In the blink of an eye, we transition from a "very special" Bombast to a very regular Bombast. With Prince Far-I safely ensconced in the Hall of Legends, we turn to "new" music. However, we grapple with an old problem.
When we left off, the airplay computer was refusing to reboot. This meant that I might have to remain in the studio, indefinitely, until someone came to take over, which, on Saturday night, might be "not at all." Shades of "ironic punishment"--five months ago, I was really desperate to get on the radio,...
In the blink of an eye, we transition from a "very special" Bombast to a very regular Bombast. With Prince Far-I safely ensconced in the Hall of Legends, we turn to "new" music. However, we grapple with an old problem.
When we left off, the airplay computer was refusing to reboot. This meant that I might have to remain in the studio, indefinitely, until someone came to take over, which, on Saturday night, might be "not at all." Shades of "ironic punishment"--five months ago, I was really desperate to get on the radio, wasn't I?
You will be delighted to know that I have been doing some math and would like to share it with you. At the old station, I was on the air from roughly the beginning of April, 1987 until roughly the beginning of January, 1993--let's say 300-305 weeks. Airtime "shifts" at the station were 3 hours instead of 2. I never missed a show, except for maybe 3 or 4 times that I can think of (vacations and such). And I subbed a lot and took up available time during term breaks. You see where this is going, right? It's not inconceivable that I did upwards of 1000 hours on-air, and
I couldn't get on air enough for my liking.
The difference between then and now, as I like to consider it, is that now I have "standards." I'll give you a second to stop chortling. You back? Okay, good. Anyway, two hours a week is normally plenty of time to fill these days; it is better to have "overflow" and leave the one or two people who actually want more wanting more.
But it is hard to run a radio station, you guys. Every day at WRFI there is some kind of existential clusterfuffle. Will the transmitter go down? Will one of our hosts go off the rails? Will we lose the guest network in-studio, or remote desktop access, or both? Will the Pacifica webstream fail us? When is the user guide going to be finished? Can you be present for a very important meeting that happens in two hours but wasn't even a figment of anyone's imagination until five minutes ago? And so on. It got to the point this week that I was starting to forget about why I got into this in the first place, and then some free airtime appeared in front of me, and it looked like extra scoops of ice cream.
Of course what had to happen is that the airplay computer would go down, and that the culprit would be one of, oh, about 2400 different file systems on the hard drive. This occupied about the last 40 minutes of the previous show and the first 80 or so of this one, until yours truly made a barely-informed guess that somehow managed to work. So we live to fight another day.
The one real triumph of this particular broadcast is that a new, irregular, and unofficial segment, "Bombast vs. iTunes," gets off the ground, with round one going to me. Any day I can run "Physical Evidence" and play new music at the same time is a good day. Round Two is already underway, and we should have the results April 27. Won't you please tune in.
BOMBAST playlist, 2013 April 13, 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.:
- Dub Spencer & Trance Hill: "Im Westen Nichts Neues" [Echo Beach]
- Colomach: "Ottoto Shamoleda" [Soundway]
- John Cameron: "Swamp Fever" [Strut]
- Johnny Pearson: "Assault Course" [Strut]
- Alan Hawkshaw: "Senior Thump" [Strut]
- Omar and the String-Poppers: "My Baby Don't Breathe" [BBE]
- The Phantom: "Love Me" [BBE]
- The Night Raiders: "Cottonpickin'" [BBE]
- The Scarlets: "Stampede" [BBE]
- Flea Bops: Ronnie, Preston, Wendy and Lance: "Good Time Woman" [BBE]
- Wayne Walker: "All I Can Do Is Cry" [BBE]
- 50 Foot Wave: "Radiant Addict" [Not On Label] / "Listening Parlour"
- The Feeling of Love: "I Could Be Better Than You But I Don't Wanna Change" [Born Bad]
- British Sea Power: "K-Hole" [Rough Trade]
- Rocketnumbernine / Four Tet: "Roseland" [Text] / "Physical Evidence"
- No Joy: "Hare Tarot Lies" [Mexican Summer]
- Lapalux: "Straight Over My Head" [Brainfeeder]
- Keith Mansfield: "Incidental Backcloth No. 3" [Strut]
- Alan Parker: "Unlimited Love" [Strut]
- William Farley / Dennis Bovell: "Reggae Train" [Strut]
- Wareika Hill Sounds: "Free the People" [Honest Jon's]
- Rocketnumbernine / Four Tet: "Metropolis" [Text] / "Physical Evidence"
- RxGibbs: "Contact" [Cascine]
- Tom Waits: "Hoist That Rag" [Anti-] / "Listening Parlour"
- Wire: "Eels Sang" [Pinkflag]
- Big "T" Tyler: "Sadie Green" [BBE]
- The Recalls: "Nobody's Guy" [BBE]
- Link Wray and his Wray Men: "Run Chicken Run" [BBE]
- McKinley Mitchell: "Rock Everybody Rock" [BBE]
- Corky Jones: "Hot Dog" [BBE]
- The Imps: "That'll Get It" [BBE]
- Errors: "The Village" [Mojo Magazine]
- Les Fils du Calvaire: "Femme d'affaires" [Because Music]
- Kinski: "Let Me Take You Through My Thought Process" [Kill Rock Stars]
next time: we hijack the Parade. Enjoy the music! --kid catharsis
