Altrok 90.5 HD2 - Blog

Panda?

2012-01-05T15:02:00.002-05:00

Panda.

I hear he likes Altrok 90.5 HD2, too. So don't mess with Panda.

Altrok 90.5 HD2 Has A Top 90.5 For 2011, And Here It Is

2012-01-03T17:54:00.000-05:00

Here's Altrok 90.5 HD2's rundown for 2011 (technically 12/15/2010 - 12/15-2011) with each band represented by their highest charting track during that period, as determined by airplay on the station. We couldn't afford Price Waterhouse for the tabulations, but the software we used seems pretty solid.

(Update: Okay, so we screwed up on The Drums. We like The Drums.)

90.5 - Bombay Bicycle Club - Shuffle
90 - Digitalism - 2 Hearts
89 - Blood Orange - Forget It
88 - Foals - Spanish Sahara
87 - Radiohead - Lotus Flower
86 - Little Comets - Adultery
85 - They Might Be Giants - Can't Keep Johnny Down
84 - Viva Brother - Still Here
83 - The Decemberists - This Is Why We Fight
82 - A Million Years - No Distance
81 - UNKLE - Money And Run (feat. Nick Cave)
80 - Nitzer Ebb - Promises
79 - Edie Sedgwick - Natural Born Killers
78 - Pujol - Mayday
77 - Beach Fossils - What A Pleasure
76 - Cold Cave - Villains Of The Moon (Radio Edit)
75 - Hank & Cupcakes - She's Lost Control
74 - The Kills - Future Starts Slow
73 - M83 - Midnight City
72 - Army Navy - I Think It's Gonna Happen
71 - The Go! Team - Buy Nothing Day
70 - Mates Of State - Palomino
69 - Dreamers Of The Ghetto - Always
68 - Bedouin Soundclash - Mountain Top
67 - Frank Turner - I Still Believe
66 - Rubblebucket - Silly Fathers
65 - VHS Or Beta - Breaking Bones
64 - Ladytron - White Gold
63 - Moving Units - Until She Says
62 - Fujiya & Miyagi - Cat Got Your Tongue
61 - Funeral Party - New York City Moves To The Sound Of L.A. [Dave Sitek Remix] [EFC]
60 - Naomi Greenwald - Dark Times
59 - Team Me - Come Down
58 - Ziggy Marley - Forward To Love
57 - Underworld - Bird1 (Radio Edit)
56 - The Ivy Walls - Getaway Driver
55 - DeVotchKa - 100 Other Lovers
54 - The Drums - Me And The Moon
53 - Tame Impala - Solitude Is Bliss
52 - The Sky Drops - Explain It To Me
51 - Death Cab For Cutie - Doors Unlocked And Open
50 - Tom Vek - Aroused
49 - The Japanese Popstars - Take Forever (feat. Robert Smith)
48 - Handsome Furs - Repatriated
47 - Surfer Blood - Miranda
46 - The Lords (LA) - Trapped In
45 - The Jim Jones Revue - High Horse
44 - Headcat - American Beat
43 - Cold War Kids - Sensitive Kid
42 - Seapony - Dreaming
41 - Discodeine - Synchronize (feat. Jarvis Cocker)
40 - TV On The Radio - Will Do
39 - Still Corners - Into The Trees
38 - British Sea Power - Observe The Skies
37 - The Wombats - Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)
36 - White Lies - Bigger Than Us
35 - Tommy Keene - Deep Six Saturday
34 - Cut Off Your Hands - You Should Do Better
33 - OMD - Sister Marie Says
32 - Justice - Audio, Video, Disco
31 - Austra - Beat And The Pulse
30 - Plain Jane Automobile - Every Dirty Hand
29 - Darwin Deez - Constellations
28 - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Belong
27 - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Same Mistake
26 - Bibio - Take Off Your Shirt (Radio Edit)
25 - MEN - Boom Boom Boom
24 - Cults - Go Outside
23 - Brian Eno - Sounds Alien (words by Rick Holland)
22 - Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks - Tigers
21 - Real Estate - It's Real
20 - Cut Copy - Take Me Over
19 - The Pack A.D. - Sirens
18 - Nicole Atkins - You Come To Me
17 - Anna Calvi - Blackout
16 - The Drums - Money
15 - Fool's Gold - Leave No Trace
14 - Casiokids - Golden Years
13 - Sun Wizard - World's Got A Handle
12 - Wavves - Bug
11 - The Good Natured - Skeleton
10 - Ravens In Paris - By Candlelight
09 - Killing Joke - In Excelsis
08 - The Heavy - How You Like Me Now (feat. The Dap-Kings Horns)
07 - Male Bonding - Tame the Sun
06 - We Were Promised Jetpacks - Medicine
05 - Home Video - The Automatic Process
04 - Midnight Juggernauts - Lara Versus The Savage Pack
03 - Asobi Seksu - Perfectly Crystal
02 - Ume - Captive
01 - Dum Dum Girls - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

It's been a killer year, and we're looking forward to another one.
We'll keep you posted along the way...but if you keep listening, you'll be one up on us.

We Pause For Pie

2011-12-14T08:59:00.001-05:00

Over at News From Me, Mark Evanier pontificates at length over the proper way to prepare and deliver a pie to the face.

Seriously, it's no laughing matter.

Do pore over it while tuned to Altrok 90.5 HD2, where (by the way) the Christmas music will wait until Christmas Eve...

Underworld At The London Olympics

2011-12-07T16:13:00.001-05:00

I can't ever help being a sucker for the Olympics; I blame Jim McKay.

Especially the opening ceremonies, which are generally an exercise in making billions of people look at an avant-garde art exhibition. Often, they'll wonder why it is they're watching, but they certainly watch. I try not to ever miss them, myself.

The London Games in 2010 will not be an exception, but may have a bit more rhythm than usual, since Underworld will be responsible for the original music. This might be very cool. Underworld say as much in their announcement.

As always, you know there's a limited number of stations playing Underworld, and one of them would be Altrok 90.5 HD2. So tune in already...

6th Annual Melody Bar Reunion, February 25th 2012!!

2011-11-02T20:23:00.002-04:00

Kids,

The 6th Annual Melody Bar Reunion will be on Saturday, February 25th at the Elk's Club in New Brunswick, from 7-12. Matt Pinfield and all of your favorite Melody DJ's will be spinning all your old favorites from back in the day. Come out and have a great time, like we have the last five years!

See you on the dance floor!

Stiffy

Exene, John, Billy, D.J. and Jerry (Video)

2011-10-23T13:34:00.000-04:00

Nobody ever believes me when I tell them X were on the Jerry Lewis Telethon in 1982. Sadly, their introduction by Casey Kasem isn't on this clip, but...finally, vindication is mine!

You Need Some Grip Weeds (Video)

2011-10-22T17:05:00.000-04:00

And so, here's The Grip Weeds. You're welcome.

Stone Roses Bloom Again

2011-10-18T17:53:00.002-04:00

My initial reaction (sadly, a knee-jerk one) to the announcement of the Stone Roses reunion was kinda negative. But then again, Ian Brown's been making good music lately. Perhaps this one's worth giving a shot.

According to FMQB's article, Liam Gallagher's giddy. So there's that, then.

Stirring Cold Ashes

2011-10-03T12:20:00.003-04:00

I wasn't sure what the best title for this column should be. The Rusty Show, the Old Codger Show, the Terribly Pathetic Show, the I Feel Sorry For Anyone Watching This Show. All kinda work.

Yes, I am referring to the VH1 Classic presentation call That Metal Show. From time to time as I flip through the channels I'll come across this sad show and wonder why is this on the air. It's painful to watch.

It seems to be the complete antithesis of anything Metal related. Each episode features members of a long lost and forgotten "metal or hard rock" band sitting down and chatting with Eddie Trunk, the regular host of the show. In fact, it's a talk show about the glory days of metal.

With the sound off you might mistake the show for a men's erectile disfunction support group meeting, or perhaps a rehab talk show. That might be more interesting. For anyone who is a metal fan, or a hard rock nostalgic, I can't imagine this show is anything more that a complete downer. It would be one thing if each week featured one of those old bands actually putting on a show, at least it might be kinda cool in some way. But is mostly just a 40-50-60 year old's tea party. Poor Eddie, he's so genuinely affectionate for his old Rock days, but it's just so pathetic. Come on man, let it go and move forward.

What's interesting is the complete lack of honesty that comes across when discussing the glorious metal scene. The hard rock world so fondly adored was a drug soaked, death stained,violent, sexist, and homophobic world. It would be more authentic if it celebrated all of that, warts and all, then to gloss it over with PG rated filtering. the metal scene was far more than just the music, in fact the music was the least of it. But I guess so many of the old metallers can't really embrace their pasts without looking like complete adolescent ignorant asses, which is exactly what made them metal stars in the first place. That's a tough spot to get out of. I laughed so hard when Rob Halford came out of the closet. How funny that the one lead singer in metal who didn't wear makeup and dress like a girl was gay. All of a sudden it wasn't too cool to gay bash when your idol was queer. Oops.

Rock music was never meant to be so geriatric. Some music can span a few decades, even generations, but the whole hard rock/metal thing is just so 70/80's adolescent it can't. Good thing for most of those guys, they kinda matured a bit, and aren't who they were 20-30 years ago. But you can't effectively celebrate the crimes without glorifying the criminals so to speak. But by rejecting your culture the music that produced it or celebrated it or was a product of it doesn't wear well.

R.E.M., Goodbye

2011-09-26T15:25:00.002-04:00

A few days ago R.E.M. announced they were retiring the band. After 30 years or so, they had done it all, seen it all and decided their time was up. On one level I was very sad, and the news of their exit was a cold stab to the heart. One of the greatest American bands of the modern rock era and of all time was to be no more. The tone of the announcement signaled there would be no reunions. This was the end. The entity, the spirit, the force that was R.E.M. was forever gone.

On another level, it was welcomed news. I fell in love with R.E.M. back in the early 80's. Murmur, Reckoning, Fables, Life's Rich Pageant, Document. That R.E.M. was the R.E.M. That was the R.E.M. that changed the music landscape, changed the music business and changed the world. They defined college rock, put it on the map and opened the door for all the rest. But they had become old men, like any other. Rich 50 year olds aren't lost, poor, confused, angry 20 year olds. As far as I was concerned, THAT entity died almost 20 years ago. The last 20 years has just been stirring cold ashes.

It's quite cruel and probably not entirely fair to dismiss the latter 75% of their career and output, but I want to. To preserve in my heart the infallibility of those early albums I can't put them together with all the rest. As fans, we are all critics of the art we love and hate, and it's part of the relationship. Had they quit in 1992 at the top of world, that would have been the best. Art does not exist in a vacuum without it's audience.

R.E.M's early career and music so coincided with my own personal growth and self discovery; the magic and wonder of the 80's, the whole concept of an alternative pathway and life style and ethos. Those first five albums are jewels of treasure, so perfect, so original, innocent and honest. So breathtakingly beautiful and penetrating, deep with integrity and soulfulness. A Perfect Circle, from Murmur. Or maybe Shaken Through. That's it right there.

The latter R.E.M. wasn't the same. From Green onward, my interest in their new material quickly faded. They had simply evolved into something else. I didn't like Michael's new clearer singing style, or the more overt politics. And the more poppish sound. For many of of us purists, it wasn't our R.E.M. I found their most popular albums to be my least favorites. If frat boys were singing alone, could it be as good? It wasn't.

This type of thing happens with most bands, it's not really their fault. It just happens. That original energy, so raw, uncompromised and new, eventually has to fade. And the currents of pop culture quickly change, sometimes overnight. If you look at just about any band that's managed to survive and put out more than a half dozen albums, or survive in the public eye for more than a few years, it's simply the passage of time and experience. You can only uncork that bottle once, and time and space move forward unceasingly. There's no going back.

Age plays a huge role in that early creative, expressive magic, it's undeniable. So much of that magic is tied into youth, post adolescence, and all that. We all felt that at one point. Only a few of us channeled that into expressive art, the rest of us spent it elsewhere. But once that life stage passes, it's over. I'm not 20 or 25 years old anymore, as much as I might like to be or try to act. And it's not 1983, and won't be ever again.

When you think of the Rolling Stones, does anything they produced in the 80's or 90's have any cultural significance or value vs. what they achieved in the 60's and some of the 70's? You could love the Stones with all your heart and have no interest in anything they did post Exile On Main Street. That would mean you'd have dismissed (and rightly so) 80% of their career (but virtually NOTHING of their value). Van Halen. The Ramones. Springsteen. Or a host of other bands.

R.E.M. wasn't a band, or a group, they were far more than that. They were a moment in time, a full page of history, a piece living culture.

Maybe their last couple of albums are really good, but I might never listen to them. And I don't know if I could ever connect with them like I did with the old R.E.M.

R.E.M. will always live on, even if the band isn't around anymore. And ghosts are far more fun to listen to than old rich men anyhow.

Reckoning: R.E.M. Are Done

2011-09-21T13:56:00.001-04:00

An originally terse announcement on R.E.M.'s official site has been expanded to include each member's comments, but the sum of it is this:

R.E.M. have decided that Collapse Into Now was their last album, and there will be no more.

There's no need to question this. As Michael Stipe very correctly quotes in their farewell message, 'the skill in attending a party is knowing when to leave'. They leave behind them an awesome body of work, some of which is likely to continue to surface as though it were new in 25th/30th/50th anniversary collections.

They did what they set out to do and then some, and all that's left is for them to say goodbye. We wave farewell fondly.

Until the reunion tour.

Much of R.E.M.'s output appears with fair regularity on Altrok 90.5 HD2 - why not tune in and relive the good times?

An Altrok Bake Sale (Of Sorts)

2011-09-20T21:42:00.003-04:00

Here's a bit of an experiment...

These are the songs we're playing a lot lately on Altrok 90.5 HD2. The links go to Amazon, and if you click on any of them and buy anything, you help keep Altrok running (we get a portion of the proceeds.)

Interested? Click away. (While you're shopping, why not listen to Altrok 90.5 HD2?)

Heavy:

Medium:

Light:

Recurrent:

Radio By The Numbers

2011-09-09T19:52:00.003-04:00

(From an idea by Rob Pastorio-Newman; originally published at Altrok.com on May 25, 2001)

ALTROK scans the farthest reaches of the broadcast spectrum in order to bring you, the ALTROK reader, breaking alternative radio news. Today, we'll focus on Numbers stations.

According to the Numbers page at DXing.com, Numbers stations are "stations that do nothing but read blocks of numbers, usually using a woman's voice, in a variety of languages and on innumerable different frequencies. All available evidence indicates that some of these transmissions may be somehow connected to espionage activities. These are the numbers stations, the most enduring mystery on the shortwave bands."

Recently, ALTROK had the privelege of speaking with the new program director at a prominent numbers station. Though his name and location cannot be disclosed, he was happy to discuss the new direction he's planning for his station.

ALTROK: Mr. [name withheld], what sort of changes do you expect to bring to the station?

Numbers PD: I have completely severed the station from its past. Before I got here, it was kind of moving forward, but not really letting go of the old numbers. You can't move forward swiftly, if you're looking over your shoulder.

ALTROK: Does that mean a change in your station's sound?

Numbers PD: The old numbers that were too obscure have been dropped, and the station is focused on 25-39 year-olds, with a female lean.

ALTROK: This is as opposed to the previous audience, who were CIA, KGB and Mossad operatives in the field, who depended on the codes within the numbers for their orders.

Numbers PD: Yes. They might be international espionage operatives, but they're not a big enough demo to build ratings on.

ALTROK: You've conducted research to further hone your station's sound.

Numbers PD: The station's old library was too large. We've found out what our demo really wants to hear, and we've trimmed the library to accommodate that.

ALTROK: And what did you take away from that research?

Numbers PD: Well, of all the numbers we tested from "1" to "10", we found the average was "5". So we'll focus on that.

ALTROK: The number "5".

Numbers PD: That's right. Occasionally we'll thrown in old favorites like "8" or "3", but our audience has spoken, and we're listening.

ALTROK: You don't think the audience will get tired of that before long?

Numbers PD: Hey, this is big business now. The numbers don't lie.

[Editor's note: This repost was brought on by my first-ever exposure to the classic parody of radio formatted to the ultimate extreme, "NINE!", which is available in it's monosyllabic glory here.]

Melody Bar Fans: An All Eras Reunion This Weekend!

2011-09-01T10:54:00.003-04:00

As we attempt to dig our way out of this blackout, there's a light beckoning to us from the end of this tunnel...

...it's an All Eras Melody Bar Reunion, and it's happening Sunday, September 4 at The Court Tavern.

There are many DJs (Drew, Iron Mike, Sean Carolan, Ed Wong and Trent among them) and two dance floors:

Classic tracks will rule the underground floor.
And since the Melody was all about new music when it was around, that's what we'll be playing upstairs.

Doors open at 7. Be there or be nowhere.

To prepare, why not tune in to Altrok 90.5 HD2, where we've always played both categories of the music mentioned above? Listen Online...MP3: HQ 192k, 64k; AAC+: HQ 64k, 32k

Altrok 90.5 HD2 Gets A Brand New Set Of Streams

2011-08-27T17:57:00.002-04:00

At Altrok 90.5 HD2, we've suddenly got a whole new set of streams, mostly because our brand spanking new streaming server got set up a bit early, and we wanted to take advantage of it as soon as we could. We're slowly updating all the existing links, but the hurricane's slowing us down a bit. (Hurricanes, go fig.)

So here's your direct links for Altrok 90.5 Radio online...

Use 'em in good health, and use 'em often - in addition to providing fine Modern Rock entertainment, they're a great way for you to let us know you're out there. (Not you specifically, but we at least know how many people are listening online...) As always, your support is greatly appreciated.

Enjoy!

Bring the Noise, Please

2011-08-23T16:05:00.002-04:00

Music is an almost infinite landscape of creative opportunity. The possibilities of sounds and combinations of are all but unlimited, and much less so now given the power of technology. Even within the very narrow scope of pop music, and within that rock music, the variety of content goes on and on, decade after decade. Just like snow flakes, no two compositions are ever the same. Well worn and highly straight- jacketed sub genres like punk can still be made to sound fresh, even after almost 40 years.

But in a broader context, the pop music landscape is pretty tightly structured. Guitar, bass, drums, voice, verse chorus verse bridge chorus. And that's it. A bit of harmony, an irresistible melody and a hook, and you're writing songs for Britney Spears. Everything is nice and pretty.

A number of years back I discovered what I like to call my aural palette cleansers. These are bands/songs/genres that have successfully explored and exploited the less traditional music pathways. And what I found was that after long periods of ear candy, my ears and brain craved for something completely inharmonious, and less than soothing. I needed to hear noisy, abrasive compositions, most of which didn't feature guitars or piano, the mainstays of most pop music from punk to country.

These bands rely heavily on electronica of one form or another, and are more sonically focused than "song" focused. I find that the artificial, or unnatural sonics, not produced by traditional instruments really refresh my listening, like an undiluted mouthful of Listerine clears out and wakes up your mouth.

The other day I just couldn't listen to another worn out song on the radio. I had to hear something unhomogenized, something raw, dangerous and rough. I went to my CD collection and picked out "The Fat of The Land" from Prodigy. It was just what I needed to hear. I cranked it up in my car on the way to work, and then again on the way home. Smack My Bitch Up, Diesel Power, Fire Starter. Loud, brutish, throbbing, punishing, what sweet relief. Such contrast to the radio, and everything expected and manufactured. After two listens I was feeling much better. But just to be safe, I went and grabbed Ministry's A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste.

I think a lot of Depeche Mode's appeal comes from the largely electronic structure of their music, and I find Depeche Mode to be one of those bands whose sound never seems to get old, it's still remarkably unique. I don't think I could ever get bored of listening to them.

So my advice is, every once and awhile put down that normal music and put on some noisy, industrial or electronic sounds. It will remind you of what's possible in music beyond the cut and dried and tried.

MTV (ahem)30(cough)

2011-08-02T12:59:00.005-04:00

This weekend, a quiet celebration occurred up on channel 186 (Cablevision reckoning). The VH1 Classic channel played host to a weekend filled with of MTV's most memorable in-house video, although by and large bereft of the music videos that made up the bulk of its programming back in those days. However, the pinnacle of the celebration was the warts-and-all, commercials-included re-airing of MTV's first hour of broadcast, notable also for the complete inability of the broadcast's minders to insert Mark Goodman's breaks in the right places between the videos. That bit of tape was utterly worth the price of admission.

Latent OCD endemic of all broadcast geeks requires that I say that I wish they'd adjusted it to be an airing of the "first 75 minutes". Y'see, back in 1981, when they were turning up the new service on a previously-unused satellite channel, they couldn't just flip the switch at midnight, because it wouldn't give the cable operators hoping to offer the new channel the chance to make sure it worked properly on their systems before it launched. Thus, the broadcast actually began about fifteen minutes before midnight with raw video of the countdown for a space shuttle launch with the MTV logo superimposed over it, timed to get to liftoff at the stroke of midnight. (In one of the great continuity errors in television, the shuttle countdown somehow resulted in the launch of an Apollo mission, since that was the footage they used for their top-of-the-hour moonwalk ID for the subsequent few years.)

On this weekend's replay, we saw that raw video starting at midnight Monday, and had to wait for it to count down before finally catching John Lack's "Ladies and gentlemen, rock 'n' roll" proclamation at about 12:15 - so we only got about 45 minutes of the first hour of Music Television. That's still quite the artifact, and I'm amazed we got a chance to see it at all.

The celebration was quiet by design. MTV has made a conscious decision to regard its age as virtually unmentionable, in the wake of its last on-air anniversary celebration (its 20th in 2001, which we covered back then - hey, MTV ain't the only media outlet that forgets its birthdays.) This makes sense from a branding perspective. As a channel dedicated to the pursuits of people younger than 25, nostalgia simply doesn't fit.

Which is probably how the tortured title "MTV 30 On VH1 Classic" came about; it safely insulates the MTV brand from the corrosive power of the word "Classic". VH1 has always been about programming for thirty-and-forty-somethings looking backward, so the idea of a "VH1 Classic" brand will always make sense, while "MTV Classic" never will. Still, as the #MTV30 hashtag made a valiant attempt at relevance on Twitter, MTV felt compelled to sheepishly acknowledge its age on its Buzzworthy blog, waiting 'til the mid-afternoon of its anniversary when, I suspect, it thought nobody was looking.

But there's still a few observations I find I have to make regarding the standard mantras inevitably voiced by those who might be excited by an MTV 30th Anniversary celebration of any sort...

"It didn't play black artists until 1983": This statement probably would come as a surprise to Pauline Black, lead singer of The Selecter, who were played on the first day of broadcast (and for some time afterward.) Ditto for Neville Staple and Lynval Golding of The Specials, who got played twice that day. It also totally ignores J.J. Jackson's presence on the network. This is not to say they didn't blow it when they should've gotten it right, most famously when Jackson nearly quit because the MTV news report on the day Muddy Waters died ignored that news. But they were a rock station back then, and didn't catch on that they should be a pop station until 1983 (when they added Michael Jackson's admittedly rock-friendly "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" videos, not to mention Prince's "Little Red Corvette".) They still had a decided rock lean (as did the pop charts back then) but as pop diverged from rock, MTV diverged with it.

"They don't play music videos": Except from 3am to 9am Eastern. By switching to reality shows, they wriggled out from under the thumb of the record industry, who finally achieved their goal of charging MTV for the privilege of advertising their product. The record industry is now trying to do the same thing to radio, and the result will be that the record industry will shoot itself in the foot. Again. Music Video will continue to be relegated to low-viewership digital-tier cable channels (like VH1 Classics) unless and until the record companies stop being so greedy. Which'll never happen.

And then there's the other side of that argument, "they show too many reality shows": Reality shows are cheap to produce and have increased their audience to the point where their ratings rival those of the former Big 3 networks. You can argue mission creep all you'd like, and you'd be correct, but nobody ever got fired for making more money.

So will MTV become the go-to place for music video ever again? Not given the record companies' historically bad decisions; in addition to the costs involved in airing music videos thanks to the greedy stance of the record companies, there's also the simple fact that those record companies' fortunes have fallen enough that it's only pop's superstars that are making worthwhile videos at all, because only they have the budget or the drive to get them done. (This may also have something to do with new bands realizing that music video costs were coming directly out of their pocket; the most inventive of them, like OK Go, have found ways to make interesting videos on the cheap.)

There is another way to go about things, though, and it's somewhat evocative of the reason the BBC has such a wonderful archive of session recordings...in short, if one owns the performance, one doesn't have to pay to air it.

Enter the MTV Supervideo program, which takes music from interesting new artists and throws a (moderately) star-studded collection of talent at it. Their first attempt, back in November, put Anna Kendrick in the middle of a video for LCD Soundsystem's "Pow Pow" that attracted some notice, and their latest showcases Best Coast's "Our Deal", from their Crazy For You album, in a video directed by Drew Barrymore and starring a bunch of vaguely familiar faces.

Get More: MTV Supervideo, Music, Best Coast

Will MTV rise again to proclaim itself the once and future king of music video? Looks like there actually may be a pulse in the old girl yet. Time - and profits - will tell.

Radio's Long Defeat

2011-07-15T14:05:00.004-04:00

In the wake of WRXP's zombification and impending demise, I made a relatively feeble attempt to draw disaffected listeners to my little slice of spectrum via social media. Hey, I run a radio station, I do that, though I wish I could do so without sounding like such a dork.

In response, Mike Black (a fellow WHTG-FM jock in the 80's and 90's, and more recently a winner in the viral video sweepstakes when he had the bright idea to do a stop motion video of the effect of a major blizzard on his backyard) chimed in.

He suggested, pretty plainly, that radio was dead.

After smarting a bit from the complete lack of tact (after all, I'm putting all the spit and baling wire I can find into Altrok 90.5 HD2) I came to the realization that he's right, at least in terms of commercial radio, though possibly ultimately with repercussions for radio in general.

So here's some predictions and observed real-world situations, all worth the money you paid for them.

- Commercial music radio on FM is, indeed, in its death throes, because advertising is still regarded as a necessary evil rather than what the listener percieves it as: a call to action to find something else to listen to. Anything radio does that actively causes their listeners to do anything other than listen, is self-defeating.

Real world use case 1: My wife, a hit radio listener, punches presets (programmed by me to her specifications, of course) until a song she likes comes on. When she gets tired of punching buttons, she turns off the radio. I'd go so far as to say her behavior is replicated among the majority of hit radio listeners. A fresh song from a known artist gets listened to; less so a fresh song from an unknown artist unless it's reasonably similar to a known artist; less so DJ patter unless it's short and sweet, and an advertisement or a song that we've heard multiple times on other stations is a guaranteed tune-out, up to the point where the radio's turned off, generally with a sigh of relief. Radio loses, and because it's made the listener crave silence, the listener wins.

Real world use case 2: Some of my valuable iPod space contains a collection of current top forty, which generally costs me about $10/month at iTunes to keep up to date, more or less. (The Lady Gaga album blew the budget one month, though.) When that goes on shuffle, the radio stays off. Radio loses, and because my wife has me to program an iPod for her, the listener wins.

Real world use case 3: A three-hour aircheck of Steve Lamacq on BBC 6Music, on occasions where it's put on by me after my wife's reached the shutoff point, is generally tolerated (even in its entirety on long drives) despite rarely featuring a known song or artist, because the host appears between each song, briefly introduces the next track, and does so engagingly. In this case, the draw isn't the music (though after repeated listens it can be)...it's the host. The late John Peel was capable of the same reaction; my wife, whose tolerance for music she regards as annoying is roughly nil, would repeatedly tolerate three minutes of the most ungodly noise, just to hear what Peel would say about it afterward. Radio wins...just not US radio. And the listener, entertained in spite of against all reasonable US notions of how radio is supposed to entertain, wins.

(That last notion, by the way, is why I do what I do...which is to find music I think the people who listen to me might like. I'm hoping that by courting an audience that really wants to hear something new, I'll actually be able to claim I have an audience, rather than a loose collection of disaffected and uninvested listeners.)

Real world use case 4: My wife's sister has a backyard with a pool, and an integrated audio system with faux rock speakers capable of delivering hefty volume around the pool, with a Sirius radio attached. That's where their monthly music budget goes, because they can't be bothered to actually collect and program music for an iPod. They do, however, like to listen to 92.3 Now and have figured out when, on the weekends, their commercial load is the lightest. They switch to Sirius when they get tired of commercial breaks. Radio loses. Sirius wins, and so does the listener.

Noticing a trend?

The listener always wins.

Radio forgot that.

Some follow-up predictions:

- Terrestrial music radio will, for a time, be consigned to HD Radio channels. It will be automated, generally, until an audience can support an advertising model - which will need to be radically different from today's model to keep it from again losing listeners to satellite and iPod. HD Radio's patents will need to expire for this to be a significant factor, though, because it's those patents and their associated fees that are keeping HD Radio technology out of radios available now. (Technological issues remain to be worked, including next-generation codecs and better transmission power models, but ubiquity of HD Radios will combat fringe area noise, since their DSPs, and in fact the receiver sections of better non-HD radios. tend to cancel it in the FM band implementation. On AM, much work needs to be done to make HD effective, and it may never be.)

- If radio continues to leak listeners by not understanding that listeners tune out when radio tells them to, wealth will leak out of radio with those listeners. That wealth will travel to other bandwidth-using services. Cellular data use is growing exponentially, and the toll collected on that growth by wireless bandwidth providers (it seems quaint to call them cell phone companies anymore) will fund lobbying pressure that will overwhelm commercial broadcasting's clout. We'll see a shrinkage or outright loss of traditional radio spectrum in this decade if radio can't keep its lobby funded. Commercial broadcasters will need to stay better-than-simply-solvent to secure radio's spectrum; non-commercial broadcasters can't do it alone. This is a classic example of playing to not-lose rather than playing to win, and in a sense, radio may already have lost.

So, here's the extra credit question: how can radio win in this environment? Or is this the technological equivalent of the long and excruciating defeat?

To Every Season, Churn, Churn, Churn

2011-07-12T09:27:00.002-04:00

And so it goes. WRXP, the last attempt at reviving some sort of rock radio format in NYC is soon to be no more. At least our Matt Pinfield has managed to land nicely on his feet back at MTV with the new 120 Minutes. Let's hope it LASTS more than 120 minutes. This is the perfect vehicle for Matt, our beloved hero of new and cutting edge music. I look forward to not knowing a single band he plays, and how refreshing that will be.

As thrilled as I was to hear Matt on WRXP three years ago, it's a relief to have it all ending. RXP had become a sad joke, a bad parody of an obsolete format forever stuck in 1991. At best unlistenable, at worst downright pathetic. Dead air would have been more stimulating.

Rock radio is dead, and has been for a long time. The legacy of the juggernaut days of 70's rock stations weighs like a lodestone around the neck of anyone attempting to revive it. Let it go, please let it go.

The fallout from all the radio consolidation unleashed by the loosening of regulations in 1996 is still falling. Corporations and flip artists are still trying to find some way to use text book capitalist business theory and make big radio profitable, but year after year they fail. More ads, more homogeneity, less creativity, less risk taking, more consolidation.

The result? The least common denominator of quality--talk radio, and top 40. I'm not sure the current model can profitably support any other format to be honest. It might be another 10 years before all the radio conglomerates finally fail and sell off all the stations to small investors who will hopefully restart the process and revitalize the airwaves. Or not, maybe free radio is simply obsolete.

And speaking of churn, there's been other local radio turmoil recently. NJN got sold and is no longer NJN. I can't comment on it's true value to NJ residents, but I'm sure it was more than nothing. I'll guess it's a net loss.

On 101.5 Casey and Rossi got canned from what I assumed was their popular 2-7 slot. I found them fairly entertaining on the ride home from work every night, and I must admit I'll miss them. They certainly had an impact on politics in NJ.

And so it continues.

WRXP Goes Away Friday (More Or Less)

2011-07-11T17:11:00.003-04:00

According to this FMQB report, Merlin Media (Randy Michaels, et. al.) will be taking over responsibility for programming at WRXP as of this Friday, July 15. The rumor is they'll switch to a news/talk format, though there may be some interesting formats thrown on between that time and the time they have the final new format ready.

Given that they're calling themselves "Merlin Media", they may ultimately pull something else out of their hat. We'll see. But we may wind up not listening.

Over here on the non-commercial side, however, we're doing just fine. C'mon in and find out...

WRXP: (Mostly) Sold

2011-06-21T10:58:00.003-04:00

Well, all we've got is data points. We can't tie them all together, but here's what's we've got:

WRXP's owner, Emmis Broadcasting, has announced the sale of a majority stake in WRXP and two Chicago stations (including alternative Q101 and classic rocker The Loop) to "Merlin Media", which then magically got sold partly to an equity group, and partly to a group headed by Randy Michaels.

Randy Michaels will, in our opinion, do no favors for music fans of any stripe. The consolidation of Clear Channel was his baby, and we know what wonderful things that's done for radio listeners. We welcome any attempt by him to prove us wrong.

There's also been a new web domain registration that could indicate future direction, or could just be a domain squatter: FMNNews1019.com.

And that's what we've got - make of it what you will.

In The Last Few Hours, We Played These Bands

2011-06-09T11:05:00.002-04:00

Here's a laundry list of bands for you...

808 State, Arctic Monkeys, Art Brut, Bedouin Soundclash, Bibio, Daft Punk, Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi, Dead Snares, The Dig, Elvis Costello, Foster The People, Front 242, Green Day, Gypsyblood, Hammer No More the Fingers, Here We Go Magic, Hungry Kids of Hungary, Garland Jeffreys, Katie The Pest, Keren Ann, Liam Lynch, Little Comets, Mark Ronson, Modest Mouse, Quincy Mumford, Nine Inch Nails, Oh No Oh My, Plain Jane Automobile, Re-Flex, Saint Motel, Seapony, Shirley Bassey with Propellerheads, Sondre Lerche, The Cars, The Clash, The Comsat Angels, The Cure, The Hold Steady, The Joggers, The Joy Formidable, The Killers, The King Blues, The Kooks, The Postelles, The Ukrainians, We Became Actors, Weekend, XTC

...what links them together? They all got played this morning on Altrok 90.5 HD2.

Did you miss them? Fix that, and tune in. I'm sure what we've got coming up is just as good...

New Music. Altrok Haz It.

2011-06-08T11:03:00.002-04:00

We've just added more.

Yes, more.

We do that.

Go forth and listen.

Got An iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad? Get HD Radio For $20

2011-06-07T12:17:00.003-04:00

Radio Shack just put the Gigaware HD Radio attachment for your Apple touchscreen of choice (iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad) on sale for $20 - go get 'em!

Gigaware™ In-line Control with HD Radio for iPhone®

(Then tune in - or just do that here.)

A Bunch Of New Music Hits The Altrok Airwaves

2011-06-02T09:15:00.002-04:00

Being more diligent about letting you know what we've added is probably a good thing...so here's the new stuff:

Bedouin Soundclash - Mountain Top
Big Talk (Ronnie Vannucci from The Killers) - Getaways
The Cars - Free
Dredg - The Thought Of Losing You
Emily's Army - Broadcast This
Endless Wave - The Rising Tide
Falcon - Say Goodbye
Green, Cee Lo - (You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care
Hunger, Sophie - The Beat Is Full
Hush Now, The - Constellations (from their newly remixed release of their 2009 album)
Lemuria - Pleaser
Liam Finn - The Struggle
Mazes - Most Days
My Morning Jacket - First Light
Plain Jane Automobile - Every Dirty Hand
Postelles, The - Can't Stand Still
Radical Dads - Walking Wires
Seapony - Dreaming
Sondre Lerche - Private Caller
The Hundred Days - Sex U
White Apple Tree - Circles

...and from May 24:

Art Brut - Lost Weekend
The Death Set - Can You Seen Straight [EFC]
Dengue Fever - Uku
Here We Go Magic - Backwards Time
Hooray For Earth - Sails
Intimate Stranger - Under
Kissing Cousins - Throw Her Body In The River
Little Comets - Adultery
Man Man - Knuckle Down
Mansions - Blackest Sky
The Postelles - 123 Stop
Sleeper Agent - Proper Taste
Stepdad - Squares

All this can be heard by a reasonably patient (yet oh so forward looking) listener by tuning in to us at Altrok 90.5 HD2 either on your HD Radio, or here on the Web.

Altrok Radio FM Showcase - On Now, Or Anytime

2011-05-13T22:59:00.002-04:00

You can listen at 90.5 The Night right now, or at your leisure, launch the players below. Either way, enjoy...

Altrok Radio Fm Showcase, Show 308 (5/13/2011), Hour 1 by Sean Carolan on Mixcloud

Altrok Radio Fm Showcase, Show 308 (5/13/2011), Hour 2 by Sean Carolan on Mixcloud

New Music 5/10/2011: Beasties, Weekend, Danger Mouse/Luppi, More

2011-05-11T08:42:00.002-04:00

Here's the new music we're adding this week - be sure to tell the kids! (Some videos are included behind the links)

An Horse - Trains And Tracks - Walls
Beastie Boys - Lee Majors Come Again - Hot Sauce Committee Part Two
Bell X1 - 4 Minute Mile - Bloodless Coup
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi - Problem Queen (Featuring Norah Jones) - Rome
Dead Snares - The Age of Fear - Speak the Language
Dropkick Murphys - Sunday Hardcore Matinee - Going Out In Style
Eastern Conference Champions - Hurricane - Speak-ahh
Gypsyblood - In Our Blood - Cold In The Guestway
Hungry Kids Of Hungary - Wristwatch - Escapades
Living Things - The Stupor (Radio Edit) - Malocchio Mixtape
Mazes - Surf & Turf - Surf & Turf [Single]
Quincy Mumford - Rally - Speak
Oh No Oh My - Walking Into Me - People Problems
Okkervil River - The Valley - I Am Very Far
Plain Jane Automobile - You Were Only A Song (Radio Edit) - Your Tomorrow
Saint Motel - Puzzle Pieces - Puzzle Pieces EP [Promo Only]
Weekend - End Times - End Times [Single]

Couldn't Happen To A Nicer Bunch Of Guys

2011-05-10T17:12:00.003-04:00

Press Communications owns Thunder Country 106.3/106.5, formerly Hit 106, formerly G-Rock, formerly G106.3, formerly FM106.3. Since it's FM106.3 that served as my old stomping grounds (and informs my music selection these days at Altrok 90.5 HD2) you might have suspected that I watch their antics with some amusement.

It seems Clear Channel (the nationwide radio-station-owning behemoth) has popped a 99-watt "translator" atop the Empire State Building and is "translating" the HD2 signal from WLTW-HD2 (format to be determined) on the 106.3 frequency. Not that Thunder Country has much of a signal in New York City, it does have one south of there - or had one, anyway, until the translator went on the air.

I'm actually kind of against this. There really shouldn't be a translator on 106.3 in NYC, so close to the 106.3 in Eatontown, NJ that Thunder Country calls home. However, I don't see any reason why I can't take this opportunity to cook up a batch of popcorn and be entertained by their wriggling. Here's their listener plea...

"To our Loyal Thunder 106 Listeners! We are aware that many of our listeners in the Counties of Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic, Sussex, Union, Bergen, Essex, Hudson as well as Staten Island, Brooklyn, Long Island and Lower Manhattan are experiencing interference with our Thunder 106.3 signal.

We have become aware that a New York radio station is sending out a signal that is on the same106.3 FM frequency. We have already contacted the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) about the interference and are making every attempt to have the interference stopped immediately. In the meantime we could use your help.

Please fill out the form below and provide your information to us. By doing so we will be able to advise the FCC on how and where this interference is affecting YOU, our LOYAL LISTENER."

Aheh. It's the "Loyal Listener" thing that gets ya right here, don't it? It's as though they care!

To be fair, the country format has certainly gained traction for them, which is good, because they couldn't run an alternative rock station to save their life, and they did even worse running a Hit Music station. How do you blow that?

Actually, that part's easy: launch your Hit format in a market that has lots of other options for hit music, and then completely alienate the young-but-plugged-in audience your former alternative format had by blaming them for your problems. If they're in the car when a radio is being tuned, they'll go out of their way to recommend anything but your station.

So Press, I feel for ya, I really do.

But at the same time, CRY MOAR.

Hear That? It's The Crunch. Will There Be A Crash?

2011-05-09T10:42:00.002-04:00

To set the scene, a couple of factoids should be reported:

Having gone completely belly-up, Atlantic Broadcasting's assets in South Jersey (several AM & FM radio stations whose profitability was consumed by alleged mismanagement and fraud) has been bought at auction by an Atlantic City businessman who assembled a coalition of buyers that wanted to keep the stations local. Total purchase price was just upwards of $4 million.
Having neatly sliced their most successful station's listenership in half by choosing political sides, Millennium Radio is reportedly selling its assets (including WJLK, former home of the HD2 signal for Shore Alternative) as well.

What connects these events? Greed, mostly. Grabbing hands in the early part of the decade looked at radio as a guaranteed money mill, without once considering that radio might have competition. That competition is thought to be the personal music player, represented most publicly by the iPod and its progeny.

This conventional wisdom is, at worst, wrong, and at best, an excuse for poor performance. The problem is that in competing against its perceived competition by trying to become more iPod-like, radio has become more automated and less personal - because, as it turns out, a less personal station is much cheaper to run, too. (Trust me, I know, though I'm doing it more out of necessity than desire, but it might be helpful to know that Altrok 90.5 HD2 is, by design, on a personalization upswing, not a downturn. I hope.)

Commercial radio is basically in the middle of a lengthy hara-kiri session. It's shedding every semblance of what makes it appealing in its quest to compete directly with iPods. And it'll lose that battle, because if it comes down to a "battle of the iPods"... well, on a real iPod, the listener has picked all the music. Advantage iPod.

How long can commercial radio be run solely by those for whom money trumps utility. Without utility, radio is nothing. Someone, eventually, will get that clue...and they will make money.

The Last Couple Of Hours On Altrok 90.5 HD2

2011-05-06T09:00:00.002-04:00

I could tell you what new bands we've added, but then you'd think all we play are new bands.

I could tell you the classic artists we play, but then you'd think we're all about nostalgia.

So I'll just tell you what we played in the last three hours. It's not getting replayed in this order ever again (unless by some slim chance it did, and the odds of that are about the same as the odds of drowning in the Sahara.)

Thus, without further adieu, here's the last three hours at Altrok 90.5 HD2...

The Damnwells - Death Defier
Echo & The Bunnymen - People Are Strange
Explosions in the Sky - Trembling Hands
TV on the Radio - Will Do
Doves - Sky Starts Falling
Gorillaz - Revolving Doors
Radiohead - Creep
Hot Hot Heat - Talk to Me, Dance With Me
Wolf Gang - Lions In Cages
Peter Bjorn and John - Dig A Little Deeper
The Church - The Unguarded Moment
Fleet Foxes - Grown Ocean
The Frames - Underglass
The Killers - Mr. Brightside
Beach Fossils - What a Pleasure
Smoosh - Rock Song
Oingo Boingo - Goodbye-Goodbye
I'm from Barcelona - Always Spring
The Rockin' Bricks - Foreign Girl
Eastern Conference Champions - Bull In The Wild
Hello Echo - The Comng Days
Flashguns - Bells At Midnight
Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks
The Sound - Counting the Days
Depeche Mode - Dream On (radio edit)
Erland and the Carnival - So Tired In The Morning
Adele - Lovesong
Love - A House Is Not a Motel
The Antlers - Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out
Foals - Cassius
Green Day - Letterbomb [EFC]
The Raveonettes - Ignite
Vincent Vincent & The Villains - I'm Alive
Graham Parker - Local Girls
Buzzcocks - What Do I Get
Crystal Stilts - Shake the Shackles
Parts & Labor - Rest
The Fiery Furnaces - Tropical Iceland [Single Version]
We Became Actors - I Feel Like This Summer Is Gonna Be One Long Hold Steady Song
Eat - Fatman [EFC]
Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down [EFC]
Maritime - It's Casual
Gosepl Claws - I Can, I Will
The Jim Carroll Band - People Who Died
Obits - I Want Results
Fischerspooner - Cloud
The Cure - Maybe Someday (album ver)
The Thousand Pities - Count My Summer Down
The Vandelles - Swell to heaven
U2 - A Sort Of Homecoming

So whatcha think? Unfortunately, you've missed this tracklist, but don't worry - something just as compelling will be coming up as soon as you tune in.

This Is A Music Blog, But.

2011-05-02T11:58:00.003-04:00

Osama Bin Laden is dead, as a result of a successful strike in the early morning hours yesterday. Congratulations to everyone, from the folks who gave the orders to the folks who (quite literally) executed them.

Firstly, the Navy SEALs that did the job. I'm okay with the fact I'll never be that awesome.

Secondly, the intelligence community that noticed something weird about the fortifications around a rather nice mansion compound, owned by a couple of guys with no visible source of income. That's a tiny needle in a big haystack so, again, well done.

Finally, President Barack Obama, a Commander-In-Chief who demanded solid information, and executed on it when the time was right. He was ridiculed during his campaign by his opponents when he said he'd do exactly this, but it couldn't have done it any other way.

Are we in the clear? No. Bin Laden represented a poisonous philosophy that suggested that the only way to counter western influence was through terrorist action. The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions proved there is another way, but it remains to be seen whether the twisted interpretation of resistance Bin Laden espoused will continue to be embraced, or if it will wither and die.

But it's a victory and a closure that was long overdue, and that is what is being celebrated. This is not a celebration of a death; surrender was an option that was apparently offered, and rejected. It is a celebration of that closure and a dedication to the continued marginalization of the philosophies that created the tragedies that required that closure in the first place. Celebration is a natural reaction, and that's as it should be.

New Tom Vek! "A Chore"

2011-04-21T14:52:00.000-04:00

About two weeks after I'd read the Wikipedia entry about Tom Vek, noting his self-imposed exile from the music biz (in favor of a Real Job in graphic design) he shatters my disillusion with a new single.

(And though the "singer" is certainly appealing, Tom's the one in the glasses...)

As soon as I can get this puppy onto Altrok 90.5 HD2, I will do - 'til then, there's lots more to listen to there...

It's Pledge Drive Time, And We Can Use Your Support...

2011-04-15T09:36:00.002-04:00

Pledges (a.k.a. your generous donations) are the lifeblood of 90.5 The Night and, not coincidentally, our little project here at Altrok 90.5 HD2, so if you've got the ability to help out, we'd be glad you did. The pertinent info:

Call in a pledge at 877-905-4905.

Use the web to do it at http://wbjb.org/pledge.

The more you can, the more we can. Do it now...

Stuff We're Playing: Movits!

2011-04-07T09:24:00.004-04:00

Too good not to share: "Sammy Davis Jr." by Movits!, in the original Swedish (with Japanese subtitles. Of course.)

More like this can, of course, be heard at Altrok 90.5 HD2 on-air or online.

120 Seconds Debut: Tomorrow (3/18)

2011-03-17T10:50:00.002-04:00

I also got the heads-up about this from Matt, but waited for more media to chime in (FMQB has.)

The first 120 Seconds minisode will be up via MTV Hive's 120 Minutes site tomorrow morning, March 18. (You already knew Matt was in Austin for SXSW, right? Right there, that's where I'm envious, but I'll be at CMJ this year, so that's all right then...)

So does 120 Minutes wind up starting off with a bang at SXSW? Could be...

120 Minutes (And Pinfield) Coming Back To MTV2

2011-03-17T09:12:00.002-04:00

120 Minutes, the venerable MTV show that featured up and coming alternative bands up until roughly Y2K, will be returning soon as a monthly show on MTV2 and a weekly "120 Seconds" webcast on MTV.com, with Matt Pinfield once again taking the reins.

Monthly seems a bit sparse, mind you, but I'll take what I can get. The channel credits the still-vibrant legacy of the original show with its decision to go forward with a new version.

Plus - and I'm a bit biased on this point, of course - recent times have been fertile for exactly the sort of Modern Rock I've always felt Alternative should have been representing all along, until erstwhile metal bands decided they were "grunge" and took over the format, and I suspect Pinfield will be as on top of that as he always has been (while, of course, keeping an eye on what MTV thinks ought to be there.) If listenership at Altrok 90.5 HD2 is any indication, though, there'll be a reason for the stuff we're playing to filter through to there (as it already has at 105.3 The Spy and at KSJO's soon-to-expire experiment, "Save Alternative" in San Fransisco.)

Matt adds the following (we've been texting): "Everyone's goal is to bring it weekly. The 120 Seconds minisodes will be weekly on MTV.com; we wanted to get it started, but I anticipate it being weekly in the not-too-distant future."

So a bit of good news there, and all the more reason to keep tuning in to Altrok 90.5 HD2 while the gears grind toward production at MTV Networks - you want to be familiar with this stuff, right?

So, What Have We Been Playing, Anyway? Altrok Chart 3/16/2011

2011-03-16T20:22:00.005-04:00

As we veer closer and closer to being part of "the industry", what with a terrestrial radio signal and all, it's probably reasonable for us to start being a bit more upfront about what we've been playing at Altrok 90.5 HD2...so here's the forty songs we played the most last week:

TW	LW	MV	Artist	Title
1	8	7	Cold War Kids	Sensitive Kid
2	2	tie	Peter Bjorn and John	Breaker Breaker
3	5	2	Atkins, Nicole	You Come To Me
4	9	5	British Sea Power	Observe The Skies
5	10	5	Asobi Seksu	Perfectly Crystal
6	3	-3	MEN	Boom Boom Boom
7	30	23	Calvi, Anna	Blackout
8	25	17	Home Video	The Automatic Process
9	31	22	Dum Dum Girls	There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
10	38	28	Sick Of Sarah	Simple Parts
11	20	9	Dom	Living In America
12	11	-1	Jonquil	It Never Rains
13	32	18	Radiohead	Lotus Flower
14	35	20	Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, The	Belong
15	36	20	Wire	Please Take [EFC]
16	16	-1	Gang Of Four	I Can See From Far Away
17	81	63	Hank & Cupcakes	Hit
18	104	85	James, Wendy	You Tell Me
19	105	85	La Resistance	Understanding
20	106	85	Late Night Alumni	Angels And Angles
21	62	40	One Black Orchid	Nuthin
22	107	84	Papercranes	Shell
23	63	39	Plan B	Stay Too Long [EFC]
24	91	66	Return To Mono	Framebreaker
25	93	67	Soft Swells	Every Little Thing
26	96	69	Vaccines, The	Blow It Up
27	67	39	Adele	Rolling In The Deep
28	76	47	Does It Offend You Yeah	The Monkeys Are Coming
29	51	21	Flogging Molly	Don't Shut 'Em Down
30	58	27	Jennings, Shooter	California Via Tennessee
31	69	37	Bibio	Excuses (Radio Edit)
32	100	67	Boxer Rebellion, The	Cause For Alarm
33	70	36	Big Search	Getting Warm
34	71	36	Black Pistol Fire	Sort Me Out
35	109	73	Bright Eyes	Jejune Stars
36	74	37	Decemberists, The	This Is Why We Fight
37	50	12	DeVotchKa	100 Other Lovers
38	78	39	Fleshtones, The	Bite Of My Soul
39	52	12	Fujiya & Miyagi	Cat Got Your Tongue
40	40	-1	Funeral Party	New York City Moves To The Sound Of L.A. [Dave Sitek Remix] [EFC]

What'll it be next week? Tune in and find out...

Recap: The 2011 Classic Melody Bar Reunion

2011-02-28T17:00:00.001-05:00

Short form: once again, The 2011 Melody Bar Reunion (Classic Era) was a whole lot of fun.

Long form:

We may actually have this thing down to a science. Stiffy Biceptz runs the logistics, Ed Wong handles the magnificent load of audio equipment and everyone else (Pat Pierson, Lisa Uber, Pete Santiago, Matt Pinfield and myself) show up and slap vinyl and/or aluminum-coated polycarbonate plastic onto/into the decks, in a manner that appears to please the gathered crowd.

Or, more succinctly, we play songs loud and people go crazy. Thus, all is as it was.

Stiffy's collection of classic Melody Bar photos (taken back in the days of film, of course) once again played out over the computer projector, and people danced and danced and danced. The folks at the Elks Club were loaded for bear, refreshments-wise, and the crowd were similarly ready for action. The place exploded on a few occasions when an anticipated track hit the speakers. I got an "Oh my GOD!" wafting over to my ears from the direction of the dance floor a couple of times, at least once before 8PM, and that was just my set. Pinfield's meet-and-greet (and there'll always be one when he can make it) before getting down to business was as fun to watch as the dance floor itself.

Some highlights:

- The woman who squeed when I played Blue Zoo's "Somewhere In The World There's A Cowboy Smiling" did so because, about thirty seconds before I played it, she thought "hey, Blue Zoo's 'Somewhere In The World There's A Cowboy Smiling' would sound really good right about now." She wondered what the odds of that happening were, and I buffed my fingernails against my shirt with mock pride and said "one hundred percent..."

- Seeing folks who'd never been to the Melody, having been dragged to the reunion by their Melody-denizen friends, nonetheless out on the dance floor, looking like they were meant to be there from day one. Especially during Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz".

- Anything played while Stiffy Biceptz had his "KEEP BACK 200 FT." shirt on. It only comes out when conditions are juuuust right.

- And for sheer transcendance, Melody was there. In 1947, when the Melody Bar opened, she was the newborn after which the bar was named. We may not have the Melody Bar any longer, but the fact that we still have Melody was not lost on the crowd, who couldn't help snap umpteen pictures of her.

That just scratches the surface, which is all you can ask for, really. We'll do it again in about a year's time.

(Yes, it was recorded for posterity. Yes, you should keep an ear locked on Altrok 90.5 HD2 to find out when it might air...Matt says it's OK.)

Something That May Mean Something: The Arcade Fire's Grammy

2011-02-14T17:00:00.001-05:00

Two facts:

All three of The Arcade Fire's albums have been nominated for, but have never won, the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.

The Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" was awarded the Grammy for Album Of The Year.

Funny, that. Nothing against The Black Keys or Muse, who The Arcade Fire lost to earlier in the day, mind you. (Well, maybe I've something against Muse, who really make arena rock with an alternative veneer.)

Admittedly, the Album field was weaker because one of the Album nominees wasn't actually an album. We are on record as being in awe of Lady Gaga, but clocking in at eight pop-length songs, "The Fame Monster" was closer to being an EP than it was to being an album.

I think what really stands out for me in this isn't so much that The Arcade Fire won, but that they won with a release on an independent label. Merge Records was created by Supergrass to release their own records, and has maintained an artist-friendly (and label-spartan) shop ever since. In my opinion, the fact that they won this award doesn't say so much about the label having "arrived" as it does about the diminished size of the other "major" labels; there's simply no longer a need to support the old guard the way the industry once did.

My old colleague Jerry Rubino, now holding fort over at Last.fm/Discover, mentioned via Facebook that Lady Antebellum's thank-you speech was unique in that they thanked radio for giving them so much support, and it's true that country radio has given them a lot of it. Of course, they make equivocating pop-country that really doesn't push anyone's envelope very hard, which is whey I really thought they'd take home the Album Of The Year statue.

The Arcade Fire made no such proclamation, and it's right that they didn't, because (outside of Jerry's own effort) there's not a commercial rock station that has touched Arcade Fire with a ten foot pole. That job was left to those of us who work in the margins of college and public radio - and we don't need a thank you, because we're just trying to find good music to play, and when we find it, we're happy to play it. The best thank-you we can get from The Arcade Fire is that they make more great records.

Video: The Answering Machine, "Lifeline"

2011-02-08T17:00:00.000-05:00

Here's yer new video from The Answering Machine - "Lifeline" is the title track from their new album. You'll be hearing a bit more from it in the coming weeks at Altrok 90.5 HD2, of course - we've already added two tracks including this one, and I feel confident we're not stopping there...

I think we've been playing The Answering Machine for about three years now, and that's not a trend that's gonna slow down any time soon, either.

Here, Have A New Fleshtones Track...

2011-01-26T15:27:00.003-05:00

Well, what can I say? When the record company says "there's a new Fleshtones album on the way", you feverishly anticipate its release.

When the record company then says "hey, wouldja mind putting up a free track for your listeners to download?" you say "no...no, I wouldn't mind at all."

And here it is, "Bite Of My Soul" by The Fleshtones, off their next album Brooklyn Sound Solution, coming this March 15.

Don't say I never gave ya nothin'.

(And of course, you're well aware you'll be hearing it at Altrok 90.5 HD2 too, right?)

Streams Maxed Out! What To Do?

2011-01-20T14:51:00.003-05:00

It's probably too early for us to do a Sally Field here, but it's clear you like us at least enough to max out one or another of our listen links...

So this is just a friendly reminder that if one's busy, try the other - and we're probably going to change the page so that it doesn't say so much about AAC being "better quality", because even though it is, it's not so much better that you won't have a good time listening to the MP3 stream instead. (AAC used to be a lot better, but we got our hands on a better MP3 encoder, so they're really not far off from each other now.)

And if all else fails and you're within HD listening range, fire up your HD Radio and tune in to 90.5 HD2.

By all means, however you're listening, keep listening, though - we're happy you're here! (In fact, we'll be looking at expanding the place a bit...)

Heaven 17 Plus La Roux Equals Temptation

2011-01-18T18:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently, in amongst their always amazing session lineup, BBC 6Music puts together the occasional May-December matchup, and this one happened about a year ago. La Roux does a half-decent job holding her own in the session environment with Heaven 17, doesn't she?

Of course, you can hear both of them individually occasionally at 6Music...but pretty much anytime at a certain Jersey Shore station you should be well acquainted with by now...

Broken Social Scene at Terminal 5 - Watch It On YouTube

2011-01-18T13:27:00.002-05:00

Tonight, January 18 at 9pm Eastern, you can check out Broken Social Scene as they kick off their North American tour at Terminal 5 in NYC, live via YouTube.

Check it out here.

In the meantime, here's "Forced To Love" from their latest...

Tonight On 90.5 FM/HD1: The Altrok Countdown for 2010

2011-01-07T17:30:00.003-05:00

Every year (more or less) we put the best and brightest tracks of the past year into a completely subjective sequence and trot them out one at a time on the Altrok Countdown...this year, we're running about par for the course as far as getting it in near the end of the year just past. We couldn't do it last week, because frankly nobody would have been listening at midnight on New Year's, so we're putting the whole rigamarole on tonight at 11pm.

Oh, and it's on 90.5 The Night - no special radio needed, just tune to 90.5 if you're in central NJ, or ga ahead and do the listen online thing if that suits you. Either way, it's two solid hours of what we think was the most interesting stuff we played in 2010.

Of course, that'll make you want to hear more, and if you click here to listen to our always-on Modern Rock station (or just tune in with one o' them newfangled HD Radios) we'll hook you up as much as you're willing to be hooked.

The Best Of 2010 - Now With Fixed-Up Volume Control!

2010-12-29T10:40:00.003-05:00

Aheh. Y'know when you click your mouse by accident, then take a cursory look at the screen and think no harm done...until you discover you pasted something confusing in the wrong IM window?

Well, this is something like that. I accidentally lowered the volume on one of the two virtual "decks" in our radio station's software. Result: every other song sounded really quiet...unless you were listening on HD, since [heavily simplified technical explanation follows:] the HD transmitter stuff fixes that.

Since I listen via my HD radio, I didn't notice - and thanks to an alert poster in the comments section below for cluing me in. All better now.

The Best Of 2010 Airs Throughout The Blizzard...

2010-12-26T16:17:00.002-05:00

Last night, we started airing the Best of 2010 instead of our regular current-song playlist at Altrok 90.5 HD2. There was a lot of great music released this year, and we're playing everything we think is most worthy from throughout the year. Of course, we're playing just as many of the classic alternative tracks you know you can only hear at Altrok 90.5 HD2, too. It's just like we usually roll, only betterer.

It's been a great year for us - the best since we started playing with this web-radio thingy back in 2000. We went from being a web-only commercial supported station to a real live commercial-free, listener-supported broadcast signal in March, and plans are in the works to make Altrok 90.5 HD2 bigger and better in the new year.

This is all happening because you're there listening to us, and we thank you profusely for extending us the honor. We'll be continuing to live up to those expectations in the new year, and we hope you'll stay along for the ride.

Why not start now - since the eastern seaboard's getting a whole lota fluff dumped on it, wouldn't Altrok's Best Of 2010 be a great way to bide your time 'til the plows come? Our playlists are loaded with the best the year had to offer, and the transmitter's pumping out the wattage - all you've gotta do is tune in online or on your HD Radio - either way, we're there for you, and with your continuing support, it'll stay that way.

Thanks again for a great year!

"48(ish) Vaguely Dysfunctional Hours Of Christmas" On Til Late Christmas Night

2010-12-24T10:40:00.002-05:00

Okay, it's on - 48 hours of Altrok's Christmas selection, featuring new and classic songs both reverent and revolting for your holiday listening pleasure. Oh yes, there will be wassailing...at Altrok 90.5 HD2 on your HD Radio at the Jersey Shore, or just click here.

Altrok Adds Christmas Music, Takes The Holidays Off

2010-12-22T10:50:00.002-05:00

We've added about six Christmas songs per hour to our Altrok 90.5 HD2 rotation, and we'll head into A Vaguely Dysfunctional 48 Hours Of Christmas starting at Midnight on Christmas Eve Eve (12:00am December 24 to 11:59pm December 25.)

Then we'll splatter the station with the best tracks from 2010, from midnight December 26 to the moment the New Year starts.

For our Friday night FM shows, however, we're taking a break - two very special program blocks, 90.5 The Night's 24 Hours of Christmas on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and The Top 90 Albums Of 2010 over New Year's, will take precedence over the Altrok Radio FM Showcase (and, actually, Car Talk, Forward Into The Past, and eTown, so we're in good company.)

We'll go back to our regular format on New Year's Day, and our first show of the New Year will be on January 8...stay tuned to Altrok 90.5 HD2 'til then, 'cause we've always got something interesting to play (and you're looking for "interesting", right?)

Here, for no related reason (outside of the season) is an amusing video...

Do Da Dippity

2010-12-17T10:40:00.002-05:00

Several times in this column I have written about classic alternative music turning up in commercials, and how cool and somewhat surprising I found that to be, given that alternative music in general never truly conquered mainstream culture. Sure we've had our moments, with a few choice bands and songs becoming popular. But I always thought that the use of more top 40 type songs would be more effective, given the fact they were so popular and recognizable. Perhaps that's the reason they aren't used now that I think about...hmm...

Anyway, a recent car commercial from Kia features the song "The Choice is Yours" from the early nineties hip-hop act called the Black Sheep. The track came out in the 1991 time frame and was one of the great hip-hop/rap songs that Pinfield played at the Melody on a regular basis. It was a Melody dance floor favorite for many months that year and further solidified Pinfield as the hippest DJ in town, who could pick good music from any genre and make it work. Rap and hip-hop were alternative music styles, although not many folks figured that out. Of course Pinfield did.

In 1991, hip-hop and rap were still very dangerous and downright scary to mainstream American (white/corporate) culture. Those genres were assumed to represent everything that white America feared--angry aggressive black men coming to seek revenge on the society they believe was the cause of their misery. Movies such as Do The Right Thing, Boyz n the Hood and Juice brought the drugs, violence and suffering of inner city life right to middle class America's doorstep, and attached to it was the music of the day, rap and hip-hop. Of course it only takes a bit of examination to realize the music was a shout out for action and attention to the problems, and not a promotion of the violence or drug culture.

What a difference twenty years makes in the digestion of pop culture. Long faded away is any energy of anger or subversion, although the lyrics still carry the message. What remains is a ridiculously catchy tune so infectious that even the most white bread suburbanite would be hard pressed to resist a bit of head bobbing, if not outright pogoing. Yes,it is the ideal pogoing song, the beat time is perfectly in synch with the jumping frequency of the typical 5' 9", 150 lb. white dude in black leather boots...

And of course it's that catchiness and relative unfamiliarity that make it an ideal song to have in a commercial. The ad is funny, with a stylish but not too aggressive urban hip-hop theme where the characters are chilled out rats, bobbing their heads to the song. The first time I saw the ad I started singing the song and jumping around my living room. My wife was once again amazed I knew the song and I had to tell her the whole story. More importantly my older boys wanted to know more about the song and the band, so I ran to my CD collection and found my copy of the track. Unfortunately, the album version I have is a very lame early version of the song. I then remembered I had down loaded the "good" version of the song featured in the commercial, and the one Pinfield had played at the Melody. I played it several times, and for the next week or so, frequently caught my boys singing it to themselves and their friends.

Kia's might not be the best cars on the road, but if their commercials are indicative, they might be the coolest.

Do Da Dippity indeed.

WOXY's Mike Taylor: Blogging, Podcasting, Networking

2010-12-16T09:50:00.003-05:00

After the lights went out at WOXY.com (again), I'd hoped the individuals associated with the station would strike out on their own and figure out a way to do what they were doing. It's kind of the reason I'm here doing what I'm doing - when I get free time, I can't do anything else. Neither can they, and we're happy to let our obsessions entertain you, the listening public. (You are listening, aren't you?)

So for Mike Taylor, WOXY.com's former program director, there's now a blog, The Big Beat, where he opines about the sorts of things I opine about, though he actually does it a bit more often. After a while, he quite naturally graduated up to putting out a fairly regular podcast, and now he's hooked up with This Is Fake DIY, a very good music blog indeed.

It's a good thing we're all so obsessive in such productive ways. Go, enjoy...then remember Altrok 90.5 HD2's on 24/7, and tune in here, too...

Gang Of Four Pouring Everything Into New Release

2010-12-07T10:05:00.004-05:00

I got a message from Gang Of Four that their upcoming album, Content, will be available in a superdeluxe version. How superdeluxe?

The Ultimate C O N T E N T Can
**Only Available 12/1-12/15**

To celebrate the release of C O N T E N T, Gang of Four has personally designed the limited-edition Ultimate C O N T E N T Can. Pictured on the cover of the standard CD and vinyl version, the Ultimate C O N T E N T Can contains the album and all the great items listed below. A must have for Gang of Four fans and chroniclers of pop culture alike.

Each Ultimate C O N T E N T Can contains:
* CD copy of C O N T E N T including the track "2nd Life," exclusively available with this package
* Smells Book: Scratch n' Sniff book reflecting key areas of human activity
* History Book: art piece on ceramic tiles depicting the last 40 years of world history
* Blood Book: vials of the band's blood!
* Emotions Book: Rotoscoped photographs of the band's emotions
* Words Book: lyrics

That's pretty superdeluxe, and all for the low low price of $49.99. But I've got some mixed emotions here...

On the one hand, all the music I've heard in advance of the album is, frankly, awesome. "Never Pay For The Farm" is particularly good, and the reworked "Glass" (part of a free EP that may or may not be on the album) is, in my opinion, superior to the original. The free EP can be requested at the band's website.

On the other hand:

Many of the features here set me on edge. Vials of blood and scratch-and-sniff book of key areas of human activity? Seems a bit biological to me.
Will buying it give me a chance to win a free trip on The Magic Christian?
A little voice inside my head keeps repeating "return the gift..."

On the other other hand, I'm pretty sure the band's aware of this, and a statement is being made here. Hey, it's rock 'n' roll, ain't it?

So if you want that gaudy display, you can order it directly from YepRoc, now their label here in the US. If you'd like the disc itself, you can pick it up at Amazon on CD and on vinyl.

And if you just want to hear stuff from it, there's always Altrok 90.5 HD2, isn't there?

Jack White Claims His Own Resale Markup

2010-12-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

I like Jack White a lot. I think much of what he tends to do is the Right Thing to do in a world where those that are supposed to know what to do (the record labels) really don't. With the announcement that Third Man Records, White's label, is selling limited edition vinyl releases via auction on eBay, I think he's continuing to do the right thing.

I'll back up a second and tell a story that Mark Evanier has told on his blog (which is voluminous enough that, at the moment, I can't actually find the actual story. I'm pretty sure it's there somewhere.) The story goes that Jack Kirby, the legendary (and legendarily underpaid) comic book artist was asked at a comic convention to draw a sketch for a young fan. One of the legendary things Kirby was apparently legendary for was his ability to dash off a sketch incredibly quickly, and he did so for the kid, who then turned around and shouted for all to hear that he had an an "original Jack Kirby sketch" now available for sale.

Kirby saw to it that it was the last time anyone would be able to make that claim.

White claims there's a guy in a black SUV who pays homeless people to stand in line around Third Man Records in Nashville whenever there's a limited vinyl release going up for sale, and frankly, I believe him, even if the guy in the SUV is metaphorical...because someone makes serious coin from auctioning White's releases, and up 'til now, it wasn't Jack. Rather than react the way Kirby did, he's doing his own scalping, and I think his reasoning's pretty intact. If you want it, you want it, and if you're willing to pay a premium to get it, you'll pay White. If you don't want it, shaddap.

There's a fundamental understanding of the "object of desire" at work here, too, and it's something Factory's Tony Wilson (not the best businessman in the world, but a great pop culture theorist) espoused as well: the value of music is really no greater than the value of its packaging. Music itself is ephemeral, and it was only the ability to capture it and sell it as a package that catapulted the recording industry into the lofty financial position it was once in; it's the fact that it no longer controls the means of replication, and its complete ignorance of that loss of control until it was too late, that has sent it into the death spiral it's currently enjoying.

But the fact that Jack White chose to start a record label in this day and age, and has done so with the nearly obsolete but oh-so-tangible vinyl record as its platform of choice, tells me he had a different set of ideas in mind regarding how one should run a record label. Yes, of course, he wants to create music and sell it, but as important as that is, it's just as important to him how he sells it. So when he sees people making money off his releases, he doesn't do what a record label would typically do (sue the profiteers, probably unsuccessfully, or if successful, sink a lot of money into legal fees before seeing a penny, if one is seen at all.)

No, he profits from his own work. That's sort of what the artists beholden to the classic record industry should have been allowed to do all along, but the record industry was too busy making money to cut them in on the deal. Thankfully, times change.

Altrok Again Quietly Adds A Whole Lotta Great New Music...

2010-11-30T11:33:00.002-05:00

We pretty much add new tracks every week, and we've done so once again. Since early November, for instance, we've added new music from these folks:

Airlines, Bad Books, Bear Hands, Cold War Kids, Elvis Costello, Crystal Castles (featuring Robert Smith), Daft Punk, The Decemberists, Deluka, The Duke Spirit, Eels, Brian Eno, Esben and the Witch, The Futureheads, Gang Of Four, The Good Natured, Hollerado, Zola Jesus, The Jezabels, The Kicks, Kids Of 88, Margot & The Nuclear So And So's, Modern Paranoia, My Jerusalem, Nitzer Ebb, Old 97's, OMD, The Pierces, Pujol, The Radio Dept., Ringers, Rogue Wave, Surfer Blood, System And Station, Tapes 'N Tapes, Underworld, Violens, Warpaint, White Belt Yellow Tag, and Young The Giant.

Not bad, huh? So if you haven't tuned in lately, go for it - there's always something new (even if it's old.) Click here to choose a player, and then keep it tuned to Altrok 90.5 HD2.

The Outage Is Over...

2010-10-26T09:00:00.002-04:00

Our Internet access went kablooey sometime during the night, but it's back up now. (Those of you who listen on HD didn't notice a thing! See, there's a bonus for HD listeners...)

Tune in now and see what you were missing!

Tracklisting: Altrok Radio FM Showcase #284 (10/22/10)

2010-10-25T21:11:00.002-04:00

By popular request, here's what we played last week on The Altrok Radio FM Showcase (which, of course, you can hear every Friday at 11pm on 90.5 The Night...)

(Artist - Song - Album)

Stoltz, Kelley - Little Girl - To Dreamers
Soft Boys, The - (I Want To Be An) Anglepoise Lamp - 7'' Single
Funeral Party - Finale - 'Finale' [Single]
Maximum Balloon - Apartment Wrestling (v's David Byrne) - Maximum Balloon
Liquid Liquid - Cavern - 12'' Single
Like, The - Wishing He Was Dead - Release Me
Klaxons - Echoes (Radio Edit) - Surfing The Void
Radio 4 - Dance To The Underground - Gotham!
Film School - Waited - Fission
Gay Blades, The - Try To Understand - Savages
Sham 69 - If The Kids Are United - 7'' Single
Old 97's - Every Night Is Friday Night (Without You) - The Grand Theatre Volume One
Ten Million Lights - Kill Yr Idols - Ten Million Lights
Passion Puppets - Like Dust - Beyond The Pale
Land Of Talk - Quarry Hymns - Cloak And Cipher
Ghostland Observatory - Miracles - Miracles [Promo EP]
Gang Of Four - I Love A Man In Uniform - Songs Of The Free
Gram Rabbit - Off With Your Head - Miracle & Metaphors
Costello, Elvis - Opportunity - Get Happy!
PVT - Window - Church With No Magic
Of Montreal - I Feel Ya' Strutter - False Priest
Crocodiles - Hearts Of Love - Sleep Forever
Echo & The Bunnymen - Seven Seas - Ocean Rain
Dark Dark Dark - In Your Dreams - Wild Go
Belle And Sebastian - I Want The World To Stop - Write About Love
Cake - Sick Of You - Showroom Of Compassion
Replacements, The - Hold My Life - Tim
National, The - Terrible Love (Alternate Version) - Single
Beach House - 10 Mile Stereo - Teen Dream
Psychedelic Furs, The - Pulse - The Psychedelic Furs
Walkmen, The - Angela Surf City - Lisbon

Remember, we've thrown a bunch of the videos for these songs into our latest playlist over at YouTube - why not kick back and check 'em out?

And of course, we've added all of the above to our ever-expanding library at Altrok 90.5 HD2, our over-the-air HD Radio station. Tune in; there's lots more where that came from.

Pinfield & Santiago At A Doll's Place: NEW DATE

2010-10-24T12:36:00.002-04:00

November 20 couldn't happen, so now November 13 will. A visit to A Doll's Place on that date will yield another opportunity to see the original man behind The Melody Bar doing what he did once again. (Yeah, yeah, FM106.3, MTV, Columbia Records, WRXP...he did/does that stuff, but ya can't take the Melody Bar out of him.)

Smiths And Personal Bios Coming From Tony Fletcher

2010-10-19T12:24:00.003-04:00

Tony Fletcher possesses a memory that guarantees that the formative days of the modern rock era will be well-chronicled, and a voice that guarantees that his account of the ride will be almost as fun as having been there.

Thus, two separate announcements from Mr. Fletcher:

A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT: THE SAGA OF THE SMITHS

My next project is an extensive biography of The Smiths, to be published by William Heinemann in the UK and Crown Books in the USA. Though there are several books available about this greatest of British bands, there has not been a serious attempt at a biography other than Johnny Rogan’s “The Severed Alliance” back in 1992. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, has any book on the Smiths ever been simultaneously commissioned by an American publisher. As someone very much of the Smiths generation, a devoted fan who saw the group in concert many times while also working in the thick of things as a music journalist/magazine editor, I’m trusting I can do my subjects the justice they deserve. I’m excited to be telling the Smiths’ story with the benefit of two decades’ hindsight; I’m looking forward to focusing on the music, which would appear to be more influential now than during the group’s intense five-year reign in the mid-80s; and I’m anticipating approaching this from more of an international perspective as well.

Over the last several months, I have been conducting interviews with a number of the major players, and I’ll be spending most of November in the UK doing further research. I am interested in hearing from anyone who has anything to say about the Smiths. The book is slated for publication in 2012.

BOY ABOUT TOWN

I mentioned this in my first and last full-on e-blast a year ago, and I’m pleased to say that, three drafts later, it’s finished (for now). Boy About Town tells the story, via a Top 50 countdown, of my childhood and teenage years in the pre-punk and post-punk music scenes around London, while also detailing the pubescent narrator’s equal obsessions with sex, the terraces and the pursuit of street credibility. I was fortunate to run a fanzine in the late 1970s that afforded me a ringside seat to one of the most creative periods in British cultural history, and the preservation of my interview manuscripts, notebooks, and diaries provided me with enough resource material to structure Boy About Town as a series of short stories that hopefully have the pace of a good novel. I can, hand on heart, say that I’m as happy with this book as anything I’ve ever written. A sample story from an earlier draft remains available online at my web site, here, though it was subsequently dropped from the final selection. I look forward to updating you on the book’s progress towards publication.

As always, we at Altrok wish Tony well on his upcoming projects, and note with some satisfaction that much of the music he discusses shows up sooner or later at Altrok 90.5 HD2. Ahem.

Altrok Showcase Video Sneak Peek

2010-10-07T11:18:00.003-04:00

If you go to our new YouTube profile, you can see a few of the things we'll be featuring on this week's Altrok Radio FM Showcase - but for the full audio barrage, tune in at 11pm Friday night to 90.5 The Night.

Of course, there's always a fix available at Altrok 90.5 HD2 - just sayin'.

(By the way, Matt Pinfield and Pete Santiago's excellent adventure at New Brunswick, NJ's A Doll's Place last week has spawned a sequel, slated for November 20. You can hit the Corner Tavern in New Brunswick any ol' Saturday, though, where Drew and Iron Mike have the library handy that'll make you happy...)

This Weekend: The Melody Legacy Rears Two Heads

2010-09-30T14:28:00.005-04:00

As far as the Modern Rock scene in New Brunswick, NJ is concerned, nothing casts a larger shadow than The Melody Bar, the legendary 1982-2000 watering hole and dance emporium about which much has been written, both on these pages and on many others.

Over the past four years, eight successful Melody Bar reunions have been held - four of the Classic Era type, and four all-eras reunions. And after a while, it seems reasonable to suspect that someone, somewhere would notice that this sort of thing tends to generate a crowd.

Well, actually, it has been for a while at The Corner Tavern, where Drew and Iron Mike hold court every Saturday night, entertaining ever-increasing crowds. They've been pulling in their Modern Rock aficionado crowd the old-fashioned way, by building it up one minion at a time. Normally, summertime brings a hiatus for New Brunswick club crowds, but not for these guys; the Corner Tavern Saturday Night crowd kept on a-comin', and they kept the Corner hopping all summer long.

But as if that weren't enough, another couple of old familiar faces have decided to poke in to the New Brunswick scene; Pete Santiago has managed to convince Matt Pinfield that there's life in the old town yet, and so they'll both be spinning at A Doll's Place this Saturday night as well.

I repeat: Pinfield. New Brunswick. Saturday. Got it?

Both will be spinning tracks from all eras, and both will be trotting out new tracks amongst the classics. (And I've been invited to spin at both of them. Go ahead, fight over me, people...)

Will one pull a crowd from the other? Will the more convenient-to-the-campus Corner Tavern location keep the regulars there? Will Doll's Place actually move the tables off the dance floor? Will people keep back 500 feet? Will Melody regulars show up en masse and overflow the 1500 feet from A Doll's Place to the Corner Tavern? Will everyone get confused and just party at the train station? Will you get a WRXP bumper sticker? Will you get an Altrok 90.5 HD2 bumper sticker? Will Matt show up? Will I show up? (Don't worry, Stiffy will show up.)

And what about...Naomi?

You'll have to show up to find out - cast your vote by putting your boots on the ground:

MeloDrama at The Corner Tavern
Featuring Drew and Iron Mike
Saturday, 9PM

Melody Redux at A Doll's Place
Featuring Matt Pinfield and Pete Santiago
Saturday, 10pm

The Phoenix Arises, Let There Be Dancing

2010-09-24T11:47:00.003-04:00

On Saturday October 2nd the one and only Matt Pinfield will be reviving the Spirit of the Melody at Doll's Place in New Brunswick, across from the hospital on the other side of the tracks. The evening starts officially at 10 pm and it is assured to be an amazing evening of the best music from our glorious past and today. For those of you who miss the Melody and want to relive it once again, this is the place you'll want to be.

Unlike the Melody Reunion event in February, this will be more like a new music night. Although Matt is sure to break out a few Melody classics, there will be plenty of great new music just like back in the day. You know Matt will have a lot of great stuff for us to hear.

I've heard rumors that this could become a regular event if successful, so a strong show of support could help make that happen, which means you need to be there! And how great would that be? Imagine, being able to have the Melody back in our lives, with the same cool people and lots of great new music every month? It's almost too much to think about.

Matt Pinfield was the person largely responsible for what the Melody became, the coolest place to hear the best alternative music. We were so fortunate to have had that in our lives--that place and that music changed a lot of lives.

I know I'll be there, boots and all. I hope you'll join me for a wild night of fun on the dance floor.

Why Kids TV Rules: Ting Tings on Yo Gabba Gabba

2010-09-23T18:28:00.002-04:00

Apparently I didn't get the memo last April when Yo Gabba Gabba posted this (unembeddable) video to YouTube, but you've gotta hand it to The Ting Tings for pulling out a lovely choice of cover...

(Where oh where are you, Clare Grogan?)

Heads Up - New Tracks Premiering Friday On FM...

2010-09-23T09:28:00.004-04:00

So if you're interested in (subject to change) Fran Healy, Best Coast, Clinic, Ben Folds (with Nick Hornby), Frankie Rose & The Outs, Ghostland Observatory, Grandchildren, Jenny [Lewis] & Johnny, Julius C, Klaxons, Mark Ronson, Meridene, Mother/Father, OMD (w/ Aretha Franklin (!)) and Pete Yorn...

...you may want to tune in to The Altrok Radio FM Showcase on Friday at 11pm at 90.5 The Night. I'm just sayin'.

Or, y'know, prepare yourself by tuning in to us at Altrok 90.5 HD2 - you won't hear the new stuff (yet) but you'll hear all the new stuff we added last week...and the week before that...and back to about 1985...

Is That Thunder, Or Did Lightning Strike The Hit House?

2010-09-09T08:00:00.001-04:00

Nothing is ever final in radio. Today's most diverse commercial rock radio station in New York City is Rock 101.9, WRXP. Its frequency sits on the ashes of WPIX-FM, already mentioned on these pages as a legendarily diverse rock radio station. It only required a few decades lying fallow in the swamps of mediocrity before a new (and not entirely displeasing) rock station found its way there.

It is with some finality, however, that I view the announcement that, at 3PM on September 15, Hit 106 - the format whose abrupt displacement of G-Rock, itself carrying the distant echo of the legendary FM106.3, enraged radio fans throughout the Jersey Shore - will itself be displaced by Thunder 106. Country music once again gets a signal at the Jersey Shore.

The hit format itself moves over to B-98.5, WKMK-FM 98.5 in Ocean Acres, which is unlikely to radiate much further north than Long Branch; it will not be a competitor in Monmouth County. If it can follow in the steps of the original B-98.5 that occupied that frequency years ago, it's got a shot at being a solid, locally focused hit radio outlet, providing a strong format for Long Beach Island. It'll own its market.

Matt Knight, Hit106's outgoing Program Director, led B-98.5 years ago, but he won't be back; Hit106's faceplant appears to herald the end of Matt's tenure at Press Broadcasting. That's a shame; Matt's leadership had little to do with the station's fortunes, which had a lot more to do with the owners' decision to compete in an already saturated hit radio market. The decision to jettison alternative rock for hit radio within thirty days of a high-powered signal in New York City doing the same thing will rank with Decca Records' rejection of the Beatles on lists of legendarily bad business decisions for years to come. We have the benefit of hindsight now, though this website had the foresight to warn that this was a bad idea when it was executed.

Country, actually, was probably the right idea for the station years ago. Had the station switched to country in 2002 when the then-dominant country station in the area (Y-107 in Long Branch) gave it up, they'd have had a far better time launching the new identity than they did trying to launch Hit106 in the face of an enraged and vocal audience. Back in 2002, Press' flaccid support of Alternative Rock after the purchase of G-Rock had pretty much ensured that a format change would have been met with little more than a cynical yawn.

Tune in sometime around 2015, by which time Thunder's ratings will guarantee that they show in the New York City ratings book, some New York signal will switch to country, Thunder will collapse, and Press will flip through the list of discarded formats used on WPIX-FM (known prior to its legendary rock format as "the format of the month station) and throw a new format on the frequencies. And it will be unlistenable.

We can only hope that Press and its heavily leveraged brethren, who value money over good radio, will go bankrupt soon enough for radio signals to once again fall to a price that's affordable enough for people who actually want to do radio to buy them. Radio run by broadcasters is always better than radio run by accountants.

In the meantime, we here at altrokradio.com will continue our little experiment at Altrok 90.5 HD2, hoping you can join in the fun. Heck, maybe that'll be the format Press tries in 2015...but we're listener supported and we don't play commercials, so...Press? Good luck with that.

A Bit About WPIX-FM

2010-08-27T14:56:00.003-04:00

WPIX-FM.

Most people, when they hear those call letters, think "Love Songs, Nothing But Love Songs". Some people think of "Dr." Jerry Carroll (later the TV spokesman for Crazy Eddie.) But I like to think of their stint as the best New York City radio station ever.

From 1978 to 1980, they identified themselves as "The New 102, WPIX-FM: From Elvis To Elvis" and they weren't kidding. With a seriously wide rock record selection and live broadcasts featuring everyone from Jerry Lee Lewis and Sam And Dave to XTC and Buzzcocks, they remain the gold standard for rock variety on NYC airwaves.

Somewhere, someone's writing a book on them. Somewhere else, someone's probably sitting on hour upon hour of airchecks from the era. But I've just discovered a healthy message board featuring stories from the guy who ran their live remote truck, so...happy reading!

(You may note with some amusement that the frequency - actually 101.9 - is now occupied by WRXP. They're trying...Lord knows they're trying...)

First REM Contest Winner - Second REM Contest Today

2010-08-11T12:00:00.003-04:00

Firstly, congratulations to Craig in High Point, NC on winning the REM prize package we've been touting hereabouts - his winning entry came in near the end of the contest period, but certainly well within it, so after being selected at random from the entries, he walks away with the Fables Of The Reconstruction two-CD box set and the classic REM video collection DVD.

Is it your turn next? Pay attention to our Twitter feed today (which is relayed to our Facebook and MySpace pages) and you'll have another shot, but you'll have to be quick for this one, because the first one in wins the package. (It's described in great detail here.) When you see the Twitter message that says WIN REM NOW, come back to our home page here at http://altrokradio.com, choose "Respond to a story we've published" and send us your name, address and email address so we can get it to you if you're the winner.

Again, the validity of all entries will be determined at our discretion, and our decision is final. You must be the first person to respond, and that'll be judged by the timestamp we see when it lands in our inbox.

Good luck!

Win A Classic R.E.M. Prize Package, Starting Now!

2010-08-10T12:00:00.001-04:00

It's time for the first of our R.E.M. Fables Of The Reconstruction prize packages, including the new deluxe edition of the album and their classic videos DVD (click here to see the more complete description and rules).

Hit the feedback link above (on our home page at http://altrokradio.com if you're reading this via feed), choose "Respond to a story we've published" and send us your name, address and email address so we can get it to you if you're the winner.

Your entry must be received by 11:59:59pm tonight Eastern Daylight Time. The validity of all entries will be determined at our discretion, and our decision is final.

We'll draw a lucky winner at random from all the valid entries we receive; the winner will be announced at noon tomorrow (August 11.)

Good luck!

(And if you don't win, you've got two more chances - keep watching our Twitter/Facebook/Myspace feed and listening to our station via HD Radio or online at http://wbjb.org/altrok for more chances later this week...)

Want To Win An R.E.M. CD and DVD? Pay Attention...

2010-08-09T11:47:00.002-04:00

Thanks to the folks at EMI Records (who are now the stewards for portions of the IRS Records catalog) we've got a little something to give away. It's a nice package, too.

The package consists of:

The 25th Anniversary reissue of R.E.M.'s Fables Of The Reconstruction, provided in a sturdy keepsake box containing two compact discs and a variety of lithographed liner-note and poster ephemera. The compact discs are:

- The remastered Fables Of The Reconstruction album, and...
- "The Athens Tapes", a rather snappy sounding collection of the demos R.E.M. recorded in Athens, GA before heading to London to produce the resulting album. It includes the embryonic version of "I Believe", called "Throw Those Trolls Away" that we've been playing in heavy rotation at Altrok 90.5 HD2 lately.

Plus, we'll throw in a copy of "When the Light is Mine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987" to fill out the prize package you'll be getting.

So how do you get your hands on this hyar little package? Well, the good news is that if you're reading this page, you're in the running...

Sometime in the next few days, we'll post a message on this blog where to send us a note telling us you're interested the prize. In that note, we'll tell you when we'll stop accepting messages. We'll draw at random from the valid entries we receive ("valid" means you've included an email address, your name and a mailing address.) We'll announce the winner as soon as we choose one.
Also, we'll be giving one package away if you pay attention to our Twitter, Facebook or Myspace pages. Get hooked up with those, and you'll be in the running when we give the word.
And finally, we'll be giving one package away to our listeners - be listening when we give the go-ahead on Altrok 90.5 HD2, and you'll have another chance.

All the standard giveaway caveats apply: you can't have won anything from Altrok 90.5 HD2, 90.5 The Night or Brookdale Student Radio within the past thirty days, mechanically reproduced entries will be voided based on our sole judgement, and our decisions are final.

So, ya ready? Keep an eye on us...

"A Glorius Dawn" Vinyl Release - Cosmos Goes Chill-Out

2010-08-03T20:31:00.005-04:00

This slipped under my radar as I began the vacation-ish portion of my summer - and in fact has been slipping under that radar since it first pulled itself tentatively onto the mainland of the Internet. But thanks to the fine folks at Third Man Records, a copy has wended its way into my hands.

Basically, a guy by the name of John Boswell, having amused himself and many others by adding autotune to news reports, turned his attentions to the somewhat more august speculations of Carl Sagan, courtesy of his masterwork PBS miniseries, Cosmos. Using clips from the show (and from Stephen Hawking as well) he's put together a series of pieces that are far more compelling than they have any right to be.

At the end of June, Third Man Records made the initial single available as a vinyl 7'' record, and that's available at their website; the song can also be acquired through free download at the Symphony Of Science website, and of course you can get a high-quality copy at iTunes (search for "A Glorious Dawn".) Boswell has since set other speculative treatises to music, and he's made more of them available at Symphony Of Science; a $25 donation to the project gets you the vinyl and his undying thanks.

And who can argue with this:

By the way, thanks to the fine folks at Hulu, you can see Cosmos in its entirety. (Let it not be said that Altrok would stand in the way of a good education.)

Neil Young With Devo, "Hey Hey, My My"

2010-06-24T09:43:00.002-04:00

...and the lead vocals are by Booji Boy. So there.

New Thomas Dolby: "Amerikana"

2010-06-17T11:02:00.003-04:00

Thomas Dolby's got a few things up his sleeve, and he appears to be channeling J.J. Abrams lately in terms of not wanting to let on about too much too soon...but there's new music out as of today.

Go to Dolby's website, join the Flat Earth Society there, and then plunk down your $3 for the three-track Amerikana digital EP, involving Imogen Heap and Mark Knopfler.

Interesting? Enough to plunk down my $3...

Tonight On FM: Altrok Radio FM Showcase

2010-06-11T15:34:00.003-04:00

So, let's get this straight: The Altrok Radio FM Showcase is a two hour show Friday nights that you can hear on 90.5 The Night on your FM radio, starting at 11pm, so you don't need some kinda special radio for that, got it?

And on tonight's show, you'll hear this:

...among two hours worth of other really good things.

And if you like what you hear, you can tune to Altrok 90.5 HD2 anytime to hear more - but to hear that, you need the special radio (an HD Radio specifically, or click the link to listen online.) But it's a special station, so there's that. Heck, you can listen to that right now.

Your Top Ten: Ramones!

2010-06-11T12:28:00.002-04:00

Quick one - use the feedback link here on our page to send your favorite Ramones songs, and we'll count up the top ten and post it.

(This, as you might suspect, is the first of many of these sorts of things...)

Altrok 90.5 HD2's Top 30 for June 1 (or: Boy, Are We Busy)

2010-06-02T11:12:00.004-04:00

So busy, in fact, that we've waited until June 2 to post it. But we're getting ahead of ourselves; where to start?

Okay, so we've got a radio station. It's at 90.5 HD2 at the Jersey Shore on your FM HD Radio (you've got one by now, haven't you?) You can listen online, too, or pick up an iPhone app if it tickles your fancy.

Once an hour, our Twitter feed lets you know some of the bands we'll be playing soon - which we think is kinda good. (We don't tell you all of them, and we don't tell you when they're coming - that'd be cheating.) But really, what's the point of hearing about what's already on? By the time you get tuned in, you've missed it...but not with us, no siree. We want you ahead of the game.

And in the interest of keeping you up on the zeitgeist floating past you (in terms of digitally-enhanced radio waves, anyway) we'd like to let you know what we've been playing this past week. Here's the Top 30 we're reporting out to the music industry (that suddenly cares about what we're playing)...

#	ARTIST	Release	Label
1	LCD SOUNDSYSTEM	This Is Happening	EMI
2	TOKYO POLICE CLUB	Champ	Mom And Pop
3	NATIONAL	High Violet	4AD
4	ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT	Coconut	Domino
5	BLACKMARKET	St Vincent Decor	Mine And Yours
6	EVEREST	On Approach
7	FOALS	Total Life Forever	Sub Pop
8	HOLY F***	Latin	XL
9	HOT HOT HEAT	Future Breeds	Dangerbird
10	NADA SURF	If I Had A Hi-Fi	Self-Released
11	PAUL WELLER	Wake Up The Nation	Yep Roc
12	SETTING SUN	Fantasurreal	Young Love
13	HUNDRED IN THE HANDS	The Desert	Warp
14	WOLF PARADE	Expo 86
15	BLOOD RED SHOES	Fire Like This
16	BOOKS	The Way Out
17	FUTUREHEADS	The Chaos	Dovecote
18	GASLIGHT ANTHEM	American Slang	SideOne Dummy
19	PARLOVR	Parlovr	Self-Released
20	UNDERWORLD	"Scribble" [Single]
21	NICE NICE	Extra Wow	Warp
22	DEPRECIATION GUILD	Spirit Youth	Kanine
23	FOL CHEN	In Ruins [EP]	Asthmatic Kitty
24	METRIC	Fantasies	Self-Released
25	65DAYSOFSTATIC	We Were Exploding Anyway
26	BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE	Forgiveness Rock Record	Arts And Crafts
27	FLATFOOT 56	Black Thorn
28	LOS CAMPESINOS!	Romance Is Boring	Arts And Crafts
29	MGMT	Congratulations	Columbia
30	NEW PORNOGRAPHERS	Together	Matador

Of course, that's in addition to our classic artists; all tolled, there are thousands of modern rock artists in our library. Join us!

Wreckless Eric Coming Up At The Saint

2010-05-12T17:30:00.001-04:00

The Saint has been outdoing themselves with great shows lately - here's yet another (reported this time with a bit of planning time included...

Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby (and special guests)
Tuesday, June 8 at 7:30pm
More info at The Saint's website.

So, y'know...go there and do that.

Chronicle Of The Nashville Flood, By Ben Folds

2010-05-12T16:09:00.001-04:00

No, not a song...pictures, via National Geographic.

Seneca At The Saint Tonight

2010-05-10T15:36:00.003-04:00

A very very good Irish band by the name of Seneca, some of whose music you've heard at both 90.5 The Night and at Altrok 90.5 HD2, will be in Asbury Park tonight. I expect a reasonable admission price and a fine time to be had by all.

A show of this magnitude could only occur at The Saint; doors open at 7:30, and supporting Seneca will be The Embracers, Clash Of Influence and Root Glen.

Pretty full dance card, there. Enjoy!

Thomas Dolby, "Love Is A Loaded Pistol"

2010-05-07T16:37:00.002-04:00

Like it? Head over to thomasdolby.com and download it...and revel in the fact that it's a precursor to a new three-EP cycle called "A Map Of The Floating City". (Much) more about that here.

Chronicling Asbury Park's Legacy: An Update

2010-05-04T21:03:00.003-04:00

Gary Wien, former Upstage Magazine proprietor and current driving force behind Penguin Radio, has always been committed to both the legacy and the promise of Asbury Park, and it's the legacy he's hoping to polish up with his latest adventure - a refresh of his seminal history of the region's music scene, "Beyond The Palace". Here's the details:

(ASBURY PARK, NJ -- MAY 4, 2010) – Seven years ago, Gary Wien released “Beyond The Palace”, the first comprehensive look at the history of rock and roll in Asbury Park. In the next thirty days, he is trying to raise three thousand dollars with Kickstarter.com to release an updated version in hardcover. Fans of Asbury Park or rock and roll music may make pledges online at:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1614580898/beyond-the-palace-hardcover

“Kickstarter.com has helped many artists raise funds for their projects,” said Gary Wien. “People make pledges of donations, but they don’t have to pay anything until the project funding period is over. If the project fails to reach its pledged goal, the people who made pledges do not pay anything. Whether it succeeds or not, this project will end on June 5, 2010.”

Wien is hoping to raise $3,000 to pay for the usage rights to photographs and the actual production costs of the book. Those who pledge will receive rewards such as autographed copies of the book, tickets to a private book release party, and their name thanked in the book.

When most rock fans think of Asbury Park, they instantly think of Bruce Springsteen, but the music scene goes much farther. “Beyond The Palace” takes readers on a ride through all of the city's music history; from the Upstage Club where musicians like Bruce Springsteen, Billy Chinnock, David Sancious and Southside Johnny used to jam all night to early clubs like The Student Prince and Sunshine In; from the legendary Stone Pony and Fastlane to alternative clubs like the Green Parrot, T-Birds Cafe and The Saint. The original book contained interviews with over 40 artists and featured over 70 rare and never before seen photographs; the updated version will included additional interviews and photographs.

"Beyond the Palace" takes you inside the scene like never before. You'll hear the stories right from the artists themselves. It's a look at drugs, sex and booze; bands that made it big, artists on the rise, and those that just missed the mark. It brings you inside the music industry from how bands fight to get signed to how things can fall apart overnight. But most of all, it shows how artists don’t have to sell millions of records to be remembered.

"Asbury Park is a special place,” said the author. “Many people compare Asbury Park’s music scene with cities like Seattle or Washington, DC, but they don’t realize that Asbury Park is so much smaller. I don’t think there’s another town in the United States with a population of less than 20,000 to be home to so many great musicians or have such an illustrious music history.”

The New Altrok Radio Brings Modern Rock Back To The Jersey Shore (And Beyond)

2010-04-26T14:33:00.002-04:00

The good news is: we're growing. Altrok Radio, having been reborn in a more portable and very much more commercial-free manner as Altrok 90.5 HD2, is showing a lot more listenership - but that doesn't mean we're maxed out, and that means you can take advantage of our frankly incredible stream of new modern rock and alternative classics.

For instance, here's our last few tracks...

999 - Homicide
Hard 'n' Phirm - Rodeohead
Dum Dum Girls - Jail La La
Franz Ferdinand - Cheating On You
Bamboos, The - On The Sly
Pretenders, The - Kid
Fanfarlo - Harold T. Wilkins, Or How To Wait For A Very Long Time
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - When You Go Out
The White Stripes – My Doorbell
Malin, Jesse & The St Marks Social – Burning The Bowery
Oingo Boingo – Ain't This the Life

...which is to say that, basically, you'll hear challenging tracks, familiar tracks, new tracks, classic tracks...basically, a lot of really great Modern Rock tracks.

And we do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you want to join us, pick a stream at our listen page, and remember you'll be doing so with our thanks (but without any commercials.)

Or, even better - if you're actually somewhere near our transmitter, why not listen in on HD radio? We won't *know* you're listening, but that's okay - we just want to make sure you get the chance.

This blog has moved

2010-04-16T13:26:00.001-04:00

This blog is now located at http://altrokradio.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
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90.5 FM/HD1 Tonight: The Altrok Radio FM Showcase

2010-04-16T11:26:00.003-04:00

There's a bumper crop of new tracks we'll be premiering on tonight's show at 90.5 The Night - music that'll challenge you, make you move, and generally change your world. Sprinkled in among them, of course, will be classic tracks that you shouldn't ever have to do without.

Specifics? That would be telling - and in most cases, if we told you, you'd say "who?" Though we think you might like the classic Pailhead we dug up. We like Nice Nice, too.

Find out more about "who" - tune in tonight for The Altrok Radio FM Showcase: two whole hours of the good stuff, starting at 11PM on 90.5 The Night.

And in the meantime, remember to check out our lil' slice of heaven at Altrok 90.5 HD2 - tune in with an HD radio (cheap!) or (if you're able to read this) tune in online. All day, all night, in terrifyingly refreshing stereo, or mono, if you prefer.

Malcom McLaren, 64

2010-04-08T15:13:00.002-04:00

Malcom McLaren died today, aged 64, according to the New York Times. Say what you'd like, swindler or no, rock is what it is today in no small part because of him.

90.5's Future Requires Your Help

2010-04-08T14:45:00.004-04:00

It's time for 90.5's pledge drive, and thus we ask your indulgence and support.

Your assistance will provide more fuel for not only 90.5 The Night, but also Altrok 90.5 HD2 and Brookdale Student Radio at 90.5 HD3.

Any amount is welcome at 877-905-4905, and the pledge page has a number of attractive pledge options as well.

Do tell 'em Altrok sent you (it can't be bad for us to be associated with income, y'know...)

WOXY.com Down For The Third Time

2010-03-23T17:19:00.003-04:00

This is a bit of a shock - WOXY.com is going dark...again. I don't know whether it's simply a bad economy, or complications from its move to Austin, TX, or what, but they are throwing in the towel and, this time, it looks like it's for good.

Hope not. They've done a stellar job, and I hope they can figure out how to continue to do so. We've held a long-standing respect for them here at Altrok (and, in fact, their Program Director, Mike Taylor, has graciously contributed to Altrok in the past.)

To put it another way, as I just mentioned to Mike in email:

"Good luck to you and the rest of the staff - you've fought the good fight for far longer and at a higher level than many others have had the resources to, and you haven't ever compromised."

We'll keep you posted.

SXSW: Who's Buzzing?

2010-03-23T10:37:00.002-04:00

In the wrapup for SXSW (which we here at Altrok do not have the liquid funds to attend, unfortunately) it appears there's several attempts to identify the bands that created something like a "buzz"...here's a roundup:

Locally, New Jersey's Star Ledger gave some column inches to the hometown boys, with Titus Andronicus getting the "wailing away on a little stage" pull photo. Other shout-outs went to Status Green, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Roadside Graves and Any Day Parade.

The New York Times' slideshow of the proceedings leads with Frightened Rabbit, following up with Warpaint, Jj, Marina And The Diamonds, The Morning Benders, Memory Tapes (offered up as part of the "Glo-fi" phenomenon - laptop poppers, in my opinion, who are of course not unwelcome.) Apparently Hole and two thirds of The Dixie Chicks (trading as The Court Yard Hounds) were looking for new audiences as well, and they wrap up with a piano driven, string-quartet augmented performance from Germany's Hauschka.

The Vancouver Sun pulls together a nice piece on the final celebration of Alex Chilton's life at Antone's. Looks like everybody wanted to be on that stage.

And if you'd like your SXSW news filtered through celebrities and celebrity watchers, there's no better place than MTV's roundup. (That's the sound of me smacking my forehead...)

Settle in and do some reading - and keep us playing in the background while you do it...

Altrok 90.5 HD2 - Modern Rock Awaits You, And Not Just At The Jersey Shore

2010-03-22T09:35:00.002-04:00

Well, y'know, I wish I didn't have to be such a plugster, but hey, ya don't promote, ya don't get listeners.

Altrok 90.5 HD2 is ON THE AIR. The actual air, as opposed to just over the Internet (though we're still broadcasting there.) We're an over the air radio station with a library that's only better than the one FM106.3 once had because we've had ten years to add deep alternative tracks that actually came out over the last decade (and that you didn't hear because, well, there wasn't an FM106.3 to play 'em for you.)

One other little thing: this is Public Radio, so no commercials.

So we've got the music, and we've got the transmitter. We just need listeners, and that's where you come in.

By the way, we've tweaked the audio so that everything sounds even better whether you're listening on iPhone (yes, there's an app for that), online, or on HD Radio. (Yes, we're still learning how to operate the transmitter, so if you're a fan of broadcasting flubs, you'll probably hear some of those, too. Yeah, we've wanted to run a station forever, but that doesn't mean we were gonna start as experts on day one...)

And Michele McBride provides news in the mornings, bless her soul.

We've also got a Twitter feed and a Facebook fan page - they'll update you once an hour with a teasingly slim view some of the bands we'll be playing some time in the near future. (It's only teasingly slim so that we don't anger the Music Industry Gods - we'd like to let you in on the whole playlist, but that would be telling.)

Here's the last fifty tracks we played. If these light your wick, keep it lit by tuning in, either using your HD Radio at the Jersey Shore (tuned to 90.5 HD2) or online (choose a link, any link.)

The Radio Dept. - Heaven’s On Fire
The Fiery Furnaces - Tropical Iceland [Single Version]
BPA, The - He's Frank (feat. Iggy Pop)
Cake - I Will Survive
You Say Party! We Say Die! - Laura Palmer's Prom
Rudi - When I Was Dead
The Sisters of Mercy - 1969
Cat Scientist - I Saved An Airplane
XTC - Cherry in your tree
Morningwood - Best Of Me
The Church - Deadman's Hand
Green Day - Holiday
Miike Snow - Silvia
Big Audio Dynamite - V. Thirteen
The Fall - Hot Cake-Part 2
Doves - Sky Starts Falling
Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To
Beck - Where It's At
Goldhawks - Where In The World
World Party - Ship Of Fools
A Million Years - Suspicious
Swipe - I Am Gospel
The Jam - Precious
Daryl Hall - NYCNY
Sparks - Tips for Teens
Cut Off Your Hands - Happy As Can Be
Maps - Die Happy, Die Smiling
plus-minus - Trapped Under Ice Floes (Redux)
Bettie Serveert - Deny All
R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe (Original Hib-Tone Single)
Broken Bells - The High Road
Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint - Six-Fingered Man
St. Vincent - Now, Now
Modest Mouse - Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes
The Heligoats - Fish Sticks
New Order - The Perfect Kiss
The Shazam - Squeeze The Day
The Bongos - Numbers With Wings
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Breaking the Girl
Modern English - Tables Turning
Johnny Cash - Personal Jesus
Bad Lieutenant - Twist Of Fate
The Lemonheads - Mrs. Robinson
Detroit Social Club - Black And White
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
The Bamboos - On The Sly
Bubblegum Lemonade - I'll Never Be Yours
The Psychedelic Furs - Into You Like A Train

If that does it for you, tune in - you'll show our tasteful and well-appointed landlords at 90.5 The Night that giving us a whole radio station was a good idea. (Conversely, if we don't burn up the online listener slots, they'll think it wasn't such a good idea. I'm just sayin'.)

Altrok 90.5 HD2 - Try It Again...

2010-03-19T16:20:00.004-04:00

We've made some (fairly significant) changes to the quality of the audio on Altrok 90.5 HD2 (both when you listen via HD Radio and when you listen online.) Tune in and check it out - and if you'd like hints about what's coming up, link in to our Twitter feed - once an hour, it'll give you a clue about the bands we're going to be playing (though nothing more specific - that would anger the music industry gods.) For instance, Stone Roses and Bad Lieutenant (the new band from ex-New Order/Joy Division members) are going to be showing up in the near future...

OK Go: New Album, GREAT Video...And Now EMI-Free.

2010-03-10T13:57:00.002-05:00

OK Go and EMI have parted ways. This is likely a trend.

They explain rather eloquently here.

Looking Toward A Melody Future

2010-03-08T11:00:00.000-05:00

It's pretty clear that this year's Pinfield Era Melody Reunion (which Ed Wong refers to as the Melody Reflux) was a huge success - Ed brought the equipment, the Club brought the consumables, I brought the video projector, Stiffy Biceptz brought the classic candid photo set and no small amount of logistical expertise, Pat Pierson, Lisa Uber, Pete Santiago and myself brought the records, Matt Pinfield brought Matt Pinfield, and you brought the party (and many thanks to Laura Schneider for having the good sense to create a Facebook event so more people could bring the party....) The drink profits went to a good cause, and you danced like nobody was watching (and since I wouldn't want to stand in the way of you continuing to do that, I swear, I haven't looked at a single one of the pictures posted on Facebook, honesttagawd.)

So, what's in store for the future? A few things...

The nearest is The Melody Reunion Replay, a full replay of the night's festivities, which we'll be doing soon at Altrok 90.5 HD2. I'd hoped for this coming weekend for the playback, but with a new radio station running it seems big fish keep flopping into our frying pan, so probably another weekend will pass before we can do it. I'll keep you posted.

Secondly, the All-Eras Melody Reunion (for all eras up to 2000, with everyone invited) generally comes up in September, so keep an eye out for that as well.

And, of course, this plug: if you liked what you heard at the reunion, you'll hear a lot of it (and a lot more) at Altrok 90.5 HD2, where we now get to carry on the legacy of FM106.3 with an actual radio station all our own, taking advantage of a bit of new technology. If you're at the Jersey Shore, you can pick us up on an HD Radio at (naturally) 90.5 HD2. If not, why not tune in online and let us know you're out there?

(By the way, some of you were regulars at The Green Parrot, which, like The Melody, is now the site of a hospital parking lot. The fact that there's another club that had such a dedicated following is not lost on us...stay tuned.)

Kathryn Bigelow: Early Work

2010-03-08T00:09:00.002-05:00

Kathryn Bigelow is the first woman to win the Best Director Academy Award...but not the first director of a New Order video to do so. That honor goes to Jonathan Demme.

Even so, here's her contribution to New Order's oevure, where she somehow apparently convinced them to go all hair-metal...

...and for good measure, here's Demme's.

ABC Versus Cablevision: Could Both Lose?

2010-03-07T10:39:00.004-05:00

Short answer: both are already losing. Cablevision's trying to play the sympathy card, and failing. ABC's losing three million viewers in the Northeast for tonight's Oscar telecast because of their own greed.

Cablevision is playing hardball, as businesses that are supposed to make money do. They pay a lot of money for access to cable networks, and we pay them a lot of money to bring them to us. When their prices get too high, we cancel; when network providers' prices get too high, Cablevision cancels. If they do it sloppily, which they did earlier this year with the Food Network/HGTV fiasco resulting from their sloppy negotiations with Scripps Cable, and which they're doing now with the ABC/Disney fiasco, they incur the wrath of angry customers, who threaten (and occasionally actually) cancel.

The Food Network/HGTV thing was interesting, in that there were so many ways Cablevision could have handled it better. Having replacement channels ready to go would have been a good idea...anything other than the whining they did on the channels where the Scripps networks had gone missing. And they're doing it again on the ABC broadcast channels - nobody liked it the last time, and nobody's handling it well now.

But ABC/Disney is only in this position because they thought they could make money off of over-the-air stations they're already making money off of.

Let's go back a few years. Cable companies once lived entirely by a provision called "Must Carry" - basically, if a TV signal was receivable in a cable company's service area, the cable company was obligated to carry it. No ifs, ands or buts. This gave a livelihood to a lot of fringe stations that wouldn't have been carried under other circumstances - in the New York area, for instance, it's why so many people were able to watch the Uncle Floyd Show when it emanated from a small shack in West Orange, NJ. The signal was receivable within the areas the cable companies served, and so cable companies were obligated to carry it...so we got to see The Ramones and Squeeze on television before anyone else did, thanks to "Must Carry". I call that "value for your cable dollar".

The bigger broadcast stations kvetched heartily about this, partly because they saw someone else making money off of what they saw as their turf (even though they wouldn't have had nearly as many viewers without cable) but mostly because it put the tiniest TV stations on more of an even footing with them. Remember, when big business complains about something, it's most likely not the issue they're complaining about that's actually bothering them - it's the one they can't talk about for fear of alienating the public. And if there's one thing big business can't stand, it's competition.

So the FCC buckled under to their whining and gave them an opportunity to make money off the cable systems, by charging the cable systems to carry them. If they did this, however, the "Must Carry" rule no longer applied...the cable company was free to tell them to go take a flying leap.

Nobody's taken more advantage of this than ABC/Disney, since they're the proud corporate parents of ESPN, a massively-watched cable service. ABC/Disney has made carriage of ESPN a part of a package deal that includes both their troubled channels (ABC Family) and their over-the-air channels on the ABC network. (Fox has done the same, using Fox Broadcasting's over-the-air stations as a chip to bargain for carriage of their less-watched cable networks. That explains the TimeWarner Cable foofahrah earlier this year. It's been a big year for cable skulduggery.)

By making the ABC Television Network a bargaining chip in the cable industry, ABC/Disney made it vulnerable to exactly these sorts of shenanigans - and no matter how much ill will Cablevision generates, ABC/Disney has allowed business strategy to get in the way of the basic purpose of the ABC Television Network - to fulfill their responsibility as a broadcaster as much of the public as possible.

Over-the-air broadcasters should remember that they are broadcasters first, and their business decisions should support that. ABC is now only reaping the fruits of policies sown years ago; they should recognize that and change course. "Must-carry" is the only sane way to run a broadcast network; Cablevision should be delivering viewers to their doorstep for a payment of exactly zero.

UPDATE: It appears that this is, indeed, the result of a long negotiation between Cablevision and ABC over the entire cable package - and Cablevision's claim that ABC's trying to bump up their fee by 20% seems to hold water. It was ABC that pulled the plug on their Cablevision feed of WABC in New York just after broadcasting an angry message, casting it as a reason their viewers have to "Save ABC 7".

The truth, Cablevision viewers, is that the fate of your ABC viewing is firmly in ABC's hands, no matter what ABC's ads tell you.

Welcome To The Machine (That OK Go Built For Their New Video)

2010-03-02T18:00:00.002-05:00

OK Go have assisted in the building of a magnificent machine to feature in their video for the song "This Too Shall Pass". So magnificent, in fact, that it threatens to overpower the song itself. Take a look:

The song...eh, it's pretty good, but THE VIDEO...

Gorillaz "Stylo" Has Cars & Guns...

2010-03-02T11:23:00.002-05:00

...and about as much plot, CGI, and action movie star power as your average action flick, thus making it that much more entertaining.

No embedding allowed, so here's your link:

Gorillaz - Stylo (YouTube video)

It's Official: WBJB-FM Announces HD Multicasting

2010-03-01T16:24:00.003-05:00

It all happened on Rich Robinson's show at 2PM Eastern, and I was happy to be on hand, along with Fox (head of Brookdale Student Radio, 90.5 HD3) and Station Manager Tom Brennan, for the announcement. Here's your aircheck...fourteen minutes spent discussing the past and the future.

HD Multicast Announcement on 90.5 The NIGHT by BrookdaleStudentRadio

For the record, I'm head of Altrok 90.5 HD2 (officially, "Content Manager, HD2".)

Driving Tales (With HD Radio In Full Effect)

2010-03-01T12:01:00.005-05:00

I took the long way around to get to New Brunswick for the Melody Reunion (about which you'll be hearing much more in the coming days) because I figured it was a great opportunity to get out on the road with my pocket HD radio and see just how big a tract of land the new Altrok 90.5 HD2 signal can legitimately call its own. From Freehold, I picked up Route 33 and headed east, then east-north-east on Route 66, and then picked up Route 18 in Ocean Township and headed north, then west, then northwest to New Brunswick.

HD works better when you're standing still than it does when you're moving...which is a bit annoying when it comes to driving around with a portable player jacked into your car stereo with a wire long enough to do double-duty as an antenna. Note that a properly installed car HD Radio would likely have a much better antenna array to receive with. But it did work, and here's what I found:

I started by moving my car to a spot on my somewhat-distant-from-the-Lincroft-transmitter driveway that I know gets me an HD signal from 90.5. Tuning in, you first get 90.5 The Night's FM signal, and after a few seconds the radio picks up the HD signal and locks on. From there, you can click up to 90.5 HD2, where our little experiment in broadcasting resides. "Locking on" is important for this experiment, because I know I'll be traveling through areas that the signal won't reach - and when that happens, the radio goes silent. (Honestly, it takes a little getting used to, but if this is what it takes to bring Modern Rock back to the Jersey Shore, so be it.)

Route 33 seems to form the southernmost boundary for getting the station when you're not moving. As I tooled along 33, the 90.5 HD2 audio popped in and out as expected, with the signal finally getting fairly reliable near the Garden State Parkway before chopping up again further east. (As I said, a choppy signal in the car translates to a signal that you'll be able to receive reliably at home, once you find a spot in your home that you get it from.)

Same results heading east on Route 66; a somewhat choppy listening experience, getting a bit better when I started heading north on Route 18...

...until I hit the Deal Road exit. At that point, dropouts ceased and I got a nice, consistent listening experience heading north on 18...

...past the Eatontown interchange...

...on up to Route 34...

...past Route 537...

...and then it started getting choppy about a mile from the Route 79 exit on Route 18. Since by this time Route 18's path took me directly away from the broadcast tower, the degradation accumulated quickly. The last squawk of the station I was able to hear was around the Route 9 intersection with Route 18.

So, in summary, it's not exactly a border blaster from days of yore, but in today's extremely conservative programming climate, it'll do quite nicely. Very importantly, your mileage may vary, but I found that with a long enough wire connecting the pocket radio to whatever you're listening to it with, you can get the most signal possible. Red Bank, Eatontown, Ocean Township, Tinton Falls and Long Branch seem well-covered by the signal, and folks living there shouldn't have too many problems listening in. Asbury Park, Ocean Township, Wall, Howell, Freehold, Manalapan and Marlboro are choppy at best in the car, but a stationary radio placed carefully should bring it in. North of the tower, the hills throw the signal for a loop, so I don't expect nearly as much consistent (or even predictable) coverage in that direction.

Help may be on the way from the FCC, who recently announced an increase in power available to digital broadcasters; if 90.5 can take advantage of it, the map may fill in nicely. We'll keep you posted on our progress.

In the meantime, you probably don't have an HD Radio yet, so you're more than welcome to listen in using our Internet station. You may have noticed me pointing out discounts on HD radios...though the two cheapest are now sold out (watch this space, though, for some other deals when we can find them) and now you know...the rest of the story.

Embarking For The Melody Reunion

2010-02-27T16:30:00.001-05:00

...and along the way, I'll be using my HD Radio to tune to Altrok 90.5 HD2...if you're at home reading this, why not check it out yourself?

Melody Reunion Status: GREEN

2010-02-26T11:05:00.003-05:00

For those wondering what's happening with the Melody Reunion, all signs point to it happening as scheduled. Forecasts call for snow showers, but nothing debilitating, and we expect today's mess will be pretty well cleaned up by then.

So...it's a GO. But keep checking here for updates; we'll let you know if anything changes.

(And while you're at it, have you tried listening to our new HD FM station? Any time's a good time, but now is always good.)

It's Official: Altrok 90.5 HD2 Is On The Air

2010-02-24T15:41:00.004-05:00

At about 3:10 Eastern Time this afternoon, Altrok 90.5 HD2 went ON THE AIR, transmitting on a digital signal that piggybacks on 90.5 The Night's FM signal, all of which emanates from its tower in Lincroft, NJ.

Our first song, funnily enough: The Dream Syndicate's "Tell Me When It's Over". With that, Modern Rock returns to the Jersey Shore.

If you're not in range or haven't got an HD Radio, listen here.