[Leica] IMGs: The Face of Freeform Radio

[ricc at embarqmail.com (Ric Carter)]

okay--I'll give a listen everyday for a while;^)

ric


On Mar 16, 2009, at 2:35 PM, Jeff Moore wrote:

> 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
>
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