The local A/C stations in Philly have gone all ho-ho-ho on us. So, fellow radio hobbyists, will you go all christmas? Is it worth it to be yet another christmas station when we can air whatever we really want?
Is it the job of a radio hobbyist to defy the commercial norms and shy away from the radio trends to be our own trailblazer?
Fellow Part15 Man furished WLSL-LP with a link to his stream. We ran Christmas music for 24 hours starting Christmas Eve and ending Christmas evening. Hopefully he will delight us again. BTW, Christmas Eve 2017 will be the 111th aniversary of the FIRST music and talk broadcast.
Last year I ran a little something called Alternative Christmas. Hopefully it proved that you don't have to blindly follow the mainstream to play Christmas music.
I switch to all Christmas music Thanksgiving evening at 6 PM. I play NO rock and roll Christmas music, NO "contemporary" hit singer Christmas music. I play all the classics and have about 3,000 tunes in the Christmas library.
In addition, I keep Christmas music on until January 7th, as we have a lot of Eastern Orthodox followers (usually called Serbian Christmas around here). Who due to some change in calendars years ago don't have christmas until the 7th. at 6 PM Serbian Christmas Eve (January 6th) I switch to all Serbian Christmas music programming, with a sprinkling of Serbian Christmas church programs as well.
Darn near the entire town (all the stores) have my station on during Christmas. I had people from hundreds of miles away email and ask if they could some way hear some of my Serbian Christmas music programming -- I recorded several hours and uploaded mp3's they could download.
I feel I "trailblaze" Christmas music in my own way. And best of all I really enjoy having Christmas music that I enjoy available throughout the immediate area with the flip of a switch.
TIB
I will get a few songs together that are Christmas related in a separate folder and add them to the mix and the folder can then be deleted.
I will stick to christmas songs in the rock and roll format like "little Saint Nick" by the Beach Boys or "Run Run Rudolf" by Chuck Berry etc..etc..etc....there's lots. They will just play at random in the mix. Elvis did a lot of Cristmas stuff, so did Darleen Love.
Really though, songs about snow don't thrill me much as who wants to see it or deal with it and one of my slogans is "sounding like summer all the time"
Will do this around the first week in December and after the 26th will be it.
Mark
The holidays give all Part 15ers and radio hobbyists a time to present their favorites as we see by all the positive postings in this thread.
KDX tends to go with Atrain Radio... most other stations go all out with the christmas tunes, so we just stick to regularly scheduled talk programs so maybe somebody who got a new radio as a gift can hear what radio sounds like apart from the festive music.
I have a few programs that ridicule christmas which I'll post for anyone who is looking for novelty.
Our ALPB members have the best sense of huumor.
One of them shared this holiday song:
Artisan: That was you I was refering to.
Artisan Radio has become a 1-man radio network. From his Main Studio he supplies programming to WBCQ, WCFI, WLSL and KDX.
Q. What has he ever supplied to KDX?
A. Uh, well... um... I'll look it up and call back.
I will be doing the Alternative Christmas again this year.
On a side note, I'm just putting the finishing touches on Teenage Dreams V2 (music of the late 1950s & early 1960s that was targeted towards teens) and hope to do a show a week. There are plenty of reasons NOT to do these shows due to time constraints, but I've really missed the obscure knowledge that I gain putting them together.
For example, I ran across the first recording Linda Scott did, under her real name of Linda Sampson (In Between Teen). Never mind an early recording of Paul Simon under the name Jerry Landis (The Lone Teen Ranger). And a hilarious novelty song by the Dellwoods (She's a Serious Teenager in Love), who released two albums in conjunction with Mad Magazine, containing such songs as Please Betty Jean Shave Your Legs, When the Braces on our Teeth Lock and my favorite, Don't Put Onions on Your Hamburger (a poignant enjoinder from a boy who cries every time he kisses his girlfriend due to an excess of condiments).
I knew her. Oh, I'm referring to the song: "Please Betty Jean Shave Your Legs."
They were like a Clydesdale Horse's legs which have hair growing right down around the feet. She became very bitter that men quickly turned away when they realized, but she never did shave them.
Holiday memories you can't forget.
I just realized that I could provide a series of Youtube links and voila, there would be my Teenage Dreams show. Without the commentary (and one could argue that that would make it even better!).
However, it wouldn't be as much fun.
Here is a link to the Dellwoods song featured in my Teenage Dreams show.
And for Carl (it's Please Betty Jane, not Jean, my bad).
And now we return to our original thread.
No. I will not be doing holiday music.