What never gets played on the radio?

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I am shortly going to have a radio show. Admittedly, it's going to be a graveyard shift but it's still a radio show!!!

What I wanna know is, what can I play that nobody else does? What never, ever gets played on the radio?

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 5 December 2002 23:58 (twenty-three years ago)

I would say the Raunchy Young Lepers, but this is not in fact the case.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 6 December 2002 00:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Like corpo radio or like college/community radio?
Cuz there's a huge diff.
I just completed a real nice year hosting a two hour show on my local community radio show, where my format was nothing more than songs I thought would be good to putz around to on a Sat afternoon. Just like generally upbeat and sorta dancey, buy not necessarily dance music. Played everything from a local Elvis Tribute Artist to Anti-Pop Consortium.
I was never in danger of getting sick or running out of my format. I don't think I could handle sticking to one style or subset. I applaud and encourage those who do though.

― Emmet Matheson, Friday, 6 December 2002 00:16 (twenty-three years ago)

it's a community station, but with city-wide coverage and listenership (but perhaps slightly smaller at 2 in the morning)

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 6 December 2002 00:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Turbonegro, I'd wager. Tough call, though, WFMU plays just about everything even slightly rockish. I'm sure almost everything has been spun by some clever college station DJ somewhere.

― webcrack (music=crack), Friday, 6 December 2002 00:26 (twenty-three years ago)

David Sylvian...a cult artist with class.

― bahtology, Friday, 6 December 2002 00:47 (twenty-three years ago)

They don't play Slint on the radio
They don't play Sentridoh
They don't play Zappa
They don't play Beefheart
They don't play Can
They don't play The Residents

They don't even play
The Velvet Underground
Renaldo & the Loaf
Bongos Bass and Bob

They don't play Wesley Willis, oh no Nuh-uh
They don't play The Shaggs, oh no Nope nope nuh-uh
They don't play Staccato Reeds, oh no Nuh-uh
Sometimes they will play Devo Deee-vo

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:01 (twenty-three years ago)

that's cuz Rob Crow lives in San Diego, worst radio on earth (despite one of the best rock music scenes of the past 10 years).

BUT........
what station was that really good radio show (93-96) "Subject To Change" on? Was that 91X? I can't remember... is there anybody on ILM from SD?

― gygax!, Friday, 6 December 2002 01:06 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know why this sticks in my mind, but every post I've read by drbaht has had to do with David Sylvian, except one that had to do with Robert Fripp.

― Sean (Sean), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I can't remember if "Subject to Change" was on 91x. 91x used to have this great local music show where they'd play Heavy Vegetable, Rocket from the Crypt, Uncle Joe's Big Ol' Driver, the Beat Farmers, etc etc. Heavy V used to do live appearances incessantly.

I lived in San Diego up until 96. At some point, they changed their format from "modern rock" to "alternative rock", which seems like no change at all, but it was a big change.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:38 (twenty-three years ago)

that's cuz Rob Crow lives in San Diego

I've never heard any of those bands on the radio, San Diego or otherwise (except for Devo, like he says). College radio is another story, of course.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Well I just played my first show of the year on college radio in Brasilia ... and this is what I played :

- Suicide : Swear to the Flag (off the Wire Tapper)

- Bert Jensch : Bells

- The Gongs : The Bat (had all the pool players next door howling in agony, after which they turned off ... maybe that was the last of my audience :-(

- Some chinese rock music I picked up in Beijing last month

- Some klezmer done surf-music style off my friend's CD

- The Streets : Turn the Page / Has it come to this?

- Asa-chung & Junrey : Hana

- Max Tundra : Merman

- The Young Gods : Lointaine

- The Swingles Singers : Bach's Fugue in D Minor

- Super Madrigal Brothers : Pastime in Good Company & remix

- Some electronic thing by a Brasilian classical composer from the mid-70s. (Also my friend's)

Whether they'll let me play again I dunno. The radio guy looked pretty frazzled by the end. :-)

― phil jones (interstar), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:49 (twenty-three years ago)

I never hear Gravity/Ebullition-style hardcore on the radio--Heroin, Embassy, Assfactor 4, et al.

I never hear Unwound, Born Against, Black Dice or Cex on the radio.
I never hear Will Oldham (well, okay, once in a great while--but it's invariably something from I See A Darkness), The Shipping News, Drive Like Jehu or Rainy Day Regatta.

I bet people play Metal Machine Music and Jandek all the time--that's obvious material for "oh, no one will play this..."

I bet late night radio listeners would LOVE: Wolf Eyes (esp. Dread), Bardo Pond, Ornette Coleman, Robert Johnson, the new Black Dice record, Hank Williams, The Dirty Three and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. At least I would.

― Ian Johnson (orion), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:50 (twenty-three years ago)

i've heard Anal Cunt on the radio. but it was a college radio station.

― Tad (llamasfur), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, and for comedic value there's always the Fearless Iranians From Hell!

― Ian Johnson (orion), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:53 (twenty-three years ago)

it's a community station, but with city-wide coverage and listenership (but perhaps slightly smaller at 2 in the morning)

Make sure you play the Lamonte Young track off Ohm- Early Gurus of Electronic music and Heathen Shame, the new Twisted Village mindbender.Sit back and watch the phonelines light up......

― brg30 (brg30), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:55 (twenty-three years ago)

And Drunks With Guns!! You can never play enough Drunks With Guns!!

― brg30 (brg30), Friday, 6 December 2002 01:56 (twenty-three years ago)

the thing that makes Anal Cunt perfect for this sort of thing is that, with some exceptions, no-one can understand what the fuck they're screaming anyway. and when one reads the song titles, it won't be as if the rednecks, football hooligans or frat-boys/lads in the listening audience would be offended!

― Tad (llamasfur), Friday, 6 December 2002 02:01 (twenty-three years ago)

jim what station is it?

― minna (minna), Friday, 6 December 2002 02:18 (twenty-three years ago)

RRR

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 6 December 2002 02:33 (twenty-three years ago)

The Sex Pistols never get played on the radio.

― Burr, Friday, 6 December 2002 02:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Play whatever you want.
Is it a one-time thing or a weekly thing? If it's just one time, then don't hold anything back, if it's a weekly thing, keep in mind that y've still got to play stuff next week. repeats are okay, some coll/comm jocks make a big deal about playing no repeats but I mean, if you hear a song twice in the same month! oh lord!
At two in the a.m. you're gonna have to decide if you're playing music for the people who partying or for the people who are doing something mellower. Or not.
There's a ton of really really good Jerry Lee Lewis stuff from the late 60s/early 70s that kicks ass in terms of real hardass country, that stuff never gets played enough. It's especially cool if you imagine he's thinking about Elvis.

― Emmet Matheson, Friday, 6 December 2002 02:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Some College stations play the pistols (and the damned and Flag and Fear and all that other pretty famous early punk stuff as well as the new epitaph/y bands), so to be different, play Black Monk Time by the Monks and any Turbonegro. Also go watch live shows in small clubs, buy the cd's from whatever the no-name opening act is, and if it's good, play it, and you'll be like, "helping out the scene" or something.

― Helltime Producto (Pavlik), Friday, 6 December 2002 02:54 (twenty-three years ago)

hahaha jim i think you got the graveyard shift that my mate wanted but obviously didn't pull his finger out for in time! day? time? what's the very first song you're gonna play?

― minna (minna), Friday, 6 December 2002 04:11 (twenty-three years ago)

don't know the exact details yet (the person i'm doing the show with has all the details) but will update as developments come to hand..

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 6 December 2002 04:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Rockabilly.

― Mike Taylor (mjt), Friday, 6 December 2002 05:04 (twenty-three years ago)

oh no, that gets played PLENTY in this town.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 6 December 2002 05:12 (twenty-three years ago)

haha i can vouch for this, it is particularly true of the station that jim is now aligned with!

― minna (minna), Friday, 6 December 2002 05:37 (twenty-three years ago)

metal machine musick

― nathalie (nathalie), Friday, 6 December 2002 07:44 (twenty-three years ago)

They don't play The Residents

Which is their loss, since the remarkable intimacy of their music makes them sound very, very good on the radio.

They don't even play
The Velvet Underground

Same for them.

Speaking of which, why in the world don't classic rock stations play The Velvet Underground? The Stooges? Big Star? Television? The Sex Pistols? It's 2002, for heaven's sake. If these well-known critical favorites aren't of any interest to the mainstream, I don't know what would be.

I bet people play Metal Machine Music and Jandek all the time--that's obvious material for "oh, no one will play this..."

Jandek (another artist who sounds very good on the radio) used to send two copies of each of his albums to a whole bunch of college stations upon release, so it isn't for lack of trying.

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo (cindigo), Friday, 6 December 2002 14:48 (twenty-three years ago)

play lots of local bands, even if 99.995% suck you'll eventually find a good one, nah a GREBT one.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 6 December 2002 15:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Ah, the joys of putting on Asa-Chang and Junray on a Monday lunchtime and watching everyone in the room start swearing like bishops...

Haven't heard anyone play any Tiger in a while.

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Friday, 6 December 2002 15:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Jim it is your duty to play lots of Matinee bands. The only one of those I've heard on the radio is the Razorcuts, and that's not for 15 years.

I have posted this message because I think it might be what you would like to hear (as well as it being correct).

― Tim (Tim), Friday, 6 December 2002 15:10 (twenty-three years ago)

If'n its "what nobody else plays" that you want, I strongly recommend Fishbone, who I haven't heard played on the radio ONCE in the nearly 20 years they've been together.

They just put out a live album of all-new (really wild) songs called Live at the Temple Bar & More. On it, I would strongly recommend "Skank and Go Nuttz", "Get Out of the City", and "Are U Wit It?", but in my opinion the whole disc is killer.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 6 December 2002 15:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Noncommercial stations, exp. the late-night shift, do very well with playing 'reactive' records...things that are a bit off the wall but not scary. If you really want an actual listenership that will remember you and perhaps tune in again, you won't constantly torture them with the Danielson Family/Mortiis segue. That's cute only in the smallest of doses. And you should keep your overall sound pretty consistent...not necessarily the same genre, but the same sort of production values. Late-night DJs can also get away with a little more talk as long as it's interesting...late-night workers really want a voice on the radio to keep them company. Just this DJs opinion.

― teeny (teeny), Friday, 6 December 2002 15:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Jim it is your duty to play lots of Matinee bands

This is guaranteed

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 9 December 2002 00:06 (twenty-three years ago)

I have often thought about this (not that I really care much at this point). I think part of it is that to start playing them now would be an admission that they've missed them all these years, and it would also acknowledge that there might be a whole range of still kind of underground music which listeners could find worthwhile. It might be easier for some "modern rock" stations to pick them up than for a classic rock or general rock (?) station to do so. I would add Roxy Music to your list. They may get played on very rare occasions on U.S. classic rock stations, but they are almost entirely unheard there.

― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 9 December 2002 00:39 (twenty-three years ago)

The first half dozen times I heard "Marquee Moon" were on classic rock radio.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 9 December 2002 00:41 (twenty-three years ago)

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