Attention! I need all of your help!

 

Sometime within the next week, I am going to be starting my own radio show at the Lion 90.7!

 

 

You probably all unknowingly pass by the station as you drool at Chick-Fil-A and Jamba Juice, and think “hey I know music” and that’s the most time you think about radio in a given month. But indulge your FM wavelength side of your brain for just a bit more, as we explore what the possibilities of the dying medium are for my weekly schedule.

 

 

My high school had a radio station that almost always began it’s show with Good Morning Baltimore from Downingtown PA, and featured many ridiculous conversations between me and some of my best high school friends. This inspired me to seek out the radio station here at Penn State, and hopefully extend my life of radio music and insanity.

 

The reason I asked for help is because I need help deciding on a show NAME. I plan on playing a variety of music, all of which I lovingly listen to: rock, metal, jazz, bluegrass and some others. I was thinking of a name that has the same effect (but is not this name because it’s horrid) as “Scrapple”. Just like this dish that I am personally disgusted by, my show would be a mix of different aspects of the music world. We’d listen to some pig feet, some random animal’s intestines, and maybe even a foot!

 

 

Scrapping the scrapple jokes (haha), I really do need a name that has an eclectic meaning to it. Maybe trail mix, mixed bag, hodge podge, something along those lines. Get your creative juices flowing people!

 

Anyway, during my radio training they were discussing how some shows were taken off of the air for spreading “false statistics”. I understand that the FCC has a goal to protect the good of public airwaves, but at the same time does this not violate people’s freedom of free speech? I have always thought about this while I was in high school or anywhere else where someone would be punished for speaking their mind freely. I understand the public good that comes from limiting kids from cursing in school or from “false information” from being spread on open broadcasts, I never truly understood how the government could circumvent people’s right to the freedom of speech.

 

 

This is why I have so much for respect for Frank Zappa, the Tom Robinson Band, and other artists who used their artistic platforms to express what they believed was wrong in the world. The government should not have the authority nor the power to tell the people what they can and cannot say, and in most situations it does not. Our society has built unwritten rules for this issue: we can say whatever we wish, but there are some words that over time have been phased out as socially acceptable and for good reason.

 

(Killing in the Name of by Rage Against the Machine is a great song by a band well-known for protesting)

 

Back to my radio show, I really hope to have people on and have ridiculous conversations. I hope to find news articles that blow people’s minds, like the man who tried to turn himself into a parrot or anything involving Florida Man

 

(Bask in the glory of parrot man)

 

I love the feeling of doing something that destroys any persons’ perception of expectations, which is why I love pulling out Zappa’s Weasels Ripped My Flesh whenever someone suggests putting on a new hip beat (the joke is that it’s chaos and not at all a popular song).

 

So, at the end of the day, I hope my radio show has a cool and unique name, blows people’s minds during the talk show-esque parts, and expose people to a song or two they have never heard before.

 

Let me know what you think and stay amazing!

 

– JF