I’m all for the balkanization of the US – warring nation states, regional picking styles, etc. – but this isn’t necessarily about that. What kills me about the three indie radio stations below is the context, the research that goes into some of their shows; they make NPR look like a sprawling, apathetic slacker. It helps that each of the following are distinctly of their cities. Transportive, authentic, rocking, erudite, and highly recommended:

WWOZ New Orleans
Community run, volunteer programmed; the soundtrack to New Orleans and the official station of the New Orleans Jazz Festival (good to keep in mind since they’ll be broadcasting it live in a month or so). You can listen live online.

Or, via 90s radio heroes Better than Ezra: “WWOZ is on in stereo / A string of flowers haloed around your head / Candle light / Ceiling fan / Curtains blow away and back again / Back again / Don’t wake me, I think I’m in a dream”

WMBR Cambridge
Run out of MIT and featured in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest – I wonder if any of the DJs over there know about that – I start almost every morning with Breakfast of Champions, a “heaping hot helping of deliciously sweet pop, served with a short stack of pretentiously introspective indie-rock and a side of crispy punk hits – all washed down with a unique blend of self-deprecation and joie-de-vivre, aged 25 years.” Followed up with The Late Risers’ Club, which is harder. Both archived by program and streaming.

WKCR New York
Smoother than WWOZ – distinctly northern vocal and modern jazz (primarily 50s-70s) with some throwback and classical thrown in. L.A. slept over one night and, when she woke up, fell in love with a cowboy ballads set; I had a print out of the schedule printed out and on the fridge until I got it down. Instrumental in me feeling like a well-adjusted NY’er. Streaming online.

• AMR Podcast #32 – The Rule Against Quoting Joan Didion
• AMR Recommends: Québécois Pop
• AMR Recommends: Summer Reads

This one’s a laffer for all you pre-Valentine’s day <3 birds, lyrics after the jump:

Click to hear “My love,” by Mark Fullmer

Quick Housekeeping: All you folks participating in AMR music month, send me your mp3s! I just remedied my own recording situation so will start posting Courage tracks over the weekend, but so far Mark’s leading the convoy. Or, you know, whatever.

Context:

“I hadn’t at all expected to get to my second song on the list this soon, but after I got home from this Thai cafe I found myself playing around with ye ol’ guitar of yore and, well, this is what came out. I originally wrote the lyrics as a poem, back in those highfalutin grad school days. I sent it out to the literati, the intelligentsia, the hoi AND the poloi. One friend, a girl, a grad school buddy who shall remain nameless, wrote back something like “Please don’t send me stuff like this again. Ever.” So now I find myself putting it to music. Anyway. The chorus came first (from a tidbit I was humming on the way home today) and the verses followed pretty intuitively. -M”

Lyrics:

My love, my love, my love, my love
My love, my love, my love, my love

My love, you are like a lovely flower,
Whose fragrance lasts until it wilts
And turns all yellow and dry
And bugs devour it, slowly.

My love, you are like Spring showers,
Dropping in just when things are looking up,
Wetting all over the place,
Causing worms to surface
And car accidents.

My love, you are like the summer sun,
Which feels good when it first touches me,
But soon, if I’m around for more than
Fifteen minutes without sunscreen,
Turns my skin pink and raw and rashy,
And poses the danger of melanoma.

My love, you are like the autumn leaves,
Which, as Time passes,
Sag and shrivel and fall, barren,
To the ground, for me to rake
Into black plastic trash bags, again and again.

My love, you are like the winter wind,
From which my appendages turn blue
And painful, and get frostbite,
And fall from my body with a tinkle.

My love, you are like a letter,
Which I send to the electric company,
Explaining why I was late for last months’ bill
And surely you must have no heart if you turn the
Electricity off on a guy because his girlfriend
Spent the money on tampons.

My love, you are like a melody
Which the Bush administration blasted
For a week straight through monstrous
Stereospeakers outside Manuel Noriega’s compound
Until he gave up, defeated, sleepless, insane.

My love, you are like a broken toaster oven.
My love, you are like a gangrenous pustule.
My love, you are like Love.

• AMR Music Month, Track 1
• RT: first twitter-based poetry book on sale now!
• AMR Podcast #32 – The Rule Against Quoting Joan Didion

lyrics:

do you remember when you said
you were better than anyone you knew?
that was bullshit, cos we all know you:
sitting there in sunshine, thinking about the rain
it’s so stupid, makes me want to scream.

(scream)

do you remember when you quoted On Truth and Lies to me?
there was no need — also: you can fuck Nietzshe.
do you remember when i said: “if you keep this up,
I’ll kill myself and you.” Get outta your head, we’re
gonna kick it to the old school:

chorus:

cos we can go out
we’re gonna go out and
do whatever the fuck we think we wanna do.
so we’re gonna go out
and maybe throw up
it’s like they say,
better out than in
and if you want,
we can go dancing,
just be yourself…
just don’t be yourself, okay?
don’t be yourself, okay!

(before sunrise monologue)

• AMR Music Month – “My Love”
• That Thing With All The Drowned Authors: An Apology
• online books to read and share