Following former Pacifica National board member Carol Spooner’s commentary on what’s going on at KPFA, station programmer Brian Edwards-Tiekert contacted me, asking that I publish his perspective on the station. Edwards-Tiekert is a former staff representative to the KPFA Local Station Board, and was the co-host of KPFA’s Morning Show until Pacifica Executive Director Arlene […]
Author Archive | Matthew Lasar
What’s the problem at KPFA? by Carol Spooner
At the request of KPFA programmer Peter Phillips, I am posting this public statement by Carol Spooner, former Pacifica National Board member. It offers Spooner’s assessment of why layoffs were necessary at KPFA. I am not sure whether Spooner will approve of this posting. In a separate statement, she has accused me of “Glenbeckian” distortions […]
Flower Power at Last.fm
Last.fm is doing another one of their fun (if a bit perplexing) audio visual experiments. This one involves tracking the complexity of a song’s rhythm, harmony, and timber, then translating that variability into a flower-like image. The thicker the respective color petal (green=harmony; red=rhythm; blue=tambor), the more variability. As so: The image to the left […]
Slacker rolls out Premium service for iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry
Slacker radio has released a new service tier above its basic and “plus” packages: Slacker Premium Radio. “Slacker Premium Radio enables listeners to search, play and replay specific songs and entire albums from the Slacker library, which features over 8 million songs, as well as provides easy access to top songs and artists from each […]
Hey Mister Radio Man: National Jukebox posts early song about broadcasting
“Little broken-hearted Sammy,” the tune begins: Sitting on his daddy’s knee Listening to the radio But his heart was aching so Alas, Sammy’s mother has died, the song explains, and so when his father falls asleep, the boy turns to the device for solace: Mister Radio Man Tell my mammy to come back home Won’t […]
Did NPR go off the deep end over Yellowstone Park’s bears?
NPR is wondering out loud about an interview suggesting that climate change may be depleting the natural food supply for bears at Yellowstone National Park, causing them to attack and kill people. Global warming is reducing the production of fish and pine nuts, thus prompting hungry bears to assault several campers last year. That was […]
NPR crunches its Israel/Palestine conflict story numbers
NPR has released an exhaustive audit of its Israel/Palestine dispute coverage for the first quarter of this year. Since NPR doesn’t do public audits of its environmental, mobile phone, or country music coverage, I’m guessing that the review reflects the fact that anything you write about the Israel/Palestine subject is grist for the protest mill […]
FCC probe of Arbitron Portable People Meter is over
The Federal Communications Commission has called off its investigation of Arbitron’s controversial Portable People Meter. The PPM gadget replaced Arbitron’s old diary system, in which users jotted down their radio preferences. Instead they wear PPM’s like pagers, which listen to the signals in the consumer’s immediate vicinity. A group of minority media advocates, the PPM […]
The five things I do when I hear weird music on the radio
Not long ago I was driving down the San Francisco Bay Area’s Highway 280 and listening to Foothills Junior College’s KFJC-FM, and some really weird music came on. I tried to get what it was from the deejay’s back-announce commentary, but got distracted by traffic. Anyway, it sounded like Karlheinz Stockhausen’s piece for String Quartet […]
Pandora: 10 billion happy thumbs served
It ain’t 245 billion hamburgers, but Pandora’s Tim Westergren says that the ten billionth person to click the “happy thumb” on a Pandora tune has done so. “Just over a week ago, on Sunday, April 24th at 4:46pm, ‘Ridin’ Solo’ by Jason DeRulo received Pandora’s 10 billionth thumb. 10 BILLION…wow!,” Westergren notes in his latest […]