Driving to points North

I drove across the New York metro and Connecticut Friday on the way to Portland Maine, and for the first time in a long time caught Marko's Punk Rock Jukebox on 90.1 WECS. It is without a doubt the finest punk rock radio program I've heard in America. It also boasts the most obscure playlists. Host Marko owns an enviable collection of punk vinyl from the peak of the era. I've been unimpressed with the last few year of talent from that station, but Marko has kept solid for several years now. Thankfully the station streams now and I can listen to his show from the comfort of my cubicle. Of course the format is .pls requires a slight modification of your windows mediaplayer. Basically you install this doohickey. McAfee confirms this is free off malware and adware.

Instead fo rocking the local Boston radio while on I-95 North I played the Officer May record and celebrated the most recent peak of local Boston music. [I did catch a bit of Selected Shorts btu that's its own post.] Nobody else likes Officer May so I was alone on this point. Of course this would place said peak in 2003 likely leaving me at odds with our friends at Exitfare but so it goes.

In Portland I listened to several hours of 88.3 WYAR. Its a nostalgia outlet with a real touch for deep catalog standards and at night some truly amazing country oldies. I heard some slide guitar artisans I'd never head of previously. I'd really been looking forward to hearding something on WMPG but they were running a really run of the miss electric blues program. I dig the blues but weak whiteboy blues are not moving to me. But Saturday morning they made up for it all with a freakish program of Cambodian music; gotta love that. I couldn't listen to anything except 93.1 WMGX "the Coast" in my hotel room as it was audible ON ALL FREQUENCIES! I don't blame them though.... intermod happens. but it is odd to get intermod like that 4 miles out. I was in South Portland at the time.

But being in South Portland, I was abel to hear America's only Smooth Jazz Low Power station. http://www.wjzp.org/ they use Jazz-like branding but it's smooth jazz ,trust me. I get nauseous immediately.

Things were exciting and with wind chill managed to dip below zero. I ended up springing for a hot lunch mid afternoon at Rosies. A little demi salad and a bowl of hot minestrone helped me recover from working outside.