Post by LS on Mar 24, 2005 23:30:30 GMT -5
Satellite Radio Nabs Outlaw Country Acts
By Paul Heine
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Jeremy Tepper was spinning tunes from the second-floor DJ station at New York's Irving Plaza one night in March 2004, between live performances by BR549 and the Mavericks. As was his custom, he closed with C.W. McCall's "Convoy."
Before the song finished, "Little Steven" Van Zandt leaped from his seat in the VIP lounge, walked over to Tepper, put his arm around him and muttered, "You're my guy."
Tepper had no idea what Van Zandt was talking about.
The next day, Tepper was uptown, meeting with Steve Blatter, VP of music programing at Sirius Satellite Radio. Blatter proceeded to outline Van Zandt's concept for a new Sirius channel that would replace the Border, where Tepper, a music journalist and rabid record collector, worked as a DJ.
Sirius staffers weren't having much luck locating all the songs on Van Zandt's impossibly long list. "Yeah, I've got those at home," Tepper recalls saying, boasting of his 50,000-title collection.
Van Zandt joined Sirius as a creative adviser in January 2004, but the seeds for what would become Outlaw Country first hatched in his bandana-covered head a decade earlier.
SQUEEZED OUT
"There were too many cool things falling between the cracks," he says of where commercial country radio was. "All the things that got squeezed out happened to be all the best stuff. I thought … 'How can we have a country format and not include Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and George Jones?"'
More about an attitude than a genre, Outlaw Country, which bowed in April 2004, defies the boundaries of traditional radio formats — and, sometimes, good taste. Because of its ambitious musical palette and because it breaks so many programing rules, it's a format that would drive most conventional programers to drink.
Purposefully wide in style and era, it runs the gamut from a novelty song like Kinky Friedman's "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore" to '50s Everly Brothers; it can segue from Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Cooler-n-Hell" into Dusty Springfield's slow-burning "Son of a Preacher Man."
Bucking the trend of highly researched, narrowly defined formats, the channel connects the dots among Texas swing, rockabilly, country that twangs, country rock, alternative country and three generations of Hank Williamses. Built on the premise that "cool is timeless," it covers a wide swath of rebellious American music.
"We sprinkle in some rockabilly and some truck-driving songs, and we have an awful lot of fun," says Tepper, who acts as the channel's format manager/morning man.
'COUNTRY WITH TEETH'
Sirius director of country programing Scott Lindy refers to Outlaw Country as "music for the unoffendable" and "country with teeth. It's a little rawer, a little more guitar-driven," he says. "Because of their content or edgy nature, these are the songs that don't get played on traditional country radio."
Nashville-based Lindy, who joined Sirius in 2004, adds, "The common element is the artists all have a deep love for country music, making it their way, not really concerned about selling albums or pleasing anyone but the barroom in front of them."
While the library stretches all the way back to the '30s, Outlaw Country also champions new talent, including Elizabeth McQueen & the Firebrands, the Skeeters and Rex Hobart & the Misery Boys.
"We wanted to make a home for a style of country that's probably not going to get any love outside of a barroom," Tepper says. "This is that jukebox in a honky-tonk bar where all the good country songs that aren't played by commercial FM went."
FALSE THEORIES
"I don't think we're giving the audience enough credit," adds Van Zandt, who has had direct contact with thousands of music fans after three decades with Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. "We impose these ideas on the audience, like young people aren't going to like old people, and old folks don't like new music and all these false theories that we have now disproved."
The outlaw name carries to the DJs too. Each episode of Mojo Radio concludes with the sign-off, "See ya later, fornicators!" You can credit (or blame) Tepper for suggesting the recruitment of afternoon DJ Mojo Nixon from mornings at classic rock KGB San Diego. Nixon, also renowned as an in-your-face satirical new wave rock performer, is beyond irreverent.
At the channel's core is a collection of radio orphans — artists that have been peripheral to other formats but never really had one to call their own.
Besides seminal '70s country rock bands, the channel also embraces the alternative country that began with the arrival of Uncle Tupelo in the '80s, along with pretty much everything else that fits the vibe, including a new breed of genre-expanding artists that ascended the country charts in the late '80s, bringing an influx of adults with them.
(Reuters/Billboard)
By Paul Heine
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Jeremy Tepper was spinning tunes from the second-floor DJ station at New York's Irving Plaza one night in March 2004, between live performances by BR549 and the Mavericks. As was his custom, he closed with C.W. McCall's "Convoy."
Before the song finished, "Little Steven" Van Zandt leaped from his seat in the VIP lounge, walked over to Tepper, put his arm around him and muttered, "You're my guy."
Tepper had no idea what Van Zandt was talking about.
The next day, Tepper was uptown, meeting with Steve Blatter, VP of music programing at Sirius Satellite Radio. Blatter proceeded to outline Van Zandt's concept for a new Sirius channel that would replace the Border, where Tepper, a music journalist and rabid record collector, worked as a DJ.
Sirius staffers weren't having much luck locating all the songs on Van Zandt's impossibly long list. "Yeah, I've got those at home," Tepper recalls saying, boasting of his 50,000-title collection.
Van Zandt joined Sirius as a creative adviser in January 2004, but the seeds for what would become Outlaw Country first hatched in his bandana-covered head a decade earlier.
SQUEEZED OUT
"There were too many cool things falling between the cracks," he says of where commercial country radio was. "All the things that got squeezed out happened to be all the best stuff. I thought … 'How can we have a country format and not include Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and George Jones?"'
More about an attitude than a genre, Outlaw Country, which bowed in April 2004, defies the boundaries of traditional radio formats — and, sometimes, good taste. Because of its ambitious musical palette and because it breaks so many programing rules, it's a format that would drive most conventional programers to drink.
Purposefully wide in style and era, it runs the gamut from a novelty song like Kinky Friedman's "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore" to '50s Everly Brothers; it can segue from Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Cooler-n-Hell" into Dusty Springfield's slow-burning "Son of a Preacher Man."
Bucking the trend of highly researched, narrowly defined formats, the channel connects the dots among Texas swing, rockabilly, country that twangs, country rock, alternative country and three generations of Hank Williamses. Built on the premise that "cool is timeless," it covers a wide swath of rebellious American music.
"We sprinkle in some rockabilly and some truck-driving songs, and we have an awful lot of fun," says Tepper, who acts as the channel's format manager/morning man.
'COUNTRY WITH TEETH'
Sirius director of country programing Scott Lindy refers to Outlaw Country as "music for the unoffendable" and "country with teeth. It's a little rawer, a little more guitar-driven," he says. "Because of their content or edgy nature, these are the songs that don't get played on traditional country radio."
Nashville-based Lindy, who joined Sirius in 2004, adds, "The common element is the artists all have a deep love for country music, making it their way, not really concerned about selling albums or pleasing anyone but the barroom in front of them."
While the library stretches all the way back to the '30s, Outlaw Country also champions new talent, including Elizabeth McQueen & the Firebrands, the Skeeters and Rex Hobart & the Misery Boys.
"We wanted to make a home for a style of country that's probably not going to get any love outside of a barroom," Tepper says. "This is that jukebox in a honky-tonk bar where all the good country songs that aren't played by commercial FM went."
FALSE THEORIES
"I don't think we're giving the audience enough credit," adds Van Zandt, who has had direct contact with thousands of music fans after three decades with Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. "We impose these ideas on the audience, like young people aren't going to like old people, and old folks don't like new music and all these false theories that we have now disproved."
The outlaw name carries to the DJs too. Each episode of Mojo Radio concludes with the sign-off, "See ya later, fornicators!" You can credit (or blame) Tepper for suggesting the recruitment of afternoon DJ Mojo Nixon from mornings at classic rock KGB San Diego. Nixon, also renowned as an in-your-face satirical new wave rock performer, is beyond irreverent.
At the channel's core is a collection of radio orphans — artists that have been peripheral to other formats but never really had one to call their own.
Besides seminal '70s country rock bands, the channel also embraces the alternative country that began with the arrival of Uncle Tupelo in the '80s, along with pretty much everything else that fits the vibe, including a new breed of genre-expanding artists that ascended the country charts in the late '80s, bringing an influx of adults with them.
(Reuters/Billboard)
) But during one half hour, for example- I heard The Derailers, Rose Maddox, Reckless Kelly, Jason & The Scorchers, Gary Stewart, Kid Rock, Hank Sr., Ray Wylie Hubbard, Shooter Jennings and Carlene Carter- all played one after the other on the same station...and the problem is- once you turn it on, it's very hard to turn if off 
Sometimes I'll just throw a tape in the player and record a couple hours to re-play in the car and pretend I'm listening to what traditional radio used to be like (although individual stations were never quite that diverse ;D ). Still and all though- good as it is to hear, I just can't make peace with my conscience to buy the equipment and then pay a monthly subscription fee for it...feels too much like I'd be aiding & abetting the act of music being held hostage for $$$$$...by what will eventually only turn into more major corporations with 'bottom lines' 
...(especially when I think back to the 'promise' of cable TV back in the 80s. 
) 
