Another local radio format switch to announce. True Oldies 105.9 FM is no more, having been replaced this morning by 105.9 The Edge, a new classic rock station. The Edge is touting itself as "specifically designed for men who love to rock," because, we can only guess, women don't enjoy rocking quite so hard? Look for the likes of Van Halen, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, Queen, The Black Crowes, Pink Floyd, Pearl Jam, etc.
WAMU's Diane Rehm wasn't behind the microphone for her regular 2-hour Friday slot of The Diane Rehm Show today, because she was reportedly injured in one of those bizarre accidents that seem like only happen on TV sitcoms. Filling in for the host, Susan Page of USA Today reported that Rehm was running across the street on Thursday when her heel got caught in the leg of her pants. As a result, Rehm tripped, and she managed to break her pelvis during the fall. Talk about bad luck. She'll now be out for at least a few weeks while she recuperates. We wish her a speedy recovery.
Progressive radio network Air America will finally debut in the D.C. market tonight at midnight, broadcasting as WZAA 1050 AM. The daily schedule will include such well known personalities as Rachel Maddow, Ron Reagan, Ana Marie Cox, Montel Williams, Lionel, Arianna Huffington and Carlos Watson. Special guests will also appear on the station tomorrow to mark the D.C. launch, including Helen Thomas, Chris Matthews, and Sen. Bernie Sanders. “We plan to utilize our new Washington, D.C. broadcast facilities to originate nationwide programming with our talent,” said Bill Hess, senior vice president of programming of Air America Media. “Now that we’re in our new D.C. home on Idaho Avenue, we’re also producing regularly-scheduled local programming.”
Or so Tony Kornheiser of PTI fame described his replacement, Jon Gruden, on ESPN’s Monday Night Fooball. Gruden perfected his tan as head coach of the Tampa Bay Bucanneers for seven years and won one Super Bowl with the franchise before being fired this offseason.
Local radio listeners who missed the front page of Saturday's Washington Post were in for a rude awakening this morning. WTGB 94.7 "The Globe," D.C.'s last classic rock station, changed formats today. The station is now called 94.7 Fresh FM, and offers contemporary pop music programming like Maroon 5, Kelly Clarkson and John Mayer. The Post's story offers an appropriate lament for the demise of classic rock and further homogenization of the local radio landscape. Apart from the overall decline in radio audiences thanks to iPods and the like, it seems classic rock stations all over the country are struggling to interest advertisers due to their aging fan base. There was just no way for WTGB to end up back in black if it stuck with AC/DC.
For those of you who weren't able to tune in to The Politics Hour on WAMU earlier (you can download the audio if you'd still like to listen), you missed House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) in his first appearance ever on the program. Hoyer called in half way through the show to discuss the most recent developments on the D.C. House Voting Rights act, expressing his regret that he couldn't get the bill scheduled for a vote next week.
Tune in to WAMU 88.5 FM (or listen online) today at noon and catch DCist editor-in-chief Sommer Mathis as a guest on The Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi. Sommer will join resident analyst Tom Sherwood (NBC4) on the show to discuss the week's top local politics stories, as well as chat with Democratic candidate for Virginia governor Brian Moran, Ward 5 D.C. Council member Harry Thomas, Jr., and much more.
Two DCist writers will be on the Kojo Nnamdi Show today at noon, discussing the local restaurant scene on this first day of Restaurant Week. Our new Food and Drink Editor, Jamie Liu, and Assistant Arts Editor Missy Frederick (representing the Washington Business Journal, where she's a reporter) will join Washingtonian Magazine's Food and Wine Editor Todd Kliman. They'll talk about how the current economy is affecting business, as people decide to eat out less, and on a lighter note, will cover the slew of affordable joints that have opened up recently. Tune in at 88.5 FM or catch the live webcast at the WAMU web site.
DCist Managing and Arts editor Heather Goss is on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU right now discussing local arts issues. Tune in here. She's joined by Lenny Campello of Mid Atlantic Art News.
“So the thing you have to understand is this is radio,” says the voice in the darkness — a little bit squeaky, a little bit nasal, not at all the voice you’d assign to the leader of a benign radio cult if it weren't already so familiar.
A Post business columnist and an independent music non-profit have joined the chorus questioning Live Nation's proposal for a Silver Spring music hall. Last Friday, Steven Pearlstein wrote that while I.M.P. boss Seth Hurwitz has fought against competition for his 9:30 Club before, and his alternative proposal to Live Nation is in his own best interest, "he's put forward a financial proposal attractive enough that county officials cannot ignore it."
Victory — not the concept, but the statue at State Place and 17th Street NW — is the Ghost of Christmas Past. Freedom — the Eastward-facing statue atop the Capitol Dome; not that thing that The Terrorists hate us for — is the Ghost of Christmas Present. And the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come arrives draped in the inky robes of Grief.
As the region continues to mourn the loss of Sean Taylor, some hopeful news has come to light in the search for his killer. Over the course of the week, officials have stated that they have "no reason" to believe that Taylor was anything more than the random victim of a botched burglary. However, in a story broken by the Miami Herald, a relative of Taylor's has announced that three men have now been detained...
Like half-smokes, go-go and taxation without representation, mumbo sauce is something that's uniquely D.C. And suddenly, it's getting bandied about all over the radio. We're not talking about the group Mambo Sauce, who have their own ode to the District. We're talking about DJ Flexx (of WPGC)'s "Chicken Wings & Fried Rice", a song that is — seriously — entirely about mumbo sauce. You can listen to a partial clip here, or tune your radio...
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of The Fake Accents is their ability to make their inherent contradictions seamlessly coexist. One might not expect that the same band who records and listens to their own practice sessions would also write a disclaimer on their first album that most of the songs that they'd written were actually just ripped off of other songs. Their songs are identifiable by both their catchy hooks and their noisy guitar riffs....
The guitarist for the pop-punk band Hawthorne Heights passed away before the group's show at the 9:30 Club over the weekend. Casey Calvert, 25, was found dead on the band's tour bus at around 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, parked outside the venue in Northwest D.C. A cause of death has yet to be determined, but Calvert's bandmates have been quick to defend against speculation that drugs were involved. They posted the following message to their...
>> D.C. Council members have rejected a plan to give a developer city-owned land worth $6 million on which to build a new Radio One headquarters. [WJLA] >> Five new restaurants are coming to Columbia Heights. [Prince of Petworth] >> Traffic was temporarily halted at Union Station this afternoon as Amtrak Police investigated a report of a suspicious package near Gate A in Union Station. Regular service had resumed by 4 p.m. [WaPo] >>...
There seems to be some healthy skepticism about the planned taxicab driver strike on Wednesday, which is set to commence at 6 a.m. on Halloween morning and last for 24 hours. How many drivers will really strike? Could it actually change Mayor Adrian Fenty's mind about switching to time and distance meters? Is the fact that it's planned for Halloween going to impact the number of drunk drivers out on the road? If D.C. taxi...
A rainy Friday night was enlivened by the return of hometown heroine (and Richard Montgomery High alumni — Go, uhm…Rockets! Right? Y’all are the Rockets?) Tori Amos, who took to the DAR Constitution Hall armed with her giant black Bösendorfer piano, her touring band, and a new record. That record, American Doll Posse, is an odd sort of concept album revolving around a bunch of different characters that Amos invented, costumed, and, I believe, even...
Craig Wedren has one of the most distinctive voices in rock. How it is that he managed to avoid becoming a household name is a bit of a mystery. Pony Express Record, his 1994 major label debut with Shudder to Think, the band that he got his start with in D.C. in the mid-80s, should have been a huge breakthrough. It was an adventurous record of inventive, art-damaged post-punk, all shifting time signatures and angular...
The 2nd year of the District's Awake! Music Festival is making it's grand sophomore entrance tomorrow night in clubs across town. News about the festival is traveling far and wide, with a sponsorship and podcast from everybody's favorite online radio station, WOXY, an interview on the local news, and more. A few last minute changes have been made to the festival — namely the unfortunate cancellation of Cloud Cult's set, and of the Rock &...
Three years, one EP, one DCist interview, and a slew of locally hyped shows later and The Alphabetical Order have finally taken that next big step. October 9th marked the release of their debut full length album. I Am Magically Happening! is their most polished and complete work to date. It is the band’s signature early 90’s alt-rock sound with just enough mainstream pop glaze to raise them up from the underground. The Alphabetical Order...
Marc Fisher lets us know that longtime D.C. radio fixture Red Shipley, the host of WAMU's Stained Glass Bluegrass program for 25 years, died over the weekend from cancer in Charlottesville. Shipley introduced two generations of Washington area music fans to legendary and contemporary bluegrass music, up until last month, when WAMU took all of its bluegrass programming off the air and put it on HD Radio. "Radio lost one of its own legends last...
Jon Langford is responsible for way too much great art for you not to know who he is. To begin at the beginning, he’s one of two remaining original members of the Mekons, singing and playing guitar in the increasingly difficult-to-categorize onetime punk band he founded while studying art at the University of Leeds, England, in 1977. Their albums Fear and Whiskey and Edge of the World, from 1985 and 1986, respectively, were among...
You waited until the last minute to try to buy tickets for Saturday’s “Hip-Hop Honors” concert, only to discover it sold out. Fear not, because D.C. will be having a number of other noteworthy shows over the next week. First up is Eric Roberson’s Friday night set at the Black Cat. Who’s Eric Roberson? New Jersey native Roberson began his professional singing and songwriting career while a student in Howard University’s Musical Theatre program in...
Dr. Billy Taylor (pictured with his trio) is a walking history of jazz. He began playing professionally in 1944, and in that capacity he has composed over 350 songs, performed with legends such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and led his own trio for decades. The numerous awards Taylor garnered as a performer and educator include 23 honorary doctoral degrees, two Peabody Awards, an Emmy, a Grammy, and the National Medal of the...
Good morning, Washington. It's almost October, but in many ways it still seems like summer. For one thing, it'll be ninety degrees today. For another, there's news of Michael Vick's worsening legal situation. Yesterday Virginia indicted him and three others on dogfighting charges. Of course, we all knew that was coming sooner or later — less expected was word that a Canadian bank is suing Vick for defaulting on a $2.3 million loan. Potential...
FOUND Magazine has a knack for revealing the beautiful underbelly of America, the forgotten parts of our everyday lives. Highlighting things like the hateful note you left the person parked in your precious parking spot, your laundry list of to-dos, that love note you didn’t find the courage to send, or those rejection letters that you didn’t want to hold onto, FOUND is the curated hamper for everything not worth collecting. That is unless you...
The classical music season got officially under way this weekend, and there will be more and more choices facing eager listeners. Even if you cannot afford all the concerts you want to attend, since local radio station WETA, at 90.9 FM, went back to a classical format, there is more local music on the airwaves, too. Tune in this evening (September 16, 7 p.m.) to the live broadcast of the National Symphony Orchestra's Season Opening...
Deer Dies After Lion Attack Inside National Zoo
WTOP: Fenty Using Police Escort for Cycling Team Rides
'Trun' on to the 15th Street Contraflow Bike Lane
D.C. Foster Kids Are in Need of Christmas Presents
Photo of the Day: November 9, 2009
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