Andy Gapin

I didn’t do a radio show last week, but last night’s edition of The Playlist wasn’t too shabby. I accidentally hit the stop button the CD player with the back of my hand about 3 seconds into a song and one mic break sounded a bit out of breath, but everything else was pretty solid. A nice selection of music and short but informative mic breaks.

Last night was one of those shows where you know you’ve got a ton of listeners. I mean, there are always people listening, whether they are calling you or not, but I got a couple IMs, a couple calls, and a request for Echo and the Bunneymen (which I played). I even got a compliment from the mom of the DJ after me. Nice! Apparently, she likes my show better. And separate from those, my fiancée’s college friend even got a couple of her friends listening too. Not bad!

So here’s the playlist…

• Minus The Bear – My Time – Omni
• Walter Schreifels – Arthur Lee’s Lullaby – An Open Letter To The Scene
• Annuals – Flesh And Blood – Sweet Sister [EP]
• Night Driving In Small Towns – Kick – Serial Killers
• Horse Feathers – Vernonia Blues – Thistled Spring
• The Gaslight Anthem – American Slang – American Slang [Single]
• Family Cactus – A Running Mystery – Come Howling
• Shoe. – Keep On Going – The Speed Of Life
• Kate Nash – Kiss That Grrrl – My Best Friend Is You
• The Hold Steady – Rock Problems – Heaven Is Whenever
• Echo And The Bunnymen – Do You Know Who I Am’ – The Fountain
• Sarah Jaffe – Before You Go – Suburban Nature
• Harlan T Bobo – Crazy With Loneliness – Sucker
• CocoRosie – Hopscotch – Grey Oceans
• Broken Social Scene – Meet Me In The Basement – Forgiveness Rock Record

Source: 90.3 The Core

The Playlist last night was not one of my better shows. Everything felt off. The segues weren’t what I wanted, I didn’t really have any life in my mic breaks, and trying to work the Crystal Castles request in with the music I had picked out was a disaster.

Oh well, they can’t all be winners.

• Love Is All – Never Now – Two Thousand And Ten Injuries
• Gaslight Anthem, The – American Slang – American Slang
• Crystal Castles – Untrust Us – Crystal Castles
• Fanfarlo – Finish Line – Live [EP]
• Tallest Man On Earth, The – Troubles Will Be Gone – The Wild Hunt
• Hold Steady, The – Our Whole Lives – Heaven Is Whenever
• Mynabirds, The – Give It Time – What We Lose In Fire We Gain In The Flood
• Kaki King – The Betrayer – Junior
• Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy And The Cairo Gang – The Sounds Are Always Begging – The Wonder Show Of The World
• Minus The Bear – Animal Backwards – Omni
• Laura Marling – Blackberry Stone – I Speak Because I Can
• Manchester Orchestra – I’ve Got Friends – Live At Park Ave -
• Roky Erickson With Okkervil River – Birds’d Crash – True Love Cast Out All Evil
• Murder By Death – You Don’t Miss Twice (When You’re Shavin’ With A Knife) – Good Morning, Magpie

Source: 90.3 The Core

Good show last night, nothing really worth mentioning, but it was an all around good show.

• Drive By Truckers – After The Scene Dies – The Big To Do
• The Like – Wishing He Was Dead – College Radio Sampler
• Night Driving In Small Towns – Get Free – Serial Killers
• Undersea Poem – Bacocho Sunsets – Undersea Poem
• Fanfarlo – Finish Line – Live [EP]
• The Whigs – Automatic – In The Dark
• Title Tracks – No, Girl – It Was Easy
• The Press – Fine China – INTEOTWIJTEOAE
• She And Him – Over It Over Again – Volume Two
• Murder By Death – As Long As There Is Whiskey In The World – Good Morning, Magpie
• Roky Erickson With Okkervil River – Birds’d Crash – True Love Cast Out All Evil
• Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy And The Cairo Gang – The Sounds Are Always Begging – The Wonder Show Of The World
• Roadside Graves – Jail – You Won’t Be Happy With Me
• Against Me! – I Was A Teenage Anarchist – I Was A Teenage Anarchist [Single]
• The Fall – Mexico Wax Solvent – Your Future Our Clutter

Source: 90.3 The Core

Last night’s The Playlist was possibly the most insane edition of the show that I’ve ever done. You’ll see what I mean when you take a look at the playlist from the show. I think I can safely say that I’ve never played that many established (indie) bands on one show ever. The show was kind of too epic for its own good. I struggled to keep up and to fit it all together. There was so much more that I wanted to fit in, but nothing else really stood much of a chance. And because I was struggling to fit so much in, my segues from song to song didn’t flow as well as they normally do.

On a related note, I blasted the monitors in the studio while playing I Was A Teenage Anarchist and I have to be honest about the fact that I gained a huge level of appreciation for that song after doing so. Maybe this new Against Me! record still has more to offer. We’ll have to see.

• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat The Devil’s Tattoo – Beat The Devil’s Tattoo
• Drive-By Truckers – After The Scene Dies – The Big To Do
• Ted Leo And The Pharmacists – Even Heroes Have To Die – The Brutalist Bricks
• Title Tracks – Found Out – It Was Easy
• Seabear – Wolfboy – We Built A Fire
• Against Me! – I Was A Teenage Anarchist – I Was A Teenage Anarchist [Single]
• Rocky Votolato – Fragments – True Devotion
• The Weakerthans – Tournament Of Hearts – Live At The Burton Cummings Theatre
• Murder By Death – Yes – Good Morning, Magpie
• MGMT – Song For Dan Treacy – Congratulation
• The Apples In Stereo – Told You Once – Travellers In Space And Time
• LCD Soundsystem – Drunk Girls – Drunk Girls [Single]
• Bright Eyes/Neva Dinova – Happy Accident – One Jug Of Wine, Two Vessels (Reissue)
• She And Him – Home – Volume Two

Source: 90.3 The Core

Last night’s edition of the The Playlist was a bit mediocre. I started off great, but felt like I started losing steam quickly. Overall, the show was a little more artsy/experimental than normal. Not much, but a little.

I ended up playing a double dose of the Gorillaz. “Rhinestone Eyes” was a great intro for the show, but a listener IMed in a request for “Feel Good Inc.” and I didn’t want to rob him of that. Oddly though, that album somehow hasn’t been ripped into either of our computer based audio systems so I had to go dig out the CD from the library. It was kind of a pain, but completely worth it.

• Gorillaz – Rhinestone Eyes – Plastic Beach
• Dum Dum Girls – Lines Her Eyes – I Will Be
• Frightened Rabbit – Nothing Like You – The Winter Of Mixed Drinks
• Archie Bronson Outfit – Hoola – Coconut
• Bird And The Bee, The – Private Eyes – Guiltless Pleasures Volume 1: A Tribute To Daryl Hall And John Oates
• She And Him – I’m Gonna Make It Better – Volume Two
• Broken Bells – Vaporize – Broken Bells
• Postelles, The – Looking Glass – White Night [EP]
• Donora – I Think I Like You – Donora
• Gorillaz – Feel Good Inc – Demon Days
• White Hinterland – Begin Again – Kairos
• Joanna Newsom – Jackrabbits – Have One On Me
• Liars – Scarecrows On A Killer Slant – Sisterworld
• Bundles, The – Metal Mouth – The Bundles
• Aloha – Cold Storage – Home Acres

Source: 90.3 The Core

The Playlist last night didn’t feel notable in any real way. Usually, I feel positively or negatively about a radio show afterwards, but I’ve got nothing from last night. Everything flowed and worked, but nothing really stood out about it. The playlist was probably about half the same as last week’s show, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

One thing that I’ve noticed though is that I’m more consistently getting calls than ever before. I can almost guarantee that I’ll get at least one call per show now, last night’s was a request for Voxtrot, I made it happen. I’m not sure if it’s a result of being an hour earlier than I was for years, an overall increase in station listenership, or what, but I like it. One call per show may not seem like much, but think about how often you call radio stations when you’re listening. So even getting one call per show feels good.

Here’s the show’s playlist. I’m switching to posting it as a simple list rather than an HTML table so that the Facebook import won’t look like a pile of garbage.

• Hot Chip – I Feel Better – One Life Stand
• Cold War Kids – Coffee Spoon – Behave Yourself [EP]
• Sambassadeur – Days – European
• Quasi – Now What – American Gong
• Home Blitz – Don’t Talk To Me – O.ut O.f P.hase
• Jason Boesel – Hand Of God – Hustler’s Son
• Local Natives – Sun Hands – Gorilla Manor
• 1986 – Habits – Everybody Is Whatever I Think They Are
• Donora – I Think I Like You – Donora
• Gorillaz – Glitter Freeze – Plastic Beach
• Voxtrot – Your Biggest Fan – Your Biggest Fan
• Fanshaw – Dark Eyes – Dark Eyes
• Schooner – Feel Better – Duck Kee Sessions
• Screaming Females – Zoo Of Death – Singles
• This Moment In Black History – 90% Tone – Public Square

Source: 90.3 The Core

Last night’s The Playlist was one of those ones that I wish I could have every week. Everything just fell right into place, the music flowed perfectly from one song to another and there was so much music I wanted to play that I could have filled two hours without even trying. When there’s that much music to work with, it’s so easy to get by without any filler songs and I think that really comes across over the air. It also allows you to do things like starting and ending a set with songs by artists linked by Jenny Lewis–Jason Boesel and The Watson Twins. I got one request that I had no problem playing, World/Inferno Friendship Society fit in so perfectly. I also was able to pull off playing two local bands, Screaming Females and Home Blitz.

But besides the music, I also felt like my mic breaks were coming even more naturally than normal. There was no struggling to find something to say or rambling messes that I didn’t know how to get out of. So, it was a fun show all around and I got to snap a few pictures while I was in the studio.

Here’s the playlist, Facebookers, click on over to the original…

I can’t believe it had been three weeks since my last radio show. Soooo long. I walked into the studio to a lot of great new music to check out. New stuff by The Magnetic Fields, Eels, and The Watson Twins, as well as the Spoon full-length. There was more too that I didn’t even get to check out.

The show itself was pretty decent actually. It’s nice to have a lot of music to work with, especially when you confine you show to strictly new stuff. There was a lot that I just couldn’t fit it which sucks, but it’s better than struggling to fill the time which is sometimes the case.

Unfortunately, I’ve been finding that I have very little time to listen to music anymore. Work has been too hectic to really be able to have my headphones on and I don’t have a solo commute to work anymore. So I don’t know when I’m going to get to catch up. I feel like I’m months and months behind. Oh well.

Anyway, here’s the playlist from last night. And, as always, if you’re reading this on Facebook, you’ll need to click to the original or you’ll just get a jumbled mess. Screw you, Facebook, for removing my HTML tables.

Source: 90.3 The Core

This week’s edition of The Playlist was probably the worst show that I’ve done in the last year. Probably longer, actually. I don’t know, I just felt incredibly off. I had nothing to say, I couldn’t really focus. I was just all kinds of uninterested. It’s weird too because I had a lot of new music to play this week for the first time in about a month. Maybe it was just because of the rough day that I had at work prior? Let’s say that.

I still need to check a lot of this music out, but I’m very excited about the Thomas Function and Dawn Landes records. I don’t really know anything about either of them, but the songs I played last night were awesome. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Just like last week, I brought my camera with me to take some pictures around the studio. I turned the lights up a little brighter this time which helped a lot. I took a few shots that I liked a lot so I figured that I’d share them with you. The one of the console is probably my favorite. It’s nothing special, but I like how the focus and lighting came out a lot.

Source: 90.3 The Core

We’ve started work on the rebuild of our production studio at the radio station. Over the course of the last two Sundays, we’ve completely emptied out the room and put all of the equipment into storage. It was a long process just to get everything out, but it was also fun to find all of the old stuff in there from way back when. There were a lot of little bits of history in there.

I am a little sad to see it go though. When I first started at the station in the Fall of 2001, that was the air studio. As crappy as it was, it was awesome to me. I had fun just being on the radio. The next Spring when we got the new studio on the air, it was like going from rags to riches, but there was always part of me that was tied to the now production studio. That’s not to say that I didn’t hate having to do shows in there when there was training going on. Nothing would EVER work when I went in there and my shows would sound horrible, but it sure kept me on my toes!

In a few weeks, we should have the new furniture installed and then we can start putting all of the equipment in. I’m pretty excited for this actually. As nerdy as it sounds, the new studio is going to look bad ass. When you’re sitting at the console, you will have racks filled with equipment on either side of you and four LCD screens in front of you. There will be a screen for Google’s automation system, Pro Tools, ELCRo (my software) and a general use one for the general production computer. It’s going to be intense! And I can’t say that having the design tweaked to have a dedicated computer for the software that I created isn’t a bit flattering.

Check the slideshow for what we’ve done so far.