Blog
Radio with personality
Thursday 22 March 2007
I realized the other day why I don’t listen to web-radio, at least for music. I miss the personalities.
Wall-to-wall music with no interruptions is all very good if you want texture, some colour for your mental environment, but if I want texture I usually resort to music that’s already familiar to me. If I’m listening to something new, I want to be able to give it the attention it’s due. I want to know about the music and who created it. (Now, some channels do give you ways of checking what it is you’re listening to, but they involve flipping between listening and reading.) As well, most specialty stations stick to a particular genre or era, and I like to be surprised.
You know who I miss? John Peel. And David Wisdom’s Nightlines. Both of them played a crazy range of music - in an hour of Peel’s show you might hear punk, happy hardcore, indie rock, grime, ‘60s psychedelia… all intermingled with tracks from his trademark Peel Sessions, recorded by some up-and-coming (or established) band. Nightlines had a gentler flow to it: Canadian indie early on, ranging into electronica, jazz, comedy, and more far-out stuff after midnight. In either case, you never knew quite what you were in for.
But what held it all together was the personalities of the hosts. Peel, who usually hosted the broadcasts from his home, was hilariously witty, self-deprecating, often slightly befuddled by technology - especially when he had to work out of the BBC studios. He was legendary for accidentally playing vinyl at the wrong speed and correcting the matter a minute or two into a song. Bemused by a record label’s championing of “intelligent drum and bass”, he remarked, “Personally I think I should prefer stupid drum and bass.”
David Wisdom was warm, knowledgeable, a keen supporter of Canadian music, prone to giving out CBC Vancouver’s mailing address using a different spelling alphabet every time (“V as in vehement - six - B as in barnacle…”) Over the course of Nightlines’ run he worked his way through his collection of 45s playing one single by each artist, ten per weekend, in alphabetical order (it took nearly a decade).
And he involved the audience: he regularly played theme tunes for the show recorded and sent in by fans. He took requests via an answering machine, but always asked an offbeat “skill-testing question”. Over time, he built up a contingent of regular listeners, until it felt like you were part of a community just by listening. Some even made the leap to programming an “Hour of Power”, an hour of music and words selected by a listener - and sometimes co-hosted by that listener, if they were in the area. “Co-creation”? “User-generated content”? David was there twenty years ago.
Interesting to compare Brave New Waves, the other late-night Radio 2 music show - which has now been cancelled as well, sadly. Patti Schmidt, and Brent Bambury before her, were cool… maybe a little too cool. They wouldn’t go two songs without coming on and telling you all about the band and the label - which I loved, especially in the pre-Internet era. But BNW always felt like such a serious show, a newsmagazine more than a comfy night in someone’s living room listening to tunes.
Peel died in 2004, leaving behind a great musical legacy. David Wisdom is very much alive and currently hosts something called Pearls of Wisdom, which is fun but far too short, with much more of a light Radio Two format…
Every once in a while I stumble across a radio show with a DJ who shows the same sort of love for the music, who gets into it and tells you all about this artist or that album… but usually they’re genre shows: the best blues, the best jazz, world music, classic rock. I want something that will expose me to crazy new music, unclassifiable music, music that time has forgotten. And I want the warmth of real human voices, connecting me to a community of listeners, reminding me that I’m not just listening to a playlist cooked up by a machine… that these songs matter.
In this crazy cross-connected Internet age, I’m sure there’s something out there. Know any good ones?
Comments
Funny, isn’t it? One reason I don’t pay as much attention to music as I used to is because I don’t have the same amount of leisure time. Or rather, I suppose I do, but I fill it up with other projects and activities that I can’t listen to music while doing.
Strangely, work (my job) is where I get MOST of my music listening done. I’ve filled up the iPod, and I set it to randomly play any songs that haven’t been played in the last three months.
Other than that, the only time I really get to listen to music is while getting into drag…and since my apartment’s walls are so thin, I can no longer “blast it.”
Posted by Muffy St. Bernard on 26 March 2007 at 3:47 PM
Same here. I have the most time to listen to music at work. But I can’t listen to new stuff very often because it’s just too distracting… and likewise, I won’t be able to give the music the attention it deserves.
The irony, of course, is that I pretty much have to listen to music at work. We don’t have any walls in the office, so slapping the headphones on is the only surefire way to signal “I’m busy now and don’t want to be distracted.”
(I had a hell of a time trying to explain this to my dear aunt, who was aghast that her co-worker listened to his own music at the office, and would not be convinced that it was ever acceptable.)
Posted by Eli McIlveen on 26 March 2007 at 7:24 PM
Even two or three years ago it wasn’t acceptable here, but somehow portable music players have made it not just acceptable but the norm. Besides being a way of signalling that you’re busy (and also of blocking out noise from other people), I suppose it could be a bit anti-social too.
Our department (Docs) is the quietest one in the company, because 3/4 of us listen to music which we work. The fourth is just quiet because there’s nobody to talk to. :)
At my uncle’s funeral, I was aghast that my nephew wore his iPod with one headphone pulled out. While that’s probably still extreme, I’m amazed when I see teenagers walking down the street, having a conversation, each with one ear blocked by ab iPod headphone.
So I suppose I’m like your aunt too. I cannot take anybody seriously if they’re trying to talk to me with one or both ears headphone’d.
Posted by Muffy St. Bernard on 27 March 2007 at 3:41 PM
Well, that I can understand. I sometimes feel like a bit of a goof running around in public with my earphones in.
Wonder if they’ll grow out of it, or if it’s partly a genuine, generational thing. I never really paid attention until now, so I can’t say how far back this dates. Does it boil down to how “modern kids can handle much more stimulation and in fact demand it”?
I think I may turn this into a post of its own…
Posted by Eli McIlveen on 27 March 2007 at 5:04 PM
I miss David Wisdom and his Nightline and Pearls of Wisdom. I hope the CBC realise one day what a crime they have committed. Do you know what David is up to now? Is he broadcasting somewhere else?
Posted by Chris Spencer on 11 February 2010 at 3:25 AM
I don’t listen to radio enough to find good radio personalities…in fact I don’t listen to radio at all.
But since you worked so much with community radio, I’m sure you have lots of insights into the weirdness of no-genre shows, which are the sort of shows you (and I too) like the most.
I too want to be exposed to new (or old) interesting things: exceptional or curious music regardless of genre.
On CKMS I spent many years doing a show that I assumed was like that; I’d play whatever struck me, with an emphasis on the unusual or the non-trendy.
But soon I realized why I’d never built up a following of more than one or two people: most folks don’t turn on the radio because they want to be informed or challenged, they turn on the radio because they want to be gently entertained…which means, they want to know what they’ll hear, and they like to hear the same songs (and type of songs) they heard last time.
With a large enough demographic, a show like that can survive (if not thrive). But here in Waterloo I felt like I was only pleasing a small proportion of the already small listenership, and that more people would enjoy the show if it had a theme.
So having said all that, I admit that I wouldn’t turn to radio to be informed or challenged either. I feel like I’m informing and challenging myself: there’s already more wonderful music out there than I can possibly hear, appreciate, and buy. Listening to a “here’s cool music you might be interested in” radio show would stress me out by telling me how much MORE wonderful stuff there is…
Posted by Muffy St. Bernard on 25 March 2007 at 8:34 PM