on hipness

So I wrote this last Thursday and meant to post it Friday, but my pre-weekend plans got in the way, so now here are my much-delayed thoughts on hipness:


Part I: Coachella



Photo by Caesar Sebastian


When this year's Coachella lineup was announced last last week, I was rather impressed that I had heard of (and in some cases, straight-up heard) many of the artists who'll be playing in Indio come April.


You know, back in high school, I only had this vague idea of what Coachella was and probably knew 0.3 of the bands that played the festival... and now all these years later, I live in the Coachella Valley and kind of maybe want to go to Coachella — assuming, of course, that there are enough bands I want to see that won't be playing while I'm at work Saturday night.


Part II: KWXwhY?


KWXY


This past past Saturday, I was listening to KDES (Tempe translation: KOOL) because, you know, I'm all 65 years old and whatnot. And I heard the DJ say that KDES' long-anticipated move from 104.7 FM to 98.5 FM is was coming up on Feb. 2.


That means the station that's now was on 98.5, KWXY is leaving FM forever!* I heard earlier this last week that the beautiful music station is moving to its old AM frequency, but things still won't be the same. Lots of markets have older-than-oldies on AM, but ever since forever, we here in Palm Springs have had classy old jams on the FM... along with all the cuteness of a station by senior citizens for senior citizens. This is the station that calls itself "the valley's 24/7 news source" because they have their DJs read national wire stories at all hours of the day and night. Srsly. I think I've heard more local news about Canadian cities on KWXY than I have about Coachella Valley cities. Also, some of the DJs go all out during news time and tell you that the temperature is, say, "65 KWXY degrees" before consulting "Doppler 98-5."


But even though I like to poke fun, when KWXY moves moved back into the static-y, mono world of amplitude modulation, my life is gonna get got a lot less classy... or I'll just have to get used to the much more low-fi version of Sinatra and company.


The possible silver lining to all this change on the airwaves is the hope that someone, somewhere will deem the soon-to-be-wide-open 104.7 frequency a proper place for a much-needed alternative station for the Coachella Valley.


Ah, but who am I kidding? The powers that be will probably turn 104.7 into the valley's fifth-or-sixth-ish classic rock station. Srsly. We already have two that bill themselves as classic rock stations (KMRJ and KDGL), a Jack FM (KAJR) that plays classic rock a majority of the time, a hard rock station (KCLB) that revisits the '70s and '80s way too often and a healthy helping of classic-ish rock on KDES.


Actually, since I wrote this on Thursday, I found out from my colleagues' reports in Sunday's paper that 104.7 is now licensed to Redlands, and 95.9 switched formats on Monday to what was billed as a kind-of KWXY replacement but has so far sounded like a slower and sappier version of the old Jack FM playlist.


* I can't actually guarantee that it'll be forever. What do I look like? A magician? No. I'm Ginger Jeffries, your First Alert forecaster. Duh.


Part III: Draw the Circle Wide


Speaking of local radio, I should add that KCLB does play quite a bit of new rock amid the oldies. Lately, they've been really big into Skillet's "Monster," which cracks me up to no end because I remember back in high school when:



When I first started getting into Christian pop and rock way back in 2001 or so, it seemed the conventional wisdom was that the Christian music scene was always a few months or years behind mainstream music. As I recall, Britney and Christina preceded the likes of Stacie Orrico. Likewise, *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys begat Plus One.


But ever since I left the all-Christian-music-all-the-time scene in '04, I've kept hearing a whole bunch of singers, bands and groups that at one time only came on Air 1 and The Effect.



My all-time favorite band, Switchfoot, is all over the place — movie soundtracks, commercials, the radio, ESPN college football intros (and events)... and they also randomly show up in Palm Desert when I go out of town.


I've heard Skillet on the radio and on NBC football promos this past fall, and at one point back in AZ, I even heard Thousand Foot Krutch on a real rock station.


Hell, even sweet li'l Katy Hudson was resurrected as girl-kissin' Katy Perry.


All of these instances and various other "This sounds familiar" moments always make me smile and/or laugh.


Who knew that so many of my '01 jams would be tied to such '10 hipness?


I mean, none of my old Jesus jams are getting played on KWXY. The only songs from the past two decades I ever heard on 98.5 before the big switch were some Michael Bublé track and Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's 1993 Hawaiian-style cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What A Wonderful World."


But one of those old Air 1 bands, MUTEMATH is scheduled to play a Sunday set at this year's Coachella festival.


And thus, the hipness comes full circle, y'all.

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2/2/2010 21:41