DaveBayArea said:
Wow. The Phenomenauts are great. But I have to agree with Big A that the format would be an uphill battle. The western heritage of the Bay Area doesn't mean anything to today's radio audience, [....]
Normally I'd agree, but I've found way too many situations where a community has an underlying culture that permeates it so much that the people who live there don't notice. For instance, the Bay Area is very big on supporting local symphonies -- San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley (with Kent Nagano, no less), an opera company that is considered one of the best in the world, etc. We're used to culture here. We expect it.
As for Western music I admit to me pro-Western biases, but I've also noticed that the music continues to live on with live bands in rockabilly and bebop with musicians in their 20s and 30s. Would people listen to it on the radio? Who knows, but I'd suggest trying it before going back to yet another pop hits retread.
and it's not like we haven't had our attempt at an alt-country sound in the past. I'm thinking of Sully Roddy's "all kinds of country" show on the KSAN of old, as well as the recent KPIG attempt on AM.
KPIG was a problem from the standpoint that it wasn't tight enough. I'm a very tolerant listener and I enjoy interesting things, but there were times when even I couldn't listen to KPIG. The music choice was just horrible. Other times it was excellent. There's some DJ on there who was either a drunk or took on a drunk persona mic-side. His choices were so bad I thought at first that he'd played the wrong cut on an album, but he was consistently bad.
For those in the South Bay there's a show on Sunday nights from 9 to midnight on KKUP - the Cupertino Barndance. Some say it's the longest-running show on Bay Area radio, and that may be true, I don't know. But it features what you speak of. Honky tonk, western swing, rockabilly, bakersfield sound, etc. It's quite popular and garners a lot of listener support. But it has a heritage of over 35 years. Whether an upstart with that format could do the same thing, I'm not sure.
But you say it's quite popular. Well, that's something at least. Now I know that my idea is a long shot, but jeez, when you scan across the radio band it sounds like everybody is competing for the same audience except for KOIT, KKSF, KFOG, and KSAN. The rest sound like each other.
On the other side of the coin, I witnessed an interesting phenomenon at this year's High Sierra Music Festival. They have these things they call "playshops" - like the workshops at other festivals, except they renamed them because all the artists really do is play music
There was one there with Nikki Bloom, members of ALO, and a few others. They did this thing called "brokedown in bakersfield" with covers of Loretta Lynn, Gram Parsons, Buck Owens, George Jones, etc. Nobody really knew what to expect, but by about 20 minutes in the place was packed with 20-somethings who were digging it. Granted, the High Sierra crowd is a bunch of serious music lovers, but still...
DAMN! I wish I had gone. I've followed ALO for 15 years and have known Steve Adams for all that time. (He used to wait on me at the old Nordstrom cafe when ALO was getting going.) ALO can play anything. They're superb musicians.
And yes, the 20 and 30-somethings are into this stuff, along with avant garde jazz and all kinds of stuff. There is enough new music (within the last 10 years) out there to fill out a schedule I think.
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