We’ve got cricket noises, we’ve got banjos, we’ve got Adrianne Lenker’s voice coming through the speakers a lot. Semester 1 of my tenure as GM is coming to an end… and I am thinking a lot about the things that have been constant and the things that have changed. How I love listening to my friends’ shows, especially when they do not think anyone is listening. Not in a creepy way (maybe) but in a: I can text you way and you may not see the text in the hour that you are on air but then you will know that I listened. Some friends chat at 9 on Mondays, another wakes me up at 8 on Tuesdays and then on at 10, another friend comes on talking about Frindle and Bindles and the Bintle Brief. I am feeling like I don’t want so much to write my thesis; I am feeling like the radio is running smoothly. This weekend is Coverchella and that is exciting and no one is doing a Big Thief cover which is surprising but probably good for my own nostalgia issues. Pre-emptive nostalgia — I listened from abroad to the WCFM Throwback Weekend last March and I put together a playlist which I called preemptive nostalgia, for the songs that I would feel nostalgic about once I’ve graduated. Whatever. Various threads, various failures, various constants — like Adrianne Lenker on the radio and board meetings in the business office during which we inevitably turn off the show on air, coming through the speaker, because the host starts playing something untenable as background music. Ummm… and I’m listening a lot to Mary Lattimore right now because I’m supposed to be writing that thesis and she’s quite pleasant to have in my headphones and makes me realize things like, I never understood plucking or the tide. Went to see the aforementioned Adrianne in Northampton last Monday and in the car on the way back we talk about our introduction to Big Thief and I say yeah, I went to this concert freshman year, and I’d listened to Paul a while back because it was on my Apple Music-generated study playlist, but then we went to this concert randomly through a WSO posting and suddenly Williams was about Big Thief and in particular about waiting for Dragon New Warm Mountain to come out, because my new friend had loved so much the live version of Promise is a Pendulum. And when eventually it did come out my radio co-host invited me to her room at midnight and I sat on her floor and we listened to the whole album all the way through and I was like wow so many of these songs sound the same but when in Northampton Adrianne played Simulation Swarm and it was so nicely loud and I knew all the words. Some things change and some things are different and this morning it is sunny and that’s nice. Tune in!
– Sasha Tucker, General Manager
