adrian is rad

I’m going to tell you a story every day for the week.

How I came to talking to the agitated man on the other end of the phone at 2am starts three years earlier in a fourth floor rock club in Pittsburgh that–no joke–had a chain-link fence around the bar.

That bar was Club Laga where Andy’s dad had dropped us to go see Bonnie Prince Billy. I hadn’t heard of the band or the frontman Will Oldham, besides Andy’s warbly voiced impersonation of his song “I am a Cinematographer”, which he mostly used to poke fun at my own uncertain singing. But I watched the band, backlit with moody blue light, and enjoyed the show.

“That one song was really good”. Andy knew what I meant. “It’s ‘I See a Darkness’ and Johnny Cash recorded a cover of it.”

Three years later and I, like many other indie rockers–oh fine, I’ll say it, hipsters–had ‘discovered’ Johnny Cash, so when American IV came out, I was playing it on my new radio show.

I played “Personal Jesus”; the phone rang. The caller seemed agitated, almost irate. “Why are you playing Johnny Cash?!”

I wanted to defend my selection but suddenly I wasn’t sure. “Um, I dunno, because I like it,” I mumbled. “Because he’s good I guess?”

“Damn right he’s good! He’s fucking great!”

The day’s come and gone and I haven’t made any mention of my annual charitable giving. I’m not donating money this year, at least not yet. I will be returning to Ingwavuma, in rural Zululand for a couple weeks this time.

A family friend works there for an NGO and I’ll be helping out with the Children’s Radio Project through that organization. As you may have guessed, I was tapped for this because I am/ was a radio star.

I’ll be returning to Cape Town on September 18 via either St. Lucia or Hluhluwe plus Durban.

I have my malaria pills, bug spray, sun block, and a charged camera with an empty memory card. Bucket showers, here I come.

I’ll probably have intermittent internet up there, so I might not be posting a lot. Feel free to email me in the meantime to get the scoop.

I’ve done college radio for a long time now, starting September 2002 on WMBR and moving to KZSU shortly afterwards. But it’s coming to an end. Tomorrow (Tuesday June 23) will be my final show (for the foreseeable future at least). If you’d like, you may listen online or on 90.1FM in the Bay Area from 3-6pm PST.

A few days ago some DJs at my radio station ran a fake NCAA Magic the Gathering tournament broadcast. It was pretty hilarious and nerdy.

Here’s a snippet.

KZSU – NCAA Magic the Gathering Tournament (mp3)
[audio:http://ipickmynose.com/mp3s/magic kzsu.mp3]

Here’s my show today if you want to listen.

I Once was Canadian – 4-15-08(mp3)

And here’s the playlist.

My radio show has now been scheduled for Tuesdays 3-5pm PST, that’s 6-8pm Eastern.

You can listen at 90.1FM or online.

Also of note: those streams have been updated so that you should be able to listen from behind firewalls and the such. Try them again if you haven’t in a while.

I’ll be on the radio at KZSU on Tuesday mornings 6-9am (Pacific), doing my show “I Once was Canadian”, starting tomorrow.

You can listen at 90.1FM or online.

I’m trying to transcribe an interview and I can’t get this right. Maybe someone can help: I’m looking for a car make or model that sounds like prevos, prevost, prebos, frebos or something like that. It’s most likely fast and expensive and probably glamorous. It would fit into this sentence:

You want to be in a Prebos* driving 150 miles per hour while people are shooting heroin.

I don’t think it’s “Enzo”–that’s too far from what it sounds like on the recording, though it does fit the description. Prevost make car carriers but not cars, from what I can tell. Anyone?

update: mp3. Listen for yourselves.

double update: from the source: Prevost, as in a motorcoach or band tour bus. I was wrong in thinking it was a fast car–just a fast tour bus I guess!

I did a radio show for the first time in three weeks last night.

Here’s the playlist.

I played it pretty loose and I was pretty happy with the results. I’ve found a lot of great music in the last few weeks and I got to share that.

Now for the musak:

I Once Was Canadian – KZSU – 7.11.07 (mp3)

Here’s my playlist from this week.

here’s the mp3 of the show which you can download and listen to if you wish (mp3).

Local folksy band Beatbeat Whisper appeared on the show and play a live set.

Here’s the playlist. Here’s the mp3 NEWSPECIALFUN.

Here’s the playlist of tonight’s show. I am a bit sick and loopy, but I think the music, at least, didn’t suffer.

There’s just so much good music out there right now. I’ve been picking about 1.5 hours too much music for my show pretty regularly.

I got multiple calls asking about the One AM Radio track, “Lest We Forget”. It’s a good track. (And it’s streamable at his myspace.)

I Once was Canadian, KZSU – 4/25/07 (mp3)