Monday, October 11, 2010

How to make yourself more awesome in just four hours a week

Ok, the title is pretty tongue in cheek. However, my new job allows for the 4 9s + 4 schedule, which I happily took up. This gives me Friday afternoons off, so I have decided to spend them doing awesome things - brewing beer, cooking adventurous food, random adventures. It will be fun. I'm going to try to challenge myself to try new stuff with this little pocket of time each week that I now find myself with. Taking suggestions.

The next portion of this post is dedicated to the magical radio station that is The Current. It's a music station run by MPR (and thus NPR). It's basically the perfect radio station, because:
-it plays the music I would probably seek out and listen to anyway (of Montreal, Yeasayer, MGMT, Arcade Fire, Cloud Cult, Janelle Monae, Jenny and Johnny, Brother Ali, etc) and exposes me to new stuff along the same lines
-it plays a LOT of local music. I can partly thank the vibrant Minneapolis music scene for this, but I am grateful for the exposure to local acts. I have already discovered a lot of new (to me) music that I need to be checking out.
-they tell you the song and artist name for every song they play. No really, every song they play. It's very helpful and much appreciated.
-they give away tickets to great shows nearly every hour (this week: the Walkmen, LCD Soundsystem, Sufjan Stevens), although I've yet to get anything but a busy signal
-they are an NPR station, so the advertising is only as obtrusive as it is for any other given NPR station. Which is to say "not very". no loud irritating car dealership or diamond ads. Just "89.3 The Current is supported by _______, serving you ______ since ______". and then on to more music.

Good news, people who like awesome music but don't live here! You can stream the station online from their website!

Hooray!

2 comments:

Bridey said...

I checked out Janelle Monae -- she's dynamite! Love her style.

And we have the 4 9's schedule,but get every other Friday off. It's pretty cool -- I will definitely miss those Flex Fridays!

Dan said...

and she's from Kansas City!