If you're not doing anything else Saturday around lunch (EDT) make sure you go to wrgw radio and listen to one of my favorite L.A. Youth alums spin some tunes. Shannon is the host The Original Soundtrack her radio show on WRGW, the campus radio station at The George Washington University.
And in so doing Shannon is living one of my dreams—being a DJ. Her show is fanfuckintastic actually—waaaaaay more eclectic than KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic (which I heart). Tune in and you could get Kimya Dawson or Radiohead or Dean Martin or Frank Valli singing "Grease" or Yo La Tengo or hear her give L.A. Youth a shoutout followed by Henry Mancini or Jamiroquai. How fucking bad ass is that? Seriously! That's the show I would have done or would do now (well, except for the Yo La Tengo, I think. They just don't quite do it for me).
I have few regrets in my life, but one of them is not getting involved with the college radio station. Despite going to a college with 35,000 students, the University of Arizona's KAMP didn't have a presence. The signal was so weak that the station had almost no reach. I literally listened to it less than five times and never off campus. But I worry about my unrealized aspirations.
For the past few weeks I've been sending her one mp3 to play per show (so far Single Gun Theory's "From a Million Miles," Sara Craig's "Sparks Fly," The Pipettes' "Because It's Not Love" and finally Debbie Gibson's "Lost In Your Eyes"). I did this to share some music that I love, particularly older stuff like Single Gun Theory, which literally changed my musical life, and admittedly gave me some obscuria cred to outshine most. Well, that's mostly why I did it. But I think I also wanted to make her live out what I missed.
Seriously, I am not nearly good enough a writer to describe how hard it is for me to limit myself to sending just one song or preventing myself from typing out entire two-hour playlists. Along with owning a restaurant/bar and naming sandwiches after my friends, this is THE DREAM.
But though I've choked off that urge to live vicariously through her, the magical technology that allows me to email songs to her, also lets me IM the crap out of her. I usually request a song or two per show, once requesting Bobby Brown's "My Prerogative," which turned into a disaster when she found a remix version that lasted like seven gawful minutes.
And then the IMs get out of control, like when she mispronounces a band name, I IM her the correct pronunciation. When she says something incorrect about L.A. Youth, I'm not able to appreciate the shoutout but I have to send her the correct info. I'm a dick, basically. I'm not mature enough to be proud that one of my fave kids is having a great time discovering a new interest, I have to play in the sanbox, too and essentially tell her how to build a sandcastle the way I want to. Sorry, Shan!
Aside: another regret is related to the delay with this post. I should have blogged about this a few weeks ago so I could have given Shannon more of a shoutout for her really cool show. Sorry, Shan!
But in the end, I just want to say that your show is pretty fucking awesome and I'm really proud of you.
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