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12/13/2005 Archived Entry: "Radio"
Radio
Radio is the last refuge of entertainment. It's hard, as you move from place to place, to find good radio. By "good," I mean non-top 40 pop, hip-pop, AOR rock, or other fast food listening. I like talk radio as well, but with Howard Stern leaving for satellite, that will end in a few days (how many packages can we pay for on a monthly basis?). Still, I clung to the jewel of Detroit radio, WDET. Now that, too, has changed. The fantastic, eclectic radio of WDET (unmatched in most markets...Gainesville at 97x with the Dogboy was the tops for awhile, but that didn't last long...), is being replaced by standardized NPR programming. Some welcome the return of NPR basics, but I'm sorry to see not only the wonderful all day programming we've had, but the weekend blues and Sunday shows (Willie Wilson and John Penny's Candy Store). WDET has been the only place to hear new music, electronic and other, and to hear a variety of music. I do my best writing to that music. Odd to hear about the station's change just days after I watched the documentary on CKLW, the late '60s and early '70s Windsor/Detroit radio powerhouse that was influential in shaping taste. Taste, as the best Frankfurt School critics know, is largely shaped by a variety of institutions. If we were seeing our area shaped by old blues, electronica, new rock, local music, quality DJ and hip hop, now we will see it shaped yet again by the standards: programming done elsewhere, top 40 Burger King music. Even if it is NPR, it is still all day standard fare.
Replies: 6 comments
Wow, I thought I was the only person who listened to Stern before switching over to WDET. Most people see that as an irreconcilable conflict, but Stern's act, like everything else, eventually got old for me and I "modernized" by putting a tape player in my car, effectively cutting WDET out of the loop. When I'm at home I usually don't even bother turning on the radio or CD player or anything else.
There's enough noise in everyday life; every restaurant has some shit music turned up to 11, people are screaming at me while I'm at work, advertisers and street people are fighting for my attention and everybody else is plugged into an iPod or some other device that I really don't care enough about to even try to understand. If you gave me an iPod right now I couldn't see myself expending the energy needed to figure out how to turn it on.
Howard Stern and WDET are both unique and irreplaceable resources, but I can't say that I'll miss either one of them.
There's something about silence, or maybe just the television on low in the next room or an ocassional siren breaking the stillness, that I just can't get enough of.
Posted by Xilliam @ 12/20/2005 01:33 AM EST
It's not quite the same, but there is the public radio station I am proud to support, WEMU, on the dial at 89.1 and on the web at http://www.wemu.org It's a Jazz/Blues/News format. They have "Fresh Air" every day and "Car Talk" and "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" on the weekends, along with NPR's morning and evening news (and news on the hour, too). But the rest of the time it's mostly jazz and blues, with some different things thrown in. For example, the guy who used to do the "Folks Like Us" folk show on WDET moved over to WEMU-- it's on Saturday afternoons now. Anyway, it's what I listen to a lot.
Posted by Steve Krause @ 12/15/2005 07:48 AM EST
I know I'll miss Martin Bandyke. Even when I sometimes hated what he played I loved the quiet force of his sincerity. He was the opposite of ironic, and what an oasis that was. There are so many cds in my collection that I can trace to his show--Grandaddy, Mercury Rev, Spiritualized. The Decemberists. Even Luna, I think.
And the live in-studio performances he hosted were wonderful--even bands I didn't like. Sometimes I'd be driving home from UDM, and Bandyke would be playing some lame song by Canned Heat or Eric Clapton, and I'd turn him off and swear him off. But I knew it wasn't true. I'd be back. I always came back to listen. There's nothing good about having him gone.
Posted by Nick @ 12/13/2005 08:59 PM EST
Hmm. That is too bad. So, the mid-day music is now gone? Man. Time to get satallite radio, I think.
Posted by Jenny @ 12/13/2005 01:16 PM EST
It was on PBS a couple days ago...but I think it can be bought at the website too:
http://www.thebig8.net/
Posted by jeff @ 12/13/2005 11:08 AM EST
I had no idea this switch was coming. For me, best thing about WDET was the local music (happily, the station's main purveyor of local bands Liz Copeland's show will live on, albeit at friggin' midnight!). Some of the weekend shows have survived the switch, too, but, yeah, losing the weekday-free-form is the pits. I like channel surfing the AM politics-talk shows in VERY small doses, too. Hey, where can one find the CKLW doc?
Posted by Bill @ 12/13/2005 11:07 AM EST