I had a funny conversation this past weekend about local radio. This kid I work with was complaining about how Richmond’s “new rock” stations continue to play Nirvana as if they were a band making music in the here and now. “I was 8 when they came out. Shouldn’t they be considered classic rock?’ he justifiably asked still under the delusion that radio aimed at pleasing the wet dream demographic of 18-to 35-year olds should play music made by people of his generation.

Oh, the folly of youth. You got to love it.

Corporate radio is scared shitless of music made in the present day. They won’t play anything new unless it has a million leeches signing off on it. DJ’s, if you can call them that, have no say whatsoever over what is played during their shows as they are nothing but announcers reading scripts from the corporate office. Any semblance of spontaneity, regional identity and personality has so long been vanquished from the airwaves that anyone under 30 doesn’t even remember what real radio used to be. I feel sorry for this generation. All they know is the sound of the machines.

Though the Internet has greatly increased the amount of music people can be exposed to, it can’t compare to hearing a great new song or band on the radio. That was magical and it is that special magic that radio has sacrificed in order to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with mind-numbing regularity and have the nerve to call it new rock.
Here is some new music more than worthy of your attention that is made in the here and now.

My Pal Foot Foot
http://www.myspace.com/footfootfoot
Any band named after a Shaggs song is going to draw my attention. Formed in Tokyo in 2000, this Japanese group makes wondrously frail and immediately catchy pop music in the vein of Deerhoof, Daniel Johnston and the beloved sisters from Fremont, New Hampshire that inspired their name. Look for them when they tour the States in the fall.
 
Wendy Ho
http://www.wendytheho.com/
Gloriously profane, New York provocateur Wendy Ho sounds like a late on the rent Peaches with enough trailer park perversity and dance floor gusto to rise vulgarity to a high art form. This is one woman you wouldn’t want to bring home to meet your parents, but she definitely would be the best one-night stand you ever had.

Munk
http://www.myspace.com/
munkfromgomma
The sinister disco sleaze of these German dance floor merchants is infectious in the same way that has made Calvin Harris and LCD Soundsystem underground favorites; only these makers of self-proclaimed melodramatic popular songs have the chutzpah to make it not sound like a trend. Their breakthrough hit “Live Fast Die Old” makes it clear that they are in it for the long haul.

Lost Satellites
http://www.thelostsatellites.com/
Thoroughly listenable space age rock that learned its Pink Floyd dreaminess from notes taken by the Flaming Lips, this Petersburg, Virginia group put together by Frank Scott doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but has the good sense to not fix what isn’t broken. Peter Holsapple’s (REM, DB’s, etc.) Hammond organ colors four of their tunes on their new release, “World’s Collide” produced by legendary indie pop knob twister, Chris Stamey (Yo La Tango, Whiskeytown, Pylon, etc.).

There are a million bands and artists out there, people. Just don’t expect corporate radio to help you find any of them. They’re too busy raping the corpse of Kurt Cobain.