Pictures
No, seriously, it is!
You may be saying, “It’s boring. There’s nothing good on AM!” or, quite possibly, “It’s all talk, that doesn’t interest me.”
Well, I beg to differ! Please, pull up your eyelids and let me explain.
FM for the most part is music, right? I’m a fairly serious musician, and I really appreciate listening to other music. I find it a good way to expand my influences while writing my own songs. Well, I really mean steal riffs for my own songs. That’s really what musicians mean when they say “influence”…puts a new spin on things, eh? Anyway, to get back on topic.
It didn’t take long to realize that the few stations in Detroit that play modern music really don’t play much music! Yep, they don’t play much at all. At least in terms of actual content.
Most stations have a 40-or-so long track loop. I found this out from a friend-of-a-friend who happens to work at 101.1 WRIF. He told me that every week, the station sets a playlist partially determined by the Top 40 charts, and they run with it. He’s worked at a few stations in Detroit, and also a few out of town in different states. According to him, just about all stations work this way. Don’t believe me? Try listening to 101.1 for a few hours and not hear Billy Idol.
Well, so much for variety, eh? Just a little thinking comes up with the fact that the whole country is listening to roughly the same 40 songs. Booooreeee-iinnng. Granted, there is the occasional good program, like Big Sonic Heaven on 96.3 Sunday nights, but shows like that are few and far between.
Now, I can’t speak for you. But personally I couldn’t eat the same food every day, or wear the same clothes every day. I certainly couldn’t the say same thing to the same people and perform the exact same routine every day. I’d go crazy. I guess it’s the same with the music I listen to. So, how do I rectify the problem? With a CD player of course!
But lately my CD player has been acting funny. Most of the music I like to listen to is from local bands, and they make stuff on CD-R’s. I don’t think my car CD player likes CD-R’s because it skips when I hit the gas. Not, bumps–but the gas. Go figure.
I can’t bear to listen to FM anymore, so I began to listen to AM radio. At first, I listened to AM 950, which in Detroit is a superb news/traffic/weather station. If you’re in your car, it’s great to hear traffic updates ever 10 minutes. After a while I got a little bored started venturing around the dial. There is some truly horrible stuff, like country.. but then I found the “holy grail”, so to speak:
Christian Radio.
Damn, is this stuff cool. Have you ever really listened to it? These people are nuts! It reminds me of milita propaganda. Some of the stuff they talk about is amusing. Some examples:
- “…so I was wondering why we–as Catholics–can’t eat animals with split hooves?” And then the show’s host then goes on to a 10-minute explanation, following with an argument whether pigs have split hooves or not. Awesome!
- “…we as Chrisitans, must realize that Jesus and God are the bridegroom. They are one in holy spirit.” I don’t want to know about that one.
And, besides where else can you hear cool words like “eucharist”, “rapture”, and “condemned” all the time?
Well, maybe Christian radio isn’t your thing. There’s plenty more stuff to listen to, it just takes some looking! I’ve got most of these programmed into my car radio, so I don’t remember the frequencies.. but here’s some shows I found that are awesome:
- A show that works with callers to contact their dead pets.
- Conspiracy radio, specializing in cow mutilations, ufo’s and Area 51.
- Art Bell… the guy is psycho.
Besides, half the fun is finding stuff by accident.
So, next time you’re in your car… give it a shot. Go head, punch that “AM/FM” button and start slowly crusing around the dial. I found out most of the shows get even better at night. You won’t be missing much on FM, other than maybe another Korn-clone band bitchin’ about cookies.
Further information and related links:
WWJ News Radio 950 (Michigan)Radio show about dead pets, UFOs, etc.
Please, send all spams, flames and complaints to billg@msn.com. Seriously, please understand that this is a personal point of view (not necesarily yours or mine). However, I must admit that I am an AM Radio addict now, too.
- Brian Downey
The first of these was my Pet Rock theory. (Stay with me for a bit on this one…) In 1975 Gary Dahl thought to himself, “Pet… rock… Pet Rock!” He then proceeded to place a rock into a box with “air holes” and sell it. Instead of being put into an asylum, this guy became rich selling chunks of petrified dirt in a nice box to the general public.
Why did people buy these things?! Was there some kind of special prize in the boxes or maybe a contest to win some cash? Nope. They just bought them because everyone else had one. Something deep inside the human mind tells us that if somebody buys something (or more accurately, if many people buy something) that we don’t have there must be a good reason to buy it. We then happily dig into our hard earned monetary reserves and fork over the cabbage for the new product X.
This theory can be applied to many of the most popular consumer products on the market today. For illustrative purchases we will consider the following two cultural icons: Microsoft ®™ Windows ®™ and the omnipresent urban assault vehicle, better known as the Sport Utility Vehicle (aka Sport Ute, SUV).
Neither of these products popularity is based on their features nor their value. It simply comes down to an “I’ll use it because the Joneses use it!” Well, here’s a news flash:
The Joneses use it because the Smiths use it. The Smiths use it because the Johnsons use it. So on and so forth.
Brilliant, eh? Yup, we’re a bunch of upright-standing, bipedal lemmings lining up to run off the consumer marketplace cliff.
There are plenty of better alternatives. SUVs get horrible gas mileage, handle poorly under the most modest of driving conditions, takes up unnecessary space, and are a safety threat to those that wish to be remotely sensible. Windows is bloated, performs poorly under many simple computing tasks, takes up unneccesary ram and is a security threat to every administrator using it! (Conclusion: Windows is the SUV of the software market.)
I guess in the end, it’s not what you’re selling but how you sell it. SUVs are backed by the best promotions, flashy auto show presentations, and powerful commercial imagery. The same goes for Windows.
Eventually, we as a race will come back down to earth and realize that individual thought is more powerful than mass media campaigns and majority rule. It may take five-dollar-per-gallon gas and the breakup of Microsoft to happen, but it will. Nothing can be supported forever by empty features and hype. Except for the next big fad.
