Driving the Current Music

Two stations in this town merit any consideration when it comes to listening on a consistent basis. Drive 105 and mpr's The Current 89.3. That's it. Everything else on the radio is basically there in case of commercials or bad djing on the tolerable twosome. And, sad as it is, I'll often listen to a commercial rather than listen to anything on Cities 97. Nickelback? Howsabout you give me back the 35 seconds that I actually listened to your stupid station thinking you were trying to sell me a sub samich instead? You can keep the nickel.

The local radio scene is to music what the Mojave is to oases. Yeah I just went plural on oasis (and no that doesn't mean I had a gay threesome with Liam and the uh, what the hell's the other Gallagher brother's name?). I can pluralize with the best of 'em. You can wordify anything if you put your mind to it. There are some hippity hoppity stations if that's your thing (KDWB - which seemed like it was just for kids even when I was 14 and 96.3 - which, well I guess this tells you how much I like the commercial rap cuz I have no idea what the call letters are. The Beat? Maybe. It matters not.) I could go for some funk but I doubt most of my pasty white compatriots could so we are funkless. Except for Mule, there's a funk going on with that boy like nobody's business. Here's a recent photo.








So, back to the decent stations...

Drive 105 is not a great station. I'm not even confident that it's a good station. It is, however, better than just about everything else in this town. Part of that is due to the Current actually. We'll get to that later though. Actually fuck it, let's do it now. The Current is the mvp of the radio league in this town. It has the go-to-itiveness that you need in a main station and yet it makes its radio partners better too. Drive has been playing more interesting, edgy stuff since the Current launched a year or so ago by presumably listening and going "oh, Bright Eyes sounds good, throw it in the rotation".

Drive generally sticks to the same mind-numbing rotation that has killed radio for so many people. I mean seriously, you think satellite radio and it's fees would stand a chance if regular radio stations would stop wasting our time with the 1900th replaying of Friday I'm in love by the Cure? They wouldn't stand a chance. Tom Petty's right, they want to see how much you'll pay for what you used to get for free. Tom Petty's usually right. He's gotta be the smartest guy to ever come out of a swamptown in Florida. I've done no studies on this.

So while I can't commend Drive completely I do like them in general. Here's why I can't commend them though, their band of the day today is the Talking Heads. Let that sink in. The band broke up in 1991. They stopped being relevant sometime in the 90s. Yet they're in constant rotation on the only decent commercial station in the Twin Cities. I seriously hope that this is because sometime in '83 David Byrne got some young radio executives to do blow off a dead hooker's body. I would assume he took pictures and is now using that as blackmail to keep his old band on the radio. I might appreciate them more if that were the case. That has to be the answer right? Call me crazy but maybe Shock the Monkey wasn't intended to be played every 6 hours for 20 fucking years.



By the way that photo's in black and white cuz that's all they had back then. It's not an artistic thing.






That leaves us with the Current 89.3 to listen to. I'm a member. No commercials is worth something to me. Plus it's easy to feel smarter than you when I have a member card for 2 for 1's at Coldstone to cash in. Thriftiness is brilliant.

First - the good stuff. The Current is far and away the leader in making me buy new music. Because they play stuff I haven't heard by bands that are new or overlooked. Or they play a "deep cut" from a band I have heard of and that implores me to throw down some cash. They rock for this reason above all else. These people actually like music and, like the nerdy friend who can't wait to play a mixtape for you, they push it on you whether you like it or not. They also play a lot of local music (a good thing) and they crush for size in not caring about formats. They'll play anything from any style of music. Which, ironically, rocks.

Now - The bad. Some bands that they play do not deserve radio play. There's a reason why some of these yahoos haven't been discovered by the masses. The reason is they suck more than a Scary Movie marathon. The station seems to cater to shoegazing music more than anything, which isn't bad, but can get a little dull. Also the lack of a format means that they'll play a cool rock song from a swedish band like The Sounds (a solid little band that I love because they happened to put two women on their album subtly touching each other. The best part? The women aren't even in the fucking band! They did it just to get a dude to pick up the disc and it fucking works man! It fucking works every time!) and follow it up with an instrumental from a Canadian duo and then wrap up the set with a Hank Williams Jr track. There's no flow. The best thing Drive has going for it is, on a rare occasion, they will uncork a 3-4 song set that just fucking jams out with their clams out and gets you all fired up. The Current lacks that ability.

Also, and I don't recommend you do this, their website is just depressing. A bunch of music nerds outnerding each other. Basic contention is that if you have heard of a band they must be played out. It's sad. Check out this link for further evidence. Say what you want about Pearl Jam - they deserve to be played no matter how many records they've sold in the past. If Nickelback and Coldplay can get played then it can't even be debated if they're "good enough" for the Current. The Current site is the sun so be wary all you Musical Icaruses. Icari?

Damn I can wordify anything.

Rating

Drive 105 - Aweso
The Current 89.3 - Awesome