News and Reviews 2025

2025 is the 20th anniversary of Arcane Radio Trivia. (That's MMXXV to you romanophiles.) In May of this year, the odometer rolled over 3,000 posts. It's a moment to reflect upon. I stopped writing new intros to this annual wrap up a few years ago, somewhat fixating on a sentence I willed into existence in the hazy final months of 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 3,025 posts.

Links to all 20 years of News & Reviews:

2025	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 story about WPIR, and later interviewed Jeffrey Riman who was music director back in the 1970s. I did a deep dive into the history of WLFR, Lake Fred radio and finally told the tale of why WTSR had to changed it's call letters. (Sorry about that) I also interviewed the host behind Riot Radio and found a kindred music geek. I'd like to thank Jay Allen for letting me quote him at length about inductive coupling, and Kyle Davis, the great nephew of Roy Parks who reached out to chat with me about The Skyline Boys. I still need to get back to some folks about more interviews; these articles don't write themselves.

 
Most Popular Posts:
On 11/23/25 some AI bot hit the blog pretty hard, about 75k hits in an afternoon from Singapore. But it didn't skew the numbers, it scraped everything equally. Anyway, the burden of time allows old posts accumulate more clicks than the new posts. So my most popular posts are always older posts, and really 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. My 2007 post on the Career Academy of Famous Broadcasters continues to garner hits comments from it's legion of former students. But the articles within each year vary quite a lot. But the posts I enjoy writing the most are not always the ones that get read the most. Here's the top 5 for 2025:

1. O.B. Kirkpatrick's Instructograph 
2. Wisconsin School of the Air 
3. Bellarmine College Radio 
4. Inductive Coupling and the Select-A-Tenna
5. WIFX - Jamestown College Radio 

Best Zine
Because of Slingshot I get to read a lot of Zines. I usually don't know what's coming in the mail, but I enjoy the mystery. This year I really liked The Scumrag and Fluke is always a great read of course. But that last issue of Restless Legs Inquirer was a revelation; that was 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 back with a new improved name. Restless Legs and Jay Hinman unfortunately retired their zines this year. Next years list will inevitably be much different.

• Radio Dies Screaming [LINK]
  
• The Scumrag [LINK]
• Restless Legs Inquirer [LINK]
• Hiroshima Yeah [LINK]
  
• Fluke [LINK]
  
• Ear O' Corn [LINK]
  

Best Radio Show:
I've been back on the webcast wagon for a while. I do miss spinning the dial in new places and finding unexpected things. I did that west coast drive last year, maybe again next year.

• WGXC [LINK] 
• WWNO [LINK] 
• WMSE [LINK] 
• Louder Than War [LINK]
• Dusty Finish [LINK]
• Downtuned Mag [LINK]
• East Village Radio [LINK] 
• Punks in the Garage [LINK] 

 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. I was once a purist but ever more often new bands don't seem to believe that LP stands for Long Play. Maybe because of the internet we are hearing bands earlier than we would have in the before time.  But I can't abide by renting my music. (#boycottspotify) 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. 

1. Mclusky   -  The world is still here and so are we 
2. Upchuck - Silver [LINK] 
3. Whores - War 
4. Melvins - Thunderball
5. Pissed Jeans - Half Divorced
6. FACS - Wish Defense
7. The Austerity Program - Bible Songs 2
8. Marshall Allen's Ghost Horizons - Live in Philadelphia [LINK]
9. Rats Department - Culture Shock [LINK]
10. Reds - The Truth of Impermanence [LINK] 
    

Notable mentions: Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – In the Earth Again, Gaytheist - The Moustache Stays [LINK], Batwave - Klaus Warfare, Special Guest - SSRI, Meatjoy S/T (reissue), Blandad - Blonde Lobster [LINK], Piss - Three demos [LINK], O Zorn! - Vermillion Haze, Ash Barrett - Uncaged, V/A - Blow, the Jesus Lizard  [LINK], Ricky Chilton -  Horsepower [LINK], Inner City Witches -  The Law Is Not in Heaven, Phobias - This was all for nothing, Matt C. White - A Cosmic Year, The Locust - Safety Second, Dead Tooth - Dead Tooth, Modern Life is War -  Life on the Moon [LINK], Deftones – Private Music, Primitive Man  - Observance, Lambrini Girls - Who Let The Dogs Out, Common Wounds - All Night Blood, Deadguy – Near-Death Travel Services, Rak - Mood Killer [LINK], Waxx'd - self titled [LINK], Gans - Good for the Soul [LINK], The Armed - the Future is here... [LINK]; Hundreds of AU -  Life In Parallel [LINK], Winners - You Deserve This [LINK], Bleeth Marionette [LINK], Benzo Queen - Marionette [LINK], Empty Heaven - Swear [LINK]; Mares Of Thrace - The Loss [LINK], Great Panic Roger - Anger Box [LINK], Die Spitz – Something to Consume,  Florida Man – Plastique [LINK], Gouge Away - Live at BBC [LINK], At Night - At Night [LINK] Mutlee - Kick It Down (no download)

Epilogue: The reason I have the notable mentions is for my own future reference. The decision to pick a top 10 at a point in time is rakish and somewhat arbitrary. The albums that stick with me for the long run are very hard to predict. The Ike Reilly album Salesmen and Racists became one of my favorite rock albums of all times, but I barely noticed in 2001. Whereas a few years earlier, the Dalek album Negro Necro Nekros melted my face off immediately and was my entryway to hip-hop. It is only in retrospect that we can understand art separate from the context of the scalar of time.