Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/03/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]2009-03-16-09:37:32 Ric Carter: > looks like a real interesting event! > > I'll give a listen today Cool! WFMU can be an acquired taste, because all the shows are so different -- since it's a true freeform radio station, each DJ plays whatever he or she wants. So if you dip into the broadcast at any random time, there's an excellent chance you'll find something you just don't care for at all; but when you find a DJ whose tastes have enough in common with yours that you're sucked in, it's far more engaging than the dreary playlist radio which has taken over the commercial airwaves. But there's something really cool: they keep archives of all the shows (for two weeks in pretty-nice-sounding 128Kbps MP3 streams, forever at lower quality). So if you figure out whose shows you like, you can just dip in and listen at your convenience. http://wfmu.org/recentarchives.php http://wfmu.org/playlists For instance: Monica (who was, and maybe still is, a big-time record producer in a different genre) http://wfmu.org/playlists/ML just has superb musical taste (in my opinion, of course), and tends to play melodic sorts of things. Not too "kids-today" challenging. But not dull either. Doug Schulkind http://www.wfmu.org/Playlists/Doug/ usually plays percussion-driven acoustic music, most often jazz or maybe Brazilian or suchlike. Laura Cantrell's "Radio Thrift Shop" is generally bluegrass, golden-age country, Texas swing, and like that: http://wfmu.org/playlists/RT Laura's a successful recording artist in her own right -- although you wouldn't know it from her show, because WFMU's strict no-plugging policy forbids people from flogging their own projects on-air. Ken Freedman, the station manager, does a brilliant kind-of-high-energy show with lots of mashups and bits of music you might otherwise find quite annoying (and, okay, you may anyway), but somehow his sensibilities, and his his comedic timing make it work for me. http://wfmu.org/playlists/KF That's Ken's Wednesday-AM show. Wednesday evenings (US-Eastern), Ken and Andy Breckman (longtime comedy writer, including a stint at Saturday Night Live; creator of "Monk") team up to do "Seven Second Delay", wherein each week they come up with a flawed premise for a show, set it in motion, and watch it fail. http://wfmu.org/playlists/SD Irene Trudel tends to play beautiful-sounding (if low-energy) acoustic music, much of which she engineers herself in live sessions: http://wfmu.org/playlists/IT Lessee... some guys who do good straight-ahead rock shows are Bill Mac (longtime Philadelphia radio guy) and Frank O'Toole: http://wfmu.org/playlists/BM http://wfmu.org/playlists/FX and there's much much more; I've just mentioned things which happen to match up with the quirks of my taste, and which haven't just slipped my mind. There're shows which specialize in high-energy club music, throbbing metal, playing Edison cylinders(!), whatever. Note that if you're dipping into the archives, shows from 2 March through 15 March will be from the fundraising time -- there's an addictive carnival atmosphere to Marathon shows, but they won't be representative of the station's character most of the year. Plenty of information at the station's main website: http://wfmu.org/ My pictures of goings-on related to the station: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbm0/collections/72157604797305717/ This is pretty cool: because of the great shows (and because they've remained ahead of the curve in web services), the station has an international following. Here's a map of where this year's Marathon contributions came from: http://www.wfmu.org/marathon/map.php -Jeff