South x Southwest (Pt. 1): Bee Hives and Blitzes

The Big Room at local favorite/independent radio station CD102.5 in the
Brewery District, which provided a nice stopover point in my latest crawl

As it turned out, my cinnamon-quest food crawl turned out to be a wonderful experience for me, both in the treats I found and in the places in finding new places to explore. As I figured out shortly afterward, I enjoyed the experience so much that I wanted to repeat the quest to another part of the metro. On this latest journey, south and west were the watchwords, with a general goal of trying out the best that each of my destinations had to offer.

Larking For A Good Cause: Guest DJ at CD102.5

Confirmation, notes, and other important info for a guest DJ stint

In many ways, radio has gone the way of other old-school media forms like television and newspaper. Once the only game in town for miles around, radio has run up against competing forms of media, especially with the rise of the internet. In addition, the way music has reached the listening public has diversified, sucking away the listeners and the corresponding advertisement dollars.

This has lead to consolidation within the radio market. Indeed, it is hard not to hear a radio station identification on the hour without entities like Clear Channel, Cumulus or Disney being mentioned. In California, some of the stations I grew up listening to or learning about (The Quake KQAK or Los Angeles' KROQ) are now part of corporate entities for the most part. Numerous mom and pop-styled operations also now broadcast over that very same Internet, due to its relatively lesser cost.

From listening to those stations, I became involved a couple decades or so ago (both as a deejay and the news division) with a completely independent format station back in college (I'm happy to say my former home forges onward more strongly than ever, with even more antenna wattage and an actual record label promoting local music to its name.) Numerous sessions in the listening room to prepare for shows were invaluable in expanding my knowledge of music styles I had been unfamiliar with prior such as reggae, folk and hardcore. Only a huge case of "broke-ass-college-student" syndrome kept my record collection modest, but I am happy with what I was able to get my hands on during those halcyon days.