Messages

16

Stream of Consciousness / Re: KFOG, But Not 10@10

« on: May 18, 2016, 11:24:09 AM »

And file this under "The more things change, the more they stay the same" -- Pinfield and Greg did a segment about a new Dead tribute album curated by The National. Matt mentioned that Greg had interviewed the band (The National) about it, and after much fawning/pandering about how great The Dead are and how loyal their fans are and how much money they made last year, they played a small snippet of the interview. Sounded interesting enough. They listed off some of the bands on the album, Avett Brothers, War on Drugs ("great band out of Philadelphia", Pinfield had to throw in), and Courtney Barnett (which Pinfield was very excited about, with good reason -- she. is. awesome.)

Then, after an overly long explanation of how polarizing covers of beloved songs can be (you either love them or hate them - DUH), then deigned to play a snippet of War on Drugs' cover of "Touch of Grey". Like, 15 seconds.

Then they cut it off with "This has been Music News. Here's Coldplay."

AAACK. That's right. Because Music News cannot contain a full song. Because Coldplay *obviously* is not Music. Because god forbid that you fucking play any goddamn song that isn't on your computer generated, accountant-approved, consultant-generated playlist of songs that people will not switch away from because they're SAFE BORING VANILLA AND YOUR MOM LIKES THEM WEREN'T THEY ON THE SUPERBOWL?

Good lord Pinfield, if you're a real fan of music, then take some of the rope that they're clearly extending you by moving you to San Francisco and replacing beloved DJs and letting you run your mouth off about inside stories of rock stars you've met AND PLAY SOME FUCKING GOOD MUSIC. You seem to know what it is.

To wit: Pinfield's personal Facebook page includes links to Youtube videos he's presumably watched/enjoyed recently. They include respectably interesting tracks: "Love and Rockets' "No New Tale to Tell", Roxy Music's "Love Is The Drug", Lou Reed "Caroline Says I" (NTM because my Lou Reed knowledge is shallow), and Devo's "Girl U Want" (also new to me).

SO DUDE. PLAY THAT SHIT. Don't be a tool. Or ok, if you're going to be a tool, at least a be a tool that plays good music.
</rant>

17

Stream of Consciousness / Re: KFOG, But Not 10@10

« on: May 18, 2016, 11:14:35 AM »

Funniest line of the week, in re: Pinfield's constant name-dropping - "He's like a star-fucker who doesn't actually get to fuck stars."

HA!

Re: Rosalie's return under a more constrained playlist, one keen reader of the SFGate article noted this on the Save KFOG! page:

Also got a kick out of this: "Schock said that Howarth will continue to program the show with the caveat that 'the music will skew a bit more into the now. There will be very little ’60s, ’70s and ’80s stuff'... 'I would never abandon one specific decade, but I look forward to freshening the sound while staying true to the spirit of the show,' Howarth said. 'There is lots of excellent unplugged music in every genre from every decade.'” So is she basically telling Schock to piss off? Pass the popcorn!

Re-reading the article -- yeah, it does seem like Howarth is directly flaunting Schock's (Cumulus's) mandate. Good for her! (Although this also could be creative reporting/editing to create conflict where there is none.)

Oh, this was posted to that page a few hours ago, and is perfect:

The "new" KFOG: Where you can listen to songs Alice 97.3 stopped playing 15 years ago.

18

Stream of Consciousness / Re: Music & Advertising: 'interesting' combinations

« on: May 18, 2016, 10:13:30 AM »

"Higher Love" for Hershey's

The interesting thing about this version (which I Shazamed, then ended up buying it) is that it's performed by Lilly Winwood. Yeah, that's Steve Winwood's daughter. Listen close, you'll hear him on harmonies. Pretty sweet.

The long version of the commercial starts out a little weird/depressing, but eventually gets there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5jeP4Ftp0Q

19

Stream of Consciousness / Re: KFOG, But Not 10@10

« on: May 02, 2016, 10:36:51 PM »

Heard a long informercialish sounding commercial around 6:30 tonight for some hair product or treatment that guaranteed to get the Frizzies out. What the what?

Ok I GUESS that trying to target a female demo would explain the return to an Alice/KFOG woman-centric playlist from the 90s. But why hire Pinfield? Why fire all the women? Why keep No-Name (because of his stint with Sarah on Alice) and then force him to drop the nickname??

(Some fucking accountant/consultant greedily taps his fingertips together like Mr. Burns and whispers, "Yesss yessss it's all going according to plan....")

20

Stream of Consciousness / Re: KFOG, But Not 10@10

« on: April 26, 2016, 12:49:31 PM »

Ha! I too heard the new Matt Nathanson song as I rolled into work and had to Shazam it. Indeed he was in studio, with Pinfield profusely thanking him for dropping by the station, acknowledging that he was a friend from before he started, and hoping that he continues to drop by.

Matt (Nathanson) was gracious of course. (Hey, they played his new tune, finally.)

There was a nice bit where Pinfield said the tune, (weirdly named "Bill Murray") reminded him of a great scene at the end of "Lost in Translation" where Bill chases down Scarlett Johansson, whispers something unintelligible, finally gives her that kiss, and they depart, to the tune of "Just Like Honey" by The Jesus and Mary Chain. Matt concurred that it was a great scene and song.

And so I looked it up, and indeed, it is a great scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOpXt30kZCw

So yeah, Pinfield's music geekery is strong. I never thought that was in doubt, after reading his bio, it's clear he's a huge music geek. But then, is that something that this target demo is looking for? And again, if so, why fire Annalisa (and likely antagonize her whenever she went too far "off playlist")?

Lastly, Greg chimed in that Matt is too modest to promote himself, then plugged his upcoming shows at Wente and Mountain Wineries. Pinfield gushed more and pledged to go to both of those shows. Huh, Livermore on a Tuesday night and then Saratoga on a Wednesday night? I guess if he leaves SF early. But then don't morning jocks need to be in bed by like 9PM?

21

Stream of Consciousness / Re: KFOG, But Not 10@10

« on: April 25, 2016, 10:29:38 PM »

Man, how many times a day do they play that clip of Irish Greg saying "We need to do all this over again"?

Ugh yeah, these soundbites are the worst, even if it's Greg.

I caught some of Pinfield's syndicated show in The Bone. Flashback something or another. I was confused.

Oh from that other thread, in case people are also confused about WTF is up with KFOG's new playlist, have a gander at what I think is *everything* on it:

http://www.mediabase.com/mmrweb/7/stationplaylistrequest.asp?c_let=KFOG-FM

Requests, anyone? :-}

22

Stream of Consciousness / Re: I'm tryin' to tell you somethin' 'bout my life

« on: April 23, 2016, 01:21:11 PM »

Wow good call on Nathanson. His last spin was 3/26 with "Come on Get Higher." Prior to that they only spun his newer song "Adrenaline."

So I guess he's no longer a friend of the station? Or at least not a friend with benefits. :-P

23

In Memoriam, Happy Birthday / Re: RIP Prince, 57

« on: April 22, 2016, 11:39:06 PM »

This has made it around the Internets, but local Minneapolis public radio music station The Current (http://www.thecurrent.org/) is doing an A to W of Prince's catalog and it runs *deep*, since this was his local station. I was listening yesterday too. Article talked about how he was a listener, a supporter (donor), and even a guest at their local parties.

Most reliable stream for me has been through TuneIn: http://tunein.com/radio/The-Current-893-s20620/

On Thursday, April 21, Minnesota and the world lost a beloved musical icon when Prince died at the age of 57. So we're celebrating the life, music, and legacy of Prince by playing his catalogue, A to W, with 26 hours of music.

Listen starting at 6 p.m. Central Daylight Time on Friday, April 22, when The Current will play Prince's catalogue from A to W (strictly speaking, it doesn't include the letters X, Y and Z). The playlist will run approximately 26 hours and conclude at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 23.

I don't know 1/100th of this stuff, but it's great! Nice too that it's *LIVE DJs*, talking about their experiences with Prince, etc. (After "Feel U Up" - female DJ backsold it with, "I would've let him feel ME up. Yep." :-)

ETA: Great piece about the station and its relationship with Prince: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/21/prince-s-love-affair-with-minneapolis-radio-an-analog-artist-in-a-digital-world.html

Last year, with Prince’s personal blessing, the station ran a marathon called “Prince A-to-Z,” which started the second an inch of snow fell in Prince’s hometown of Chanhassen. Prince then spent a good chunk of the marathon listening along and tweeting about it.

“For somebody that’s this very mysterious, enigmatic, global superstar, he had a great relationship with us, and he was so involved in our local music scene,” said McGuinn. “He fostered that relationship with us, and The Current really benefitted from it.”

24

Stream of Consciousness / Re: Local (and other) radio news

« on: April 22, 2016, 10:50:24 PM »

HA, I forgot I flipped to 99.7 because my son and his friend wanted to listen to it. I liked some of it (that Beiber song is by Sheeran - that's my excuse!) And so that's my other preset. Oy!

I need to switch from The Bone to KFOX, thanks for that tip.

I dig jazz in moderate dosages. I'll try to remember to hit up KSCM from time to time.

25

Stream of Consciousness / Re: Local (and other) radio news

« on: April 22, 2016, 04:33:45 PM »

Man, even though it skewed a little pop, 98.1 was a R&B standby in my presets when KFOG got old, KQED was too cerebral, and KSCU gets too weird.

So, out of protest, I've flipped KFOG 97.7 to Alice 97.3 (but I almost never listen to it, just hit it and bump up two times to see what crap KFOG is playing now).

98.1 has been replaced by KBLX 102.7, which isn't quite a replacement for Kiss FM but it'll have to do. Man, I've got two more presets I seldom hit at all. I think I switched the last one to The Bone, but I can almost never hang with that. Made my 12-yo son and our neighbor friend (12-yo girl) listen to a little Led on the way home from Taiko class a few weeks ago. So there's that.

Man... do I have an open slot? Suggestions? I'm in South Bay, so reception may vary.

26

Stream of Consciousness / Re: I'm tryin' to tell you somethin' 'bout my life

« on: April 22, 2016, 04:20:42 PM »

Duncan Sheik! OMG, Alice used to play "Barely Breathing" to *death*.

Actually, my records show KFOG has been infrequently spinning it for a while. Hrm, I should try and fix the missing 2014-2015 data....

27

Stream of Consciousness / Re: I'm tryin' to tell you somethin' 'bout my life

« on: April 22, 2016, 04:17:46 PM »

For fun I cut and pasted all the artists from here: http://rudebadmood.com/foglist/ into Google. It turned up this very interesting and fun page:

http://www.mediabase.com/mmrweb/7/stationplaylistrequest.asp?c_let=KFOG-FM

And so.... I think I just found KFOG's entire playlist.

28

Stream of Consciousness / Re: I'm tryin' to tell you somethin' 'bout my life

« on: April 22, 2016, 04:08:56 PM »

Agreed on all counts. Unless the music they've been playing the past 3 weeks has been a huge fake-out, what they're doing doesn't seem to make sense. Hiring Pinfield, keeping No-Name... sure *seems* like they're planning something male-skewing, but the music is pure Triple-A. Young males don't wanna hear that much Adele (or Sheryl Crow). Maybe they wanna be able to pivot to alternative if Live 105 disappears.

So much of the recent playlist has been straight out Alice in the 1990s it is bizarre:

4/22/2016 15:39:02   Natalie Imbruglia   Torn
4/22/2016 14:51:01   The Cranberries   Linger
4/22/2016 13:18:01   Melissa Etheridge   Come to My Window
4/22/2016 12:09:01   Alanis Morissette   Ironic
4/22/2016 11:03:02   Alanis Morissette   You Oughta Know
4/22/2016 10:24:01   Suzanne Vega   Tom's Diner
4/22/2016 8:36:02   Alanis Morissette   Head Over Feet
4/22/2016 8:03:01   Sheryl Crow   If It Makes You Happy

That is some straight up Hot AC/Adult Contemporary right there. Edging into Adult Pop.
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/956457/train-rolls-to-100th-adult-pop-songs-no-1

So yeah, Pinfield is a really weird choice to spin Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morisette.

29

Stream of Consciousness / Re: KFOG, But Not 10@10

« on: April 22, 2016, 03:22:56 PM »

Yes -- Greg got mugged just outside the station, per various posts on FB.  I also wondered what the comments about "obscurities" were about, but that accounts  for the time gaps between songs (I *hoped* it didn't mean Pinfield was running his mouth for 10 minutes at a time )  IIRC, TuneGenie also failed to pick up non-playlist songs during 10@10, as when AL would play something she brought in from home.

Goddamn, that sucks. I missed those posts - were those on GS? I think I may have bailed out from there.

Anyways, yeah, TuneGenie can clearly only deal with stuff in their computer... and their computer, is bullshit. Re: Purple Rain: "the version we have fades with about 3mins to go"

So wait. How would he know there's 3 minutes more than the 5 that they played? I reckon the computer has the whole track, and they've preset that fade point as "the radio edit" point?
...

UGh. Computers ruin everything! :-}

So HEY folks -- if No Name is only on from 3-7 (afternoon drive time)... are they fully automated from 10-3? And 7PM-6AM?

I guess they're saving a lot of cash not paying for 4.5 DJs. (Rosalie was only Sundays, right?)

But still... to hire and *move* Pinfield could not have been cheap. Still SMH about that.

30

In Memoriam, Happy Birthday / Re: RIP Prince, 57

« on: April 22, 2016, 03:05:09 PM »

So, if you haven't see the Cast from The Color Purple on Broadway sing their tribute to Prince, I'm sharing this again, because it blows me away: