Pop Rocks!: Episode 3.6: "Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets" Pop Rocks

Well, I'm pretty awful at blogging. It's true, I think it's a good idea at first and then, like a house plant or pet, I forget about it and it dies. I am constantly late with posting play lists, and I am fairly certain it is because I'm hitting the rut and basically, the only reason I keep this up is to have record of every playlist for this show when I am, I don't know, 40...looking back on the old days. That is, if the internet still exists. That, and shit, you play nothing but indie pop every Saturday for ten months and it'll start to get to you. Next semester though, man, I just want a really nice rotation show. It's like retirement for DJs! They put you out to pasture so your last days are at least pleasant...before they put you down...or when you graduate, whichever comes first. However, if I am still in college by the age of 23 (god forbid), I will retire prematurely.
So yeah, I'm burnt out. I realize this when I throw together a show every week. I basically go through all of the new stuff I've acquired, pick out the songs that sound the most interesting. Half listen for any DNPs and they play them. Every once in a while I find something amazing but fuck, when I first started I was meticulous. And maybe I understand why so many DJs hate pop music...or maybe I don't. The problem is, presenting pop music every week has taken me to a place where I barely listen to pop music in my free time. I mean, sure, a lot of what I listen to now is of some sort of pop persuasion (I'm not listening to dance music or metal or anything drastic like that) but damn, I don't know, I guess sometimes it feels like it isn't worth it.

Maybe it's just that things feel horribly wrong at KJHK right now. Like the station is sinking into a horrible place where DJs won't play anything beyond Death Cab for Cutie, Bright Eyes, The Shins, Radiohead (I heard all of these artists in a 20 minutes set the other day, and the two times I turned on the radio before that randomly that week I heard Bright Eyes and the Shins and was depressed for the rest of the day), or any sort of innocuous electronica. Frankly, the station just sounds like shit right now and it gives me a headache thinking about how I can do my part to make it sound better. I just show up every Saturday and I guess for two hours I try to make KJHK sound like something that I want to listen to. My show is basically a popped-up version of Alternative Flashback as hosted by Gabe Holcombe and Justin Brown, the only show on KJ I have really "followed," if you will, since I've been involved.

But fuck, who am I to say anything? Do I want to set an example for DJs, to show them that there was music made before the year 2000 (besides Elton FUCKING John, I wish I was kidding when I said that I'd heard Elton John (and Journey) on KJHK on various occasions) or am I just an elitist? Yelling at DJs won't help, and it's rude and it's not helpful, but what do you do when you want to save a radio station? To make people realize that being a DJ is a privilege and not an opportunity to transform yourself into a local celebrity or show the world how hip you are because you play some Justice remix that you ripped from some blog, or whatever. How do you save a sinking ship? Maybe this radio show is like that band on the Titanic who played music while the ship was sinking to the bottom of the sea (in the movie at least). A swan song for a place renowned as a haven for independent music which has mutated into your favorite hits from the Garden State soundtrack and bands that they branded INDIE in big bold letters on 96.5 the Buzz. It's all just kicking against the pricks, I guess.

Anyway, the rant is over. This show was a bit of a change of pace. Spring Semester I did a show focusing specifically on the Nuggets Boxset and when I found out a new one was coming out, man oh man, I got excited. Even though the music here would be better suited for a show like Fractal Ephemera, it was still fun to discover this boxset as I went along and yeah, it's really good...especially if you're into, I don't know, doing LSD or something. I'm not, personally, but the music is still good and cool and you should check it out. Most of these songs were pretty sweet.

The Charlatans - Number One (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Otherside - Streetcar (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Beau Brummels - Don't Talk to Strangers (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Chocolate Watchband - No Way Out (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Great! Society - Somebody to Love (LP Version) (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Flamin' Groovies - I'm Drowning (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Mystery Trend - Johnny Was a Good Boy (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Stained Glass - My Buddy Sin (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Notes From the Underground - Why Did You Put Me On? (Love is the Song We Sing: San
Francisco Nuggets)
Steve Miller Band - Quicksilver Girl (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Teddy & His Patches - Suzy Creamcheese (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Serpent Power - Up and Down(Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Syndicate of Sound - Rumors (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Great! Society - Free Advice(Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Oxford Circle - Foolish Woman(Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Blackburn & Shaw - Stranger in a Strange Land (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco
Nuggets)
The Beau Brummels - Two Days 'Til Tomorrow (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco
Nuggets)
The Grass Roots - Mr. Jones (Ballad of a Thin Man) (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco
Nuggets)
The Generation - I Am a Good Woman (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Family Tree - Live Your Own Life (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Sea Train - Portrait of an Artist as a Young Lady (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco
Nuggets)
The Frantics - Human Monkey (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Charlatans - Alabama Bound (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Jefferson Airplane - I'ts No Secret (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Country Joe & the Fish - Superbird (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Immediate Family - Rubiyat (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Blue Cheer - Summertime Blues (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Mourning Reign - Satisfaction Guaranteed (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco
Nuggets)
Fifty Foot Horse - Red the Sign Post (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
New Breed - Want Ad Reader (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Mad River - Amphetamine Gazelle (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Harbinger Complex - Sometimes I Wonder (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco
Nuggets)
The Warlocks - Can't Come Down (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
The Count Five - Psychotic Reaction (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)
Blue Cheer - Fool (Love is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets)