Travel Logs

To Canada and back...again

Dec. 30, 1999 - less than 48 hours till the 9s change to 0s and the world
ends. Well, better to spend our last few hours in snow, so it's off to
Montreal! WFMU's Douglas rings in the new year/decade/century/etc. with 3
hours of songs that all have the word "new" in the title. We heard Lena
Lovitch "New Toy", the Cure "New Day" and Howard Jones "New Song" among
others. Scanning around on the NY Thru-way we heard the Human League's
"Don't You Want Me?" on some unidentified station, which was nostalgic. It
was tapes for a long time after that.

Coming up towards Lake Champlain we caught what we thought was WRUV with
some slick sounding indie rock but then during the mic break we realized
that we were duped - it was a Christian Rock station! So *that's* why they
were singing about being on their knees.... The station was called Air-One,
and it had the most cheezed-out announcing, production and background
music. As if mixing religion and indie rock wasn't enough on its own.

We finally found the real WRUV which was airing a reunion of an old d.j.
who was visiting. It was a standard white-boy suburban hip hop/funk show.
"I know we're white, Jewish and well off... but we bad! We bad!" They
played "Tell Me Something Good" by Rufus/Chaka Khan and Curtis Mayfield
"Superfly" in between way too much blathering about nothing before we
scanned on further. We checked in on WBZT-The Buzz: standard Alt-Rock. As
we came upon the Canadian border, all the Montreal college stations had
talk programs. The Canadian Customs agent asked us where we were from. "New
York City?! What's the matter? You worried they're gunna blow it up?!"
Er....no. All the terrorists are stuck in Canada, if you recall. Happy New
Year to you, too, eh!

We visited CISM on New Year's Eve. A d.j. was filling in and playing some
really good electro-techno pop. We missed Etienne the music director who
was coming in to do a show later, though. We didn't listen to any other
stations that day, but saw a lot of stations towers as we hiked up Mount
Royal. We were prevented from going to the very top because the city had
placed a whole lot of fireworks around the mountain for later that evening.
We got to see them from the window of our friends Jeff and Phillipa's home,
who hosted a very relaxing get together with a warm fireplace and lazy
dogs.

New Year's Day it was off to Quebec City. CISM had talk, and in French of
all things! We kept the dial on CBC which had classical music. Coming into
Trois Rivieres we heard the Vestibule program with Jean-François on CFOU
who played a very beautiful ambient piece by Still Point which was the
perfect accompaniment to the falling snow. He also played something by
Belly and other good sounding things that we couldn't identify. Their
signal carried quite a distance.

Getting into Quebec City, the "national capital of Quebec" which isn't a
nation (yet), CHYZ played Oasis, Weezer's cover of the Pixie's "Veloria",
Beastie Boys remix of "Body Movin'", Beatles "I'm Looking Through You" and
then some French music. Later on in the evening, around 7:30pm, they had a
rap/hip hop show that took full advantage of Canada's non-right wing
profanity policy (ie. none) and let the "fucks" fly without concern of the
FCC,  Mothers Against Naughty Lyrics, Rudy G. or whoever else feels
threatened by libidinous words. They only censor out gore, violence, blood,
murder, etc. Is that crazy or what?! What a comfort to live in the USA
where you can see real footage of someone being decapitated on TV but are
spared the horror of seeing naked humans. God bless the USA!

Jan. 2 we're off to Le Massif to ski into the St. Lawrence river, and on
the way CHYZ had French female singers. One of them was an old standard
that April March covered on her last LP. Another French chanteuse did a
very cool song with a James Bond feel to it. CHYZ's signal carried on
forever! Over huge hills and small mountains. We got it clear for about 40
miles north of QC. We pulled in CHZY on the way back for more hip hop.

Jan. 3 we returned to Montreal and took CHYZ with us out of town to a trip
hop show featuring Herbalizer and Bjork. We got CFOU with French pop. B.R.
indicates that "fou" means "crazy" in French and when said "C-FOU" it
sounds like "C'est fou" ("It's crazy"), but we never heard any station
i.d.s that made use of the coincidence - "You're listening to C-FOU - it's
*CRAZY*!" You know if a U.S. station was called KRZY, they'd be saying that
every 10 minutes. (Actually there is an AM and an FM KRZY in New Mexico and
I'd call them up and ask them if they are crazy if only a million 11-year
olds didn't do it already.)

About 3:30pm CKUT had a really great minimal post rock show featuring Lee
Renaldo with William Hooker, Thurston Moore, Village of Savoonga and more.
I called the station later (looking for a friends phone number) and had to
compliment they d.j. on a most excellent program.

Since computers didn't turn against mankind at midnight on Jan. 1, 2000 and
bring on the end-times, we thought it was safe to head back to the U.S.
Well, by Jan. 4, just for a little comfort room. CKUT had African music
that morning, including some Reggae and Soca music. CISM had some sappy
French music. CIBL had French alternative pop, then played a cover of
Bowie's "Gene Genie" in which you could actually make out all the lyrics. I
never knew that the Gene Genie "loves chimney stacks" though I was aware of
the fact that he "lives on his back". They also played some very cool 60's
French psych-pop, followed by one or two tracks by Stereo Total. At 11am
they switched to Jazz, and CISM was playing Ska-punk-pop. At 11:50am we
heard fusion-like Jazz on 90.1fm, which was probably WRUV, then some punky
French music on CISM.

12:30pm WRUV had some Cuban music and also the Soul Brothers from South
Africa, Patricia Barbara, Paul Desmond. They continued throughout the
afternoon with worldish Jazz. At 3:30pm, after lunching with James Kochalka
Superstar in Burlington, we heard Steve Picard on WBZT playing the Chemical
Brothers and some Alt-Rock stuff. Further down-state WVTC (Vermont
Technical College) played a slew of commersh stuff: The Cranberries
"Wrapped Around Your Finger" (or whatever that top 40 hit is called), John
Fogarty or Creedence (I'm luckily not familiar enough to know the
difference) and other unidentified Alt-Rock and techno pop.

1340am WDCR played 2 old worn-to-hell Rolling Stones songs followed by a
bunch of hokey commercials then Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, and Bruce
Springsteen's "The River". Yay, college radio. Actually they must have been
simulcasting Dartmouth's commercial station, WFRD. Please. I hope. Down in
Concord, WUNH's Classical Connections with Larry Escovitz was broadcasting,
followed by funk music on the Tuxedo Junction program.

Heading into Northampton, MA on Jan. 5 we heard many hours of Blues on WMUA
and techno/drum&bass on WAMH. WCDB in Albany had a rap program on and WBCR
was doing hip hop, too, and with some super cheezed-out station i.d.s and
production in between. 88.9FM (no idea who this is) played "Come Together"
by the Beatles. 91.5 (again, no idea who) played a bluesy cover of
"Midnight Rider" and then some folk-rock type stuff. Tired and worn out
from all the radio monitoring, we let tapes finish off the rest of the
bleak drive down the Thru-way. New York was still standing when we got
back.

Saturday 2 Oct. 1999 - from NYC to Frazer, PA

Congratulations to Barb and Ian on their wedding, and thanks to them, too,
for facilitating yet another installment of the Roadtrip Radio Log.

At 11:40am, after getting a snappy new haircut, we were making our way to
the miraculously traffic-free Holland tunnel as we enjoyed the world's best
Saturday morning radio program, WFMU's "Greasy Kid's Stuff". We heard a
"Lance" story told by that guy who tells those particular stories (Uncle
somebody), Slim Whitman's "When I'm Calling You" and then a good portion of
the James Kochalka Superstar rock opera _Carrotboy_. The hosts were so
taken by the music that they went and played the last song, "Why Can't We
All Be Carrotboy?" twice!

At noon WFMU's Radio Thriftshop kicked in with a great mix of odds and ends
including Conway Twitty, Louis Armstrong and some old timey piano music.
90.3 (WVPH?) had some reggae, 88.3 (most likely WBGO) had some old school
funk/r&b, and WSIA went into "Highschool Football", a live sports program
with an intro cart that sounded like it was done by the Beastie Boys.

WPRB had a very weird, funny and fun Indian music show with lots of
commercials for local Indian-focused businesses. The announcer went on and
on about the world cricket match between India and South Africa which was
going to be played between 2:15am and 10:30am Sunday, urging everybody to
watch it on t.v. O.k.....

89.7 (WRLJ?) played that Archies-sounding song "Sugar, Sugar", 89.3 (WCNJ?)
had more Bhindi-pop, and WRSU had some kind of country-ish show with
"Dealia" (that song that Johnny Cash covered), followed by some female
vocal country pop. The Indian show on WPRB kept our attention the most,
with some really fun songs and talk about recent Indian films. The hosts
were discussing a recent incident in India where a projectionist cut a few
major scenes out of a film he was running so he wouldn't miss his train
home! The hosts also noted that it was Mahatma Ghandi's birthday, then
played a Indian-disco version of "Happy Birthday To You".

89.7fm (WGLS?) had some cheesed out solicition for underwriting. WTSR
rolled out the hits with Van Halen's "Beautiful Girls", Metallica's "Seek
and Destroy" and Life of Agony. Life of agony, indeed. WKDU played Bob
Marley's "No Woman, No Cry". At 1pm WPRB switched gears from curry to
pigskin, with the play-by-play on the day's Princeton football game.

As we looped around Philly on the PA turnpike, WKDU was getting walked all
over by a Christian radio talk show. They must love that. Both of them.
88.9 (WBYO?) had bluegrass a' pickin'. WXPN had horrible, horrible slick
r&b with wanked out guitar. 89.3fm (WRDV?) was playing 50s popular rock and
roll while WXPN went on begging for money, asking for $120 a year to become
a member during their fundraiser. WXVU had yet more sports -Villanova
football.

And thus our journey down to wedding-land was ended. The way back to NYC on
Sunday was a cassette kind of trip. But they were all good cassettes.

19 September 1999 - to D.C. and back - Bob & B.R.

In a rare college student-like moment, Bob and B.R. decide at the
conclusion of Breathless' first ever U.S. gig at Luna Lounge in NYC on 18
Sept. 1999, spontaneously and simultaneously, that they should drive to
Washington, DC the next night to see the 2nd ever U.S. gig of Breathless.

We called up the rental company Sunday morning and reserved a compact for
the afternoon. After the paperwork was done, we were told that our car was
waiting in space #3. A very spicey looking black Mustang. Ok. That's good
for $42 a day. And the radio reception was exceptional!

3pm on a Sunday on WFMU meant the close of the WWF of Community Radio, the
Glen Jones show. We were spared hearing any music and just got to hear the
closing yells and screams, which can be amusing enough. Then Bill Kelly's
hot-rodded Teenage Wasteland of "real rock 'n roll", as he calls it. A mix
of great guitar based 60s influenced traveling music followed.

After 50 minutes of pre-tunnel crawling, we were on the turnpike and
checking WSIA which featured lots of ska and ska-pop, including tracks from
"NY Beat Breaking and Entering V.2", the New Beats, Metro Stylee and other
skankers. They also played a Janis Joplin cover done by Miranda James. Ok,
time to move down the dial.

4:07pm WHTG had their predictable mix of MTV inspired alterna-rock. And
some oldies like a dance remix of the Cure's "Close to Me". WPRB was
rolling out the old school, blind, craggy blues (Big Joe Williams, et al).
And then some not so old school stuff (Stevie Ray Vaughn). Why not JSBE,
then?

Then we discovered college radio's best sunday specialty show option:
PAK/INDIAN music! WRSU dished out some vindaloo flavored songs, as did WKCR
down the pike.

At a quick wee-stop at the Walt Whitman rest-stop (god rest his soul) we
were accosted by a crazy Canadian who we later realized was our friend
Johnny from Ninja Tune, also stopping to pee while on the way to Baltimore
with Roots Manuva.

Just before 5pm, WKDU broadcasted some smoooove urban hip hop jamzzz. WTSR
had some kind of ambient electro dark sounds. Back to WKDU for rap. 91.5
(WNYE?) had hip hop. 91.7 (WLFR?) had some amalgam of latino/urban/disco.
5:30pm WVUD was winding up some kind of sports broadcast and kicked into
tandori-pop - "the music of the Indian sub-continent". Just before 6pm WMPH
had an upbeat latino show.

By 6pm, we were giving up on FM. 1260am gave us the Beach Boy's "Let's Do
it Again". WJTL (Jesus The Lord, as B.R. guessed) with some wanked out
X-ian rock/pop. There's nothing worse that inane, bland, unimaginative pop
music. Unless it's about Jesus. That goes double for heavy metal.

7:04pm we were trying to get WMBC 560am outside of Baltimore. Whatever we
did get was playing Nippon-pop. Or Japanopop. Or Pochaccopop. You get the
idea. WHFS kicked out the high-power, post-grunge Stone Temple hits, and
the $Punk $Pop. Green Day refers to the day punk pop makes some "green",
no?

7:21pm and we're rollin' up on the Capitol City. WMUC starts coming in
clearer than we've ever heard it, blasting out the best sounds we've heard
on the whole trip. We didn't catch the back announcing (by that time we
were in Adams Morgan and the signal was scratchy & sketchy), but *man*,
they were a college radio station! We heard some ambient space rock that
sounded like something on Burnt Hair Records, something else that sounded
like Magic Hour (but wasn't), a Julie Doiron sounding thing, a few cuts of
sensitive lo-fi indie rock guys, the Unrest's "Teenage Suicide" or whatever
that song is called, Chicklet's "Firecracker", some brit pop that was *so*
familiar but we couldn't peg it (a bit like the Charlottes), My Bloody
Valentine's "Soon". Ahhhhhh. That's the way to arrive to a Breathless
concert, by gum!

The show: brilliant. Tone was the opener (and pretty much set up the show
for Breathless). They had 5 guitars, a bass and a drummer. They kind of
reminded us of Scenic, except louder and more rocked up. Breathless had
their psychedelic video back drop (which they didn't have in NYC) and they
played a long trippy set from their new album, Blue Moon. The crowd
absolutely demanded that they play some older songs, and they graciously
acquiesced. They played two older songs as encores: Say September Sings and
Just Don't Fade Away. They promised to relearn more older songs for their
next U.S. engagement, which will hopefully be soon.

We hit the road home at about 12:30am.  There wasn't too much messing with
the radio, but we heard some rap/hip hop on WMUC, which took us to the
beltway. A tape of Difference Engine took us through the Baltimore harbor
tunnel, then more tape, as driving and keeping awake was more a priority
than scanning through static and christian radio stations (ie. WORD-FM).
WPRB, WRSU and WSIA were all off the air as we drove past their respective
areas. WKCR had Phil Schaff, Jr. on playing some very relaxing early
morning jazz when he wasn't talking too much about it. WFMU offered the
counterpart to the dreadful christian radio stations with Bill Z. Bubb,
which is only slightly less annoying. And thus endeth another radio
roadtrip....

July 1, 1999 - to Montreal and back - Bob & B.R.

The Fourth of July: one of holidays during which you don't want to be in
NYC. So we fled the country. On Thursday July 1 (Canada Day!), we started
on our way to Canada to the indie rock stylings of Daniel on WNYU, who
plays so much great stuff that we forgot to write it all down. But we do
remember him playing an "anonymous request" for some Roomtone Records
release (all of which are great, anyway) - it could have been Tarwater. We
also heard something from the new Flaming Lips record.

WFMU had monkey-rocker Dave the Spazz. We can only take a few miles of
that, great as it is. Where this guy finds new songs of the "real rock n'
roll", 1950-60's, motor-driven, oil-stained ilk AND about monkeys, we'll
never know. But he does.

WVKR had some decent indie rock stuff. Including the same Flaming Lips song
heard on WNYU earlier in the day. (Just like listening to commercial
radio.)  For some reason we didn't write down much of what we heard. I
think it had something to do with the alternating driver/sleeper
phenomenon.

We also heard a bit of WDST. (?)

We stopped in Albany to see our friend George who just became the head
brewer of a new brewpub. There's not much to say about the music at the
Pump Station, but the beer is damn good! Especially the wheat beer, which
was the best wheat beer we ever had in a brewpub.

After a refreshing sleep at the Saratoga Springs Super 8, it was back on
the road to Montreal. We got WRUV pretty far outside of Burlington, on the
NY side of Lake Champlain. And it was the best WRUV show we ever heard!
Low, 5 songs from the new Lucksmiths LP, 3 songs from Sand on Stars on
Twist Off Records, Piebald, Mendoza Line, 2 songs from Ill Ease, 3 songs
from Beulah, Pizzacato 5, Girlfriendo. I don't know who the d.j. was, but
she played some great indie pop, and nice long sets of it. We listened to
WRUV all the way to the Canadian border, where it was stopped by customs.
We had to exchange it for a Canadian station.

We got CKUT about 45 minutes south of Montreal. They played some very awful
disco that sounded like a collaboration between Chuck Mangione and Lipps
Inc. They also played some smoove jams/Miami-style stuff.  That's too bad,
because they usually kick ass. CIBL had some talk show, then a techno bed
kicked in. Then THE radio moment of the trip occured. I looked over to B.R.
and said "I would really love it if they were to play Dominique A" and
(this is no exaggeration) no sooner did I finish the sentance and a track
from the new Dominique A record came on. We looked at each other, looked at
the radio, looked at each other again. "Ahem...I would really love it if
this radio station were to give me a million dollars right now!" I'm still
waiting for that request.

CISM had some jazzy music, which was fitting since the big jazz festival
was going on in Montreal that weekend. At about 4pm, while driving around
the city, we went back and forth between CIBL, CISM and CKUT. CKUT played
an interesting mix of stuff including an old Patti Smith song and something
on Jetset that we couldn't identify. Probably Kid Silver. I hear that's
real popular.

We didn't see any jazz while in Montreal, which is hard to believe since
there were jazz stages all around the downtown area. You really had to put
some effort into not seeing jazz that weekend. But we *did* get to watch
and hear Amon Tobin work on his d.j. set for Summer Stage in NYC, where he
was to perform the next day. We were staying in the same apartment (thanks
Jeff & Phillipa!). Amon was worried about his vinyl melting in the 110
degree weather.

We also went to see Jeff spin at Metropolis. He d.j.ed a butt-shakin' set
in the foyer of the club, while some half-ass d.j. was playing lame hip hop
in the main room, opening up for Carl Craig, who we missed because the
whole thing got started about an hour and a half late.

Probably the best thing we did in Montreal was to see the South Park
movie....at the new IMAX! Overkill? A bit. Watching that film in Canada was
a nice touch. Except we weren't sure that we should laugh at all the Canada
jokes. The Canadians didn't seem to find the "a-boot"/"about" jokes too
funny.

Heading back to the states on Independence Day turned out provide an ironic
lesson. And that lesson is that our country was founded so we could live
without unfair taxation and the tyranny of the state. Which is exactly what
we got from the U.S. Customs officers, who seemed more like small town cops
than federal agents. Here's some helpful info for you: if you're crossing
the border with duty-free goods, make sure you declare them. Otherwise,
you're a smuggler trying to avoid paying the $0 in duty that you would owe.
And that will cost you $100. (I could go on for a few pages on this, but
we'll leave it at that for now).

Back in the U.S. we heard some Hawaiian music on WRUV. WDCR was playing
opera. On Monday we caught some of WUNH playing some really good indie rock
stuff. WMBR had some punk/metal show going on. And WZBC had "80s Goth-Pop
Flashback Weekend". Well, that's not what *they* called it. They pulled out
some classics such as Algebra Suicide, Robert Wyatt, Robyn Hitchcock ("My
Wife & My Dead Wife"), Magazine ("The Light Shines Out of Me"), Princess
Tinymeat (!), the Associates, Minimal Compact ("Next One is Real"). They
also played some weird cut-up piece utilizing a WZBC on-air promo for a
Danse Society show at the Rat sometime in the early 80's before playing a
Danse Society track.

We got WTCC around noon playing Machinehead. WMUA had a latin show, during
which the d.j. ceaselessly plugged "Chi Chi Peraltez". We scanned around
the dial once in Hartford and heard a lot of rap/hip hop, but we didn't
bother writing down frequencies. Once on the Saw Mill near Brewster much
later we caught Brendan on WNYU with Windsor for the Derby, Epic
Soundtracks, Rachels, Double Nelson, Crescent, Bevis Frond, Angels of
Light, Couch, Mouse on Mars, SND, Guided By Voices, Sea Scouts, Rothco,
Torococorot, Flaming Lips, Fridge and Si-{cut}.db.

And that's enough of that.


June 18  (BR)

On a recent train trip to DC, I remembered to utilize an oft-forgotten
function of my Walkman - the radio!  While it doesn't get the greatest
reception, I was able to pick up a few things here and there.

Once we exited the tunnel leaving New York, I was able to tune into WFMU
where I caught the tail end of Rob Weisberg's "Wasted Vinyl" show (which we
were also listening to at Triage before I left).  He was playing a very
trancey world track, but I never found out what it was.  I also caught part
of WSOU's metal countdown.  After I lost FMU's signal around 6pm, there
wasn't much to listen to until around 6:20 when I was able to get WPRB and
heard a DJ named John play the indie hits (Pavement, St. Johnny, Built to
Spill, Sham 69, and 2 songs by Beulah) before he segued into some
rockabilly.  PRB faded out near Philly, but I was able to tune in WXPN
which was playing it's usual fare of lame AAA (including some awful Paul
McCartney song from the early 80s).  Luckily, WKDU was a quick jump away
and I caught part of the "Stereo Gerbils" show (or, at least I think that's
what is was called; things were a bit fuzzy a times).  The DJ
back-announced Godheadsilo, Pixies, Gang of 4, Thee Headcoats, and the
Avengers.  I missed all of that, but came in during some garage stuff and a
great track from a crow calling album (that used to be played on WFMU all
the time, but which I haven't heard in a while).  He also played Galaxie
500, the Castaways, Pound, and