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Jam Between the Dials
by Eli Gurock[Editor's note- this is our new monthly section devoted to radio airplay. For more info, visit our radio charts section]
The world of radio airplay is an exciting and wonderful world where any unheard of band can get their shot at immortality. With a catchy song, any music director, in any of the number of commercial radio stations all across the country, can take some small local band, and turn them into the next Nirvana. That, in a nutshell is how commercial radio works. Unfortunately, that's not the world in which we live in. We live in a world where a two-minute pop tune is the farthest thing in our minds from a hit. We would much rather prefer the drawn-out twenty-minute winding jam. That right there is where we find the problem with jamband music in the world of commercial, and even college radio.
This column will be devoted to discussing just that, jamband music in radio. There are a couple of things I want to present before we break into it though. First of all, I want to introduce myself, my name is Eli Gurock, and I am the Station Manager for WYUR, which is the undergraduate radio station of Yeshiva University, based in New York City. Anyone who has a problem or question about anything in my article, feel free to contact me about it. My email address is GooFunk@cs.com. I feel that as a writer, I am just reporting what I see; if you see it differently, let me know.
The second thing I wanted to do before officially starting this column is speak a little bit about the philosophy behind this column, and from there, we will go into the column.
The trouble the Grateful Dead had getting radio play is common knowledge to just about everyone. The struggles they had converting their live performances to recorded material just strengthened their live shows. It made them a better touring band in my opinion, and since that was their strength, I think it eventually made them a better band. What I mean to say by this is that sometimes, it is better for a band not to get the radio play. I have personally never heard Phish on the radio, but their summer tour sold out this year. But of course, these are the exceptions.
The most common reaction of a fan when their band starts to get airplay is joy. It is a lot of fun to hear your favorite band start getting airplay on a big commercial radio station. But soon, that joy starts to fade, especially when they start getting a lot of airplay. There is a thin line between selling records and selling out, as Dave Matthews found out. I remember back a couple of years ago, when Dave was opening for the Allman Brothers. He was so hot in the jamband world, everyone loved his new sound, but then the rest of the country realized that also. He didn't change his music, but changed his crowd, immediately, people were pegging him as a sellout. So, we learn once again that commercial radio airplay is not always a great thing.
But sometimes, the radio gods get it right, and provide a struggling, great band with just enough radio play that gets them an audience, but leaves them alone to shape that audience. The most perfect example of this that I can think of is Rusted Root. They had a hit song, and it stayed on the radio just long enough for people to check them out, but not too long where people were getting tired of them.
But all these examples need to be taken with a grain of salt, because these all deal with commercial radio, and most jamband music right now, is much better suited for college radio.
College radio plays music that isn't played on commercial stations. College radio takes unheard of bands that are still a little rough around the edges and gives them a little expose that enables them to grow a little bit, to become the mega-rock superstars. Sort of like, college sports, or the minor leagues. So with jamband music, college radio is really the place to start. They welcome new an exciting music, which is exactly what jamband music is.
A lot of new jamband stuff has come out of the past few months, and a lot of it is really good for the radio. In my station, we have been playing a lot of the new Widespread Panic album. This is a great album, which is really, well suited for radio play. The songs aren't too long, they have a nice groove to them, and are just good. Also, Keller Williams has come out with a CD with the String Cheese Incident, again, really good stuff. Other new CD's with some good radio capabilities is John Popper's solo album and of course Santana's new one.
Well, this is going to be a regular column, next month I hope to talk a little about what makes a song radio-friendly, and I'll talk a little bit more about what new stuff is coming out or came out. Until then keep listening.
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