From the "What the hell?" newsroom........

The golden days of "free-form radio" were a myth.

"Free-form radio" was great if the DJ's tastes were close to yours. If not, you could get four straight hours of Yoko Ono or the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

 

I'm sure that happened a lot.

 

This weren't too darn bad.

 

Interesting you pulled that Tom Petty song.

The song I hear more than any — across just about every radio station format – is "Free Fallin." Even more than Billy Squier.

 

There is an "independent" group of stations in the market I live in. I enjoy them more than the conglomerates because they seem to have a deeper playlist. Of course, I have heard the theme song to never ending story twice in the past few weeks.

 

As I was driving to work the other day, I happened to stop (for some unknown reason) on Hits 1 on XM. Something called the Morning Mash Up. I think it's 4 or 5 people in a studio that all talk really really fast and they all talk at the same time with voices that aren't acutally theirs and laugh oh my God they laugh and they laugh and they laugh and KABOOM.......I shot my radio.

How in the blue hell can someone listen to that for more than 4 seconds?

I used to think Mike and Mike was the most unlistenable thing on radio I had ever heard. Now, it's a toss-up.

 

I've taken to channel-surfing on the morning drive, because when they get to that nauseating drivel, I try to find the next station actually playing music. Or at least a local traffic report.

 

I've got like 2,500 songs on MP3. I've burned a bunch of random play cds which I play in my car or on boom boxes.

 

I had about 2,500 songs on MP3 until I got paranoid one day and deleted them.

 

At my last stop, my work commute was about 2.5 minutes. In that time, I really began to appreciate Tom Petty's Buried Treasure on Sirius. Awesome, awesome station/show.

 

I have enjoyed Buried Treasure, too. Petty plays what he wants, what he likes, and explains why. He also talks about his relationship with the artist, if he has one. The funniest thing I remember him saying came when Joe Cocker died. Petty said, "Everybody in rock hated Joe Cocker. ....... Because he could sing your songs better than you could." He added that Joe became his first friend when he came to L.A. to try to enhance his career. First time he went to a recording studio, Joe was there sleeping on the floor.

 

Petty's channel is on my list of favorites.