Didja Hear? (Sep 6, 2005)

Greg and Sara fill in temporarily during the morning drive on Jack FM.

Jeff Prescott returns to KOGO Sep 19 with a short daily feature during the morning news block.

FM 94/9 ran another Anarchy and Total Chaos weekend where almost anything can be played by request.

LOCAL 8 News, 100.7 JACK FM and 760 KFMB are teaming up to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina all day Tuesday from 5am until 7pm for a fund drive at the Sports Arena parking lot. You can make a donation to the Salvation Army there with checks or cash only. Rick Roberts broadcasts live from there during his regular morning shift and every 1/2 hour until 7pm.

Mariah Carey Hits #1 and #2 on Pop Chart (Sep 6, 2005)

Carey has become the sixth act (solo, duo, or group) to hold the top two positions on the Hot 100 singles chart since its inception in 1958.

"We Belong Together" was #1 for the 14th non-consecutive week, followed by her third single from her CD, "Shake It Off" at #2, off of her CD "The Emancipation of Mimi."

This achievement puts her in the company of Usher, who joined the club last year, OutKast (2003/04), Nelly (2002), the Bee Gees (1978) and the Beatles (1964).

The rest of the Top Singles chart? Who cares?

KSON Gives Free Gas (Sep 3, 2005)

Starting this Tuesday, after Labor Day, KSON will be giving away FREE GAS CARDS ALL DAY LONG, every weekday!

From 7 AM to 5 PM, at the top of every hour, we'll ask for caller 10 to win a $50 Gas Card from KSON!

Along with free gas, we'll bet your family would welcome another FIVE DOLLAR concert about now. Cliff & Company will tell you all about our next $5 show, Tuesday morning, September 6th.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

- The KSON Family

What Radio Doesn't Play: Filk (Sep 3, 2005)

Wired has an great article about a musical category that I know very well (I don't care about CHR or Hot AC music): filk music. What is it? It's what you get when you mix science-fiction themes with folk music.

Songs about spaceships, space travel, spacemen or space animals, and space aliens are included within the category. Songs about Star Trek, Harry Potter, and Star Wars are a natural fit.

For the past 8 1/2 years, since I was forced to listen to Dr. Demento on the Internet (no thanks to the idiot XHRM station programmer Luis Kaloyan), I have not only been fervently downloading mp3s of Dr. Demento shows since then and before 1997, but also been downloading thousands of other filk and comedy songs Dr. Demento never plays, but gets played on many Internet radio stations featuring filk music.

Many displaced oldies fans in San Diego are also seeking Internet radio alternatives to the cookie-cutter CHR and AC stations in town.

I created dfsxradio.com in 2000 to feature filk music in part. It's the most exciting, popular, and fun musical category in the El Zona de los Misterio region where I live. Some filk music of the hip hop musical genre comes from Sudden Death and are also featured within the category, but most of the genres comprising the filk category happen to be folk (misnamed as it's really acoustic guitar music but the name stuck) and country. Other musical genres include polka, celtic, and to a smaller degree, kazoo.

Excerpt: "Accompanied by acoustic guitars, clarinets and the quacking of kazoos, the group sounds much like a traditional folk ensemble, but the lyrics and rituals set the music far apart. With its heavy sci-fi themes, this isn't folk -- it's "filk, a distinctive genre that took root on folk's fringes about two decades ago and is now gaining broader attention thanks to internet radio and web downloads."

Excerpt: "We write about all the great fantasy topics ... dragons, unicorns, vampires, castles, wizards, witches, what have you," says Mary Creasey. "All the great contemporary hard science topics, too -- computers, space, time travel, nanotechnology, you know -- this 'n' that. And then, hybrids. Vampire computers. Vampire kittens. The computer necromancer who raises your PC from the dead."

Filk songs can be parodies of popular songs set to filk lyrics such as the recent Steve Goodie hit "This Dude Ron Ron Ron", about a character from Harry Potter, set to the melody of Shaun Cassidy's 1977 hit "Da Do Ron Ron Ron." Filk songs can also be original melodies though if you don't listen to CHR music, you may not recognize the melody if it's a parody of a CHR hit, but it really doesn't matter anyway if the lyrics of the filk or parody are good."

Filk songs can have themes of movies and television series as an inspiration. Books are fair game. So are Broadway plays. Some can even be repeating samples of a ringtone such as the Crazy Frog's "Axel F" hit summer song of 2005.

Some filk songs can be set with clucking chickens, burping humans, methane-releasing mammals, there's really no end in sight.

One limit to such music: contemporary love songs...unless it's about, for example, necrophelia such as Jimmy Cross's "I Want My Baby Back."

Excerpt: "Although the music receives little broadcast exposure, it has inspired a vibrant online and peer-to-peer scene. The Filk.com website points to mailing lists and local events, and offers the world's only all-filk internet radio station. Here, you might find the Kinks' "Lola" redone as "Yoda" [by Weird Al Yankovic], or "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" as "Lair of Great Cthulhu.""