WFMU: The Dusty Show with Clay Pigeon

I've almost given up on my MP3s. I've got so many of them that its really really gross. It would probably do me good to get a hold of an Mp3 player with tons of capacity and portable speakers so I could just listen to them wherever I go. As it stands, they all fit on a portable hardrive that I bought for that specific purpose. A 500gb hard drive that is 2/3rds of the way full. And my friend Linda has turned me onto WFMU, a self-described "freeform" New Jersey Radio Station. I found two shows that I really like and are definitely "freeform" but also coherent. The first one is The Dusty Show with Clay Pigeon. He has a very friendly voice that overlays a David Lynchesque soundscape (I mean that in a good way) and muses on topical subjects such as Thanksgiving, the Holidays, eating, drinking, and music. Music concrete meets Prairie Home Companion, again, in a good way. Because he plays good music. For example, his last show showcased artists from Blipfest 2007 in Manhattan. This Blip music is a scene that's been percolating for a lot of years (since the 90's) but has recently exploded, as evident by use of blip sounds in the mainstream. (This dovetails easily with everything Electro.) Blip sounds are essentially, as I understand it, sounds derived from 8bit computers, such as old Ataris, the NES, and the Commodore 64. I've been using these sounds a lot because of Plug-ins such as Peach from Tweakbench, and newer ones like TriForce. But according to what I heard on the Dusty show the hardcore Blip artists don't use emulators, but use the real things. I'm not sure about that--how could you tell? Anyhow, it's exciting stuff. I've always loved 8bit sound, and I love finding out how hip I didn't know I was. Even if I could never be considered a purist. Anyhow, purity is for schmucks.

The other show is the Ed Shepp show. Ed actually commented on my blog a few years ago, lamenting that he couldn't download my tunes. Well, Ed, if you're listening, I got tons of tunes, all downloadable. Here are some of my personas available on myspace:

myspace.com/meltmaster
myspace.com/abettertomorrowii
myspace.com/thefellowtravelers
myspace.com/spielimsand
myspace.com/runorimac
myspace.com/pyramidoflions

But thanks to WFMU, I've got a whole bunch more music I want to buy and I haven't listened to what I have. It's ridiculous. Before I catch up with Blip and dub-step, they'll have converged into a new scene.

But I love the grassroots nature of WFMU; there is little right in this world, but WFMU represents something that is right. (At least on the surface.) And that's what I feel the Dusty show is doing quite well, celebrating what needs to be celebrating, but still acknowledges the inescapable trivialities that trip us up. Let us acknowledge our hang-ups, but move on.

And I suppose we need Mike Gravel, the same way we need Ron Paul, Kucinich, as well as The Space Needle, and Garrison Keillor's horrible, horrible, horrible singing. Hillary gets worse and worse (unless I'm mistaken, she's still freaking hawkish on Iran), Obama is abominable, and well...Edwards is winning by default in the general election in my head.