My desk at work is not that exciting except for:

1. A platinum record given to us from Tommy Boy Records to commemorate the success of Naughty By Nature.

2. A 1986 SPIN Magazine award for WPRB’s excellence in keeping “it’s balance in the battle between free-form and format”.

3. Posters for No Age’s Nouns, Sonic Youth’s Goo, and Six Finger Satellite’s The Pigeon Is the Most Popular Bird.

4. A Quiet Riot promo photo. Come on, feel the noize!

Anyway, last week was our BMI logging. Though this is not so much a problem for me, I do make an effort to play stuff by independent bands (in the hopes they’ll get paid).

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One of the big projects I’ve been working on here at the station has been our Free Yr Radio event. Our concert with Secret Machines and DJ Dave P happens this Tuesday 8/12 at 6PM. It’s a free, all-ages event.

Full details can be found on the WPRB blog.

On Saturday 8/16, we’re sponsoring the Vivian Girls, CaUSE Co-MOTION!, Crystal Stilts, Home Blitz, FNU Ronnies event at Pilam. This is pretty much the show of the summer for me, and even if you don’t win tickets from the station, it’s only 5$.

Yup, it’s back. This month features interviews with No Age and The Breeders.

Pop Recon airs at 7-8PM ET on WPRB. If you miss it, the podcast version will go online in a week or so.

Things I remember about this show: talking about I find lobsters humorous, and that I enjoy yelling the phrase “CLAWS!” for no reason whatsoever. Yeah, I had a lot of fun on the air today!
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I love to check the spam filter. Here’s three I found particularly hilarious today, causing tears of laughter that could only be stopped after 5 minutes:

Subject: Jesus Christ To Star In Next Series Of Batman
Message: Polar Bear Finds Yoga Great For Flexibility, But Murder On The Balls

Subject: Release Of The Nancy Pelosi Sex Dvd Causes Mass Erectile Dysfunction In Us
Message: Old Man Dies Inside Paris Hilton

Subject: Madonnas Former Home Destroyed By Jesus
Message: Bush Down to 8 Friends on Myspace

As many of you know, I host the Top Ten show. When Pop Recon isn’t running, there’s a blank hour on the schedule that I fill with random music. Sometimes I’ll play records that are brand new to WPRB that week, sometimes I’ll do label tributes, etc. They’re not the best playlists, but it is a time for me to stretch out and do something fun that might not necessarily fit with Her Jazz. So enjoy.

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Leaving the office. July 24, 2008.

Technology is occasionally astounding. We are living in the age of Moore’s Law, indeed, and then some. It took me a year, one Hasselblad, lots of money and patience to do my Untitled Stills from New Jersey series. With one iPhone I can nearly replicate the same look and feel I was attempting to achieve.

Vacation, all I ever wanted! Yes, sometimes a little break can change things around for the better. I definitely felt back in the swing of things after. Big thanks to Mike Lupica (of WFMU) for coverin’ on my 7/10 show!

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After Motherwell. July 21, 2008.

It’s my birthday. A number that Counts. I strive to keep this blog free of personal business, which probably explains why I write less and less here. The problem isn’t that I don’t have much to say about music, technology, and so forth — otherwise I wouldn’t be a graduate student in this field — the problem is moreso that I wanted to steer clear of the ensuing drama. Let’s face it: you can’t have an opinion in this city without someone turning into a giant baby. And while I have been truly busy with work and school, a bunch of dumb motherfuckers have bullied me into writing less here. Such is the folly of a networked, globalized society — only some can dominate.

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» I am still reeling from two incredible interviews I taped with No Age and the Breeders this past week, to be featured on an upcoming epsiode of Pop Recon. Both bands couldn’t have been better people to simply talk with. And if I told my teenage self that I’d get to sit in a huddle with the Breeders, she would flip. (OMG, I remember staying up to watch this!) I think I’m taping something with Broken Social Scene and/or the Duchess & the Duke this week too. So busy! The most recent Pop Recon is online for your listening pleasure, BTW.

» Attended the Independents Day Conference hosted by the Philly chapter of the Recording Academy, and as mentioned before, spoke on a panel about radio. I felt like a fish out of water because unlike most places, I get to play whatever I want when I want. I can only hope that I offered up some useful advice. Places like WPRB, WXPN, WFMU and the like remind us that radio isn’t “dead”; most of what happens at radio stations is that a lot of (well, nearly all) energies are misdirected. I have many more things to say about this, but perhaps I’ll talk about ‘em another time.

I can’t lie: I was troubled by the digital panel. Was it about blogging, PR in the Age of the Internet or digital distribution? Wait, it was all three. The moderator did quite good job at trying to straddle all three and made some really good links, but IMHO all three topics deserve their own respective panels. Anyway, gotta mention at how wowed I was by everything Stephanie Renee had to say. Amazing on top of amazing.

» I definitely noticed that many of the questions asked up by the audience in the stuff I attended were of the “How do I do x?” nature. Though panels and breakout groups are designed to address these kinds of situations, is there anything else to help disseminate basic information, and to make sure that people aren’t rewriting the wheel each time around?

» I was bummed that I missed out on the legal and more business/financial panels — they’re always incredibly useful. Also, it’s nice to get out of the clusterfucky world of new/old/mass media. (Maybe that’s why I found Bruce Pavitt’s portion of the Sub Pop PF piece was so satisfying?)