There are times when I am so lucky that Self Help Radio doesn't have superfans (or even average fans) who might nitpick things I say, might catch me in the off chance I re-do a theme, might grumble when I play a song that's really more fitting for a different theme. In addition to that being weird - someone as interested in the show as I am - I mean, it seems freakin' unthinkable - such a situation would also make me more likely to be embarrassed about things that I am not usually embarrassed about, because no one really notices.
For example: Self Help Radio has covered the topic of faces before.
What?!?!
It's true. It was on July 6, 2005, but it wasn't a show I was involved with. It was subbed by a deejay named Danny Shiman, who was filling in for me becayse I had traveled that week to San Francisco with my girlfriend for to see an Indiepop Festival (I believe this was the one that had both the Lucksmiths & My Favorite!) & Danny gladly decided he'd keep the Self Help Radio format, if I gave him a theme to explore. I gave him the theme "the human face."
The reason I chose this is because I knew it would be fairly easy to cover: he could play songs about eyes, nose, mouth, lips, cheeks, etc. & so he did. You can find his playlist on this page but you'll have to scroll down to July. It's instructive if you want to do so, not only to see that he played a great mix of songs in the tradition of the show, but also because I won't be playing any of these songs.
It was common in those days - or it would've been if it had happened more than a few times - for me to give people themes that I myself would've found too easy to cover - no disrespect to Danny. So too later when my friend Justin subbed the show, I told him to do a show about tools, where I might have done a show exclusively about, say, hammers. I remember an April 15 sub when I asked my guest host, Art, to cover death & taxes. Death is one of those subjects you could actually do an entire, lifelong radio show about. It seems a cheat to do that just once. For me, not for someone who isn't always doing theme-based shows.
Anyway. Faces has been a Self Help Radio theme before. I haven't covered it, & it wasn't covered in the same dumb, obsessive way that I would've done it, although, again. Danny did a fine job. I was pleased when I saw the playlist. & yeah, I thought he did it far better than I would've.
& we'll see how true that is tomorrow, won't we?
No comments:
Post a Comment