WTVD | Freeform Programming

I’ve been thinking a lot about loss lately. It’s as if anything that can be had can be lost and eventually it all is.

From parents to siblings, friends, girlfriends/boyfriends, pets, money, memories, waistlines, hairlines, teeth...you name it. They all go. We live in anticipation of goodbyes.

There’s a thread however that runs through all of these that doesn’t depart. If it had a name I’d give it one, but it’s certainly an intangible—a faint buzz perhaps when the pieces are coming together, a hint of sunnier climates or of possibilities yet to materialize that summon a sad spirit in the sweetest ways. The first breeze through an open window maybe.

At the record fair last week I was tempted to repurchase a record or seven to re-conjure a sweetness that arose in and around a LP once adored. Frankly, I was in a room full of people doing the same thing, some having not yet danced with Miles Davis or Bootsy Collins or whomever.

My shelves of records are just like that too—bookmarks of all things lost, the last remnant of the butterfly net of years.

Last week I railed on the old, corporate guard that doesn’t realize that the paradigms have shifted especially in the barren wasteland that’s contemporary terrestrial radio. We may have gotten accustomed to its loss but why work to underscore its inevitability?

For me, the human element’s all but gone from radio and while satellite radio may have removed much of the commercials, it’s as stale as can be. What good are ‘deep cuts’ without any human relevance behind the music?

So, if you lug your own box of records to the radio station, sit down with a story or seven and cue up a new old favorite, you might have the makings of pretty compelling radio. See, tales of loss set to music we all have in common whether you can dance to ‘em or not.

If you stoke it, the fire stays lit. Before it gets lost, anyway.



ELO - Can't Get It Out of My Head (Mp3)
Cliff Richard - We Don't Talk Anymore (Mp3)
Graham Parker - You Can't Be Too Strong (Mp3)
Phil Lynott - Talk In '79 (Mp3)
Steely Dan - Dirty Work (Mp3)

TVD's Ten Weeks of Record Store Day Vinyl Giveaways - Week 3 | Sub Pop Week, Day 1

I know we're onto something with these Record Store Day 2010 Vinyl Giveaways and to underscore this notion, our friends at Sub Pop Records have given us not just one LP to offer you guys this week, but a total of five. Right, five.

So, we're going to give one a day all week. How's that for dedication to the cause?

First up: The Album Leaf's 'A Chorus of Storytellers' which marks the first decade for the group led by Jimmy LaValle. In those 10 years, LaValle has gone from initial improvised home recordings to now five complete studio albums, from opening slots to leading an incredible world-touring band to the stage at Red Rocks, headlining the Metamorphose festival in Japan and performing at the Hollywood Bowl with the Incredible String Band. LaValle’s well-earned reputation as a crafter of impeccable sonic imagery even led to a critically-acclaimed show at the Seattle International Film Festival where The Album Leaf performed a live score for the 1927 silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.



The rules can't be any simpler for our Sub Pop LP Giveaways this week: each day this week we'll be launching a new Sub Pop RSD2010 Vinyl Giveaway and all you need to do to enter to win is to leave a comment in the comments section to that week's giveaway letting us know why you deserve to win that week's LP.

Be creative, funny, incisive—whatever it takes to grab our attention to deem you the winner. Most important however is to leave us a contact email address! You can be brilliant as hell, but if we can't track ya' down, you're out of the running.

All winners will all be notified on Monday (3/1) upon the launch of the next RSD2010 Vinyl Giveaway!