Posts Tagged ‘MIT’

h1

Wrap-up: guest DJing on WMBR

March 6, 2008

microphone

Well, I had a terrific time guest-DJ’ing on WMBR this morning. Emphasis on the ‘guest’ – I got to do all the fun parts, like choosing all the songs and talking. Keith handled the control panel with gracious professionalism, and made me feel very welcome and less like the total newbie I am. I decided to focus on Canadian indie music, just because I know it pretty well and I needed a theme to narrow down the universe of possibilities. You can listen to the stream (.m3u file) for the next two weeks (until the morning of Thursday, March 20th). Note that I don’t come in until about the half-hour mark; Breakfast of Champions, WMBR’s morning show, runs from 8 to 10 and I was officially in from 8:30 to 9:30 am.

EDIT [March 20, 2008]: If you missed the streaming, but still want to hear it, feel free to contact me at debcha at gmail dot com and I can hook you up.

Here’s a copy of my notes from this morning; you can guess what I thought was the most important thing to remember (click on image to see a PDF).

playlist notes

Here’s the full playlist:

Treble Charger: Red (NC-17 version)

Destroyer: The Leopard of Honour

Ladyhawk: Fear

Les Breastfeeders: Tout Va Pour Le Mieux Dans Le Pire des Monde

Leather Uppers: Say It In French

Mother Mother: Touch Up

Wintersleep: Weighty Ghost

Caribou: Melody Day

The Besnard Lakes: Devastation

Miracle Fortress: Hold Your Secrets in Your Heart

Immaculate Machine: Dear Confessor

Tokyo Police Club: Nature of the Experiment

Born Ruffians: Hummingbird

The Awkward Stage: Heaven is For Easy Girls

Sloan: Underwhelmed

The Weakerthans: Tournament of Hearts

[background music]

Broken Social Scene: I Slept with the Bonhomme at the CBC

Broken Social Scene: Love and Mathematics

Top image: Speak into me, by Flickr user billyv, reposted here under its Creative Commons license.

Previously: Listen local: my guest DJ slot on WMBR, Advance warning: my guest DJ slot on WMBR

Posted in Listen local | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

h1

Listen local: my guest DJ slot on WMBR

March 5, 2008

today’s fortune

I’ll be guest DJing on WMBR tomorrow, Thursday, March 6th, from 8:30 am to 9:30 am EST, sitting in on their weekday morning show, Breakfast of Champions. My playlist is focused on Canadian indie music, probably including songs from the new Destroyer and Ladyhawk albums, which haven’t yet been officially released (man, I’m enjoying having access to WMBR’s library!).

Three ways to listen:

Over the airwaves: If you are in the Boston area, tune into 88.1 on your FM dial.

Live streaming: Go to WMBR and click on one of the links in the top right corner to listen live.

Archives: If 8:30 am Eastern doesn’t work for you, but you’d still like to listen, the show will be archived for two weeks, starting pretty much immediately after it airs. Click here and select March 6, 2008.

Stay tuned for a follow-up post, with the complete playlist.

So obey my fortune cookie and turn way to the left of your dial as you head in to work tomorrow morning!

Previously: Advance warning: my guest DJ slot on WMBR

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

h1

Advance warning: my guest DJ slot on WMBR

February 17, 2008

wmbr sticker

WMBR, MIT’s community radio station, has one of the coolest member premiums ever – you can come in and DJ part of your favourite radio show. I made a donation to them in their fall fundraising drive, and I’ll be heading in to the studio to be a guest DJ on their morning show, Breakfast of Champions, on Thursday, March 6th, 2008, from 8:30 to 9:30 am EST. Keith, the Thursday BoC host, was kind enough to orient me to the station and let me spend a couple of hours perusing CDs in the stacks (pant, pant) yesterday afternoon, in preparation for my on-air turn.

WMBR homepage (link to streaming audio at upper right of page)

Breakfast of Champions: site, archives

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

h1

Listen local: The Franklin Kite

January 30, 2008

blog readability test

According to the Blog Readability Test at Critics Rant, the reading level of this blog is ‘genius’ — in the same category as The Economist and Nature, and considerably less readable than, say, Boing Boing (‘elementary school’) or the New York Times (‘junior high school’).

However, in my (admittedly feeble) defense, I’d like to point out that Cambridge, MA, probably has the world’s highest concentration of literate, geeky bands with overeducated lead singers. So instead of talking about bands whose lyrics are in the ‘yeah yeah yeah baby’ school, I get to enthuse about bands like The Franklin Kite, whose lyrics include words like ‘disambiguate,’ ‘conducive,’ and ‘malignant.’ Lead singer Ryan Hickox just got his PhD in astrophysics from MIT (and to celebrate his successful thesis defence, they held a concert). He’s still local though, having joined the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a postdoc. If you are in the neighbourhood, go check them out at Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square on Friday, February 1st, 2008 (I think it’s some kind of Harvard-oriented concert, but don’t let that put you off).

website myspace

MP3: The Franklin Kite – Miraculous

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

h1

Listen local: Bon Savants

December 28, 2007

Bon Savants by Maryanne VentriceMy favourite rock and roll moment of 2007 was at a Bon Savants concert. At the end of their show at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, frontman Thom Moran (everybody’s favourite rocket scientist) lifted his guitar over his head like a – literal – axe to mock-smash it down on the stage, in an homage-slash-parody to hard rockin’ guitarists everywhere. Unfortunately, its trajectory took it straight into a mirror ball hanging above him, and shards of glittering glass confetti’ed down onto the stage. The best part was the look on his face – any semblance of rock poseur was gone, and it was pure little boy, just got caught stealing cookies and worried about getting in trouble with mum.

Guilty looks aside, the Bon Savants play thoughtful, tuneful, sophisticated pop, mostly about love and loss but interwoven with scientific and other metaphors. Their self-released debut album, Post-Rock Defends the Nation, has been occupying a CD slot in my car stereo for most of the year. The standout track remains ‘Between the Moon and the Ocean,’ with ‘Mass Ave and Broadway’ a close second (despite the lyrics that refer to Porter Square as located at that intersection; in reality, Porter Square, Cambridge is at the intersection of Mass Ave and Somerville Ave).

Image: Bon Savants at the Mercury Lounge, New York, in June 2007. Photo by Maryanne Ventrice, reposted here under its Creative Commons license.

website myspace amazon

MP3: Bon Savants – Between the Moon and the Ocean

Posted in Listen local | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments »