I’m tuned in to KEXP this morning. If you love music and haven’t gotten hip to this station, then do yourself a favor and check it out. The morning guy, John, is pretty well playing stuff I love. I’d wonder if he was in my personal CD collection if it wasn’t for the fact he’ll occasionally pop in a song I haven’t heard.

So it got me thinking how much I love radio. I genuinely truly love radio. If I won the lottery, I’d buy a radio station and staff it with all my old hombres from the college radio days. Not only did we have a blast (while walking the line and sometimes crossing right over it) but we managed to discover some good music along the way. What they don’t tell you in college as a Communication major is the real world is vastly different.

I was lucky enough to get a radio job. It took me nearly 3 years of harassing people in the industry, but eventually I got on the over night shift as an on air DJ making minimum wage. The saddest part wasn’t that I had to work a second full time job to make ends meet. Nor was it the fact I never slept. The saddest part was I made it a lot “farther” than most people do in radio. The jobs and opportunity just aren’t there.

So after a year of not sleeping and living on cigarettes and coffee, I got tied of spinning Linkin Park and whatever other crap Clear Channel demanded I play. I walked away and I haven’t often looked back. That was until I heard KEXP and realized what radio can be. It can be a medium for hearing new and otherwise under represented music. It can be a place not over run with cheesy ads and morning zoos with half a dozen smart asses talking on top of each other.

I suppose I should pour a 40 out for the terrestrial radio because its days are numbered and given the current state of radio, the slow euthanasia is justified. Every once and a while I see an eyebrow twitch and wonder if she isn’t completely brain-dead after all.