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Capital Rock City #77 // No Don’t Go, Sunday Buckets, A Trophy Life

October 20, 2009 by morningaftershow

crc1

Happy Tuesday, time to punch up an all new Capital Rock City. Thank you for finding my weekly Victoria rocker podcast.  The march to 1,000 weekly downloads, as always, continues.  You’re doing your part for me when you share a link with a friend or post a little sumtin sumtin on your social media network.

Please download: Capital Rock City #77

***

DJ Notes

01) No Don’t Stop – “Bleached Bones”
02) Sunday Buckets – “Aftermathmatics”
03) A Trophy Life – “Samsonite (I Was Way Off) [live]”
04) A Trophy Life – “New Song [live]”

I was hoping to have JP Maurice on the show this week, but while I was away getting hitched in Vegas, he went and moved to Vancouver!  SWA?  The man did say he’ll try and make some time to hit the CRC studio sometime in and around Halloween.  So maybe CRC 78 or 79… or maybe 80?  Beggars can’t be choosers, so when he comes, he comes.

The show starts with a real interesting and dirty ditty from Cowichan Bay.  Jess is my kindred musical doppelganger spirit.  We have a similar taste in tunes and spend times late at night on twitter sharing music.  She sent me a heads up the band No Don’t Stop.

Sunday Buckets got their name from the days when they first came together.  They mostly had Mondays off work and would jam Sunday nights and drink beers… I guess by the bucket?

We’ll have a chance to see our October Band of the Month on Thursday, October 29th at Evolution night club.  Wear your costume!  Pay no cover, win prizes.

What the heck is “aftermathmatics?”

The show ends with some acoustic rock and roll from The Zone’s September band of the month, A Trophy Life.  ATL is currently in Ontario doing a tour of malls.  Fun.

That’s all I got this week.  Next week?  hmmm… maybe I should drag Double R into the studio with a few pints and we’ll tear into Double R’s new record “Starting Today?” What say you Ryan?

Go with yourself.

Posted in Capital Rock City | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

I’ll always remember 3rd and Bridger

October 20, 2009 by morningaftershow

me and razer

What an odd night I was having.  I was tired and went to bed fairly early.  I was lying in bed thinking about our bedroom and how, of all our rooms it is the one I wish the most different.  Its a combination of boring and… well ugly.

Right now, there is a whole mess of miss-matched furniture and piles of CDs.  Some work out equipment, a dining room chair?  sure.

The room needs a makeover but I don’t have any money to spend on that right now.  Then I thought, “what the hell am I doing, I am dreaming about interior design, what happened to my life?”  At least it was a Monday and not a Friday or that would cause me to wake the fuck up and start drinking.

But seriously, I’ll need to get creative about the bedroom.  Casa La CorJ won’t feel complete until it is tackled.

It was weird feeling, but then when I thought about the weirdness, and my mind starting going, I couldn’t sleep and now I’m up.  I tried watching Peak Season on MTV but that show makes me sad for humanity.

I trolled the internet, read my radio gossips, downloaded another Slipknot song… Sloan comes on after Slipknot on my iTunes, so now here I am… sometime past midnight hearing… “believe in me!”

***

Vegas sign

One of the biggest obstacles I encountered from our wedding shenanigans was taking pictures.  Our Nikon SLR crapped out and we haven’t got it fixed and I generally dislike hauling around a camera to stop the party to take a fucking picture.

Luckily, others did take some gems and now that Jamie has posted, wow… he was there at a few important parties and milestones.  A couple pictures I don’t even remember so I thought I’d share.

Jamie is Coral’s friend Allie’s boyfriend.  I know Jamie fairly well, but in Vegas I had the chance to spend more time with him and I found he was generally around when needed most.

Just before the wedding, I was down at the venue alone trying to be the first one there, and it was Jamie that showed up next.  We had some time to kill and Jamie and I waled around the Flamingo gardens trying to keep it cool before the wedding.  Jamie took this pic of me moments before the wedding.

me by the waterfall

Now lets Tarantino this story and go back about 16 hours.

Late Saturday night it had dawned on Coral and I that we did not have our marriage license.  Doh!  Clarke County Office is open till midnight and it was 11PM when we went… “shit, oh shit.”

Coral, wanted to get a posse together, canvas her friends, see who wanted to go to Downtown Vegas, visit, stop by someone’s room… wah wah wah.

At the Al(i)(y)x’s room, everyone was gathered… and as you can imagine, a room FULL of women, on a Saturday night, in Las Vegas move very slowly… so finally I had to say, “sorry ladies, but we GOT to go.”  Jamie and Allie were ready to go too and agreed to accompany us downtown to the County office.  It is 11:30PM.

We run down to the cab stand and grab a cab.  We tell the cabbie the plan and he says… “It’ll be close.”  We leave at 11:40PM.

As we pull out onto Flamingo Boulevard, his radio crackles… something about an accident on the Interstate 15, closers, delays.  This bad.  Its 11:45PM.

Cabbie says not to worry and pushes forward… was the radio bulletin a hoax?  Freeway clear and off we go.  We arrive at the County Office ten minutes later.  Its 11:55PM, the sheriff is about to close shop, he lets us in as the last couple of the night and we get our license.  Huzzah.

We leave the office to find we’re somewhere downtown, but not on Fremont.  Where are we?  And why didn’t we bring a camera to document this exciting adventure.  That is when Jamie pulls out his camera, and moments after midnight on October 11th, he snaps this picture of Coral and I with our wedding license on the corner of 3rd and Bridger.

wedding license

Lets travel further back in time.

Thursday.  The first full day in Vegas and honest moment, I am sorta grumpy.  Few of the boys have arrived.  My brother Matt is in Vegas, and Jamie.  My besties from Coquitlam aren’t here, my brother CJ arrives later, Razer and my folks come on Friday.  I’d spent most of Wednesday running around, traveling, wrangling my daughter, helping others, getting rental cars, shopping for baby stuff, checking in, dealing with “room issues” and on top of all that, Wednesday night I had a terrible pink eye.  So after I had done all this work I just wanted to rest and everyone else wanted to party.

Thursday was better, but still… another trip to Target, doing things for others… by late Thursday… aside from malls and shopping plazas, I hadn’t had much time to really get into Vegas.  Thursday night all I wanted to do was go to a hockey game and as 7PM approached… that almost didn’t happen as other people’s plans started to creep in.  Last minute, I decide fuck it, I’d go be myself.  That’s when Jamie stepped up and said… “hey man, if you’re going to go by yourself, I’ll come too.”  My brother Matt also volunteered and our little man-team was whole.

We headed off the strip to the Orleans Casino to see an ECHL Las Vegas Wranglers game.  I wore my S-Kings shirt.

We find the casino and the arena and buy tickets for the game vs a team called the Ontario (California) Reign.  Its finally time to party and I reserve myself to the fact that in the land of the $1 beers, I’ll need to settle for the $7 Bud’s they charge at hockey games.

I ask the lady for a large at the counter and she tells me, “sorry, we don’t have any larges.”

SWA?  Grumpy Jeremy wants to strangle the kind old lady.  Captain Go wants a drink.

“fine, I’ll have a small,” I grind out between clenched teeth.

“that will be one dollar,” the concession worker demands.

“What?  a buck?  for a beer at a hockey game?” disbelief.

“yup, its Thirsty Thursdays, all beers are a buck.  Would you like two?”

“yeah two-hundred!”

I kiss the woman full on the lips and fill my arms with beer!  I love America.

Matt, Jamie and I proceed to get destroyed and watch shitty pre-season hockey where we don’t know any of the players.

me and matt

The thing about American hockey… it attracts quite the crowd.  What surprised me in a good way… the Wrangler fans that were WRANGLER fans.  Jerseys, foam fingers, hats, cheers, jeers.  Good times.  As the beers went down, I really started to get into it.  Jamie, Matt and I started belting out random hockey jargon and just sucked up all the ECHLy goodness of the room.

 

Matt started getting aggro and spotted a young lady a few seats in front of us.  In fact I think she enjoyed our commentary and choruses of “dump and chase!” throughout the game (or I hope she did?).

 

the blonde
*The young lovely is in the pink shirt and you can kinda see D-Bag BF

After the game we wandered into the Orleans Casino and found an empty sports bar where the ends of some hockey and baseball games were playing out.  I found the bartender and dropped the James Sutton line, “please sir, give me your finest/cheapest beer.”  The man was not impressed and said that did not exist.

I protested but he had non of it.  Sadness.  Fine, this bar looks like an Irish bar of some degree, make it three Guinness.  $20 later we are happy and drunker.  But what is up with the cooler on the bar?

Oh, $1 beers continue throughout the casino on Thursday?  Excellent.

Then we climbed statues.

climbing a statue at the Orleans

Matt was a mess.

matt is a mess

Thank you Jamie, you’re camera caught some of the glory (and most of the mess!).

jamie

Go with yourself.

Posted in Wedding | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments »

Eating Food with Friends and Family at Dos Caminos

October 19, 2009 by morningaftershow

boys a couple in

Vancityrockgirl was wondering about a restaurant review.  That is something I should leave to her as she knows and does a better job writing about grub than I ever could.  As you can see from the above picture, our reception was a drunken good time, but I’ll do my best to recall the food and service.

Coral and I had our reception at The Palazzo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas at a restaurant called Dos Caminos.

Coral and I wanted to do something either Mexican or Greek and there are no good Greek places we could find in Vegas online.  For Vancityrockgirl’s wedding she had us at Border Grill which was mighty, but since we had tried that one already we wanted something different and closer to The Flamingo.

Then there were some budget concerns so it had to be in our strike zone for cost.

We searched the the net and searched some more.  That was one of the fun things of planning was staying up late with Corj dreaming about different restaurants and what it *could* be like.  In the end we found that many places were just too expensive and/or not flexible.  The few that we felt were good value had brutal customer service and to be 100 percent honest, Dos Caminos won because Julie their marketing/event lady was excellent on the email, quick and accommodating.  Coral told her our budget, what we want and that we wanted it all and Julie made it happen.  We were so happy before we even left that we had made a good choice even though we were going on reviews from the intersphere and pictures of the venue online.

When we got to Las Vegas, Coral and I strolled up to The Palazzo to see the place and it was even nicer than the pictures.  We met Julie and she showed us the special menus that she had made for us which was a nice touch and something that I did not expect.  I think we brought one home so I’ll get it scanned to show you.

razer jenn and dad

On game day, things went super smoothly. We arrived, walked past the wall of skulls (yes they have a wall of skulls) to three large tables set back but still part of the action of the restaurant.  We had a couple servers who had the drinks moving promptly.

Coral and I had a special menu made for our guests, but really we were buying food ala carte, so if people didn’t like what was offered they could pick anything.

The servers kept the booze flowing which was nice as it was a timed open bar and drinks needed to be brought by servers.  They let everyone two and in a few storied cases three fist the drinks.  Jugs of sangria and margarita.  good times.  The serving team really went above and beyond to ensure our party was spectacular for our friends and family.  At one point, Razer had to leave before the food came out, so they took his dish back and re-made it an hour later when he could return!

The food was high quality if maybe a little small on the portions.  Luckily some people weren’t even hungry so I ate a little of everything.

I had the pork tacos, Coral the steak.  Her steak was excellent.  The flank steak at Border Grill is good and we had it the next night, but I think I prefer the Dos Caminos steak… the only thing, you get more food at Border Grill.

Coral giving an eye

I loved the service and quality of food at Dos Caminos.

I didn’t like the portion size and that is was buried in the bowels of The Palazzo which in turn is at the back of the Venetian.  The worst part of the Venetian is the goofy aroma they blast in that place, made me sick almost.  Luckily you don’t notice it as much in the restaurant.

Bob giving a gun

I am very thankful that Jane was there snapping so many pictures of the party!

That’s all I got for now, I need to get to work!

Posted in food, Wedding | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Interviews: Corey Taylor of Slipknot and Yannick Rickli of The Victoria Rebels

October 19, 2009 by morningaftershow

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Last Friday I was surprised to find that I had Slipknot front man Corey Taylor on the show.

Slipknot is arguably one of the biggest metal bands criss-crossing North America right now.  Their four albums, beginning with 1999’s Slipknot are all platinum sellers in Canada.

When I was growing up, Slipknot became hugely popular during the days of “nu-metal.”  For that reason, the masks, the horror themes… they weren’t really my style.  Which is a bit of a shame, because knowing that I would interview Corey Taylor, I went back and had a listen and the music is pretty good.

I am more a fan of his softer stuff.  I think “Snuff” is their best cut and I always enjoy Stone Sour.

Mike Devlin over at the Times-Colonist does a good job of explaining it all…

Corey and I talked about growing up in Iowa in poverty, working multiple jobs, getting into metal and rock and roll.  The early days of Stones Sour and Slipknot.

We talk about what set Slipknot apart in 1999 and about the changes you’ll hear on the new(er) “All Hope is Lost.”

Some Slipknot fans are not so much into the changes… but fuck it, I like the new record!  and that surprised me.

Then we move on to, the end of Slipknot?

Finally, it gets weird and we talk about crazy fans, the masks, people dressed as Slipknot on Halloween, a horror convention in Las Vegas, and try to guess what kind of underwear Corey is wearing.

Mostly I liked Corey Taylor because even though I am clearly not a Slipknot fan, the dude was pleasant, respectful and a good time to chit-chat with on the radio.

So here it is, almost 19 minutes with Corey Taylor.

Download: Corey Taylor on The Zone Afternoon Show

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***

Saturday night I spent my evening in Langford for the last home game of the season for the Victoria Rebels football team.  They crushed the Vancouver Trojan by a score of like, a billion to twenty.  It was almost silly.  Friday on the ZAS before Corey came on the show, I had a chance to talk to a couple guys from the Rebels.

Download: Victoria Rebels on The ZAS

Go with yourself.

Posted in music, neat-O gang, radio | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

Put it on eleven

October 19, 2009 by morningaftershow

Flamingo

Its Sunday night… or I guess Monday morning.  I don’t sleep so well some days.  I fired up the most hipster of playlists that lead off with Empire of the Sun’s “Walking on a Dream.”  What a magical song.  It inspires me to hurry up and get off my ass and invest in Serato.

Its a funny thing, the more I DJ the more I hate/love it.  Some Fridays I DJ out at a pub in Langford.  Its never terribly busy, but the people that do make the trip are generally passionate about music and turn me onto something groovy.  I wish there were more of them to fill the pub!  Last Friday, a few hipsters were out crushing pints and shooting pool and one of the guys had me check out this Aussie group Empire of the Sun.  Very smooth electro-rock music.  Fits well with a lot of stuff I have but can never play at the bar.

When I arrived last week, there was a UVic pub crawl of dressed up revelers.  The place was packed, but I forgot how much college kids are generally agro assholes that can’t hold their liquor.  Rude would put their behavior mildly.  I spent more time fetching water for girls on the verge of victiming out than I did selecting songs.  I even diffused a fight!

shooting guns

I kept meaning this weekend to sit down and write about the wedding.  To be honest I don’t have a lot to say.  It was fun… and if you weren’t there, I’m sorry you missed and thankful to those that took the time and expense to join us in sunny Las Vegas.

There were so many highlights that it would be hard to pick one.  I did enjoy buck beers at the Orleans casino with Jamie and my brother Matt while we watched some ECHL hockey.  Shooting machine guns was pretty rad.  Our wedding reception was unreal.  I loved spending time at the pool with Mads.  She really enjoyed running around the gardens and chasing birds and looking at the fish and turtles.

PA080123

Coral and I saw a couple shows.  Of all the times I’ve been to Vegas, I had never been to a show, but her old man bought us tickets to see the Lion King and the next night we all hit the X Burlesque at the Flamingo.

After our wedding reception, as we were bee-lining for cabs or a limo to take us to Fremont Avenue, Coral stopped by a roulette table and put $5 down on our wedding day.  eleven.  The lady spins the wheel, the ball bounces around and eleven hits!  That was pretty magical.

Coral and Me

Now we’re back and its time to dream up the next holiday.  Coral and I have talked about camping this summer.  Driving to Utah and exploring the canyons.  Since we’d be so close to Vegas, well we might have to have a good shower there after all the camping.

cj and coral

walking away

Go with yourself.

Posted in Wedding | Tagged , | 3 Comments »

every post needs a title

October 16, 2009 by morningaftershow

weddingpicture

We’re back to the Casa La CorJ in scenic rainy Esquimalt after a crazy/amazing wedding in Las Vegas.

I just wanted to hop on to say that the trip was spectacular and I’ll have a more proper debriefing on weekend after I get a chance to sit down and write.

We returned home late on Wednesday night, and I had to be up first thing Thursday to jump back into the fray!  Yikes, no rest for the wicked.  Friday will be insane but I am hoping to get a chance to decompress this weekend. New Capital Rock City, a countdown show, interviews with Victoria Rebel’s quarterback Yannick Rickli and Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor.  Then playing some music at the bar in Langford.  Somewhere in there… work on a new TV project and launching a wedding DJ service…

Thank you for all the kind wedding messages on Facebook, twitter, texts, on the Zone phone… and wherever or however you choose to communicate.

I am listening to Down With Webster’s “Rich Girl$”  Is it me, or does the dude sing like Weird Al?

That’s all I got.  I bought rain pants today… that was fun.  Now I won’t get soaked on my scoot into The Zone during the winter months.

Go with yourself.

Posted in life or something like it | 4 Comments »

Capital Rock City #76 // Acres of Lions, The Laundronauts, Jason Walsh, Steph Macpherson

October 7, 2009 by morningaftershow

crc1

Friends and ex-lovers, its time for this week’s Capital Rock City podcast, my last podcast as an unwed bastard father.

Download: Capital Rock City #76

Thank you for taking the time to not only download the show but taking the next step of visiting my blog and finding out more about the bands.  Since you’ve some this far, is it too much to ask that you spread the word and share the world of Capital Rock City on your social network?  Subscribe on iTunes?  Maybe even use this RSS Feed get your weekly dose of the bestest indie rock from the most leftest fringe of Canada!

I am off on holiday tomorrow, and the next Capital Rock City will be in the distant future (like October15th or 16th).  Don’t be shy, explore some old (but still fly) CRCs!

***

DJ Notes

01) Acres of Lions – “Dance Sequence”
02) The Laundronauts – “Come Clean”
03) Jason Walsh – “Blood in my Eye”
04) Steph Macpherson – “To You”

razer

Friday night last week, it was my buddy (my bro-ski) Double R’s birthday.  We all met at Razer’s apartment downtown for some pints and to wax all nostalgic for years past.  Razer plays guitar and keys (see above) for Acres of Lions and he had just got back from Vancouver where AOL recorded a music video for the song “Dance Sequence.”  The is still being produced but there are some great candids from the film set on their facebook page.  Check it out! and add them as a fan.

Acres of Lions are playing Hallowfest on October 31st at Saanich Commonwealth Place.  Just $10!  Believe it.

I had promised a Laundronaut song every week till we grind through their album…. but then last week I fell off the wagon so this week I present song number 2, “Come Clean.”

Now I must apologize for this week’s show which is kinda brutal, mostly because I didn’t put a lot of love in and wanted to get it done.  Tomorrow I am off on holidays so doing multiple takes, or researching, or writing… was not on the menu… but next week (or the week after) I will have a treat from JP Maurice.  He has promised to come by and perform a song exclusively for Capital Rock City.  It is one of my all-time favourites from Maurice and song they have never recorded (that I know of) or even play live anymore, which is too bad, because its a pretty rad song.

Jason Walsh messaged me the pother day saying he got wind of the Capital Rock City podcast from Two (thank you Two for being a good soldier for the podcast and sharing with a friend).  Jason sent me some music he working on and I like the style.  Kinda Bob Dylan-ish?  sure.

The show end with another goodie from Steph Macpherson.

Next week’s episode will be late (October 15th or 16th), and likely I think its time for a recap show where I grab some special moments from the past while OR actually I have a ton of live tracks recorded on my afternoon show in the Zone studio, so maybe I’ll do that.  I have a Dudes song, A Trophy Life, Said The Whale and Vince Vaccaro.  Yup that sounds like a plan for CRC 77.

I really wanna watch Hells Kitchen but the baby or Coral have lost the Shaw Box remote… so bed time then an early morning wake-up call and a trip to Vegas.  Talk to you next week.

Go with yourself.

Posted in Capital Rock City | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Beginning of a Great Adventure

October 5, 2009 by morningaftershow

DSC_0164

I punched up some Stooges tonight to sit down and research and discover and explore on the internet.  I had the album ‘Fun House‘ rotating the hardrive and wasn’t feeling it.  Its not bad, but just makes me want to listen to Lou Reed.

Then I noticed I also have their eponymous record that includes “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”  Now I get it… that song completely destroys.  What I wasn’t wholly prepared for was the 10 minute dirges… trippy.

I got on this late 60s, 70s alt rock kick because I have been enjoying the Replacements all weekend.  And well, one the time machines goes back to the 80s, you can’t not let it take you all the way.

The Replacements are always a good go to band for me.  Help me get to a nice relaxed state if I feel some anxiety or whatever.  But their real beauty is they jazz me on classic jangly alternative music of the by-gone era.

Coral and I are getting ready to take off to Las Vegas on Wednesday and September has been a trying month for me financially.  It wasn’t any one thing, but a series of small things that all conspired against me in September, any one of them alone would have been no big deal (and some even a little welcome) but with the steady grind it whacked my bank account right before the trip.  Couple that with the fact that almost every wedding expense seems to be just a little more than my initial budget and it had my heart palpating a bit days before the rip.

Coral and I still have our warchest and we’re good to go… but there was a brief moment in early September where we had some confidence that we’d exceed our own expectations and I guess not reaching a goal that I had worked at kinda hurt me.  Coral is more zen about it, she says we have our initial budget and so we’re good to go and get married.  AND we bought wedding bands!  Ha, we briefly flirted with the idea of dropping that and then last minute (early in the month when projections were good) added wedding bands.  We went to a store called “Old and Gold” by Coral’s work.  They sell pawned or “re purposed” jewelery.  I bought a wedding band that had another date inscribed on it.  I wanted to keep the old date, but Coral and the jeweler said I could (or should) not.  Too bad, I think it would have been neat to keep that old marker on the ring.

So we’re off to Vegas on Wednesday and I managed to get sick over the weekend.  I took a day today to rest and hang out with Madelyn.  I don’t want to get too sick and push myself and stress out for fear of looking like a Swine Flu victim before trying to cross the border into America.

Already it is time to set my eyes toward the future.  I have tried hard to keep my focus on October 11th and not a day ahead.  But sometimes my mind gets away with excitement.  Coral and I have been talking about starting a business as we usually do, but seeing as she’ll be unemployed (barring some sort of miracle) come December, we might as well get serious about it.  Slowly the concept is taking shape.  We’re not going to re-invent the wheel.  Just pick something and be the best at it.

Oh, and on the broadcasting front, we’re working on some things at The Zone which I hope will raise my community profile (and the boss man says *might* lead to some money) so fingers crossed for that project.

That’s all I got for tonight, just brainstorming and I’m hoping sitting in the sun in Vegas around the pool will help me flesh out some new creative ideas and projects and bring some focus.

I really want a pizza sub from subway, like really badly.

Go with yourself.

Posted in life or something like it, music, Wedding | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Wayback Guy Interviews Cory Monteith of Glee

October 2, 2009 by morningaftershow

BC-TV-CBC-RETRO

Download: The Wayback Guy Interviews Cory Monteith

This week on the Modern Rock Countdown, The Wayback Guy had the chance to sing with Glee star Cory Monteith.

The Wayback Guy is produced by Mr. Sheldon Hovde.

Posted in radio, The Zone @ 91-3 | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

the workers are going home

October 1, 2009 by morningaftershow

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Yesterday I was wandering around the Superstore Warehouse Clubthing in Esquimalt seeking the ingredients for spaghetti and meatballs.  I ran into Morgan, a guy I know from the band Dirtfella.

We got to catching up and he mentioned he now owns and operates The Pink Bicycle burger place downtown.  How rad is that?  I had never been, so Coral and I checked it out for lunch today.  I ordered this spicy blue cheese burger monster and Corj grabbed the classic Pink Bike Burger.  The meal was pretty special so my man Morgan has a good thing going on.

Donald has reviewed the Pink Bike twice… his first so-so review and his later review which was more positive.

I’d have to agree with Donald’s more recent review… my burger was savage.  It said spicy, and it was a real deal flamethrower!  I was sweating eating this beast.  Corj’s burger was as she expected, good… but the delight were the truffle fries.  I also liked the flavoured mayo to dip the fries which hearkens back to the days when I lived on Commercial Drive and I’d patronize the Belgian Fries shop.

Coral and I spent lunch day dreaming about our own coffee shop.  We talk about it all the time, but lately the idea of going into business for ourselves has taken on greater urgency.  First… unless something happens in governmentland, come December 1st, Coral is laid off from her gig helping students navigate the world of student loans.  Second, the radio DJ might be going the way of the Dodo Bird (or at least vinyl record.  Fun, but for collectors only).

I was trolling my radio gossips the other day and read that JACK FM in Vancouver canceled two of their last three live radio shows.  I don’t work for Rogers (corporate overlords of JACK FM) or Jack FM, but it is still hurtful to read that a company has no value for what I do, make radio… and yet, they’re in that very business?  WTF?  It was just a bit of a downer thing to read and once again got me thinking about my future.  You can do everything right… the Afternoon Guy at Jack was recently named the “Best Afternoon Show” or something like that, by The Georgia Straight.  That’s pretty depressing to think about.  This guy went to work everyday… did his job WELL,  people responded positively, and the company said… you know what, nothing would be better than you.  nice.

The double kick to the groin, while Rogers is laying people off at radio stations because, who knows?  They’re battling community groups that want a live/local presence in their neighbourhood?  That is not right.

The Airchecker posted this story on the internet by some American mucky muck that made me feel a bit better… but I don’t think this guy owns any radio stations… so his opinion is nice, but doesn’t create employment of excitement for radio.

I Don’t See Jack FM on the Cover of Time

That’s true, but the thumb in the eye… Rogers doesn’t care.  The Airchecker then posted another unrelated article that actually does explain the situation pretty darn good.  “Power Ratings.”

“Power ratings” measure how much advertising a format attracts, relative to its listenership.

A format with a modest audience that a lot of advertisers want to reach – like the men who listen to WFAN (A NYC Sports station) – makes more money than a format with a larger audience but fewer advertisers.

Since radio is a business, station owners will follow the money.”

My American Mucky Muck friend explains it this way:

“As the networks have learned with relatively cheap Reality TV shows, ratings aren’t the only measure of success.  The question now revolves around how large an expenditure is required in order to reap respectable audience levels.”

Yikes, so the mantra at JACK FM is not to make the best radio that they can, its not to make people happy or to entertain… but rather… be as unoffensive as possible and not bleed too much audience considering that they make as little investment in content as possible.  Then the sales team needs to “trick” advertisers into saying “hey look, our audience ‘cares’ spend tens of thousands of dollars with us!”

That would make waking up and going to work a challenge for me, but hey I don’t work there (and likely never will if/when a Rogers type stumbles on my blog… but fuck it, not like Rogers is doing a ton of hiring anyways).

I listened to Mark Ramsey’s podcast the other day… the one talking about what makes radio special…  It takes about 4 minutes of your time.

The moral of the story is this… Jack FM will likely suffer no noticiable decrease in ratings and if they do, it won’t be enough to effect billings vs. the payroll savings.  If the trend takes off, then all radio stations will be automated commercial/music robots and there will be no jobs and I’ll be slinging lattes at my coffee shop.

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