My SO Hopes for a Near-Future Headline Reading "JACK Off"

[tmcg]

So on Friday I drove to a semi-nearby Babies R Us store to pick up a registry gift for a baby shower. The radio was playing the Coasters. It was playing good oldies. Stuff you just don't hear on other stations anymore, the way you mostly don't hear standards since WNEW-AM died. Traffic started to thicken as I neared my destination, because I hadn't left early enough and I was starting to hit an infusion of rush hour. When I got out of the store and back in the car and was paying attention to the radio again, it was playing "Just Another Manic Monday." Huh? I hadn't changed the station. I thought I was listening to CBS. Home of good oldies. Home of the resoundingly reverbed Cousin Brucie. But the station identification insisted that I was listening to ... JACK.

On Saturday evening, we were driving back from the baby shower and post-shower reception at the house, and on "Idiot's Delight" Vin Scelsa was delivering an impassioned eulogy for WCBS-FM and playing "Another One Bites the Dust." The oldies died as of five o'clock on Friday. JACK is just another pop-mix station. And oh boy. I was there at its debut.

Comments

[ogre-san.livejournal.com]

Sigh. We had to go to XM radio to get a decent oldies station.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

The Repubicans canned the original FCC act which specified the airwaves for public use and exploitation. The make the religious whack job that came after the di'Medici in Florence seem like a fine tolerance cosmopolitan multicultural fellow.

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

A few people in this family have been toying with the XM radio idea, but no one's gone for it yet.

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

Yes, this totally sucks--though Cousin Brucie (who I've been listening to for over 40 years--yes, you could pick up WABC in DC at night, or in the daytime in Delaware when we went to the beach) has vowed to return...

Maybe WFMU will give him a slot?

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

I did hear that he'd vowed to return, and I am hopeful!

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

I read a day or two ago that he's making a deal with Sirius satellite radio. I'm glad for him, but until sat. radio becomes cheaper + standard equipment in cars (and taxis!), he'll be missed...

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

It might still be possible for him to broadcast on Sirius and an AM or FM station; Jonathan Schwartz has been on both XM Radio and WNYC for a while now. I think he was on NYC first, though, and continuously--must look and see if there's any history of it online.

The problem with satellite radio is having to choose. If Schwartz left NYC, I'd want to go with XM, but I'd want Sirius for Cousin Brucie. Arg.

[thirdstreet.livejournal.com]

Oh crap! Not another "Jack" station! We have one here in Toronto. It's just another pre-fabricated Clearchannel station. My condolences.

In all honesty, I no longer listen to radio other than the CBC and NPR. If I want music, I can stream one of hundreds of selections on iTunes and get stuff that I really enjoy. But I do miss being able to drive along in a car and tune in a station that has character and isn't just another pre-packaged joke with the same playlist and canned station IDs as a thousand other stations polluting the airwaves.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

The Schmuck in the Oval Orifice (Ralph on the white telephone, if only he and all his associates could be flushed away....) has been packing the agency that presides over public broadcasting, with the intent of eradicating any "news" but rite ringer theocratics on it.

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Local character in AM/FM radio is something I already miss. It's still there, but not the way it used to be. It would be nice if satellite radio encouraged a resurgence of it.

[remaines.livejournal.com]

There was a thing on NPR about JACK today. (Go here (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4684366) to listen to the story.) The Billboard guy they interviewed called it "oldies for young people," and touted the format's larger-than-average playlist. The thing I was surprised not to hear them say is that a big reason radio formats are changing is (IMO) the iPod and similar devices: when you can carry a playlist of thousands of songs in your pocket, you don't need radio to provide that for you anymore.

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Radio has that "live" feel, though. Can't get that from CDs or mp3s. The feeling that you have company in the car through a long late-night drive, say, or in the office when you're working in isolation. I don't know how much of that satellite radio provides, since I've never listened to it. Or how much live-discussion content satellite radio provides, which is something you can only get from broadcast until iPods start streaming Internet radio.

The pop radio stations' playlists amount to a relatively constrained selection of tunes on Random Play on a portable, with the value added of ticket giveaways, DJ chitchat, traffic reports, and so on. I wonder if the ultimate effect of portable music on broadcast stations will be to make that live (and local) aspect of AM/FM more important than the musical entertainment. It'll be morning shows all day long--mostly talk, personalities, traffic, with a song slid in now and then.

I miss being able to find as much interesting music on the radio as I used to. It's still easier (and IMO more fun) to play around with the dial and stumble on something new and intriguing than it is to poke around the offerings online.

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's more than the music, though that's certainly part of it. Cousin Brucie, Harry Harrison, et al. didn't just spin the platters; they knew it inside out, could tell you interesting things about it, what local artists were up to. Cousin Brucie even has his own jingle recorded especially for him by the Four Seasons!

BTW, I'm proofreading a book you copy edited right now...

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's such a great point! The anecdotes and information a good DJ provides add so much to the experience. Not to mention the DJ's personality. Gah, now I'm mourning this whole trend even more.

Neat, re the book. :)