Messages

61

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

« on: March 31, 2016, 01:34:17 PM »

Ok, I'm getting into stalker territory, but this was too poignant to resist. Haley Jones just publicly shared this post on FB: https://www.facebook.com/haley.jones.9469/posts/10154038030413695

It's by a DJ on KGSR named Andy Langer, and he's posted a photo of the playlist/rundown of their new music hour (called "The Music Meeting") which recently got moved from midnight to 11pm. The kicker is his description:

It's no secret that one of the frustrating realities of commercial radio is that new music, what the suits call "unfamiliar" music, leads people to punch out much quicker than a bona fide hit song they already know. And yet, for 20 years, I've been lucky enough to host commercial radio shows where I control everything that's on them and where everything is new. For years and years, it was 101x's The Next Big Thing. And for the past four years at KGSR we call that show "The Music Meeting", and this week we moved it up to 11pm from midnight. It's now an hour easier to hear nothing but new music for an hour. This is what tonight's show looks like:

And because I'm a pal, here's the image:

62

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

« on: March 31, 2016, 01:28:43 PM »

Huh. Before we throw the new guy to the wolves, I found this tidbit from back in July 2014:
http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/131507/bryan-schock-heads-to-texas

After two-and-a-half years as MD/afternoons (and recently as interim PD), BRYAN SCHOCK has exited COMPASS MEDIA Triple A KPRi/SAN DIEGO as of JULY 15th.  He now heads to AUSTIN to re-unite with his wife, HALEY JONES, who is now PD of EMMIS Triple A KGSR.

Would that be the Haley Jones who was Music Director at KFOG from 1999-2005? Why yes, that Haley Jones. http://www.allaccess.com/triple-a/10-questions/archive/6318/10-questions-with-haley-jones

Man it must suck to work in radio, from a job stability POV.

63

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

« on: March 31, 2016, 01:13:14 PM »

You know, I kind of thought that Evolution promo sounded a little like Muse. (Don't get me wrong, I really dig that one song of theirs, "Uprising", even though I swear it steals a bit of Queens of the Stone Age's "No One Knows".)

So I was curious if much like Alice, or Jack, Evolution was perhaps a format.

God, let's hope not, eh?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(radio_network)

A majority of Evolution's programming tends to feature a heavy amount of EDM product but at times will play other Dance genres and an occasional classic. During the evening and weekend hours mix shows from influential performers in the world of EDM/Dance are featured.

See also: http://www.iheartevolution.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_radio

  By November 2012 KDHT would drop the format for Adult Hits, but in December 2012, WHBA, who had been programming an Adult Hits format in Boston, went the other way around and made headlines by flipping to an EDM-focused presentation, billed as "Evolution 101.7," with the call sign WEDX.

Huh: 1.5 years later they later kicked Evolution to their HD channel and switched to a country format.
http://www.vanyaland.com/2014/06/13/bull-born-evolution-101-7-fm-changing-formats-going-country-3-p-m-est/
 
(To be fair, listening to Muse now, they are *NOT* EDM.)

64

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

« on: March 31, 2016, 01:04:58 PM »

Congrats to our own Darryl, who apparently won Joe Jackson tix on the Pop Quiz this morning. Woo Hoo!

That's awesome! Saw him at Hardly Strictly BG last year and it was a short set, but nice. That should be a good show....   (http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/joe-jackson/2015/golden-gate-park-san-francisco-ca-5bf43be0.html)

Saw JJ a couple years back at the Warfield, and really enjoyed it.  Considering this show as well, but I'm pretty sure it's a school night.  I was more up for that a few years back.

Another recco for Joe Jackson's live show. I saw him do a solo show at the Fillmore about 10 or 12 years back that was great, and also a couple of times in the 80s that were hot (the Night & Day tour, which was stellar) and the one that followed it that was not (he was throwing a bit of a snit onstage).

Oh hi everyone. Came here to get the scoop on AL, but yeah, that was me, so thanks. Looking forward to the show!

Anyways, I did notice No Name was AWOL this week, but as of yesterday Renee was still calling it the "Irish Greg, No Name and Renee Show". Figured he was on vacation, but maybe not. :-{

Also of note: Greg and Renee mentioned a story about a $175K/year Butler position opening up in Noe Valley. They joked about whether they could/would take the job, and made a weird mention that it would be perfect for a certain person at the radio station whom they could not mention for fear of getting fired. I actually thought of Dred Scott and now I wonder if he too was one of the unlucky folks that was cut. :-/

65

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 18 Jan 2016: it's the MLK Set

« on: January 19, 2016, 01:03:07 AM »

Hey all - darn, forgot to listen to this one today. If anybody happens to tape it / record an MP3 version on Saturday, would appreciate a link, as it appears the last time KFOG posted an archived 10@10 to Mixcloud was August 2015. :-{

(I suppose I can try to jury-rig the one or two portable FM radios we have to my Mac, but then I have to remember to wake up and get the sound recording app thing and uuuuuugh. I'm getting too old for this, clearly. :-)

Also, hey, long time no post. :-}

66

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

« on: August 28, 2015, 09:50:24 PM »

indeed, "gathering around the radio" ended when TV became popular in the early '50s. And when "the kids" turned on Top 40 radio in the rock'n'roll era, adults would pretty much run from the room.

Rdio was originally a Spotify-type thing, wasn't it? But now they're moving into iHeart territiory so they're looking for an angle.

Huh, yeah seems like they're finally able to take advantage of the confusing rdio/radio name.

Drat, looks like they've got a gap between Aug 19-24. And huh, no Rdio Playlists since then.

Well, at least they're using a fairly standard tool to manage the website -- WordPress -- so it wasn't too painful to scrape the listings for the week (or so) and save them again. Example: http://darryl.com/10at10/tat20150828.html

67

In Memoriam, Happy Birthday / Re: RIP Columbia House, approximately 60.

« on: August 28, 2015, 12:51:24 AM »

Ah, I remember those catalogs well too. This is a pretty cool insider view on the inner workings:

http://www.avclub.com/article/four-columbia-house-insiders-explain-shady-math-be-219964

68

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

« on: August 27, 2015, 11:54:08 PM »

Has the KFOG stream gone to shit this morning, or is it just me? It plays for about 15 seconds and then buffers for 30, trying to figure out if it's my internet or their crappy technology.

Hmmm... looks like my orig reply to this post disappeared.  People have been complaining about the new improved KFOG website generally, as well as the stream. But guess what? The reason there's now a link to Rdio on the KFOG page is that Cumulus owns part of Rdio... and Rdio is beginning to stream actual broadcast radio stations (to compete with iHeart), so I suspect the Rdio stream of KFOG is coming soon.

Howdy all -- yes, the website changed again, so I'm working on a new way to scrape 10@10 listings. Ugh, I can't just get a single page anymore. :-{

Anyways, speaking of Rdio, have you heard the stupid commercials they're running for it? It starts off:

"Do you remember the old days, when families used to gather around the radio? Sure there's all kinds of streaming audio, MP3s, blah blah blah, but there's something about *live radio"... blah blah blah. Listen to live radio on RDIO."  (Which is by the way the stupidest domain name ever if you're going to have to sell it on the actual radio.)

Ok um... I'm 45. My family never gathered around the radio. I would venture to guess that even those of you into your 50s or 60s never did either. I mean, wasn't that a thing in the 40s or 50s?

At any rate, it's not like anybody over 40-50 is in KFOG's target demo anyways, are we?

So who wrote this ad? So confusing! So weird. Ugh.

Yeah, digging the Leon Bridges tune -- yes, weird hearing soul done by an actual black guy and also an American (Ft. Worth, TX) and not a Brit! Speaking of black guys that rock, I wish KFOG would get behind Vintage Trouble: http://www.vintagetrouble.com/

Saw them *kill* at the first Bottle Rock during a tough early afternoon spot as well as a late-night "secret show". Then they did it again at Oakland Art & Soul. Just amazing performers.

However looking at Leon Bridges's upcoming tour dates (and knowing Vintage Trouble's history) it seems like America isn't ready for a black rock/soul, so they have to gain popularity in Europe, Netherlands, etc.

On the other hand, Renee was mentioning Leon Bridge's Filmore show in Nov is totally sold out, presumably on the strength of the Outside Lands performance. Well good for him.

(Friends at Apple got to see him at a "private concert" a week or two back. Nice perk. I also guess that means he's backed by a label that's pushing him through the iTunes Music Store.)

69

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 24 July 2015: it's... 2003

« on: July 25, 2015, 01:21:34 AM »

So we had just missed hearing it live, but looking at her feed, I clicked her link to the Amy Winehouse track she played: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CYE0DYIbaw

Huh.

Never heard that one before, and apparently it never charted in the US.

Has AL played it before? Does she often play stuff that never charted in the US? I imagine Dave must've. And I imagine one of y'all can tell me exactly what songs those were. :-}

70

KFOG's 10@10 / Re: 24 July 2015: it's... 2003

« on: July 25, 2015, 01:19:46 AM »

Posted to AL's FB:

Driving back from Villa Montalvo's Rock the Garden, we caught a bit of 10@10. 11-yo recognized "Sound of Settling", wondered what year it was. We figured it was sometime in 2000s since he knew the song.

"Wait, they do years after 2000 now?"
"Yup -- it's kind of weird."
"They should do a 10@10 from the 1800s"
"What would they play? Annalisa might need some suggestions"
"It's a Long Way to Tipperary?"
"Ha, ok, I'll send her the idea."
"Dad, don't you know when I'm kidding?"
"Hey, maybe she could do it for April Fools Day"
"No, the only thing they did for April Fools Day was Hose across America"

Oof, I just looked it up, It's A Long, Long Way to Tipperary was from 1912 or 1914.

71

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

« on: April 22, 2015, 04:26:43 PM »

The kids' "Guide to your Portable People Meter" instructed them to say they're in a "Secret Research Study" (as if that would satisfy any curious kid, haha.)

I think we're allowed to say what the thing is, but we're not supposed to go into details. And they did say not to make public Twitter or Facebook posts. Oops.

But at least I didn't have to lie when they asked if I worked in Radio, TV or Advertising. (Thankfully they didn't ask about streaming video providers.)

72

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

« on: April 22, 2015, 03:02:20 PM »

So, my Arbitron story:

At the beginning of April I got the mail that every radio nerd dreams of: an invitation to carry a Portable People Meter for Arbitron.

That's right.  All my years of bitching about format changes, changing playlists, program rescheduling, overplayed songs -- I would finally have a fractional say about what I listen to on the radio.  My voice would be heard!!

I quickly called them back, but we were due to go on vacation the following week, so I asked them to send all of the stuff to my work but we wouldn't be able to start using them until this week.  They said this was fine.

So this past Monday I excitedly opened the big box left on my desk, and got everything charged up. Then I started digging around about PPMs and found this article:
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2012-07-04/music/the-meter-s-running/

Ugh, I didn't want that to happen to KFOG or any other station I like. I was so excited, I posted it to Facebook, with this comment:
{quote}
So, now that we have PPMs(!), I'm going to tune *out* KFOG anytime they play a "safe" oldie.

We also listen to KQED a lot, so hopefully that will help them. I'll try to tune in KSCU and KKUP more to give our local stations their due. My commute is so short though, I don't know if it'll make much of a difference though.
{quote}

When I brought the meters home, everybody was moderately excited -- cash for wearing a meter, woot!  Seeing my 7-year old lope around the hallway to keep his meter "active" was hilarious.  (It checks for movement every 15
minutes.)

We listened to some KQED, some KFOG, and watched John Oliver on HBO.

Tuesday morning, I made sure to "wake up" our meters to make sure KFOG got credit for our 7-8AM listening.  When I got to the kitchen, I heard some banal classic rock playing in the living and was horrified to see my kids had
turned the radio to KFOX.  KFOX?  That's not even one of our presets.  Aaaagh!

Kids brought meters to school, but I told them to keep it in their backpacks, so they "lost" about 6 hours of data there.  I wore mine all day, and listened to only slightly more KSCU than usual.  Well, ok, I did stream it to my laptop, which is rare.

So what an unpleasant shock to have my 7-year old ask me this morning why his meter had a message to call an 800-number this morning.  And in fact, all our pagers had the message.

So I called, and was informed of the bad news -- we were randomly being removed from the program.

I was so disappointed.

Was it my Facebook post? (Later that night in a panic I hid it from any of the KFOG DJs I'm friends with.)  Did we not provide enough data on commercial radio stations?  Did my KSCU "binge" throw off their numbers?  Was it because of the kids not wearing their meters for a 6-hour stretch during
the day?

These articles seem to indicate that in the past Arbitron would call to nag you to wear your meter, especially problematic for kids.  I couldn't find any articles explaining why somebody might get cut from the program after
only two days:

http://blatherwatch.blogs.com/talk_radio/2011/01/confessions-of-a-ppm-wearer-blatherwatch-has-unplugged-its-ppm.html
http://www.markramseymedia.com/2011/02/a-shocking-peek-at-the-real-people-of-ppm/
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/radiowaves/article/Diary-of-a-portable-people-meter-person-3256625.php

At any rate, I'm really kind of bummed out about it. :-{

73

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

« on: April 22, 2015, 10:20:14 AM »

Just heard a station promo featuring a listener from San Jose named Darryl Lee. Was that *our* Darryl? (Who hasn't been around a whole lot of late, but I suspect still lurks.)

yes that's him -- there's a promo with his wife Glady, too.  He told me via FB that they were interviewed at some event in SJ

Aw, you miss me, you really miss me!

Yeah, that was me. I still haven't heard the promo, and only just yesterday heard Glady's full one (she does hula).

So the story is that at the last minute we won two tickets to the last Concert for Kids in San Jose, but didn't have babysitting. So I was just going to go with our older son for maybe the openers and we'd bail. Glady and our youngest were hanging out at Christmas In The Park. We got there like 30 minutes early.

Once we were inside, Glady called me and said she ran into Annalisa outside and chatted. Shortly thereafter I tracked her down at the KFOG booth and said hi, and she asked about Glady and Luke. I told her we only won the two tickets, and we probably weren't even going to stay for the whole show. She said that she didn't know and would've hooked us up with two more tickets. At that point Dean K (one of the engineers who also occasionally fills-in evenings or weekends -- we met him at Bottle Rock a few years back) said that he had two extra tickets and graciously gave them to us.

Glady and Luke came over, then we went over to thank Dean again, and he asked us to do the promos.

Note: I have a *long* and involved rant in store for you re: getting chosen to carry Arbitron People Meters, and then after getting everybody in the family setup, them canceling our participation after *two days*. Sooooo disappointed. Gotta a meeting though. :-{

74

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

« on: January 28, 2015, 10:16:19 PM »

BFT's latest column, about how hard it is to find radio that isn't aimed at kids.

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/radiowaves/article/A-Boomer-in-search-of-a-morning-radio-show-6015755.php

Actually, my read on that was different. Yes, he's 65, but his main gripe wasn't about radio for kids. It was that KFOG wasn't playing enough *new* music.

What the what?

KFOG, at least in the morning, has turned into an oldies station and doesn’t have the community feel that it used to ... and the music is predictable, despite all of their talk about their huge library. I’m 65, still buy music, still go to shows, and still like to hear new good music. Where can I go for this now? There’s lots of people my age that I see at concerts that obviously like new music. Why is it that there’s is no radio station for us? I know Arbitron is all about 14-35-year-olds, but my age group has disposable income … yet everyone seems to be ignoring us or think that we only like bands like U2.”

I commented:

Funny Ben -- I'm no boomer (44!), but excepting the oldies-fest that is KFOG's current A-Z programming, I actually think KFOG has gotten a lot of flack from boomers for playing too many new artists, especially ones that not (sic) may not fit the "classical" rock genre.

I mean -- Sam Smith is a frequent spin, as is Hozier. I wish they'd be willing to play music like Nikki Bluhm and the Gramblers or Grace Potter and the Nocturnals more, which seems like it would be a perfect bridge between fans of the Dead and younger folks.

75

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

« on: January 28, 2015, 10:14:00 PM »

True fact though...the Delilah in question was his real college sweetheart & the reason they were so far apart in the lyrics is that she was training for the Olympics in Track (hurdles, iirc) and made the team as a 1st alternate but never got to compete.

Steeplechase actually. Check out a Wall Street Journal blogger try to learn to do it from her in their funny series "How Hard Could It Be?"

http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2012/07/13/london-olympics-delilah-dicrescenzo-steeplechase-how-hard-can-it-be/

But yeah, I don't like the song either.