We are now in year 19 .... Annually gather my thoughts and I revisit my my statement from 2015... " it seems both impossible and inadvisable to have gone so far down the rabbit-hole." This blog began in April of 2005. As of this date, that works out to more than 2,980 posts. The odometer will finally roll over 3,000 some time next year.
Links to all 19 years of News & Reviews:
| 2024 | ... |
2023 |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |
| 2019 | 2018 |
2017 |
| 2016 | 2015 | 2014 |
| 2013 | 2012 |
2011 |
| 2010 | 2009 |
2008 |
| 2007 | 2006 |
2005 |
Best Posts:
I started off 2023 with a big research project into the publication history of TAB books. (Many of you surely own a few.) But then in September I did a little research project on cassette magnetic shields. I also dug deep into the weird history of George Garabedian and Mark 56. I had a great time with those three in particular. But I think my favorite was The Lost Lost World, where I researched the various radio theater interpretations of the 112-year-old book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It got me back into radio dramas a bit. Then I traced the history of metal radio back just a little bit further than before. I had a great interview with Ron Harris, formerly of WCPR, but that was only just posted.
Most Popular Posts:
The burden of time allows old posts accumulate more clicks than the new posts. So my most popular posts haven't changed in over a decade. Since 2009 the most traffic has gone to a post about Peter Tripp. This is what I call the post that Reddit built. It remains an aberration in my web-traffic with 96k+ hits. I did eventually collate a list of all Radio Wake-a-thon records here. It garnered another 12,700 hits of it's own. My 2007 post on the Career Academy of Famous Broadcasters continues
to get comments from it's legion of former students.
My biggest post of 2024 was a biography of E. Rodney Jones, The World's Greatest Disc Jockey. That was closely followed by an interview I did in February with the host of Soul Express, Dean Farrell. I doubt they ever met but in soul music they have a definite kinship. My interview with Erik Hanson, host of The Local Show at WHCM a close third. But at this moment the WRKZ post is accumulating hits the fastest.
Best Zine
Because of Slingshot I get to read a lot of Zines. There were some awesome ones this year. I really liked Restless Legs and Fluke of course. But that last issue of Restless Legs was a revelation, underground lit at it's absolute finest. I reviewed some of those in the last issue of Slingshot #141. Radio Dies Screaming is Dynamite Hemorrhage with a new improved name.
- Radio Dies Screaming [LINK]
- Restless Legs [LINK]
- Hiroshima Yeah [LINK]
- Fluke [LINK]
- Ear O' Corn [LINK]
- Copy This Cassette! [LINK]
Best Radio Show:
I've been back on the podcast wagon for a while. The bit of travel I did in 2023 was radio-free time I mostly spent napping I do miss spinning the dial in new places and finding unexpected things.
- The Local Show - WHCM [LINK]
- Had a great interview back in March.
- The Lost Highway - Waieke Radio [LINK]
- Unpredictable playlists exploring dark corners with a punk rock zeitgeist
- Left of the Dial - KWNK [LINK]
- Brilliant sides of punk and noise-rock
- Radio Free Midwitch Show - RFM [LINK]
- It's not new but I've just discovered the archive and wow. It's as random as random gets. Screaming, shouting, beeps, blips, retro keyboards, drones, broken guitars... it's the dogs breakfast.
- Turn Me On Dead Man Podcast [LINK ]
- Every episode is different but great sides in drone and psychedelia
- All Hex Broken Loose - Radio Valencia [LINK]
- From Joe Henderson to Max Roach and it works
- Retrospect '60s Garage Punk Show [LINK]
- Just what it says on the tin.
Top 10 Records of 2022
Usually my top 10 is comprised of full-length albums, and is format agnostic. My definition of "full-length" is utterly at my discretion as to number of tracks, or length in minutes. But generally EPs, Singles, re-releases, and demos get sifted down the the notable list. I've gotten more flexible on this as the digital age seems to be driving shorter release formats. But if you release 3 rad singles in a year, an album that is not.
It was truly a great year for music. The increasing affordability home recording software and gear is really democratizing music. However, I'm noticing two things. 1. an increasing "sameness" to the production style, which may be related to the software packages. and 2. an increasing number of streaming only records. Will Laut's Lost and Found, while truly brilliant is only on streaming services today, no physical media, no downloads to be found. So I demoted him from the top 10.
The world is changing and I don't think I'm going to change with it this time. The album has been a dominant audio medium for over half a century. While that is clearly changing, I'm old and I'm not on the boat. I'm staying right here, where LP stands for "Long Play" and I have the attention span to prove it.
- Chat Pile - Cool World
- Soft Play - Heavy Jelly
- Jesus Lizard - Rack
- Fontaines B.C. - Romance
- Human Impact - Gone Dark
- Blacklisters - This is not at album by BLKLSTRS;
- Penny Rich - On and On
- Melvins - Tarantula Heart
- Big'n - South of Loathsome
- Normans - Normans
Notable mentions: Will Laut - Lost and Found; Snakebite Sermon - The Coffin and The Cross ; Skeeter de Milo - Bread; Dust Worship - Friend; Norillag - The Union of Death; Common Wounds - All Night Blood; Braces - Serotonin; Frontierer - The Skull Burned; ISTA - Megawatt; Initium - II, Flak (self titled), Killing Joke - Honor the Fire Live (3LP), Killing Joke - Live at Lokerse, Dälek – Negro Necro Nekros (re-release 2xLP), ISTA - Megawatt (single), Orphan - "singles", Initium - II, Abandon - Assailable//Agonism, Cura AB - The Campaign , Doom Beach - Burden, Sunrot / Body Void - Split, Kublai Kahn - Exhibition of Prowess; Consumer Culture - Log Off (single); Urine Hell - Already Dead Tapes; Twenty One Trillion - 18,17,16,16,15; TODD - Purity Pledge;Doom Beach - Burden; Moiii - Moiii; Boucan - Deux; Consumer Culture - Log Off (single); Uniform - American Standard; Softsun - Daylight in the Dark; Massa Nera - Pioggiadanza Sessions; End of Age - Narcoleptic Hallucinations; Normas; Dead Pioneers - Dead Pioneers ;
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