BlowUpRadio.comTesting out a new liveblog app, so follow this thread as throughout today I am going to give you insight into how I put together out our new music shows each week (and may ramble off on some related tangents too)
Among our special radio shows each week are two new music shows:
BlowUpRadio.com Presents New NJ Music - Monday @ 7pm ET
with replays Tuesday @ 6pm ET, Wednesday @ 9am ET, Thursday @ 3pm ET, & Friday @ 12:30pm ET
and
Lazlo's Den Presents New Music - Tuesday @ 7pm ET
with replays Wednesday @ 10am ET, Thursday @ 4pm ET, & Friday @ 1:30pm ET
The former is all about new NJ music, the latter is all about new music from outside the Garden State.
Every day at BlowUpRadio.com we get new music, and I listen to somewhere between 50 & 100 new releases every week, some weeks even more.
The music comes via the artist themselves sending it to me, or a PR person sending it to me. I also look on sites like Bandcamp for new music tagged #NJ or #NewJersey (though I have found Bandcamp's search often misses new releases with those tags).
People sending music downloads to us is always the best way to get it to us (we need downloads to play on air).
I listen to everything that comes in, though I do not always get to personally reply to everyone who sends music to us. Unfortunately, I have been very busy lately which gives me less time to work on this labor of love...
... which quick side track, this is a hobby for me (or as one friend recently put it, a vocation). I don't make money doing BlowUpRadio.com. I do it because I love doing it, and don't mind spending a little bit of my money to do this.
I think this is the reason I'm still doing this after 25 years, while I watched others come and go after a few years. If you are doing this to make money, good luck, but I think most find they can't & quit.
Anyway...
As I listen to the new music, the songs I like I put into a folder, one for each show.
Sometime over the weekend I start seeing how much music I have for each show and figuring out if I have too much or too little. The average 1 hour show I do is about 50-52 minutes of music. About 5 minutes of me talking, plus commercials I am required to put in by Live365, the station's host.
Looking at both folders, I have too much music for the new music shows this week. This is okay because some weeks I have too few songs.
So how do I decide what to play.
First, I look to see if there are artists who I have played recently on the show. Generally when a local artist releases an album I try to add 2 or more songs from the album I like, but if I've already added song(s) from them, they are the first songs to be put into next wks folder
On the Lazlo's Den side, I get music from major labels and artists you are likely hearing on other stations. As much as I love these bands, you can hear them elsewhere, and they don't need my little station as an outlet.
For example, artists who have new music I enjoyed but just don't have room for this week on the new music show include: Death Cab For Cutie, Michael Stipe, They Might Be Giants, and MUSE.
Sidetrack
In the late 90's MUSE was the opening act on a bill at Tradewinds. They had a song getting a little bit of airplay on WHTG, but was largely unknown in the US at the time, hence why they were on shortly after doors opened.
They wound up putting on my fav performance of all 3 acts on the bill that night, and have been a fan since.
Moral of this sidetrack, show up early to a show, you might catch an amazing band before they hit it big
Brian KelleyYep...I've told this story so many times, but when my dad took us all to our first concert in March 1985 — Hall and Oates at Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands — the opening act was 'Til Tuesday, days before "Voices Carry" was released as a single and weeks before the album came out. Right out of the gate, at 13 years old, I learned to never sleep on an opening act because it may wind up being a legend like Aimee Mann.
@bktandem that must have been a great show!
I remember trying to convince my parents to take me to see H&O around that time, but no dice. Never did get to see them live
My parents and sister hated 'Til Tuesday and I was loving it from the first note. My sister thought they were singing "We're so scary" ("Voices Carry") and said "Yeah, because you suck" after Aimee introduced "Love in a Vacuum." Probably goes a long way in explaining why my sister and I don't talk much.
@bktandem so her opinion never changed on Aimee Mann?
Because, & I'm not proud of this but it did happen, saw Soundgarden open for Guns N Roses in Dec of 1991 at the Spectrum, just a couple of months before their "Badmotorfinger" started getting radio & MTV attention. Anyway, they did not sound great that night so the audience was chanting for them to get the fuck off the stage. I joined in... and then heard their music on the radio a few months later & bought the album. They were a studio band
I think she came around a little, but she has always let petty nonsense get to her. She had a thing for Hooters bassist Andy King in the 80s and she basically went to any show they played within 100-mile radius back then. But then she suddenly hated Heart because Andy said in an interview that he really admired Nancy Wilson. I mean, seriously? WTF? She stopped talking to me when I nuked my original FB account in 2018 & she took it like I just unfriended her.