Bye Oldies, Howdy Jack (and Howdy Oldies Again)

I think I'm probably the only person in Music City who's glad to see Oldies 96.3 go. Or is at least willing to say it publically.

I have fond memories of the morning that Jack FM came into my life. I was still in Carbondale, and a friend emailed me the link to the original Jack station in Toronto. Back in those days, I didn't have a cable modem, and I was on a reaaaaalllly slow 28.8 dial-up modem. It's a good thing no one needed to get in touch with me that weekend, because I was streaming that station (and the other two Canadian Jacks - Calgary and Vancouver) all weekend long. I'd never heard anything like it.

In the two years since, the Jack FM phenomenon has moved into the U.S., with a lot of success and some mixed reaction. link link link

My take? I love it. I'm pretty much genre-less, although to say that Jack isn't a genre is a fallacy. For the Nashvillians who remember Thunder 94, it's pretty similar without as much of an alt-kick to it. It also reminds me a lot of pre-country switch KDF. There's a little bit of country rock thrown in, but it's minimal. So far the Nashville version hasn't sounded quite as cool as DaveFM in ATL, which is heavy on REM, or the Canadian/Rogers Group versions, which give a lot of love to cool Canadian artists. But I'm hoping that as the station has a few weeks to ease into its new format, it'll find its own place and do what Dave has done and promote Nashville's artists. Jack stations in other towns may not have on-air talent, but they make up for it by having awesome shows.

And that brings up another subject - the loss of the oldies station and poor, poor Coyote McCloud. As someone said earlier today, he's known as one of the three great on-air talents of this market. It's sad to see him go, and I hope he lands on his feet at another station. But it is, unfortunately, an indication of the way that radio is going today. This really is "iPod radio". Will Nashville take to a station with all music and attitude? Time will tell. But I'm looking forward to spending a few nights with Jack myself.

(Oh, and a note to any Nashville Jack station personnel who might stumble across this blog entry - your email address isn't working that's linked on your site. It's kinda hard to comment.)

EDIT: What a difference an hour makes. As soon as I posted this, Star 97 became Oldies 97 and Coyote McCloud had a job again. I guess it's true that the only true constant is change. Maybe everyone can be happy after all.

Blogger crack, I tell ya

My friend Joe first turned me onto The Huffington Post, which was bad enough. As Joe describes it in his blog, it's as if Salon and Slate got high and did a three-way with Drudge, and the kid turns out to vote Democrat and lives off a multi-million dollar trust fund. Joe is pretty conservative and I'm a bit more liberal on some issues, but I have to agree that the bloggers are addictive. Reading blog entries from such varied celebs as Quincy Jones, Bill Maher and Ellen DeGeneres are weird enough. But even more interesting are the perspectives on subjects I care about, all in one place instead of slingshot across the internet. Like Cable Neuhaus standing up for Aaron Brown (who I do like and who I don't think that CNN should ditch, although I don't think he should have a 9 pm time slot. And Joshua Zeitz's interesting piece about a "racialist" magazine with an editor who has allegedly gotten a lot of praise from some prominent right-wingers. As well as David Sirota's post about media reactions to a previous comment about network coverage of Iraq. It's interesting to see how fluid this all is, and how the bloggers seem to respond to it.

However, even funnier yet may be a new parody site that's now sprung up - Huffington's Toast. Part of it is the Al Franken, "Woe is me, Bush is in power and he's eeeevil" parody (note: I adore Franken.) But for anyone who was at BlogNashville, you'll get a kick outta the Glenn Reynolds/Dave Winer parody, even if no one else does.

My BlogNashville Thoughts

Yes, I'm probably the very last participant of BlogNashville to actually not blog about the thing. There are a few reasons. One was that I immediately got sick afterward. Another was that I was kind of "blogged out" and needed a day off. But mostly I wanted a day of perspective to get all my thoughts in order about the whole thing. And what I've decided is not to do a long blow-by-blow post about the whole thing, nor a listing of all the amazing people I met. I would inevitably leave something or someone out, and the events are pretty much covered in a zillion posts that will be chronicled for posterity elsewhere. But here's what I got out of it.

- Blogs have much more of a worldwide impact than I had really ever thought about. Sure, I was as captivated by Salem Pax as everyone else during the Iraqi invasion, but I never thought about acting as a proxy for a Chinese blogger so that they could speak freely about what's going on there. Or bloggers making their voices heard from Africa and Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East. Rebecca Mackinnon from Global Voices really opened my eyes, and hopefully will open many more. I think it's very important for kids to get involved and know what's going on without being turned off by the death and destruction on TV news, and some of the examples she gave in her presentation (like the Burka girls, who are hilarious!) are proof that there might be hope to bring the MTV generation into this.
- If I weren't already in love with podcasting, I am now. I went to the podcasting session that was hosted by Brendan Greeley of the Public Radio Exchange, which I have a feeling may turn into my new favorite site, and was also attended by Dave Winer, who I actually found to be really cool (apparently, I'm almost only person at BlogNashville to not get totally turned off by him, judging by the blog postings I've read, but I didn't attend the session he hosted.) Later in the evening I attended the podcasting Food For Thought, which was sadly underattended - just me, Brendan, J.D. Lasica was a late arrival, and Mr. Roboto and his date made a welcome appearance. Which is a shame, because the conversation was incredible. And I'm very excited by what's being done with podcasting, audioblogging (which is really more of what PRX is) and videocasting. If the law can just catch up with the technology, I think it will possibly turn the internet into the new creative renaissance that it has had the potential of being. Oh, and if you're a digital filmmaker or a audioblogger and aren't using Ourmedia for your storage, you're missing out.
- An Iranian blogger and I taught John Jay Hooker how to start his own blog. That might have been one of the most surreal moments of my life. Hooker will go down in history as one of the most famous rabblerousers in American politics, and I was honored to meet him again (I met him once before, as a little girl.)
- A very interesting discussion on "committing journalism" with Staci Kramer from PaidContent.org. In some ways it was very much like the very first day of News Writing 201 at Chapel Hill, except viewed from the slightly-warped (and maybe not in a bad way) blogger POV. Also had one of the best speeches ever from the aforementioned John Jay Hooker, and I thought it was interesting to see everyone blogging his remarks as he spoke, just like old-time reporters would do with their teletype machines in the movies. In a way, that's the ultimate act of committing journalism.
- And for a few BN notes, I had the first disappointing meal that I've ever had at one of my formerly favorite Nashville restaurants, Tabouli's. I hope they haven't permanently lost their touch with Mediterranean food. Patrick's on Music Row has excellent Cajun and Abita's, y'all! And I have to commend Mr. Roboto and Hammock Publishing for throwing an excellent opening-night party. I met a zillion cool people who I could never completely name here. Hope everyone made it home safely!