This is Why Radio is Dead.

So are you, like, really busy now?

That was, I swear to you, a direct quote from the morning-show DJ lady on KIST FM, Santa Barbara's "New Rock Alternative." To give the proper context, this question was addressed to the haggard sounding Red Cross employee who had JUST FINISHED explaining to the DJ lady and all of her listeners how her colleagues and volunteers were working 24/7 to help with the NOLA relief efforts.

Mr. Radio, I understand you are trying to do a good thing here, but really:

First, you fill our day with commercials instead of music.

Then you take away all of the good music from individual stations and play the same rotation of 12 songs.

Then you take away individual stations, and you give us one corporate monolith radio station that, frankly, sucks.

And somewhere along the way, you hired thoroughbred morons to blather at us about things of massive importance when they clearly can't marshal the intellectual capital to pay attention, literally, to the person whom they are interviewing.

Soma FM (indie pop rocks, please) or LaunchCast at work. And the iPod in my car. Excepting the occasional NPR fix, radio is officially out of my life.

Comments

[Jonathan Nolen]

as it has been out of mine since 1997 when my car radio antenna was accidentally ripped off by a descending parking gate and I never bothered to repair it.

Allow me to also suggest a few other music related services: http://www.pandora.com , http://www.audioscrobbler.com and http://www.lastfm.com .

[kristan]

You can stream independent radio at kexp.org. check out the archives for killer in-studio performances.