January 27: Maize Mirchi

Today’s show features a live performance by U of M a cappella group Maize Mirchi. You can find out what they’re all about by having a listen.

I was thrilled by how well it turned out, especially seeing as this was my first time engineering a show, and I carried it out all by my lonesome. I was pretty nervous…I had help preparing all the mics and the soundboard, though, from some very skilled sound engineers at the station. Thanks, Tyler, Alex and Bryan!

See if you can identify the toy megaphone I used during the show.

And, of course, some insects make a guest appearance.

What a great day. I’ll miss WCBN in the coming weeks. Be back in a month!

January 20: Women in Blues hour

Soulful women, that’s all.

The station IDs at the beginning? Those are all Kristin and me. We let loose with a microphone the other night, so that we could have a variety of messages to intersperse throughout a preset remote broadcast.

January 13: First show of the new season

Kung Fu Kitty and Pope John Paul II are major highlights. Concludes with a musical saw.

Lissen.

By the way: Wednesday nights are the new black. For the next 4 months or so, I’ve got an hour-long slot every Wednesday night. Except February. I’ll be gone in February.

Tune in on Wednesdays, 6-7pm eastern, at WCBN’s live stream.

January 10: Pan-African Heartbeat and FCC violations

This show begins with a little over an hour of African music, since I subbed for a show called Pan-African Heartbeat.

The music continues with about another hour of whatever I damn well pleased. FCC “violations” on the radio become FCC bonuses between 10pm and 6am, and the final hour of my show happened to occur after 10pm…So it became my goal to play only risque, swear-infested songs. Luckily, James Rocker swung by and made sure things didn’t get out of line.

Put the kids to bed and enjoy the show.

December 23: Christmas semi-Extravaganza

I didn’t think I’d make it a Christmas show, and so I grabbed the usual motley assortment of musics from the shelves before going on the air…but our Christmas collection drew me in like a fat man to a chimney.

The show begins with a Calypso-Reggae Hanukkah/Christmas/Other theme. Then RuPaul leads us into the blues with her rendition of a Grinch song. Ohemgee you can never have enough Destiny’s Child, especially during the holidays. And Patti Smith puts the creepy in Christmas.

Yum.

December 9: Voiceovers

A DJ named Andrew does a show after Break Your Radio: Voiceovers. He invites poets and short story writers to the studio to read their works on the air. He chooses music to accompany their words. I thought that he should read his own work during his show. He thought so, too. Here it is.

We collaborated: I chose music for a couple poems, he chose music for the rest. He manned the mic, obviously, and I womanned the soundboard. I’ve got a new respect for him. It wasn’t easy to manage mic levels, music, words, simultaneously. The show was pretty well choreographed, well planned, totally fun.

December 9

Taste the Philippines. A brief trip to France. What does Christmas in the Congo sound like? Hear a garage band from Arkansas. Eat some blues. Listen to the show!

I also stuck in there a track from Cavalier Rose. I went to see them perform in town. Magnificent. Their album, I think, doesn’t entirely reflect the power of their performance. Think blues hardcore. During the last song, the vocalist screamed. Yes. screamed. I couldn’t even speak to the drummer after the show. Just made faces and gestures. I think she got the message. They were fantastic.

December 4: Adventures in subland

On Friday, I subbed for a fellow DJ who is recovering from an operation. Multiple crises occurred in the studio, which I fought to correct.

First, I accidentally stopped a pre-recorded broadcast which was being aired before my slot. oops. I played some other music while I fiddled with playing the last five minutes of the inadvertently truncated episode of Free Speech Radio News.

Then, the pre-recorded broadcast which I was assigned to supervise (“For the Record” with Dave Emory) became extremely scratchy, inscrutable, and unlistenable. I interrupted with a teeny bit of freeform radio, which you can here hear. which you can hear here.

December 2

Just another crazy station day.

Listen for herpetelogical wonders. And a “drum set”.

Break your radio.

November 25: World music

The station program director and I spent last night reorganizing the world music section. I discovered a buncha artists that looked interesting, and played em on today’s show. So. Lots o world music (minus African, Latin, and French).

Give it a listen.