Sunday, July 08, 2007

Hooray for NPR!

I have lived with my wife in many locations. In fact, we are soon to be moving to Northern California to follow my job. Can you say ASAP?? More on that later. Egad!!!!!!

That said, I went to work this morning and heard 3 FM radio stations playing the Doors out of the 7 possible choices. Oh, yes, 2 were playing ZZ Top. And one had Breakfast with the Beatles. Why, God, why??? Much music has been made since 1970.

But when my wife and I lived in Iowa, we only had AM radio. Yes, I am an old fuck and FM was not popular and cars had no FM radios (remember fm converters? anyone?) and the best Cedar Rapids had was oldies and there was KUNI and one FM station out of Muscatine that was pretty good. The AM stations had hog reports and futures and high school football. Then you could drive across the state and hear NPR on AM and it had quirky songs you did not get on other stations. An aside, we drove from Colorado to Ohio this past autumn and heard OAR in Omaha and Natalie Zuckerman in Iowa.

In '93, I worked in Grand Junction and had to drive from Ft. Collins to Grand Junction weekly and you had better have a tape deck or listen to NPR. It kept you sane. The university station at Mesa was good but had a range of 10 miles and there was as a good station outside of Carbondale. The rest was "Classic Rock." I mean, how many times can you get a woody listening to Smoke on the Water? Oh yes, Rush would have been the liberal talk show host in Grand Junction at that time and the local Classic Rock station had its 3rd anniversary. Having been to GJ two years ago, it has entered the 21st century and has nice bistros, etc. downtown. Very Cool.

Fast forward to today--crappy choices on the radio and I hit KGNU and Radio 1190 and KRFC. All have live listening links and are worth a listen. The day started better as I heard Gogol Bordello as the first cut!!!! Yay! Something New. and if no NPR, there would be no joy.

Anyone know of good minor stations in between Sacramento and SF?

For your listening pleasure.

A good band out of Denver. happy day.

rojo

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