said it so many times before, I rarely speak about political things on social media these days because I’m only just another voice getting lost in all the other white noise out there. I still get upset about all the current hateful and spiteful and deadly bullshit just like everyone else, but I’ve also already come to the conclusion that my strength is not in speaking up and speaking out, ironically enough. I might be good at telling a story, but I’m terrible at shouting from the rooftops. It’s something I’m trying to work through, though.
Maybe it’s that I’m a jaded Gen-Xer who’s lived through the 70s, 80s and 90s and Seen Shit? Or maybe it’s that I now know that reacting emotionally to every goddamn terrible event over the years has only given me high blood pressure and anxiety? That’s not to say I’m giving up or choosing a life of ignorant bliss, far from it.
I’ve just come to the conclusion that I need to play a different game with my own rules. If I can’t be a Voice, I can certainly be a Rock. Recently at the Day Job a coworker told me that I was the most Got Their Shit Together person they’d ever met, and that kind of threw me for a loop, considering the drama and anxiety and depression and stress I’d felt in the past. And I’ve come to realize that maybe I should use that as an advantage.
I’m definitely no white knight, that’s for sure. I’m just someone to connect with when you need to detox and a reminder that there is still goodness out there underneath everything else. That’s all I know how to offer, and I hope it can help if you need it.
The other day I ended a 391-day run of using the 750Words site, as I finally came to the conclusion that I was definitely repeating myself at that point. I’d run out of things to write about. It had become more about writing things than writing about things and that was getting very boring indeed. And to be honest, I was really missing writing entries for my blogs! I’m back to my normal schedule here once more.
But anyway! The other half of that title: stress. I’ve been thinking about what has been stressing me out lately at the Day Job, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of it really is petty irritation. Dumb things that I probably really shouldn’t get all bent out of shape over. Maybe that one coworker who’s reacting differently (and indifferently) to a huge wave of customers has the right idea, taking it one at a time? Maybe my expectations are too high? That’s a product of the Former Day Job and maybe a sprinkling of one of the managers here, so maybe I just need to reel it back a bit. It’s only eight hours, and the volume definitely changes from day to day.
That said…what have I been listening to lately? A bit of prog rock, it seems. I haven’t listened to King Crimson in I don’t know how long, and for years I only owned the debut In the Court of the Crimson King, the one with the title track, “I Talk to the Wind” and “Epitaph”. Stellar record and very much a product of late 60s and early 70s prog. I’ve recently acquired many of their later works, including the early 80s Adrian Belew era that my college freshman year roommate really liked. I remember him listening to Discipline quite a bit and this memorable track popping up on the stereo.
Unfortunately I am falling behind on a lot of my writing work lately, so I’m going to be taking a few weeks off to catch up. It happens from time to time…whether it’s the Day Job sapping my energy or other non-writing things taking precedence now and again, I just run out of space on the schedule. It’s not my favorite feeling, to be honest, and sometimes I have to sacrifice things here and there. It’s not always to catch up, either…sometimes it’s just to give myself a mental and physical break to rest.
Sorry for the lack of interesting things to blog lately, but I’ve just been super busy at the Day Job and trying to get more writing work done on Theadia. Because of that, my blog schedule for Walk in Silence might continue to be a bit askew until further notice. Stay tuned!
I was reading some random posts on Threads the other day and someone mentioned how when some people talk about ‘the 90s’ (specifically about music), a lot of what they mention really started in the 80s, like Jane’s Addiction and their amazing 1988 album Nothing’s Shocking.
To which I responded: “I always say the truly formative alt rock years were really ’84-’89. It just happened to reach wider popularity in ’91.”
Which of course made me think that I really need to get my act together and finally write and complete that Walk in Silence book project. I think at this point it would be less a historical book and more of a personal memoir in which I write about the important albums and singles that influenced and inspired me during that time. And I’ve kind of been doing a very abbreviated version of it with my daily 750Words, so perhaps I’m a bit further ahead on this than I think I am…?
Walk In Silence 