Where "There" Is In L.A.
by James Denning

The state of radio in Los Angeles is another reason for you to wish you were here. Not for the bulk of LA radio; like anywhere, it sucks. However, there are two stations that make it worth owning a receiver.

One is apparently a pirate radio station that broadcasts on 87.9. When it isn't crowded out by the very worthy 88.1 KLON (a jazz station) 87.9 plays an odd stream of utter freeform, records cutting off half-way through, snips and samples, odd joke numbers and, most of the time, the best alternative rock collection I've ever driven around LA to, afraid to hit a parking deck because I didn't want to lose the signal. And even before Douglas Adams died, they were playing Hitchikers tapes somewhere after 1 in the morning. Except for some guy on Friday evenings (who stinks), no one ever talks, no DJ ever interrupts to announce a playlist, no call letters, no phone number, nothing but great radio. A sample playlist from an hour or so on Saturday afternoon:

Sonic Youth - Diamond Rain (earlier in the morning)
Jane’s Addiction - Three Days (live)
Grateful Dead - (some damn thing)
Three punk rock songs I’ve never heard before (Whatcha gonna do about the man in blue?)
Rhapsody in Blue (live)
Five minutes of Noam Chomsky being interviewed on capitalism
Violent Femmes - Blister in the Sun
An old singing ad for Winston with a country beat and surf guitar.
Louis Armstrong - La Vie En Rose
Some bit of orchestral prog rock that was cut in half to fade into some punk rockabilly girl squealing
(somebody) - You Better Watch Out of the Insects Will Get You.

There is one bit of LA radio you can catch, however, which is KCRW, out of Santa Monica College. They have an incredible set of shows every day, week in, week out. Some, like Morning Becomes Eclectic, Weekend Becomes Eclectic, Pop Secret and Swing Shift are dedicated to great rock acts that don't get any (or enough) commercial play - Pete Yorn, Whiskeytown, Steven Malkmus, David Byrne's new stuff, Travis, Nikka Costa, etc. Where else would I know that Sinead O'Connor has a drum and bass outfit - the AfroCelt Ensemble - that sounds great? Most weekday nights are dance stuff in a great show called Metropolis. There's also a soul/r&b show with perhaps the best name that any radio show has ever had: Chocolate City, with your velvet-voice-from-four-octaves-down host: Garth Trinidad.

Right now I'm listening to Weekend Becomes Eclectic. Here's the last hour:

El Coco - Brazzaville in the Congo, from "Salsa Africa"
Hendrix - Crosstown Traffic
Llorca - Indigo Woman, a calypso driven blues sung by a woman who is a dead ringer for Lisa Stansfield
Stevie Wonder - Boogie Woman
Boys from Brazil - Bom Bom Bay
Carl Zero - Savat Savat from Songs for Cabriolets. A French instruction record remixed to a cha-cha beat powered by a skating rink organ.
Rufus Wainright - Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
Nichole Kidman - One Day I’ll Fly Away, from Moulin Rouge
Kenobi - Slip into Something More Comfortable
Pete Yorn - Life on a Chain (my new favorite song).

Sounds Eclectic (yeah, they run that title into the ground) is syndicated, you might catch that around. This week features a live, in studio performance from Air.

Unlike the pirate station, you can actually catch KCRW on-line, at http://www.kcrw.org/grid/

©2001 James Denning