Back @ KU! (For The Last Time With Feeling)

Finally, the Pop has come back! … to Kutztown! Jim, too. The Natural arrived about a week and maybe more before classes started. I arrived Sunday evening. Classes started yesterday. We are taking KU’s first ever Pop Music Journalism course on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, so I’m sure that’ll be an exciting platform to own our peers on subjects involving pop music and … journalism. Our professor is actually pretty sweet. He was a fellow judge alongside myself and this great gal named Kristina for our Battle of the Bands last April. His name is Tony Bleach and I have him in the class prior to Pop Music Journalism (Literature & Film). So it’s safe to say I’ll be learning a lot from him this semester. My FINAL semester. Strange. Very strange. I’m getting so old.

Other notes since I’ve returned from the heartland (Whippany, NJ): Alcohol. My housemates and our close-knit college cronies did a swell job of consuming mass quantities of booze Sunday night into Tuesday morning. We celebrated some birthdays, epic returns, and the burglary of a 12-ft sign that we took turns carrying a mile back to our apartment. Free warehouse FTW!

Music-wise, my listening has been dominated by a slue of new releases from some of my favorite artists. Firstly, Vampire Weekend’s Contra is an album I listen to pretty much everyday, from start to finish. Granted January is only half over and the year is just starting, I must say that Contra is my favorite album of the year so far. Look to see both Jim and myself playing a couple tracks off that record when the show returns. I’m also really digging the new Eels record. End Times is the first Eels album I’m really getting into and it features some great storytelling/songwriting. Other albums are Motion City Soundtrack’s My Dinosaur Life, Spoon’s Transference, and The Thermals’ Now We Can See. The latter of those three isn’t so fresh, but I’m excited to announce that Jim, myself, and a handful of others are hopefully purchasing tickets to see them play at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia, sometime mid-April. That place is a great venue for live rock bands. We are veterans.

Finally, 88.3 KUR is pretty much in full-swing from the get-go. We had a wonderful turn-out at our first general member’s meeting yesterday morning and we even have one new member. I’ve been talking to my manager about starting student shows as early as next week. That would be killer. I’ve been itching to get back on the radio after my extraordinary learning experience over winter break at 101.9 RXP with DJ Rich Russo on his show Anything, Anything. Along with starting earlier than usual, KUR is going to feature some new talk shows, new DJs, and a new show genre: country. It’s going to be hosted by one of our shadowers from last semester, Natalie. Now, I’m not a huge country fan by any means, but I do love to see the diversity. I’m very much looking forward to this semester.

As my housemate Brandon continues to inform me: “This is it. The farewell tour.” We’re starting out the semester strong on all levels and won’t calm it down until it’s all over in May. So much more information on KUR, NMTM, and the usual alternative and indie rock music news to come on this blog!

Motion City Soundtrack - "History Lesson"