I’m listening to my favorite radio show in the world at the moment, and my favorite DJ is playing “One Step Up,” from Tunnel of Love, the only Bruce Springsteen album that I can claim to love unequivocally.* The show has been great from beginning to end today. Listening to it cost me money (had to order the new Bettie Serveert record after John played a song from it, and somewhat to my surprise, I ordered the new one by Low, a band I’d always dismissed becauase I hated–and in this case, that’s not too strong a word–their first album and the live show I saw around that time. But a guy on one of the music lists I’m no longer on persuaded me to listen to a couple of tracks from an advance he had, and I liked them quite well. Then John played a song from the just-released record this morning; I’d been away from my desk, and came back in the middle of the song, and liked it so much that I checked his playlist right away to see what it was. When it turned out to be Low, I decided to take a chance on the record, even though I’m trying not to buy records unless I’m either already familiar with them or close to certain that I’ll love them–all part of the effort to buy fewer CDs.
Anyway, in spite of the fact that it cost me money, I loved today’s show, like every other week’s show, and it occurred to me that though I try to mention the show as often as I can when I post to various lists (which isn’t a very effective tactic right now since I’m under a self-imposed moratorium on e-mail list reading or posting–more on that later, I think), I still don’t mention it often enough.
So here’s a plug for it: Memphis to Manchester, on KDHX, Thursday mornings from 8 to 10 a.m. That first link will take you to a brief description of the page and the most recent playlist; you can also look at archived playlists. As you’ll see, it mixes soul, indie rock, twang, and related music for people with wide-ranging tastes. KDHX is a fine community station in St. Louis, but they stream live, so you can listen wherever you are if you’re near a computer at that early hour. I listen to various excellent Net radio broadcasts, from the BBC to KEXP, but this is by far my favorite show, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Put it on your calendar and listen to it every Thursday if you possibly can.
And that’s today’s plug.
*I still love Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, but even now, nearly 26 years after I graduated from high school, there’s weird high-school-era baggage attached to those records, because there were so many Bruce–make that BROOOOOCE–obsessives in my high school, people who really thought they were Bruce Springsteen, pretty much, and overexposure to Bruce via those people and via NYC radio made it impossible for me to listen to him at all for many years. That’s meant that there are albums of his that I just don’t know very well, along with a few that I know well enough to know that I don’t love them–though I guess every record he’s ever made features at least one song that I think is great.