Music You Can't Hear on the Radio

Music You Can’t Hear On The Radio tonight from 7:00-10:00 pm on WPRB 103.3 FM. The best radio show I’m likely to hear all week.

With a new album from Bobby McFerrin and Pete Seeger ‘s 94th birthday, how could it be bad?

And, unlike last Sunday, the WPRB webstream should be working for the whole show.

WPRB’s webstream was down for most of last night, returning just for the final 30-40 minutes of the show. Here is what the massive radio audience was able to hear:

ohn Weingart
Music You Can’t Hear On The Radio
WPRB, 103.3 FM and WPRB.com
Princeton, New Jersey
Playlist for April 28, 2013

Artist
“Title”
Album
(Label)

Gid Tanner & The Skillet Lickers
“The Census Taker excerpt (1930)”
Gid Tanner
(Old Homestead LP)

Richie Havens
“My Father’s Shoes”
Cuts To The Chase
(Rhino)

Chris Vallillo
“Old Joe Clark”
The Last Day of Winter
(Gin Ridge)

Sutton, Hold and Coleman
“Streamline Cannonball”
Ready For These Times
(High Windy)

The Quiet American
“Posey’s Song”
Wild Bill Jones
(Quiet American Music)

Pharis & Jason Romero
“Long Gone Out West Blues”
Long Gone Out West Blues
(Lula)

Marley’s Ghost
“Going To The West”
Live at the Freight
(Sage Arts)

Rita Hoskins
“Sierra Bound”
Little Boat
(Hearth PR)

Linda Ronstadt
“High Sierra”
Fells Like Home
(Elektra)

Linda Ronstadt
“Tattler”
Hasten Down The Wind
(Asylum LP)

Shep Cooke
“Concert Tour of Mars”
Concert Tour of Mars
(Sierra LP)

John Prine
“Linda Goes To Mars”
Anthology: Great Ones
(Rhino)

Tim Wilson
“Merle The Magician”
Gettin’ My Mind Right
(Capitol)

New American Farmers
“Everywhere”
Brand New Day
(Barncat)

Christine Lavin
“Regretting”
Future Fossils
(Philo LP)

Steve Martin & Edie Brickell
“Love Has Come For You”
Love Has Come For You
(Rounder)

John Reischman
“Little Pine Siskin”
Walk Along John
(Corvus)

Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen
“Day To Day”
On The Edge
(Compass)

Dylan Sneed
“Climb This Wall”
Texodus
(Dylan Sneed)

The Clancy Brothers
“Children’s Medley (part)”
The Complete 1963 Concert
(Columbia/Legacy)

David Maloney
“Roshambo”
Davy Joe Malone
(Pelican)

David Maloney
“Me & The Stones”
Davy Joe Malone
(Pelican)

Gram Parsons
“The New Soft Shoe”
GP/Grievous Angel
(Reprise)

The Steel Wheels
“The Race”
No More Rain
(TSW)

John Prine and …
“When I Paint My Masterpiece”
Love For Levon
(StarVista)

Mark Graham & Orville Johnson
“Lost John”
The Kings of Mongrel Folk
(Mongrel Folk)

Bob Dylan
“Ain’t Got No Home”
Woody Guthrie Tribute Concert
(Columbia LP)

The Band
“Ain’t Got No Home”
Moondog Matinee
(Capitol LP)

Jakob Dylan
“Ain’t Got No Home”
Love For Levon
(StarVista)

Jay Psaros
“Sugarcoat Band”
Simply
(Jay Psaros)

Ralph McTell
“Spiral Staircase”
Spiral Staircase
(Transatlantic LP)

The Hillbenders
“Spinning in Circles”
Can You Hear Me?
(Compass)

Doug & Telisha Williams
“20.2″
Ghost of the Knoxville Girl
(DandW.com)

Bob Brozman
“Devil’s slide”
Devil’s Slide
(Rounder LP)

Bob Brozman
“Love My Stuff”
Hello, Central
(Rounder LP)

The Stray Birds
“Heavy Hands”
The Stray Birds
(The Stray Birds)

Molly Ventner & Eban Pariser
“Work I Done”
Goodnight Moonshine
(HearthPR)

Dan Weber
“Hank and Jesus”
Ash and Bone
(Eight Ball)

Randy Brown
“Lloyd”
But Wait There’s More
(Randy Brown)

Martin Mull
“Jesus Christ, Football Star”
Mulling It Over
(Razor & Tie)

L.E. McCullough
“Let Jesus Be Your Pitstop”
Late Bloomer
(Kicking Mule LP)

Old Man Luedecke
“Kingdom Come”
Tender Is The Night
(True North Records)

Hans Theessink
“New Home On The Hill”
Wishing Well
(Blue Groove)

S.E. Rogie
“Jaimgba Tutu”
Dead Men Do
(Don’t Know)

Linda Ronstadt
“Long Long Time”
Silk Purse
(Capitol LP)

Richie Havens
“Times They Are A Changin”
Cuts To The Chase
(Rhino)

Emmylou Harris
“Buckaroo & Love’s Gonna Live Here Again”
Last Date
(Eminent)

Comments and questions welcome to John Weingart at
Radio@veryseldom.com or
79 Rittenhouse Road, Stockton, NJ 08559

Tonight’s show will be centered around five new albums I’ve been enjoying this week from:

- David J Maloney

- Peter Cooper & Eric Brace

- Hans Theessink

- John Reischman and

- Steve Martin & Edie Brickell.

I hope you can listen with me from 7:00-10:00 pm on WPRB 103.3 FM and WPRB.com.

This column appeared in NJ Spotlight.org on March 11, 2013 and The Hunterdon Democrat on April 11, 2013.

Sequestration Radio [Titled "No Cut Left Uncut" in The Hunterdon Democrat]

by John Weingart*

(March 11, 2013)  Working as I do at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, I have been receiving a number of inquiries about the meaning and impacts of sequestration. After saying “I don’t know” and sprinkling in a few phrases like “It wasn’t supposed to happen,” and “uncharted territory,” I struggle for a relevant analogy or example that might be illuminating. Now, I think I have found one.

Suppose sequestration applied to the radio. More specifically, how would it change the folk music and bluegrass program I host on Sunday evenings? Since the show is on WPRB, the FM and internet station affiliated with Princeton University, it probably would be covered under a set of guidelines for Broadcasts of Reasonably Obscure Music Emanating from the Basement of College Dormitories.

If we assume an across-the-board cut of 5%, my three-hour program would face a reduction of nine minutes each week. No big deal, most would agree. Cut one song off the beginning and one off the end and who will even notice? True, the resulting silence for the first four or five minutes might lead some to conclude that the program had been entirely eliminated, but if they really need the musical services I offer, they ought to be willing to stick around to wait for the show to open.

The solution is simple and might end the conversation, but in this case simple solutions were deliberately defined to be against the law. Sequestration was designed to loom as such a complicated and unattractive threat that it would be unthinkable for Congress not to act to prevent its implementation. As a result, now that the unthinkable somehow became inevitable, merely cutting two songs from my playlist would not be sufficiently disruptive to comply with the letter or spirit of sequestration.

Instead, I would need to make reductions to each of the services housed under the program’s antenna – that is, each song would need to become 5% smaller. Since I get to play about 50 songs and tunes per show, it follows that each would need to be reduced by 10.8 seconds. The program would still be reduced by a total of nine minutes, but the impact would be felt in every track. This policy could be labeled as No Cut Left Uncut.

Critics of sequestration will say this is an insane and unworkable outcome, but they may have been turning a deaf ear to the extent to which waste, fraud and abuse permeate much of the music we have long taken for granted. To begin with, choruses are by definition repetitious. They are remnants of a bygone era when the daily time deficits most of us now experience were not even on the horizon. Scrap one or two and some songs could easily fit within the sequestration guidelines.

Others could be shrunk by removing the virtually identical lines and verses that, perhaps unknowingly, have been transplanted from one folk song to another literally for centuries. This redundancy is often carried out under the guise of continuing some sort of “folk tradition.”

Additional savings could be realized by focusing on instrumental breaks. Removing any number of seconds from a banjo or bagpipe solo, for example, would probably be applauded as a public service, even by many who normally support generous appropriations for those needing the services radio provides.

Thus, despite all the uproar, a program could be brought into conformance with sequestration requirements merely by eliminating duplication and waste. That, however, is but one of three areas where further reductions are essential.

Identifying lyrics that focus on any type of fraud or abuse must also remain high on the political/musical agenda. Countless studies have identified old songs that seem to exist only to lionize bank robbers and other outlaws or simply to chronicle the violence inflicted by would-be, present and former lovers on one another. Most of these so-called ballads could be rescinded in their entirety.

In conclusion, sequestration could be considered a laughing matter — if only it didn’t apply to thousands of programs even more important than the one I do on the radio.

* John Weingart, Associate Director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, also hosts Music You Can’t Hear On The Radio on WPRB (103.3 FM & WPRB.com) on Sundays from 7:00-10:00 pm.

Tonight’s show is looking like it might include songs about taxes, college, walking and outer space; new music from Steve Martin & Edie Brickell, Lisa Biales Music, Lauren Sheehan, Songster  Peter Cooper & Eric Brace, and Hans Theessink; as well as older music from the The New Lost City Ramblers and Tom Paxton; requests from previous weeks  - and lots of other stuff too good to miss. On WPRB 103.3 FM and @WPRB.com tonight from 7:00-10:00 pm.

The show may begin a few minutes late this week. WPRB is broadcasting a Princeton University women’s basketball game starting at 5:00 pm and ending somewhere around 7:00 pm.

Pete Labriola will be hosting the show this Sunday. I will be back on the air on March 24th.

Some of the music on tonight’s show will reflect the news of the week – the resignation of the Pope, falling of the meteor and cutback in US Postal Service services – and much of it will not at all. Hope you can listen from 7:00-10:00 pm at   or, if in central New Jersey, Bucks County or some parts of Philadelphia, at 103.3 FM. To record the show for future listening, go to the VerySeldom.com homepage.

At 7:00 pm this Sunday as you start to listen to Music You Can’t Hear On The Radio, make sure you’ve set your TV to record the Super Bowl so you can later fast forward through the ___ (commercials or game) so you are able efficiently watch just the ___ (game or commercials) which really is what the enterprise is all about.

On the radio/internet show this Sunday will be music from Mike Auldridge, the great and influential dobro player with the Seldom Scene and many other configurations, who passed away a few weeks back. Also at least a song or two about immigration, new albums from the Red Clay Ramblers (at least 3/5 of them, anyway), the Stray Birds and Peter Ostroushko and what on first listening sounds like a fascinating set of new songs from Kris Kristofferson starting with the title Feeling Mortal.

I hope you can join me on Sunday either in real time or, if not, by using DAR.FM  ahead of time to record the show for later listening.

Tickets can be reserved online or purchased at the door for this weekend’s concerts

Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 3:00 with

BEPPE GAMBETTA & PETER OSTROUSHKO

Prallsville Mill, Route 29, Stockton, New Jersey (5 miles north of Lambertville and New Hope)

More information at:

http://veryseldom.com/prallsville.php

concerts@veryseldom.com