I sit in the car and turn on the radio, preparing for the excruciatingly long 10 minute drive to work...
"It's 7:45 and here's a 4-hour block of Carrie Underwood..." SCAN
"We will return to our Doors tribute after this 20-minute string of politcal mudslinging." Turn to AM, SCAN
"These Democrats are obviously out to make every American a vegetarian zombie." SCAN
"It's not enough for us God-fearing Republicans to have control of the Senate, we must have the Presidency and the baggage claim at the Newark Airport to turn this country around!!" RADIO OFF!
My wife and I have had enough of the current radio trends. Oldies stations now play a range of pop between 1965 and 1995. Our favorite heavy metal/hard rock station is playing more off-format crap than ever. Even our soft pop station has a strange hip hop hell thing going on. We're fed up and there's only one solution... we will launch our own radio station!
Why are we committing this act of audio "terrorism", as I just pretended some may call it? We believe that the radio industry has destroyed the radio industry, that's why! Over the decades it has become a sterile, rigid system of overplaying the same songs, with taped recordings of disc jockeys dishing out banter that we are led to believe is live.
I remember 20 years ago there was a good range of radio stations out there. Oldies stations played a wide variety from 1955 to 1973. Metal stations played metal. Classic rock played actual rock, and much of it was live performances. There was a 70's only station out of San Francisco in 1994 that was pretty good, then it expanded to the 70s AND 80s, but it was still good. My buddy Scott and I would go on drives and have the radio or his guitar rock tapes to entertain us. It was a great time!
No more good times from the radio status quo, so we will have to make our own.
COMING SOON....KMOR RADIO!
This station will have
something for everyone, as evidenced by my wife Vickie's iPod. You could
hear Slim Whitman howling , followed by Bon Jovi, then some Ann Murray,
followed immediately by Pearl Jam, then some George Strait and then
Josh Turner (if you're lucky to get 2 country artists in a row!). Yes,
the playlist can go for a week without hearing a song twice! That is, if
our ENTIRE iTunes library is loaded up.
Now, of course, we will have more than just our music variety. Our daughter Natalie will get her own 30 minute block of kids' songs or just music that she enjoys singing in the car. This could be lullabies, George Harrison, The Wiggles, Steely Dan, or even Godsmack . It's her slot, she can play what she wants. You may, of course, hear her singing along, and why not? Everyone needs a refresher on their ABCs once in a while. Congress evidences this regularly.
I will, of course, get my own music hour, playing mostly Doors, along with a few old TV theme songs, all interspersed with lots of LIVE commentary.
Any old-timers yearn for the age of radio comedy, drama, or westerns? Well, you will get an hour of that each evening from 7 to 8, with Vickie and I providing the voices of a myriad of characters and sound effects (think clapping coconut shells for galloping horses here).
Now don't think for a minute that there won't be news. Oh yes, there will be...local, state, national, and worldwide, along with weather. Of course, this hard-hitting journalism will come right from Yahoo, the source of all current news. My philosophy here is, if the rest of the journalists out there use other sources, so can I. Weather will be the usual guesswork that all "official meteorologists" use.
These news reports will go no longer than 15 minutes, since that's all most people can handle.
Emergency Alert System tests will occur once a day (at 3a.m.) in accordance with the FCC's requirement to annoy the public.
Now how will this be funded? Commercials, of course...OUR commercials. No annoying jingles here. We will give it to you straight. Here's an example. "Regular vegetable oil is crap and will kill you after a month. Use extra virgin olive oil instead. All grocery stores carry it. Now back to our program." See how direct that was? How's this? "Did your dog pee on the carpet? Try spraying some Resolve on the stain and scrub it for a minute. Resolve is in all major stores. After you use it, train your dog to go outside so you can avoid this problem! Back to our program."
In conclusion, this station is the future of radio. Soon, everyone will be broadcasting their own stations for the public's listening pleasure...or hell. In the meantime, this is Bryan Moore signing off of KMOR for the day. Stay tuned after I leave for an airing of all 60s sitcom themes. Thank you.
