Thursday, March 25, 2004
post-show debriefing
I know. This is soooo late. And I don't have a good excuse for not doing this sooner. I just haven't felt like posting because I've been playing a lot of this new video game that I just got. I sold a bunch of used CDs that I've been meaning to sell, and one of the things that I got in exchange was NCAA Football 2003 for the Playstation.
It's been a shitload of fun to play. I'm not a real jock and don't take sports too seriously, but it's always interesting to see the Division 1-A college football ranking system in action. It's so fucked up. I just don't get it at all.
Anyway, one of the really cool things about that game is that you can create your own school team. So, I created a Cleveland State football team. Again, I'm not a jock, and I understand that college sports divert funds badly needed for education and the arts, but I think it would be great if CSU had a football team. CSU doesn't have a lot of prestige, and I have to admit that our great college radio station isn't really enough to totally put the school on the map. I'm tired of being a basketball school. Basketball just isn't as cool as football. Football is more exciting to watch. So, I think we'd get more recognition if we had a football team. Of course, it won't happen soon because CSU (and most other Ohio schools) are hurting for money, and the state just keeps cutting funding for education, causing tuition to rise. Argh! Who the fuck keeps electing Taft and all these goddamn Republicans?
But I digress. I made up my own videogame version of a CSU football team and got them all the way up to #6 and Middle American Conference champs (and Motor City Bowl champs) in their first season. They were undefeated, too. In the second season, though, we've lost a couple to higher-ranked teams (1st place Texas and 2nd place Tennessee), probably because I put the game's difficulty setting at the next highest level, I lost a lot of important star players to graduation, and we have a more challenging schedule. Anyway, it's the middle of the second season, and now they're #11 or 12 (can't remember which).
Oh, and I should also mention that I made it so that Pitt is CSU's official rival, although I wonder if I should have made it be Ohio State or Toledo instead.
And yes, the CSU team does play in Browns Stadium (or a close approximation of it, at least).
Now that's motherfucking fantasy football!
So, now I should talk about the show...
OMIGOD! _ speaks?! Yeah. But don't get the impression that the station management forced me to speak. It didn't get to that point. One of the executive staff people said that I'm probably doing a disservice to the bands that I play by not telling people their names so they can check out their recordings and see them if they come to town. And that's true. I do play some things that other shows in town don't play (how many shows do you know of that play Harry and the Potters?), so people may not realize what they're hearing. I would think that more people would have been able to come to this site and look at the playlist, though. Maybe my listenership is only in the double-digits now. Or people just didn't think my show was special enough for them to make the effort to check out my website when they were able to get to a computer.
Oh, and someone called after the show and wondered why I said, "We all do, shut the hell up!" at the end of the show. Well, I don't know if the microphone picked it up, but Eric (the guy who comes on after me) said, "I liked it better when you didn't talk!" He later said he was joking, but I don't care. I totally agree. I wish I didn't have to talk. I could have played a couple more songs if I hadn't talked. And remember that Pancakes song? By just hearing me announce the song, you didn't realize that she wasn't singing to an ATM. You found that out when you came to the site and saw the song title. I think I had a good thing going. I wish more people had responded and commented on this site here. If we had gotten one of the comment links up into the hundreds, I could have made the argument that enough people see the site for me to not have to come on the air. I hope that people weren't just lurking here and not posting.
Oh, and someone said that I should have the "synthesized babe voice" give full reviews of every song. Believe me, I would LOVE to do that, or at least have the voice announce the songs over the air. But if I want to have the voice say anything over the air, I have to produce it before the show. I can't do it during the show because we don't have an Internet-ready computer rigged to go over the board in main air.
Oh, and I wonder if this "Underdog in Underoos" is part of this "Underwear Underground" featured in Scene. Personally, I'm revolted to have an undiesonlyclub hipster listening to my show. I only desire the listenership of total geeks! Geeks rule! I want to marry a geek when I grow up!
Speaking of geeks... I guess I have to answer for Weezer. I'm surprised that I played them, too. But I did. I was into "alternative rock" when I was younger, and I totally ate up Weezer's album when it came out (while I was in middle school). So, tell me how the fuck they went from that to becoming known as an emo band. Their music hasn't changed significantly since their first album, except it got shittier and shittier over the years. I think they hit the sophomore slump with Pinkerton and just never recovered. Does this mean that any generic indie rock-sounding shit gets considered as emo now? Argh!
But anyway, a couple of months ago, I was listening to the DGC Rarities album a couple of months ago (probably because I wanted to hear the track where Sloan does those couple of Eric's Trip covers... and that Teenage Fan Club song on there is the only song by them that I really like), and "Jamie" came on. Instead of changing the track at disgust because I didn't want to have anything to do with emo, I let it play and I realized something. If Weezer never had the career they did, and the blue album just came out on an indie label today, Weezer would be considered indiepop. They've definitely got the pronounced '60s pop rock influence.
If only they hadn't gotten that major label deal right off. Maybe they would have been a better band.
So, I saw the blue album reissue in our new CDs section, and I tried it, and the unreleased tracks sound pretty good. That was a great version of "Undone" that I played on the latest show. So unprofessional, but the inherent catchiness of the song was still there.
I loved "Undone" while I was in middle school, by the way. The lyrical content is just so ridiculous, and I just caught onto that.
Oh, and if someone says they want your band to be the next Weezer... that's bad only because they shouldn't force your band to be something it's not.
Finally... I'll probably play more Lesley Gore in the future. She's an ancestor to twee music, so that's why it's good to listen to her.
Someone called and said it was cool that I began the show with the original version of "Look of Love" and then ended it with AGSFB's cover. You know what? I've been doing shit like that for a long time (beginning a show with a certain song and then ending it with a cover or alternate version) and no one had noticed or commented it before then.
I know. This is soooo late. And I don't have a good excuse for not doing this sooner. I just haven't felt like posting because I've been playing a lot of this new video game that I just got. I sold a bunch of used CDs that I've been meaning to sell, and one of the things that I got in exchange was NCAA Football 2003 for the Playstation.
It's been a shitload of fun to play. I'm not a real jock and don't take sports too seriously, but it's always interesting to see the Division 1-A college football ranking system in action. It's so fucked up. I just don't get it at all.
Anyway, one of the really cool things about that game is that you can create your own school team. So, I created a Cleveland State football team. Again, I'm not a jock, and I understand that college sports divert funds badly needed for education and the arts, but I think it would be great if CSU had a football team. CSU doesn't have a lot of prestige, and I have to admit that our great college radio station isn't really enough to totally put the school on the map. I'm tired of being a basketball school. Basketball just isn't as cool as football. Football is more exciting to watch. So, I think we'd get more recognition if we had a football team. Of course, it won't happen soon because CSU (and most other Ohio schools) are hurting for money, and the state just keeps cutting funding for education, causing tuition to rise. Argh! Who the fuck keeps electing Taft and all these goddamn Republicans?
But I digress. I made up my own videogame version of a CSU football team and got them all the way up to #6 and Middle American Conference champs (and Motor City Bowl champs) in their first season. They were undefeated, too. In the second season, though, we've lost a couple to higher-ranked teams (1st place Texas and 2nd place Tennessee), probably because I put the game's difficulty setting at the next highest level, I lost a lot of important star players to graduation, and we have a more challenging schedule. Anyway, it's the middle of the second season, and now they're #11 or 12 (can't remember which).
Oh, and I should also mention that I made it so that Pitt is CSU's official rival, although I wonder if I should have made it be Ohio State or Toledo instead.
And yes, the CSU team does play in Browns Stadium (or a close approximation of it, at least).
Now that's motherfucking fantasy football!
So, now I should talk about the show...
OMIGOD! _ speaks?! Yeah. But don't get the impression that the station management forced me to speak. It didn't get to that point. One of the executive staff people said that I'm probably doing a disservice to the bands that I play by not telling people their names so they can check out their recordings and see them if they come to town. And that's true. I do play some things that other shows in town don't play (how many shows do you know of that play Harry and the Potters?), so people may not realize what they're hearing. I would think that more people would have been able to come to this site and look at the playlist, though. Maybe my listenership is only in the double-digits now. Or people just didn't think my show was special enough for them to make the effort to check out my website when they were able to get to a computer.
Oh, and someone called after the show and wondered why I said, "We all do, shut the hell up!" at the end of the show. Well, I don't know if the microphone picked it up, but Eric (the guy who comes on after me) said, "I liked it better when you didn't talk!" He later said he was joking, but I don't care. I totally agree. I wish I didn't have to talk. I could have played a couple more songs if I hadn't talked. And remember that Pancakes song? By just hearing me announce the song, you didn't realize that she wasn't singing to an ATM. You found that out when you came to the site and saw the song title. I think I had a good thing going. I wish more people had responded and commented on this site here. If we had gotten one of the comment links up into the hundreds, I could have made the argument that enough people see the site for me to not have to come on the air. I hope that people weren't just lurking here and not posting.
Oh, and someone said that I should have the "synthesized babe voice" give full reviews of every song. Believe me, I would LOVE to do that, or at least have the voice announce the songs over the air. But if I want to have the voice say anything over the air, I have to produce it before the show. I can't do it during the show because we don't have an Internet-ready computer rigged to go over the board in main air.
Oh, and I wonder if this "Underdog in Underoos" is part of this "Underwear Underground" featured in Scene. Personally, I'm revolted to have an undiesonlyclub hipster listening to my show. I only desire the listenership of total geeks! Geeks rule! I want to marry a geek when I grow up!
Speaking of geeks... I guess I have to answer for Weezer. I'm surprised that I played them, too. But I did. I was into "alternative rock" when I was younger, and I totally ate up Weezer's album when it came out (while I was in middle school). So, tell me how the fuck they went from that to becoming known as an emo band. Their music hasn't changed significantly since their first album, except it got shittier and shittier over the years. I think they hit the sophomore slump with Pinkerton and just never recovered. Does this mean that any generic indie rock-sounding shit gets considered as emo now? Argh!
But anyway, a couple of months ago, I was listening to the DGC Rarities album a couple of months ago (probably because I wanted to hear the track where Sloan does those couple of Eric's Trip covers... and that Teenage Fan Club song on there is the only song by them that I really like), and "Jamie" came on. Instead of changing the track at disgust because I didn't want to have anything to do with emo, I let it play and I realized something. If Weezer never had the career they did, and the blue album just came out on an indie label today, Weezer would be considered indiepop. They've definitely got the pronounced '60s pop rock influence.
If only they hadn't gotten that major label deal right off. Maybe they would have been a better band.
So, I saw the blue album reissue in our new CDs section, and I tried it, and the unreleased tracks sound pretty good. That was a great version of "Undone" that I played on the latest show. So unprofessional, but the inherent catchiness of the song was still there.
I loved "Undone" while I was in middle school, by the way. The lyrical content is just so ridiculous, and I just caught onto that.
Oh, and if someone says they want your band to be the next Weezer... that's bad only because they shouldn't force your band to be something it's not.
Finally... I'll probably play more Lesley Gore in the future. She's an ancestor to twee music, so that's why it's good to listen to her.
Someone called and said it was cool that I began the show with the original version of "Look of Love" and then ended it with AGSFB's cover. You know what? I've been doing shit like that for a long time (beginning a show with a certain song and then ending it with a cover or alternate version) and no one had noticed or commented it before then.
