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  • From: Duncan Murrell <dvmurrell AT nc.rr.com>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: whatever earnest high school poetry passes for "nature valley"
  • Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 12:00:11 -0600

I'd guess that Backporch Music runs on autopilot because the station overlords like it that way, and not because Keith or Freddy love that approach to playing music all the time. (That is, I assume the honestly like the music they play, but it's far from being all that they like.) For comparison's sake, check out Keith's music stream, www.deeperintomusic.net . On the playlist in the last few minutes: The Church, Brian Eno, The Go-Betweens, The Negro Problem, Luna, Guided by Voices, Kevin Kinney, Bob Mould, OMD, Stew, Mock Turtles.

But I'm digging the cranky Ignatius Reilly vibe. Keep it up!

d


On Mar 5, 2006, at 11:03 AM, Bryk wrote:


On 5-Mar-06, at 8:45 AM, grady wrote:

I think you're projecting, or conflating a certain oldschool "public
radio" tone in her voice with all the other stuff you seem to
associate
(quite rightly, I'd reckon) with "public radio". U.S. public radio,
that
is. You probably don't love Susan Stamberg, either, do ya?

Well that tone is hardly an American... listen to a couple of daytime
hours of CBC Radio 1 for comparison. I think they all go to the same
finishing school for public broadcasting, buried miles under some ivy
league campus somewhere.

Lynne wrote a really great italian cookbook (also called the Splendid
Table, which may be a slightly pretentious name for a radio show but
less-so for a cookbook, so there's that) & it's packed full of nerdy
definitions & food-historical tidbits & stuff. She's just a wonk in
the
same way the Car Guys are wonks, albeit in a different milieu (and
with
a different accent).

I poked around the website a bit, maybe you're right and maybe I'll
just shut up.
Or maybe it's just that goddamned theme music is so genteel that it
makes me want to projectile vomit.


I'm curious: why didn't you nominate a few hours of the execrable
"Back
Porch Music" (or better yet, the fucking Thistle and Shamrock) for
the axe?

Execrable is strong. Regularly he'll play a bunch of interesting
things in a row, and I'll enjoy it momentarily (until he spins some
David Massengill or whatever earnest high school poetry passes for
"new folk"), but for the most part I find myself grumbling "Fucking
bluegrass nazis with their history and sincerity and Seal of Cultural
Approval". BPM is delivered so effortlessly, so lazily that it comes
off as almost a sinecure for local roots music artists. I almost wish
that something would go _wrong_ once in a while... a missed cue, an
Immortal Lee County Killers side... fuck, how about some Julian
Cope? And it seems sort of boys club to me. Most of the women I've
heard are from trad schools old (Tabor, Waterson) and new (Cantrell,
Cary) whereas they're willing to spin the Avetts as "something new
and exciting". How come I never seem to hear Neko Case or Meg
Christian or hell, Kimya Dawson (or whatever earnest high school
poetry passes for "antifolk".)

But here's the thing... as much as I occasionally feel overwhelmed by
the roots rock weirdos and bluegrass nazis 'round here, I also know
that outside of this little roots culdesac called the Triangle, this
music is totally marginalized. They're burning with OCD for this
music, and they want to keep the flame alive. Is that really so
different from me and my Distractions 45s?

Strangely, I don't find Thistle and Shamrock as doctrinaire, but then
again it's a genre show based on sort of a cultural nationalism
rather than a specific style. Fiona's take on "Celtic Music" seems to
be more of a fluid, expansive thang that encompasses some very
traditional music, some icky Riverdance-type stuff, some quasi-new-
age wallpaper music, the diasporic (Loreena McKennitt representin'
for Southern Ontario), and (*sigh*) Eliza Carthy.


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