That’s David Cross, who played the role of Generic Radio Douchebag in the video for The Strokes’ “Juicebox”…  At the time I said to myself, “I will NEVER do an interview with those guys, they’ll eat me alive!”… I’ve now talked to 2 of them… Click on the image to see what I’m talking about……..

As for Julian Casablancas….. Well, the guy’s done a lot of living… And yes, there is an aura about him that one must reckon with… But I’ll say that when I saw them back in ‘06 I was SHOCKED at the complete absence of any preening or rock-star self-love on his part… He was kind of sheepish actually… And I was also fairly shocked at the sophistication of the musical arrangements on the Strokes’ last album… A lot of it may have been lost on a lot of people, but I thought it was tremendous, and the lyrics were also pretty dense and filling…

….so when I got the chance to talk to Julian, there were some obvious things to ask, like the solo vs. frontman question, the future-of-the-Strokes question… But I also wanted to ask him about his music… AND about that video!!! Click below for the conversation…..

SEGMENT 1:   Does Julian want to make classical music?

julian1

SEGMENT 2: Where do I rank on the Strokes Radio D-Bag Scale??

SEGMENT 3: So. ARE The Strokes coming back, ever??

I played another round of Spammer Than Fiction today… Someone guessed incorrectly that an email in my inbox with the subject line “Drunken Ewoks” was spam…. In fact, it was a link to this:

I spoke with Matt from Cage the Elephant… He sounded very………relaxed. See ‘em Saturday night at The Beaumont.

SEGMENT 1: What’s it like to be from Bowling Green, Kentucky!?!?!?

CAGE1

SEGMENT 2: Who are the wicked, and why aren’t they getting any rest??

CAGE2

….alrighty. The new (as of last week) texting number is 48307. The old one was 79673, and I had a feeling it’d be easier for people to remember if it had an acronym to go with it. I asked for suggestions, and SWOPE was the one that stuck. One syllable, relevant, perfect. 48307 has been tougher.

I really like IUD0P (IUD zero Pee). I also like 4UF0s quite a bit. But I’d love to get it down to one syllable; trying to make a mnemonic device as user-friendly as possible. I’m willing to part with some Prize Kitchen goods in return for a new acronym. One chica took me up on the offer yesterday morning:

Jason,
I have been racking my little stoner brain for a good acronym for the text plan. The 0 is making it HARD!!!.. So far I dont have much… I guess I smoked all the good brain cells away! haha But see if any of these are workable… I am trying REAL hard cuz I wanna go kill a few more brain cells at the 311 / Kottonmouth Kings show!My FAVORITE one is “IVE0S” When I say it to myself it reads “I have Ohhh’s”…. Incase you didnt know what O’s are, put your mind in the gutter for a second and find your “o face”…. If you wanna keep it outa the gutter you can say “IVE-ZERO’S” … I also see GUE-0-S… HUF0P…. ITV0P…..HUE0R…. HUD0S… I can keep miking them up but I wanted you to see the “0’s” hee
hee And then she came back for more, overshooting the 5-character limit by plenty:
JASON, I REALLLLLLY Want 311/Kottonmout tix!!!! Where do I rate???
MORE TRIES….
483-0-7

7-letter words
gue-0-rdon (483-7366) gue-0-ssed (483-7733) gue-0-sser (483-7737)
gue-0-sses (483-7737) gue-0-sted (483-7833) ite-0-rate (483-7283)

8-letter words
guerilla (483-7455) guernsey (483-7673) guessing (483-7746)
guesting (483-7846) iterated (483-7283) iterates (483-7283)
iterator (483-7286)
4837-buzz
We found these eight-letter mnemonics

hues-buzz hue-7-buzz hues-buy-9 hue-pat-99 hue-rat-99
hue-sat-99 hues-at-99 it-37-buzz I-837-buzz I-verb-899
hue-pa-899 hues-a-899 it-era-899

Gotta admire the effort…….. Leave a comment, tell me what you like, or if you’ve got any other ideas….

……OK

….I’ve had many many conversations with many many of you about this….

I don’t think there’s been a more polarizing song I’ve ever played at this radio station, in the 6 years I’ve been here. At least not one that’s been this popular for this long…….. YES, I am talking about Owl City “Fireflies”…….

…..a guy calls in, talking about the song… I took the opportunity to steer the conversation towards the topic of the exact underlying intent of calling the song (or anything, really) gay…. You HATE some things, other things you call GAY… What’s the difference, you ask?? WHY do you think Owl City is so GAAAAAY????

…..ain’t gonna lie, I think the word is overused, and I think its overuse is in some ways a symptom of a larger disdain for clearer thinking, deeper understanding, and general command of the English language… Click below for the conversation, which was too long for me to actually air……….

owlontrial

(No pic here)

…no one’s foolin’ no one here… We’re all well aware of the fact that we live in a culture of nastiness…. This is well-trod turf… I, too, am part of the turf… Hard not to be… When you talk to as many people as I do in a day, you are bound to encounter the ones that spread the most seeds of hate… Eventually, your hands get full of seeds, until you can’t use your hands for anything more except carrying the freakin’ seeds…

…so sometimes I start throwing the seeds… I’d rather throw them at the planters than finish their jobs by putting the seeds in the earth… Today was one of those days… I asked you to call in with a reason why I wouldn’t hate you, in exchange for a spot on the Cranberries list… An easy game, one that did not require you to know TV trivia, put gross things in your mouth, or walk around in just your underwear…

…one guy called, and I barely remember what he said in the first place… It was what was going on in the background that interested me… Because sometimes it’s easy to get isolated in Alternative world… In the heat of the workday, I often forget about the other worlds… Most of which I hate to little pieces…

radioonradio

Economy finally back in gear.

Ummmmm… Sure.    Click on the graph, read the article…. And then ask yourself if the news media would ever put up a headline that said “Broadest Measure of Economy Showing Signs Of Crawling Back to Where It Was A Couple Years Ago…”, or if any of the goons you see on TV would tease what was coming up at the top of the hour like that…

Of course they wouldn’t… And therein lies the problem… The problem is they think you think their less-than-half-ass job is enough… And they think this because they are not given evidence to the contrary… They know you’re busy, and you just want the most important bits of a story… You don’t have time for the rest…

………..granted, this is familiar ground I am covering… But look at the graph… A quick glance might make you think that that blue bar on the right is IT, the sign that we’re getting closer to actually beginning to stand in the light instead of seeing it at the end of the tunnel… BUT…… Call me crazy, but it seems the sensisble thing to do would be to work backwards, right to left, stacking the red bars further down beneath one another… Unless the stats for each quarter are relative to a fixed point, like the stats from last year…. But even then, it is still pretty damn misleading to put that blue bar up there like we’ve come ALL THE WAY BACK…

First up in the Backyard at the Beaumont tomorrow will be the White Rabbits, who got their start not far from here, in Columbia, MO… I spoke with Alex from the band, who talked a bit about making the move from the middle of the midwest to NYC, and also about having Spoon’s frontman produce their latest album… I don’t know what it was, maybe there’s some kind of midwestern cadence I wasn’t aware of before, but I kinda felt like I was talking to a listener at times… Maybe it’s that I’m getting older, and the bands I’m interviewing are getting younger………. Either way, click below to hear the conversation:

whiterabbits

You may think this is silly.

You also probably thought Twitter was silly.

Basically the idea of FourSquare is a game/social networking platform that has to do with “checking-in” at various locations around any given city, and earning points, and eventually earning the title of “Mayor of ____”…  In cities where the app is already up and running, certain bars and coffee shops and other establishments are actually offering discounts to FourSquare Mayors…

Kansas City was included in the FourSquare system this past Thursday.

…it appeals to me for a couple reasons. 1) I like the idea of this kind of a game.  Yes, it appeals to the geek in me.   2) I also like the idea of getting more people out into the city, the world at large, even if it’s through a social networking game.  3) There are also other reasons I like it….. I think there are eventual implications that could be exciting…

Click on the image, follow the link, and think it over… I’m kinda busy these days, so I may not have time for it right away… But it’s on my to-do list….

…talked to the Tegan half of Tegan & Sara… They’ve got a new album coming out next week, Sainthood… They’ve also gone ahead and put together a 3-book set of all things T&S… AND… LOOK at this piece of awesomosity their record label sent me in advance of the interview… Click below to hear my conversation with Tegan…

SEGMENT 1:  Tegan talks about the sound of the new album, and I gush about their GENIUS new promotional item…

TEGAN1

SEGMENT 2:  Tegan talks about the pressure of recording the new album, and I ask her about the weirdness of being in a band with your identical twin…

TEGAN2

SEGMENT 3: While all others are trying to get you to watch their goofy videos or read their Twitters, Tegan & Sara went ahead and made you 3 books…

tegan3