Wednesday, March 14, 2007

project 365 #73: tree by biltimore forest ingles

Why doesn't Asheville have a decent alternative radio station? Preach to me not of WNCW, oh my brothers and sisters, for I have been stalwart and yet finally, the twang and the jazz have defeated me. There is only so much bluegrass anyone can take and my limit has been reached; besides, they play jazz all the damn time now along with that horrific 1940s cowboy music and I can just no longer pretend I'm cool enough to enjoy it. I'm not that cool and I hate jazz. I hate swing even more and fashionable faux swing? First up against the wall when I become the evil overlord. I'm terminally uncool and I want to hear what was called, back in the day, rock n' roll music. All day long at work on the computer I listen to WFUV out of New York and I weep when they play music I can't hear locally and cheer when they play the traffic and weather because, thank the gods, I haven't lived in New York in well over a decade.

Seriously, though, it sucks. I was stuck in traffic on the goddamn McDowell Street bridge for like 15 interminable minutes this evening attempting to go visit my mother and I had a choice of boingety boingety twang twang jazzgrass on WNCW, Behind Blue Eyes on the clone classic hits radio station (Noone knows what it's like to be the sad man. . . yes. Yes they do. All 50 million of them who have been forced to listen to that fucking pathetic song thousands of times over and over on classic "we can't be bothered to own more than 10 CDs" rock radio, corporate whores of the demonocracy) and car ads on the other station. Or jesus. I could always listen to some asshole telling me about jesus, but he doesn't love me and I like it that way, thanks.

To add insult to injury, I dragged all my old cassettes out of the house and back into the car which, among other things, dumped dust and grime all over my black pants, only to discover that the cassette deck makes everything wobble and shake even more heinously than I, no serious audiophile, can stand. I mean, can you believe it? You don't clean a cassette deck for 10 years and then try to play a bunch of crusty 15 year old cheap ass cassettes on it and it's all wobbly? No pride in craftsmanship, I swan. So I'm in the market for a tape deck cleaner; I can so totally imagine how many of those there are around now. If you have one, I need it. I have a Men At Work tape from 1982 that's dying to be heard on Hendersonville Road.

6 comments:

Edward said...

wpvm 103.5 has great music programs at night after 9pm, but I rarely listn during the day, when you are likely to be stuck in area traffic.

mygothlaundry said...

But I can only get WPVM if I happen to be sitting in front of the station and sometimes, not then!

Anonymous said...

Oh, Felicity, you make me laugh so hard I spewed...

coffee on my keyboard.

Sorry I won't make it to Asheville in April when everyone else goes.

Anonymous said...

You need some kind of tech-savvy archivist who knows how to make MP3s out of tapes and records and such.

I dunno where you'd find anyone like that, though.

(actually, I have a portable MP3/CD player I'm not using if you want it. email me. ;)

Edward said...

I can get WPVM pretty good at my house with one of those "T" shaped wire antenna things attached to the stereo. Some of the evening shows rank up with the best I've heard, including college radio in Boston, which was excellent. But I might like more experimental stuff than you. You can also stream it on your PC, and many of the shows are archived and can be downloaded and played later on your PC.

I thought about an offer to trade you installing a brand new cassette stereo in your car for that painting I love. I don't know if you can even buy a tape playing car stereo anymore... :(

Shad Marsh said...

If you can spare an extra $12 a month there is XM radio. I got it as a present a year or so ago and at first I thought "oh great a present that I have to pay for" but now I listen the hell out of it.