Satellite Radio Rants and Raves for This Week

First of all, PRAISE JESUS, my prayers have been answered: Sirius has finally added a bloody PUNK CHANNEL!! I am psyched!! No DJs, no talking, no breaks, just piles of the Descendents, the Pistols, UK Subs, T.S.O.L., etc. They even cycle in some Motorhead occasionally, which proves they know what they're doing over there. I'm going to be spending alot of time at this channel. I'd like to think my complaint letters to Sirius had something to do with this very happy development.

And this was cool: last night I was listening to Blog Radio on the Left of Center channel and this dj, who goes by the name of Brooklyn Vegan, is playing all the usual Arcade Fire, Decemberists, Bloc Party, etc. THEN he hauls off and plays a friggin' MASTODON track. Right on!! I love the fact that wormy little hipsters all over the country were screwing up their faces over that one. I wish more people would break down barriers like that and not give flying toss what anyone thinks of it.

MOST ANNOYING SONG OF THE MOMENT is definitely this inspid Of Montreal track whose chorus goes "c'mon chemica-oh-o-o-oh-oh-als!" about a billion times in a row. It's supposed to be some wiseacre's idea of a bipolar rock anthem. You can take them and the Apples In Stereo and bury them in the bottom of the sea. What a stupid song.

And if Of Montreal have The Most Annoying Song of the Moment, then the first runner-up would have to go to a band called, I think, The Blow (or maybe it's They Blow). They have a song whose chorus, sung by this woman with a cutesy little girl voice, goes "when you're holding me, we make a pair of parenthesis" and it's just so precious and annoying, it makes me wanna pull a John Belushi in Animal House, where he yanks the guitar out of the hippie singer's hands and smashes it to bits against the wall.

Also in the Highly Un-recommended Department: the other day I was unfortunate enough to hear this horrible, maudlin, piano-and-vocal rendition of the Replacements' classic "Bastards of Young," sung by Jesse Malin. God, it was so pointless and whiny, it made me sprint across the room to my beloved copy of Tim so I could hear the original version in all its unspoiled, ratty glory. The fact that Malin has been encouraging this "the next Paul Westerberg" type of hype around himself only makes it seem more desperate. .

I was also thinking that, while Sirius radio is a blessing in my life and I do love it ever so, I am mildly annoyed at the somewhat conservative playlists. I mean, the programming includes tons of fantastic music, but it's also a relatively narrow band of artists and songs that get hand-picked for heavy rotation. I know there are hundreds of great bands that aren't getting any airtime on Left Of Center, for instance, because instead we must hear the same Hold Steady and Arctic Monkeys songs twenty times a day. I mean, commercial free radio with dozens of music stations is such a great idea -- why can't they go all the way with this and make it truly revolutionary?