So after seven years, The Playlist is over. It’s hard to believe that something that’s been a large part of my life for so long is gone, but it’s true. Almost fittingly though, last night’s show was the most fun I ever had doing a radio show. It reminded me of everything I loved about doing college radio, much of which got lost in a cloud of jadedness. Hosting an all new music show was great, but it was often hard to fill the entire show with music I was excited about. There’s only so much great stuff that can come out each week. I’d get to play a few great records and fill in the rest with average records. That was always the biggest struggle, but last night had none of that. Last night’s show was nothing but music I love.
I spent the night before running some really custom queries against our database–you get this luxury when you’re the sucker that wrote the software that the radio station relies on for music databasing and logging. I found the artists that I played the most over the last four and a half years and built a playlist from there. I would have liked to go all the way back to when the show first started, but we were still using paper logs up until the beginning of 2006 and there was no way that I was going to try to hunt those down…assuming they still exist. The playlist I created was over two hours long so I had more than I was able to play, but it was alright, I was able to prune down as I was doing the show. I decided not to order anything, I didn’t want to make a pre-planned show and just sit there on autopilot. Instead, I burned two identical MP3 CDs–works out better than playing everything from a computer–and stuck them in the CD players. I had a list of the tracks and switched between players selecting what felt right at the time and what was going to create a solid flow. It’s the way that I always did my show and I didn’t want to change that. I’ve always been about going with the moment and what songs just feel right together. I feel like I nailed this as well as I ever have last night.
I was lucky to be able to score a second hour for last night. It was the first time in two years that I’ve done a two hour show, but it was great, I was able to fit in 34 songs along with a lot of stories about the last seven years and about the music I was playing. I always tried to talk about what the bands I played meant to me, but it wasn’t easy when much of the music was coming from new artists and not just new albums by artists I already was into. Last night, I was able to tell many stories about the bands and what they meant to me. It was great and it made me remember why joining the radio station was my first priority when I started college nine years ago.
The decision to end the show wasn’t easy, I knew it would come eventually, but I could never bring myself to do it. Once I finally made that decision, it was a tough back and forth between knowing how much I’ll miss it and being relieved that I could end it positively and free up a little bit of much needed time in my personal life. Though, as I progressed through the show, I felt myself becoming sadder and sadder that it was ending. By the end, I was feeling almost like I was going to cry. I knew walking away wasn’t going to easy. So I’m sad that it’s over now, but I do know that it was the right time for me and that the show had an amazing seven year run. I had many dedicated listeners and got to expose them to over 1500 different artists and bands over that time. I don’t know how many different albums I played, but my best estimate puts it well over 2000. To me, that’s pretty impressive. That’s a ton of new music. I can walk away knowing that the show was very successful in doing what I created it to do, push new music.
Over the last week, I’ve learned that beyond doing what I set out to do with The Playlist over the airwaves, I also was able to extend that via my blog for the past few years. I learned that I not only had listeners who looked to the show for new music, but I also had readers that couldn’t listen to the show and instead came here to see what I played and found out about the music that way. So awesome.
So last night’s show was a seriously stacked playlist, there was a ton that I still wanted to play, but I couldn’t get it all in. I dediced to end the show with the band that had the most spins on The Playlist. I was surprised when I found out it was The Loved Ones, but thinking back, I did play Keep Your Heart in its entirety when it came out. I wanted to post a big list of the most played artists, but I didn’t know where to cut it off. I may save that for a future post to milk one last entry about the show here. We’ll see, but if you’re really interested, let me know and I’ll make it happen.
The show wasn’t entirely hiccup free though. Just as I was about to start, the internet in the studio went out and for a while, I had to do the show entirely old school. I had to log on paper and couldn’t look up album info. I guess it was an appropriate reminder during the last show of what it was like when the show first started. It was surprisingly fun. However, this seems as though it may have messed up the beginning of the recording of the show. I haven’t verified this yet, but if it’s true, I will almost definitely cry. It was such a memorable show for me and to not have a recording of it would be seriously upsetting.
I’m staying an active DJ at the station so I don’t plan for this to be the last time I have a radio show playlist to post, but when it comes down to it, only the future knows how much I’ll actually end up subbing shows when needed. So for the very last time ever, here’s the playlist from last night’s The Playlist…
- Cheap Girls – A Lesser Rate – Find Me A Drink Home
- Ted Leo And The Pharmacists – Me And Mia – Shake The Sheets
- Drive-By Truckers – The Day John Henry Died – The Dirty South
- Minus The Bear – Knights – Planet Of Ice
- Spoon – Don’t You Evah – Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
- Electric Six – Night Vision – Switzerland
- Tilly And The Wall – Bad Education – Bottoms Of Barrels
- Feist – So Sorry – The Reminder
- Frank Turner – Poetry Of The Deed – Poetry Of The Deed
- Conor Oberst And The Mystic Valley Band – Air Mattress – Outer South
- The Thermals – I Don’t Believe You – Personal Life
- Maritime – Parade Of Punk Rock T-Shirts – We, The Vehicles
- The Pipettes – Pull Shapes – We Are The Pipettes
- M. Ward – Never Had Nobody Like You – Hold Time
- The Hold Steady – Chips Ahoy! – Boys And Girls In America
- The Copyrights – Knee Deep – Make Sound
- The Steinways – Arena Rock – Gorilla Marketing
- Against Me! – Thrash Unreal – New Wave
- Murder By Death – Rum Brave – Red Of Tooth And Claw
- Coconut Records – Microphone – Davy
- Neko Case – The Next Time You Say “Forever” – Middle Cyclone
- The Lawrence Arms – The Revisionist – The Greatest Story Ever Told
- Radiohead – 15 Step – In Rainbows
- Okkervil River – Pop Lie – The Stand Ins
- Lucero – I Don’t Wanna Be The One – Rebels, Rogues, And Sworn Brothers
- She And Him – I Was Made For You – Volume One
- Bryan Scary – Macedonia Hotel – The Shredding Tears
- Lemuria – Pants – Get Better
- The Measure [SA] – Portland – One Chapter In The Book (A Collection Of Standard Waits And Measurements)
- The Gaslight Anthem – Orphans – American Slang
- Rilo Kiley – The Moneymaker – Under The Blacklight
- Mclusky – She Will Only Bring You Happiness – The Difference Between You And Me Is That I’m Not On Fire
- NOFX – Seeing Double At The Triple Rock – Never Trust A Hippy
- The Loved Ones – Living Will (Get You Dead) – Keep Your Heart
90.3 The Core
I wanted to get something up about the show sooner, but I haven’t had a chance. I’m going to completely ignore the openers and get to the point, The Lawrence Arms are one of the best bands playing right now. An hour and forty-five minutes was a long time for a punk band to play, but I’m going to be honest, I could have done a lot more. A LOT MORE. Hell, they could have played the set twice and I would have been giddy as hell about it.
