apple juice

The past few weeks, as I’ve been making my morning and evening commutes, I’ve been listening to the radio more than usual. FM Style. I have an iPod with thousands of songs on it, but for this short 15 minute trip, I’m letting the DJs be my guide. We’re really blessed in Minneapolis at the moment because we have a number of excellent public radio stations across the FM dial.

I thought it would be fun to walk you across my presets. I have six of them, as you can see to the left in the photo. Since I am somewhat a geek, there would really be no other way for me to order them other than numerically sorted left to right.

Preset number 1: 89.3 The Current. This is the new “indie” station from Minnesota Public Radio. Well, actually it’s not as new now, since they’ve just had their 1 year anniversary. Perhaps what I enjoy the most is hearing Mary Lucia on the radio again. She used to be on the REV 105 way back in the day… okay, 10 years ago, but that station was awesome, and I dare say that The Current is awesome as well.

Preset number 2: 89.9 KMOJ – The People’s Station. This is a public “adult urban contemporary” station, whatever the heck that means. Basically, hip hop. Although they do stray into a bit to much of the slow jams in the afternoon for my tastes… The morning shout-outs are always a good time. I wish they would play more local artists, but a lot of that is covered by other stations on the presets as well.

Preset number 3: 90.3 KFAI – Fresh Air Radio. Since there are 24 hours in a day, I would say you have about a 8/24 shot of flipping on this station and hearing languages other than english. As far as I can tell, their day is split into hour long blocks, box o’ chocolates style– you never know what you’re gonna get: Pakistani club music? Cambodian folk music? Joe from Fargo on the Banjo? Good times.

Preset Number 4: 91.1 KNOW – MPR… Minnesota Public Radio. This is fairly self explanatory, news, talk, etc.

Preset Number 5: 99.5 – KSJN – Classical…

Preset Number 6: 106.5 – Radio K – The real college radio. To be honest, they play a lot of obscure stuff that I don’t like, but on the way home last night, there was a four song set of some crazy local electronica and I was in heaven.

So… what’s on your radio?

Hey Everyone! Happy 2006!

I haven’t posted any sort of retrospective about music for the past year. Since I’ve lost my thunder on any sort of Top 10 best albums, before having read all the other critics’ lists, I’d like to post “5 Albums from 2005”.

These are in no particular order, but these are the 5 that I listened to and enjoyed the most in the past year (thanks to iTunes for keeping all my stats).

• Much to Matt‘s chagrin, I loved Sufjan Stevens’ album “Come On Feel the Illinoise”, it’s been a soundtrack to many of the events of the past year: Road trips to (ironically enough) Chicago, lazy saturday mornings, working in my office at my new job.
• Next up is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Much to Sonja’s chagrin this has been one of my top played albums from the past year. Yes, the lead singer sounds something like a bleeting goat (sonja says “cat in labor”), but he’s a vocal stylist, you gotta love it!
• Hello! My name is M.I.A.! It makes me want to go to India or Sri Lanka and boogey down.
• Dangerdoom – The Mouse and the Mask. This is a collaboration between Dangermouse and MF Doom. Dangermouse was behind last year’s “Grey Album”, and the beats on this new album are awesome. There is also some weird cartoon network thing going on in the background, you’ll have to google for the full story…
• Lastly, but not leastly, is Spoon’s “Gimmie Fiction”. They’ve made some of my favorite songs in the past 5 years, and their newest album is excellent.

Well, there you have it! These albums have my highest recommendation!