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Bloody Good Radio - A Valentine for Dicky Barrett
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5002 Reads
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 I don't know what Arbitron says, but Indie 103.1 is scooping out a huge, comfy cave for itself in my heart with a sharpened, rusty spoon.
Not that there was much competition in L.A. pop radio. It's dominated by ossified DJ teams who've been on-air for decades, and punctuated only occasionally by the suave intelligence of Jason Bentley, Liza Richardson and the other KCRW DJs. But Indie's one-year-old, Osterized, fling-all-that-sh*t-at-the-wall and who-cares-what-sticks approach to programming is unquestionably the smartest, coolest, most ear-grabbingly engaging aural mix on Los Angeles airwaves.
I listen to Sex Pistols' veterano Steve Jones's lunchtime smorgasbord whenever I can. The Crystal Method and Henry Rollins turn in brilliant sets. About the only thing that ever drags me away is my half-hourly dose of NPR Morning Edition.
Well, as of last week, this tears it ...
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After 5 minutes of news on the hour and the half, my drive time now belongs to the unstoppable, bloody, bangin', heart-massaging Mighty Morning Show.
DJ Dicky Barrett's skapunkpopsoul mix grabs you by the leather lapels and gives you a good, hard shake every morning, like a solid drinking' buddy who's found you passed out in a gutter and wants to drag you back into the house for some solid food and good banter before you puke and choke to death in your sleep.
I've heard more cool nuggets of sound in the past few mornings of the show - punk, pop, 60s soul, obscure covers, long-gone chestnuts (the Bus Boys, for chrissakes!) - than in 15 years of listening to KROQ.
The second day of the week on MMS is Tattoosday, when Barrett brings in a well-respected tattoo artist and has him ink someone live on the air. At first, you think, "God, what the hell is wrong with their engineer, doesn't he hear that hideous line buzz?" And then you realize that someone is running a tattoo gun.
This week, they had an incredibly funny musician under the needle (sorry, I missed the name), screaming maniacally over the buzzing noise about how his girlfriend left him for some loser and his manager was screwing him over - and then Barrett launched into yet another set of irrepressibly wonderful stuff.
Barrett - voice of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones - runs the show like a benevolent mosh-pit bouncer, helping you into your morning stage-dive with a goodnatured Bahston rasp of a voice. He's so laid-back he won't play his own band's music on the show.
He takes call-in raves from listeners with grace and honest-to-God humility. He's got unquestionably good taste in his genres. And he's incredibly smart about music - and about radio - without acting like it.
Give the show a listen. It's definitely the sh*t.
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 08:50 AM
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