The Middle of the Dial, The Magic of Snow, The Rest of the Year
A strange kind of magical Friday. And let’s be fair. This is the last normal ass Friday of the year. Next Friday is Christmas Eve Eve to those who celebrate. To me it’s the Heiruspecs album release party which is a big deal. And for which tickets are moving surprisingly well in my opinion. I’ll be honest, I’ve cried wolf before just to try to make you buy tickets., but in the case I’d say we’ve sold 75 more tickets at this time than I would’ve expected us to. So it’s time to buy those tickets. And I’m not putting you on the guest list. And the Friday after that is New Year’s Eve Eve and my sincere hope is that I’ll be drinking Charles Mingus’ egg nog recipe with some friends (I have discussed this bad idea with exactly no one). That is far from a normal Friday. So god bless the last real Friday of 2022. 2022 you were a complicated year, a lot of medium highs, a couple deep lows. It was a real midrange year.
The Friday started nice because it was couple’s therapy and I was moody and Rachel made smallish talk with me before we had our appointment which was good. She asked about programming holiday music on a radio station and I have all the opinions on that. Couple’s therapy is not fun per se, but on the other hand, I like our therapist, and I love my wife and I love building a stronger bond with my wife, so, you know what, even if it’s intense it is some form of fun.
The vibe at Jazz88 today was good. I think a snow day pulls the cream of the crop. The folks who didn’t want to come to work just work from home on a snowy day if they can. So it was all kind of chatty Kathy’s at the office today. That meant I slipped behind on the work work part of it, but I knew I could work away on my to do list after my on-air shift. I believe all I ate at the office today was pastries that were literally pulled out of the garbage after a big iHeart fundraiser thing that happened yesterday. I’ll tell you this: that pumpkin muffin out of the garbage was fucking good, no regrets. The thing I was able to churn out before getting on the air was a post about the top ten songs of 2022 according to the listeners of Jazz88. I’m really proud of this list, I’m really proud of the songs our listeners choose, I’m really proud of the programming work that I and others have done this year. Check the list here.
My on-air shift was beautiful. The songs were sounding great, I was adding some special flavor, getting some good humor in and channeling the right energy with my traffic partner, Sonny Lane. I heard this Barry Harris song for the first time which was excellent. I joked with Sonny Lane that we were the last two people working in all of Minnesota and it felt like that today, like everyone’s at home, or shoveling, or valiantly pretending that Kurt Cousins is rapidly reading a book about how to quarterback in time for tomorrow’s game. The whole time I’m on the air I’m also chipping at the mountain of prep that awaits me on my Friday shifts, downloading, retitling, coding, voicing traffic. . .just a lot. But when you’re in a good mood and the music is sounding better than your mood, the hours slide by.
After the shift I got to do all my prep work for a show I’m hosting tomorrow at 7pm. It’s called “Ones we Lost” and we are celebrating the musicians we lost in 2022. Mac Wilson does a similar thing at the Current and I thought it was always an excellent thing to do. We lost a lot of great jazz musicians this year and I hope you can listen in tomorrow night to honor them. We can’t cover them all, but I’m planning on celebrating Ramsey Lewis, Pharoah Sanders, Jaimie Branch, Butch Thompson, Betty Davis and more. Check it out at Jazz88.
After that I listened to the best podcast on Planet Earth, The Political Gabfest on a very slow ass drive to St. Paul to pick up Martin Devaney to then slide over to Burger Dive in St. Paul. I had a. . .burger there. Delicious. Simple, not huge, but very filling. The fries were super normal but sometimes that’s all you need if the burger is working. The burger had massive cheese on it, but never too much cheese, just a good old lot of cheese.
You might be wondering a couple things at this point: 1) Why the hell am I reading this? or 2) Who is watching Sean’s kids? I can’t answer number 1, but number 2 is “some Jewish teens that Rachel found on a Facebook group of Jewish Moms. Shout out these girls, Rachel said they did a great job. I don’t even know what my kids ate for dinner to night which is the equivalent on tour of not knowing what the name of the hotel you are staying at is but you know somebody else has it covered and you feel so relaxed in your ignorance. Beautiful feelings.
While I enjoyed this burger and caught up on the week with Martin I watched an incredible thing which was seeing Timberwolves win. We are already a broken team this year, and frankly for our 30 year history with the Kevin Garnett asterisk. I have a couple food recommendations for Chris Finch to enjoy in Minneapolis before he is fired sometime in the next year, but a win is a win and it was a fun one. There are awesome players on this team. That doesn’t make us an awesome team. But getting to watch that win while digging into a burger and a hop water. . .legit. And Fabulous Fern’s is the greatest bar in St. Paul history, that is undisputed, you can’t convince me otherwise. But Burger Dive is checking some of those boxes. What are those boxes: an amazing cross-section of St. Paul racially, age-wise and socio-economically, a great selection of food that can answer most desires, a real sense of the barstaff being friends and supportive of one another, a sense of mischief that you can’t get from most breweries, it’s a bar thing. BUT, let me tell you, Fabulous Fern’s often had an unexplainably high distribution of quite foxy women of all ages. That wasn’t happening tonight at Burger Dive, but who cares, it was still an awesome hang and people were picking good weird karaoke songs.
I also grabbed two tasty drinks that I invented on the spot inspired by my quiet neighbor Angie. It’s called the Angie. Ask for it at the Burger Dive, they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. Tequila, Tonic Water, Bitters, Grapefruit Juice. Frankly, not bad. There’s definitely one piece that doesn’t need to be in there. I think it’s the bitters.
Me at the Burger Dive with a drink I invented called The Angie
And on the ride home Radio K as per usual just demolished it with an incredible run of songs. I’ve duplicated it here. They have an amazing library with amazing curation and it puts a big ass smile on my face. Let’s be serious, why is Rin Tin 1010 in there? It was from a quite good album released in the summer of ‘21. But it doesn’t necessarily make sense to still be in rotation, except, who cares, it’s Prince, it’s a good jam, the band sounds good, so there it is. And then you’re going to put on a Radiohead song I only vaguely knows that kind of bumps like a Bill Withers song? Okay, that’s beautiful. And then I’m sitting in my warm ass car with beautiful speakers remembering that when I was buying this car, knowing that I was going to make the move to Jazz88 most likely and could only get Radio K to turn on the test drive and thinking, why did I miss this station? I wasn’t ready to move with them to the FM dial, but I’m all over it now. Damn, thinking about all this and then Elliott Smith comes on with Angeles. Big Trouble needs to cover this song. Also, I am so glad that Big Trouble now plays monthly at White Squirrel (last Saturday of the month). . .that means I have an outlet to do something with my desire to cover an Elliott Smith tune. What a world. For the record, I’m still listening to Radio K right now as I type and well. . .it’s still spectacular. I haven’t recognized a song in maybe four songs, and they played a Gorillaz song I think is overrated, but you know what, it’s all good. I have to add that to my list of Music Rules blog: the only Gorillaz songs you need to care about have rappers on them. Also somehow Radio K can read my blog as I type cause they just put on a Miloe song I know. Thanks universe and Sarah.
In conclusion, I hope you come to the Heiruspecs show, I hope you read about the Best Songs on Jazz88 of 2022, I hope you listen in Saturday night at 7pm for “Ones we Lost” on Jazz88 and I hope you also check out Radio K sometime. And I hope you have a great weekend. I like blogging, I’m glad you like reading it. Sincerely.
P.S. - After “proofing” this, Radio K is now playing Lauryn Hill and D’Angelo together and it is as stunning as it was when it came out. Love those snaps and the incredibly behind the beat keyboard comping. Agggghhh. Yes.