A Sign of Being Old and Being "Over It"

I am going to get around to doing a podcast at michaelmatthews.podomatic.com, but first I must blog.

My WHAT THE HECK?!? My BACK! This week I was hit with a pain right in that small back region. I think part of the cause was lifting something rather heavy in the garage without using my legs and the growing stress upon the realization that my wife and I are REALLY MOVING!

It just makes sense...or it makes no sense. We are moving back to a state whose houses are now at a price we haven't seen in years, yet we're leaving a state and a city that is the best area to find a job according to a new study. We've got a real estate agent now, so we've jumped out of the plane, now we've got to pull the rip chord.

Maybe that's a little dramatic. We could take the house off the market and stay if we want. But do we? Yeah, jobs are abundant here in Huntsville, Alabama, but who enjoys working for a "good ol' boys" club? Maybe you like it: the smoking cigars on a golf course while cheering Cheney on finally making his PUNXSUTAWNEY GROUND HOG MOMENT to try to prove he was a good dad to us after all. "Everything I did, I DID IT FOR YOU! You have NO IDEA WHAT I WENT THROUGH to keep this country safe! You may be all smitten with this new president guy, BUT HE HAS NO RIGHT TO CRITICIZE WHAT I DID TO KEEP YOU SAFE! Now I'm going back underground to breathe my secret life-extending gas and I'll come back out when you REALIZE WHAT A GOD I AM!"

It'll be nice to leave an area that is so gaga over such a ridiculous Rush-Sean-wannabe radio show as "Rick and Bubba." In California they have that show absolutely NO WHERE! I will tell people about it there and they will laugh at me! Really? They have a show like that? Well I guess that's the South for you! I moved to this part of the country with AN OPEN MIND. I thought people here weren't the stereotype. I was willing and ready to be proven wrong! Yep, I was wrong.

Maybe the pain in my back is a little voodoo on me for being negative about all this. But at this point, I'm no longer negative. I'm feeling more positive every day.

Now I positively need some Motrin.

The Great Americana Radio Format and Why It's Gone

The high point of my radio career was somewhere around 2002. The corporation that owned us happened upon their one good idea...to let me be more creative and have more control of my radio show. They also decided that on Sunday evenings they would play 2 hours of "Americana" music.

Americana falls somewhere between the triangle of folk, rock, and country. It would be an awesome format to work for if radio was indeed experimental in that way anymore, which it is not. You literally play the cleverest lyricists, the best musicians, and sometimes the deepest music. I know there's KPIG in Monterey, but that is the exception to the rule. They have done a fantastic job staking a claim in the world of Internet radio before anyone else did. They play new music by Americana artists and throw in some classic rock songs. You really can not predict what you're going to hear.

When we did this format, I was fortunate enough to get a lot of the Cd's that were sent to us. I still have them, and still listen and party like it's...well, 2002.

Here's my WHAT THE HECK!?!...Some time in 2004, idiots in corporate decided to clamp down. Actually, the guy they put in the position to do it at the local level ended up being pretty cool, and he was successful in explaining to me his reasoning for executing corporate's wishes. Clutter and consistency were the main words he used. My question in hindsight though is what did we sacrifice creatively by making those changes? The actions we took ended up making radio more repetitive and less unpredictable.

"Well, listeners like predictability. Radio should be an appliance. When you flip a light switch, you expect to see light." The day radio was explained to me as an appliance was the day I should have bailed. That was NOT what I signed up for. I like radio because of its potential: you could paint a million pictures and stretch the imagination from your words and by playing with sounds. Some DJ's used the music itself to paint a picture or make a comment. Those days are gone.

By the way, KPIG is the perfect example of what I talked about in a previous blog: how radio stations will die and be taken over by one main station...the "Radio Unification Theory," if you will. KPIG started out on just one frequency in Monterey at 107.5FM. Now it can be heard on 4 more frequencies throughout California including 94.9FM in San Luis Obispo and 1510AM in San Francisco; basically covering most of California's coast. The last "group-thunk idiot company" I worked for would never take a chance on a station like this. I have heard people that worked at the corporate level that said "that format doesn't work" and they should have long since given up the ship. Yet this format has now grown to 4 more frequencies and has built a business model that only shows it can spread to MORE stations. Looking at my ex-employers and how they've forced mandatory furloughs on their employees showing how their ship is in its final mount before the whole thing goes underwater at the foot of the iceberg, I would say they were wrong yet again! Corporate radio has no incite in matters like this, and thus its current down spin.

Look up Americana on the Internet. I'm sure you'll find a group worth listening to. The cool thing is a lot of these artists tour frequently and EVERYWHERE so you're bound to see them in your local (or somewhat local) venue soon. Till then, I'll be pulling out The Gourds or the Old 97's out of my CD rack and giving them a little listen...probably ripping them to my computer so they'll come up in my Windows Media Player. At least my WMP has good taste in music.

Here's Some Folks that REALLY Don't Know What They're Doing!

I was speaking to a former coworker whom I had not spoken to in almost ten years. We were recently reunited through Facebook. I would like to thank that free social network for aiding in an online conversation. We were talking about the amount of money that was thrown at certain things back in the day.

In this situation, the guy I used to work with was hired by the radio station to "wrap" a van. This involves sticking various vinyl and I don't know what to the outside to create the logo that's "bigger than life" on the vehicle.

He was telling me how the name the radio station picked, "kiss", was already used by a prominent station in nearby Los Angeles. The evil empire Clear Channel owned the rights to the name and had some legal stipulation that nobody in a 100 mile radius or something couldn't use the name. Now my friend claims he kinda knew this was the case, but since he was paid by our ignorant radio station to wrap the van, he did it.

A week later they got a "cease and desist" and my friend was told he had to re wrap the van with the name "hits." Yes, hits and kiss sound very similar. Hits was a better name, actually, because that's what the station was really playing and since it was new it works to be very clear as to what you are.

A few months later, evil empire, who had bought many stations in this town, changed a radio station to the name "kiss" and directly competed against "hits."

Here's my WHAT THE HECK...aside from my friend getting paid twice, in today's world, in today's radio, HE WOULD HAVE ONLY BEEN PAID ONCE. I guarantee it! Then he would have been told to take a one week furlough, even though he works independently.

And why didn't the company that owned "hits," I believe it was Cumulus, not do any legal research to see if there was any problem using that name in the first place? I mean, it would be so obvious to any large radio corporation that this was an infringement.

This basically shows what I mentioned in the last blog, that radio today has NO IDEA WHAT IT'S DOING. It says it bases everything on research, but honestly, that research doesn't exist in reality. Most research that I saw done was calling people on their landlines, and who today really still uses that? Everyone under 40 is using cellphones. Why use a land line unless you're a business, and the researchers weren't allowed to contact businesses, only private residences. Everything is dictated to each individual radio station from a huge corporation (and by dictated, I mean in the most condescending way possible--you should have heard some of the conference calls I was on! I was treated like a delinquent child!). These choices are made on faulty research.

Oh, and these radio stations love pushing to the top conservative extremists like you hear all over the AM. Thank goodness they or their employers aren't running the country right now! People complain about the stimulus package and the amount spent. You can bet with a conservative party IT WOULD BE TWICE AS MUCH! The conservatives are taking the other side now because that seems to be the popular view...do nothing and just suffer. Why change, nothings wrong. My head is perfectly fine buried in sand!

It's a different age. We need to behave differently. Radio, however, will continue to keep its head buried.

Why American Radio is Failing

The land of FM AM is about to transform completely from what it was. The "good old days" of radio are long gone. The economic structure and the media landscape has changed so much from what it was twenty, ten, even five years ago.

As I traveled through Germany, I saw how possibly the radio world would change. Across the country, Germany has radio stations that deliver the same feed on multiple signals. It would be like hearing one of the channels on Sirius throughout the entire country, but every time the signal would fade or disappear, your radio would know what the next frequency was that carried that signal. That was how are rented car's radio worked. When switching from one frequency to the next to keep the station, you could hardly hear the difference. You hear a moment of static and suddenly the static disappears. The radio knows where to switch to.

American radio is basically doing the same thing now. So many stations carry the same syndicated morning show, the same syndicated evening and overnight shows. Many stations also carry syndicated afternoon shows now. So what's the difference between that and Germany? American radio stations try to sell the "local" angle of their stations, even when their play lists are dictated from their corporate owners. Most DJ's are reading "national" news and avoiding the local angle since it's more work. Most DJ's are prerecorded or "voice tracked." There is no "live" anymore. There is no "local" anymore...so why are our American stations lying to us?

My WHAT THE HECK is for radio. You already are forcing your employees to take mandatory work furloughs (a la Arnold in California) or laying off entire staffs reducing all radio stations to just one working "air talent" and the rest syndication (or non-DJ jukebox stations). You already give no stations their own choice for what they play; it ALL comes down from "on high." You are fighting against what you used to call "non-threatening media" like Internet radio and pod casts. Soon, Internet radio will be in every one's cars and they'll be much more choice than between AM, FM, or XM.

Radio, you are done!

Just pack it in, do what Germany's doing, quit lying to the public, QUIT LYING TO HARD WORKING RADIO EMPLOYEES! Here's what sucks about radio...the lying! I was once told by a radio manager that "perception is reality." If I say I have a chance for you to win a million dollars, that sounds big. What I don't tell you is you're competing against other stations and against unfathomable odds. Radio sucks because it's run by OLD OLD MEN that are still living in some glorified past that has LONG SINCE GONE! These old men, this good ol' boys club, stays in power due to RADIO'S CONSERVATIVE NATURE and no one dares unseat them.

I guess the "all mighty dollar" will finally have to do it for them.

Mike M Goes to Washington...and Across the Pond

Well it's been about a month since I last wrote. I have had a lot of travels and incites into this world we live in. I went to Germany and Washington DC. One place had me learn a completely different language and the other showed me what this country's all about. Eye opening on both accounts.

First, my one and only WHAT THE HECK for the moment is when in DC and getting food from one of the snack bars around the parks there, you do NOT get free refills. Oh, and that's the case in Germany, too, for the most part. Yes, I know practically ALL the museums in DC are free, but come on, making me pay for a WHOLE 'NOTHER DRINK when you're just going to put the soda in the same cup? Wake up, it's 2009!

There are so many WHAT THE HECK's I wanted to write but didn't have Internet access so I'll have to do my best to remember all of them. The picture you see is of me in front of the first historic monument I saw on my DC trip. What a heart-pounding moment when I first saw the Washington Monument, then the Capitol across the massive park they call the Mall. I'm glad that at least the leaders of this country see these landmarks everyday while running the place so at least they're reminded of who and what they're serving.

Ooo! I'm thinking of some juicy WHAT THE HECK's so check back soon!