This Is Rock 'n' Weird Radio

This many months into remote-control radio programming, it remains weird to realize that I had completed all of my work for Sunday's This Is Rock 'n Roll Radio with Dana & Carl by Wednesday evening.

Weird. But increasingly familiar. I guess I'm getting used to it.

The drawbacks to pre-recording what had previously always been a live radio show aren't going to change. We sacrifice the ability to react in real time to our audience, and even to the music itself as it plays; Dana and I construct the playlist in a telephone conversation on Wednesday afternoon, which isn't the same as hearing a song played by your co-host and allowing its specific groove to influence your next selection. After we've settled on the playlist, I assemble the tracks, Dana sends me any songs I don't have on hand, I record back-announcements, and then I ship the whole mess off to Dana. He adds his commentary, edits the package into a three-hour broadcast-ready form, and sets it all up to delight our fans come Sunday night.

It's a process, and it works. At the heart of it all, I do think we manage to maintain a decent measure of our freewheelin' approach even under these circumstances. But at least some of our spontaneity is inevitably gonna be eliminated as collateral damage. 



With our programming selections locked in by Wednesday for a Sunday night show, we also relinquish the comparative luxury of responding quickly to real-world events (including the recent passings of beloved artists like Adam Schlesinger and Little Richard), of playing new releases that reach us too late to be properly considered for that week's show, and of throwing on some random older track that occurs to me after the fact. For example, if we weren't stuck in the time of pandemic, my iPod's shuffle on Thursday morning to "Boogie Wonderland" by Earth, Wind & Fire would have possibly prompted me to play the track on Sunday night's show. Can't do that now; that show's done.



What we initially think is weird can become accepted and commonplace over time. I was intrigued and excited by the sound of The Sex Pistols in 1977, but it was too odd and jarring for me to regard as music (and certainly not as pop music); now; I consider the Pistols one of the great rock 'n' roll bands, a conclusion that would have been inconceivable when I was 17. In that same time frame, I hated Devo, and now I like 'em just fine, thanks. Familiarity can breed contempt, sure, but it can also create a sense of comfort as we acclimate to the everyday evolution of the awkward and alien into the way things are done.



And that's okay. None of us has any freakin' clue how long all this mishigas is gonna go on and on and on. When and if things return to some semblance of relative normalcy, I won't rule out at least occasionally continuing to program and record TIRnRR via remote control. Probably not always. Maybe never. Maybe sometimes. Maybe more. Maybe not.

We're getting used to this.

Weird, innit?



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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download

Volume 2: CD or download

Volume 3: download

Volume 4: CD or download

Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 134 essays about 134 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).