Re: Grudingly Admitted

[ebm@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Grady Toss)]

>Really-From: Greg Earle <smeagol!earle@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>

>Time to check your suckers.  Now KXLU sucks Big Time.

Could be--I haven't heard KXLU for a few years now, and probably it's
like most noncommercial college stations, its quality goes up and down
with the staff.

>The best station in America is KSPC, 88.7 in LA.

Likewise I haven't heard KSPC in a few years, but the last time I did
it was the classic model of a college station.  The programming spanned
the vast range from the best non-commercial radio has to offer (dj's
with interesting musical backgrounds and tastes programming shows in
ways you've never heard before) to the worst (dj's who would be better
off in the bathroom with the door locked).  KALX is much the same, as
was the station I used to work at in Seattle (KCMU).

That they play "Big Black, Sonic Effing Youth, Head of David, etc. etc.
etc." puts them squarely in line with just about every other reasonably
good college station in the country.  Check out the playlist in CMJ
sometime--it's sickening to see how well the Indie labels have managed
to do the same thing they harrangue the Majors about.  Everyone is
reading the same mags and playing the same records.  I don't mean in
any way to demean KSPC--KALX is essentially the same.  Hardly "rad."
Though KSPC is geographically in a "cultural backwater," we're all
linked up through the indie record scene.

Maybe getting a request for Big Black is news at KSPC, but BB (and
Sonic Youth, and all the other anti-culture darlings) are massively over-
requested (and overplayed) at KALX.  When someone calls and asks to hear
Stuff Smith--that's Godlike.

... gra dy   t oss
-- 

		"It's not as if it's brain surgery.  After all, it's only
		 rock 'n' roll drums."

		--Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees