Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Fireball
Friday
February 16, 2007
I wrote on Wednesday about the new Wrestling Society X show that airs on MTV on Tuesday nights. Well, it figures that the time I give them a write-up on here is the week that MTV decides to pull an episode because of a fireball being thrown. Is someone over there still gun-shy from the whole Beavis and Butt-head fire controversy of 1993? Ugh.
I did some e-mailing yesterday, fired up from the Libertarian article I wrote on here, to state and federal lawmakers who represent my district. State Senator Steve French wrote back with a generic "thanks for writing" e-mail. State Representative Cam Ward sent me this:
Dear Lou, thank you for sharing your thoughts on the need for less government intervention the lives of our citizens. I think you will find that I have one of the most libertarian voting records in the Alabama House of Representatives. Having consistently spoken out against the use of eminent domain, restrictions on free speech, and the general rights of citizens to do as they please so long as it does not harm or infringe on the rights of their fellow citizens.
But the kicker was from State Senator Hank Erwin:
SORRY...NO CAN DO...
SENATOR HANK ERWIN
Hey, at least the guy was straight-forward with me. The abrupt, all-caps style took me back. It kind of reminds me of how Bubba used to send me e-mail, brief and in all-caps.
Speaking of Bubba, congrats to him and the rest of the BTLS show guys for getting a push at Sirius and doing live shows on Friday morning beginning next week. That Thursday/Friday turnaround will be a bitch (4 am is bad enough of a wake-up time when you're on a schedule for it, but once a week when you're used to staying up late is worse.)
But it's worth the sacrifice, as it will give Bubba and company morning drive-time exposure with a live program on Howard 101. Howard Stern has all Fridays off, a privilege he didn't use at first but has now apparently decided to utilize full-time; Stern now runs classic shows in that Friday morning timeslot. Bubba will broadcast on H101 on Fridays from 6-10 am ET, a timeslot he held through February 2004 in his last incarnation while on terrestrial radio.
Sirius has been stepping it up as of late. They just added an all 90s rock channel (called Lithium 24, an homage to Nirvana), which has been very very cool. Over Super Bowl weekend they did an all 90s rock weekend on Alt Nation 21, which was wonderful and made me wish that they had a channel devoted just to that. I wrote Demos and Wendi (Madison) from Alt Nation, two people I've kept in touch with from there, praising it, and I thought it was strange that I never heard back about it. Maybe the secret plans to launch Lithium 24 is why.
My Sirius "A" list preset (I rarely go to B or C, as it's unwieldy to do that in most cases) is now as follows:
1. Howard 100 (Hot Talk uncensored)
2. Howard 101 (Hot Talk uncensored)
3. Alt Nation 21 (Modern Rock uncensored)
4. The Pulse 9 (90s/00s Hot ACish pop songs)
5. Sirius Hits 1 (Contemporary Hit Radio)
6. Left of Center 26 (College/true "alternative" songs uncensored, kind of a mix between my old College ID Required show on WUEV and the old WOXY in Oxford, OH)
7. Shade 45 (Hip-Hop uncensored)
8. The Spectrum 18 (AAA type programming, the closest thing I've found to the great WRLT Lightning 100 in Nashville)
9. Lithium 24 (90s Alternative uncensored that seems to span from 1993-1999, which is right in my wheelhouse)
0. The Coffee House 30 (Acoustic songs, mostly from the past 15 years, with some great rare gems from time to time)
There are great channels that didn't make the cut: Octane (Rock/Rap hybrid, similar to KMBY-FM in Monterey, CA; it was just bumped from the A List for Lithium 24), Maxim (I like the music more than the talk, though the presence of commercials even during music programming is disconcerting), Octane (for those times when I want some hard rock), BBC Radio 1 (British CHR, which I grew to love while at Harlaxton College in the fall of 1998), Chill (low-key music, not Spa but good to relax to), and the 60s, 70s, and 80s channels.
I compare this with the mostly horrid programming that's on terrestrial radio in Birmingham... and I can't help but be very thankful that satellite radio exists as an option. Sirius is the single-most cost-effective entertainment source I have; for $10 a month (or whatever rate it is that I got for a one-year pre-payment) I get it all. Long car trips seem to take about half as long with Sirius, and I've found that in many cases I listen to Sirius more than I watch TV in a given week.
If you're looking for a great on-the-rise band, check out the Silversun Pickups. I'd link to their homepage instead of Wikipedia if they didn't have one of those awful "we over-thought the process" websites.
But, website issues aside, the band is excellent, sporting a mid-90s rock sound with a lead singer who sounds similar to Billy Corrigan of Smashing Pumpkins but with a female backup singer. There are elements of That Dog and The Rentals (without the keyboard) in there, and overall they have a sound that I dig. Props to VK for the good find... and the embedded songs. See, music companies, the internet can help give FREE exposure to an emerging artist.
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