This morning I checked out the newest episode of Scroobius Pip’s “Distraction Pieces” podcast while I waited for my work computer to update itself. Today’s guest happens to be a friend of mine, which is both odd and wonderful. A few weeks ago, Pip’s guest was Danny Boyle and now it’s someone whose couch I’ve sat on while we watched Japanese exploding death matches. Wild.
I’ve actually been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. I could listen to Pip interview people for hours, and I’m terribly proud of Matt Richards for taking over “Tuesday Night Jaw”. But as I make my way through the entire Distraction Pieces Network, and fall down rabbit holes of guests’ podcasts (or PodBible recommendations) to find things like “The Grief Cast” or “The Guilty Feminist”, it makes my heart ache a little. I miss doing my own, but the “Facelock Feministas” ship has long sailed on.
This brings me to something Jerry Seinfeld said on an episode of “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”. He was lamenting that everyone and their mother is doing shows now where it’s just two people having a chat, and why do we want to see that? We live our lives around having chats with people and then we’re going to pay to watch it on TV? But in reality, most of my favorite podcasts are just people having a chat - and the ones that aren’t feel a bit like the host having a chat with their listener. But then I thought, perhaps I’m just programmed to love anything that feels like the radio.
When I was small, I had this little radio with a tape deck in it that I used to tuck into bed with me and listen to under the blankets. I loved late night radio - still do, actually, as it’s the best time to catch Tom Robinson on BBC6 via iPlayer. I loved weird songs, live albums, DJs with scratchy voices who told the most ridiculous stories of the first time they interviewed Nirvana or what legend says Charlie Parker carried in his saxophone case besides his instrument. My parents loved music and there was lots of it in the house, but I had a special relationship with radio DJs because the music they gave me felt so much like a gift, a secret just between us. That feeling never went away as I got older - I loved to listen to late night classic rock radio on Fridays, driving around Queens and Manhattan, listening to melodic death metal and djent at 1am. I will still to this day tune my radio to Q104.3 if I'm in in New York at noon on a weekday, just to hear an old clip of Scott Muni's voice introducing the 12 o'clock Beatles Block.
It’s so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that people's relationship with radio doesn’t exist in the same way anymore. People don’t have to tape things off the radio, hoping the DJ doesn’t talk over the intro. Having access to tons of music is great, but when I was young (and even now) I needed a guide, someone who could say “have you tried this?” That’s what a radio DJ was for me, and in a lot of cases that’s what podcast hosts are for me now. The relationships feel weirdly intimate because of that - when someone introduces you to your new favorite thing, it’s hard not to feel a connection to them, even though you have never met and probably never will.
I once asked my Dad, “if I called you up and excitedly said that I’d gotten my dream job, what would you think I’d been hired to do?” And he said “a job on the radio.” So, my goal is to get back to radio, or at least the feel of it. I have a new podcast project that I’m working on, and I’m taking some audio engineering courses in the fall. I will never be Alison Steele or Scott Muni, because people don’t revere radio hosts in that way anymore. Radio doesn’t necessarily change the trajectory of music the way WLIR did by bringing New Wave to America in the 80’s. DJs will probably never again have to broadcast from a boat (hopefully, as I don’t much like boats). And besides all of that, I don’t have such a revolutionary taste in music that I ought to be Educating The Masses. I’d just like a little piece of the airwaves to tell some kid that things will be alright, that they’re not as weird as they think, and maybe try this track by The Ultimate Spinach that should fit into that strange empty space in their heart.
Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.