Mick Jagger reading.
I find out about almost everything online nowadays. I'm not talking about news; we still get a newspaper. But books, movies, music. I get more info here than anywhere else. Now before, I could find out about books and movies through the newspaper pretty easily. But where did I hear of new music? I just can't remember. Radio stations haven't played interesting music since-I don't know when. Does anyone remember their source for new music?
22 comments:
Maximum Rock'n'roll. It was my bible for new music when I was a teenager. Later it was the NME, Punk magazine, and Spin.
Used to be I would listen to the Indie College radio stations to learns of new music. Still do sometimes.
We subscribed to ROLLING STONE for years but as my taste changed it grew harder to find music I liked. Now I use you guys to steer me right. Yesterday I found Ting Ting or something like that because of facebook.
The Web broke big when I was in college... but there were plenty of things that were no where to be found in those early years. There was a time when I found my music info from Rip Magazine, Flipside, MMR, college radio, word of mouth. Later on there was Hitlist, which was the more grown up version of all of those 80s punk zines. I was a No Depression follower until the end, they on line move has only really lost me.
Today I find a lot of stuff by word of mouth, I pick up Ugly Things magazine when it comes out 2 times a year or what ever. For the last couple of years I have been part of Mog.com and found a lot of stuff that way. I also have a number of music podcasts that I listen to and find stuff that way.
Rolling Stone, ICE magazine (CD release dates), and Entertainment Weekly.
I wasn't that "tuned in" to new music as a teenager but simply relied upon KDKA and KQV, the local radio stations in western Pennsylvania; of course, Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" helped out a bit too (though I did feel really stupid in my living room--alone--trying to emulate the dance moves--excepting of course the slow-dances because that would have been entirely too weird). I wasn't a "deep thinker" about anything at that time, so I am sure I must have thought both Pittsburgh (wrong!) and Philadelphia (correct!) were the nerve-centers of everything that was important to rock-n-roll in the early 60s. As for new music in 2009, I don't have clue, and I have even less interest, which, of course, confirms my status as pop culture troglodyte. And so it goes.
Record stores, remember them? I remember going to Marco's Records in downtown Columbus. If you saw something that looked interesting they would play it for you, they could recommend records based on what you liked. And the guy next to you while you were flipping through albums would say 'Have you heard x? Great stuff, man.'
And local radio stations, in the middle of the night would play new music or at least stuff that wasn't necessarily Top 40, give night owls a chance to hear something different. And on clear nights I could pick up WBZ in Boston or sometimes a Chicago station and hear music that didn't get a chance on the local stations. Now radio is so generic, there's hardly any point in changing stations, or turning it on at all.
Yes, AB was my first source of information. At college, I was firmly in the grips of my peers. I remember them steering me toward folk music especially. Record stores, of course. We had Harmony House shops in Detroit and they had knowledgeable clerks. You could tell them who you liked and they would tell you who else you would or should like.
Downbeat for jazz, early Rolling Stone for r'n'r, a Co-op aka Communist bookstore run by a folkie for folk music, The Village Voice, underground newspapers such as the LA Free Press and the San Francisco Oracle and late night radio from 50,000W clear channel stations from Rochester, NY to Denver and Salt Lake City. And, of course, good independent record stores.
Is it sexist to say that men seem to go to greater lengths to get their hands on music they like? I remember when I used to spend time in music stores, the great preponderance of customers were male.
One thing that I didn't think of ealier is NPRs song of the day, which is a good, easy and fresh place for anyone looking for new music. I think you can even get it as a podcast. Also there is my blog where I post a monthly playlist of what ever I have been listeneing to.
Young men might tend to be more passionate about music on average, perhaps because they are more surprised by the influence music has over them (young women have had more time to realize and more examples of how their bodies are not necesssarily under their conscious control).
I'm surprised you haven't found any good radio stations in Detroit/Windsor/Ann Arbor, no matter what your tastes. I was usually able to ferret out something good on at least some of their schedules wherever I've lived, between college, public, and the occasionally adventurous commercial radio. And, of course, I've been nudging you toward web radio, if not too much, and I'm sure I'm not alone, as you note as much (about FaceBook, anyway).
I'm also glad that Keith Rawson and Iren cite MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL, which I contributed to (if only once, though my one contribution to PROFANE EXISTENCE was quoted in someone's PhD thesis which was published as a trade book...a fact I was presented with on the same day I bought my first non-hand-me-down car, and suddenly felt very adult). The magazines, including JAZZTIMES abd CADEBCE as well as DOWNBEAT, and a slew of other magazines including fanzines (CADENCE and JAZZTIMES, particularly the former, overpraised my jazz fanzine PRETTY OBSCURE), word of mouth, friends, and generally hanging around "alternate" radio stations (I was a dj off and mostly on from 1987-1997) and music venues (dc space was good for punk rock and adventurous jazz, and I suspect is still missed as a club, though I've lost touch as to whether they're still organizing concerts as Disctrict Curators)...
NPR is probably my biggest resource because you can play the music.
We cannot get anything west of Detroit where I live, including Ann Arbor. We have a few classical stations. that sometimes play other stuff. Other than that, top forty and lots of hip-hop, smooth jazz and soul.
web-based radio now.
http://www.xpn.org/ (philly-based)
http://wtmd.org/ (baltimore-based)
http://www.kpig.com/ (cali)
little or NO commercials. listener supported. mature. insightful. good stuff.
The Philly item is the web presence of the U. Penn. non-student NPR-affiliated "alternate" rock (and some folk) station WXPN. Temple U's station splits a rather dull classical library with a somewhat better set of jazz programs, and has also affiliated with NPR (they were the Pacifica affiliate, but dropped Pacifica when Pacifica news wouldn't drop Mumia Abu-Jamal). Drexel, Princeton, and some of the sububurban Philly colleges and unis have "real" college stations, with WHYY (licensed for Delaware and Philly--for a long time, WHYY was Delaware's only tv station) being the big NPR chat/news station.
Young Men and Music: I think that is largely and American culture thing, girls are socialized and pressured to follow pop acts like the rest of their cohort much more than boys are here.
Radio in SE-MI- Since the Telecom act of 1996 radio in the USA has been a wasteland. College radio in the area is pretty hit and miss, The University of Michigan station WCBN has some good shows, but too often it is a blues or jazz fan playing music for others on the same wave length, or college kids playing the most unlistenable music they can find to alienate listeners. Stations from Canada can be picked up here, but they are almost as bad as the US stations.
One of the best music stations out there is The Current from NPR, and Minneapolis based station that plays a lot of underground stuff. I can't say that I was it's biggest fan when I lived in the area, but I like it's model and wish that NPR could launch more stations like it in big markets around the country.
I listen to mostly classical music now on a local radio station. Whenever a new artist has a CD out I go and see what they have recorded. As I love opera I like to listen to various artists on the different pieces.
Way back when it was CIRCUS, CREEM, Rolling Stone, WRIF, Rock A Rolla Records [store] and whatever my neighbors college aged sister brought back from Ann Arbor.
John McAuley
There was a mail order catalog, don't remember the name of it, but I know it is from there I found Pete Seeger, Josh White, Howlin' Wolf. Classical music I got from my father, he had an extensive collection of 78's.
Ambulatory Guy--might that've been the Folkways Records catalog?
When I was young it was the BBC and Radio Luxembourg. Then along came the pirates like Radio Caroline.
Nowadays it is via the kids. Though my liking for Lordi came about because they won the Eurovision song contest for Finland.
My CD collection runs through classical to heavy metal.
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