[Dixielandjazz] Tagging the Music was Metal & Jazz - Something in common?

[David Richoux]

On Dec 27, 2004, at 12:43 PM, Steve barbone wrote:

> BTW, what the hell is "Left of Center College/Indie Rock"? Is that 
> what they
> play on the left coast of the USA at Berkeley and other campuses? Or at
> Universities in the Red States? :-) VBG

There is was a magazine/reporting service called the Gavin Report (now 
defunct) that defined a lot of the categories of radio stations and pop 
music styles. Another similar magazine still functioning is called CMJ 
( www.cmj.com )  A lot of US college stations  send in very similar 
playlists - the stuff that was sent to them by various record companies 
(big and small) and not much else. I think this is in the hopes of 
getting more free stuff, not because they really like what they were 
playing or even found it interesting. (I think a lot of reports were 
fudged to please the record companies.)

There were (and are still) a very few college stations that play such 
an eclectic range of music that their reports would not have ANYTHING 
that was on 99% of the other station lists. KFJC and WFMU are two of 
them and there are about 10 others I can think of.
The UC Berkeley station KALX is also usually on the extreme left edge - 
much further out than most.

At KFJC we do get music from big and small record companies but we also 
buy a lot of things that are not sent  as promotional. We do have what 
we call "Speciality Shows" like mine - some companies like Delmark and 
Arhoolie send us their new releases that fit into the bluegrass, trad 
jazz, or blues (etc.) shows but most of what we play comes from our 
personal collections.

Anyway,  "Left of Center College/Indie Rock" is mostly things that 
would be heard on those 99% college stations. More moderate than that 
would be "Alt Nation Alternative Rock" - that can be heard on a few 
commercial stations and some college stations.
If they played the kinds of things KFJC mostly plays I could imagine 
there would be many broken Dishes... ;-)

Dave Richoux
(our playlists are at www.kfjc.org )

BTW, the CMJ Jazz report for this week: 
http://www.cmj.com/industry/chart_preview.php?id=7 and you can see 
other charts on a pull down menu there.