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WXNA Crate Digger’s Week – March 19, 2025

WXNA FM

In honor of the first WXNA Record Fair on Sunday, March 23 at Eastside Bowl, March 17-23, 2025 is Crate Digger’s Week on WXNA! Watch this space for stories from our DJs about some of their favorite record finds!

 

The Great Society With Grace Slick – Conspicuous Only In Its Absence
Michael Roark – Hazy Ways & The Friday Afternoon Club

I can endlessly tell stories (as I’m sure everyone can) about how this song or that album or which artist hit me, hurt me, or healed me. I do it every week in some capacity on both of my shows (Hazy Ways and The Friday Afternoon Club) whether consciously or not.

I was the youngest of five, living in a small town in Southern Colorado that housed the state penitentiary. We were Irish quintuplets. You do the math. I was introduced to music, as most people are who have both parents and older siblings in their life,  and to an array of artists and albums.

It was a classic early-70s split level home. I shared one room with my brother closest in age, one year my senior. The two eldest boys (also a year a part) shared a room next door. My sister — in the middle, age-wise — had her own room squeezed in nearby. My parents were downstairs and from their turntable in the family room I was turned on to Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, Carole King’s Tapestry, and The Beatles’ Abbey Road, among others. I recall my sister playing The Best of Bread and the soundtrack to Grease on her stereo. It seems my brother and I were always listening to ABBA in our room, the closest I ever came to musical theater. But the music from my older brothers’ bedroom had a different patina, which eventually led me down roads I will forever travel. Not to say the music from my parents stereo or Bread or ABBA or the soundtrack to Grease won’t always color the edges of my musical journey.

Two albums stand out from my elder brothers’ room. First, was Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s You’re Gonna Get It. My brother played it one day, and when he left, I snuck into his room, took it, and listened to it in mine for the rest of the afternoon, flipping each side over several times. When he came home and heard me playing it, he immediately took it back with a light scold, as he was probably secretly pleased I glommed on to his new favorite band. A year or so later my other brother put on a record and I recall the first song rattled my little mind. I never imagined it possible that I would hear my mother’s favorite expletive sung out loud in a song. “Precious” was the song from The Pretenders debut album.

As I got older, years passed and music filtered in, as music always does. At some point, I became smitten with Jefferson Starship, which led to Jefferson Airplane. I loved Grace Slick. Her album Software was a favorite of mine my senior year in high school. One day in spring of 1985, coming back from a Speech and Debate meet in Denver, our school bus stopped in Colorado Springs for lunch. It so happened that one of southern Colorado’s best record stores, Independent Records (which is still there today 40 years later), was across the street. I hit the bins and looked through the stacks. In the Jefferson Airplane section I found a curiosity, The Great Society with Grace Slick – Conspicuous Only In Its Absence. I wondered what this was. Curiously, “White Rabbit” was on it. “Somebody To Love,” too. I was unsure if it was real. The cover had this nearly absent, faded overlay of Grace Slick, while prominently displaying four young men with shaggy hair. Was this some kind of ruse? I presented it to my favorite friend, one who turned me on to Talking Heads, and asked if I should get it. He said that I definitely should get it, probably knowing that this gem, which was said to be pre-Jefferson Airplane, might knock me out of my flighty gravitational pull towards mid-‘80s synthesized Grace Slick. (For the record, the cheese of Software still holds a kind of sticky-fondue love in my heart.)

So, digging through crates, bins, or stacks can lead to life-changing roads to travel down. Conspicuous Only In Its Absence opened up my imagination to a time and place gone by. Suddenly I was hanging out at The Matrix in San Francisco circa 1965. Its raw sound was startling to me on first listen. Was it good? I wasn’t sure. But I knew after subsequent turns it was realigning synapses in my brain. Not unlike digging through these memories has reminded me of the inroads of my mind at a time when everything was new. But music is never old. It is always new, forever reverberating, always and anon, like a tsunami in the atavistic ocean of being. Oh, boy. I think it’s time to end there. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!

Watch this space for more Crate Digger’s stories all week long!

WXNA Crate Digger’s Week – March 18, 2025

WXNA FM

In honor of the first WXNA Record Fair on Sunday, March 23 at Eastside Bowl, March 17-23, 2025 is Crate Digger’s Week on WXNA! Today we have a double-sided serving of Crate Digger’s stories, and you don’t even have to get up to turn the record over!

 

Fleetwood Mac – Live at the Boston Tea Party
Jaimie Hart – Web of Sound

My dad, the infamous Rick Hart, was in the audience for these legendary shows during the weekend of his 22nd birthday — February 5-7, 1970. I love listening to these records, not just for the music but because I can imagine him having the time of his life. I like to think that some of the applause captured in the recordings includes his own cheers and claps.

I’m also a big Peter Green fan, thanks in part to my dad’s impeccable taste in music, which he passed down to me. It’s wild to hear live versions of some favorite songs bursting with even more energy than their studio counterparts. The band sounds completely unhinged at times — especially during a 24-minute version of “Rattlesnake Shake.” Other highlights include the punch of “Oh Well,” a ridiculously punk take on “Tutti Frutti,” and the mesmerizing call-and-response between Peter Green and Danny Kirwan on “Like It This Way.” No one held back that weekend, and it’s easy to lose yourself in these recordings… almost as if you’re right there with Rick.

I also love how the three releases form a cohesive design. When they came out, I’d buy one, listen to it, and then get excited to pick up the next — stretching out the joy a little longer. If you want to feel like you’ve traveled back in time (or just need a good way to disassociate), I highly recommend giving these a listen. If you haven’t yet experienced the raw power of OG Fleetwood Mac, you’re welcome.

Happy listening—and don’t forget to wish Rick a happy birthday!

 

Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed
Gwil Owen – Salty Candy

When I was nine years old I was obsessed with the Rolling Stones. I had one album; the greatest hits record with the octagonal cover. I’d asked for it for my birthday and I played that thing over and over and over.

One day my dad offered me a penny for every dandelion I dug out of the yard. He went off to work and I worked all day too: I dug up 500 dandelions. That evening we sat in the grass and counted them, then he handed me a five-dollar bill.

So, next morning I walked downtown to a little store called Huzza Huzza. It was the local head shop. It was dark and mysterious in there, and the air was full of incense. They sold paraphernalia, blacklight posters… and records. The records were in the back room; I pushed through a bead curtain, found the Rolling Stones section and started flipping through the albums. But they all seemed very dated: the covers were black and white and the band had short-ish hair and some of the guys were even wearing suits.

The girl behind the counter said “Are you looking for the new Stones album?”

I didn’t even know they had a new album, but yeah, I guess that was what I was looking for. She pulled out a copy and handed it to me: Let it Bleed. It definitely did NOT look dated; the cover was just… weird, like nothing I had ever seen before. I forked over the five dollars and walked out of there with my new prize: the first album I had ever bought.

And it did not disappoint; I still have it, and it’s still one of the most mind-blowing things I’ve ever heard in my life.

Watch this space for more Crate Digger’s stories all week long!

WXNA Crate Digger’s Week – March 17, 2025

WXNA FM

In honor of the first WXNA Record Fair on Sunday, March 23 at Eastside Bowl, March 17-23, 2025 is Crate Digger’s Week on WXNA! Watch this space for stories from our DJs about some of their favorite record finds!

 

Ramones – It’s Alive
Randy Fox – Randy’s Record Shop

Some record collectors are born, others are made, and then there are those of us that get struck with divine revelation. Although I’ve always loved music, all through my childhood and teenage years I was never a fanatic about it. Sure, I would hear something I liked on the radio and buy the record occasionally, but for the first 18 years of my life my obsession-gene was satisfied with being a comic book collector, a science fiction and horror fan, comedy nut, and cinephile.

The music thing began to appeal to me more when I was 15 and bought my first Beatles record — The Beatles/1967-1970 aka “The Blue Album” — in 1978. I was soon on the hunt for every Beatles record, but my obsessiveness only applied to that one band. The rest of my record collection was movie soundtrack albums and comedy records. (I could recite, from memory, the entire contents of The Album Of The Soundtrack Of The Trailer Of The Film Of Monty Python And The Holy Grail (Executive Version) just to give you an idea of how big a nerd I was!)

I blame part of my lack of musical interest on the fact that I lived in the sticks. No, scratch that, Dunmor, Kentucky was on the other side of the sticks. I was at least 50 miles from any record store, even a crappy mall chain store. I also had no “music mentor”— an older sibling, cousin, friend, etc. — who could hip me to the good stuff. All I knew about music, other than John-Paul-George-Ringo, was what I heard on the couple of radio stations I listened to, most of which didn’t excite me much. Even when I heard something that I kinda liked, I was often disappointed by the vinyl follow-through. I remember hearing some song by Foreigner that seemed catchy, so I actually ponied up the cash for the LP, which I found to be pretty damn bland. It ended up behind my 45 of the Welcome Back, Kotter theme song in order of preference.

In October 1979, movie critics (and my biggest pop culture “rock stars” of the time) Siskel & Ebert aired a special “Midnight Movies” episode of their movie review show, Sneak Previews. They reviewed and discussed The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which I had the soundtrack album!), Pink Flamingos, Dawn of the Dead, and most significantly, a little film called Rock’n’Roll High School starring The Ramones.

Now here was a band that I could dig! From just a few film clips, I was hooked. I knew nothing about punk, new wave, or whatever ya call it music, but these Ramones guys looked awesome! However, finding a Ramones record in Muhlenberg County was pretty much impossible. Who knows why, but none ever turned up at Uncle Lee’s Discount Center in Powderly, Kentucky in between the ample supply of Skynyrd and 38 Special LPs.

Flash forward to late August 1981, and my first semester at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The second week of school, the campus bookstore announced a “RECORD SALE!” which turned out to be just a table full of cut-out LPs, budget line releases, and cheap imports. But that’s where I found a Portuguese import of The Ramones’ 2-LP live album, It’s Alive, for the cheap price of just $6.99. It was my first Ramones record, my first punk record, and it changed everything!

The “Brothers from Queens” not only proved to be a perfect embodiment for my late-teens frustrations and growing sense of weltschmerz, they were also simpatico with my MAD magazine-nurtured love of snot-nosed absurdity and general disdain for so-called normal society. Plus, it was all wrapped up in three-chord bubblegum pop hooks that I’d loved since I was a card-carrying member of the Banana Splits Fan Club.

Beyond the Ramones however, the record hipped me to the fact that there was an ENTIRE WORLD of exciting music out there that I knew nothing about. Not only punk rock, but even older music that had never breached the walls of late-70s Classic Rock radio playlists. I pretty quickly met a couple of “music mentors” who began pointing me in the right direction (“You’ve never heard the Sex Pistols? You need to go buy the Sex Pistols album RIGHT NOW!!!”), and I was on my way!

Within weeks, I was full blown record collector — haunting the “hip” record store in Bowling Green, seeking out record stores whenever I traveled, checking out new albums as soon as they hit the racks, reading magazines like Trouser Press and Goldmine, digging through crates of old records looking for that outta print Kinks album I read about, special ordering weird indie releases, dreaming of someday starting a radio station that played nothing but the good stuff — you know, CRAZY ideas!

More than four decades later I’m still at it. So hey, ho, I gotta go. There’s a crate full of records somewhere I gotta dig through!

Watch this space for more Crate Digger’s stories all week long!

 

WXNA Record Fair – This Sunday!

WXNA FM

WXNA Record Fair - March 23, 2025 - Eastside Bowl, Madison, TN

WXNA 101.5 FM, Nashville’s listener-supported freeform community radio station is happy to announce the first WXNA Record Fair!

Love rare, hard-to-find and even bargain priced vinyl records? This is the place to find the platters you’ve been looking for! On Sunday, March 23, from Noon to 6 p.m. at Eastside Bowl, over 25 dealers will be on hand selling discs of all sizes and varieties, including your new favorite record.

Sponsored by Daydream Records, Grimey’s New & Preloved Music and Eastside Bowl, there will be live sets from your favorite WXNA DJs. And what goes great with records? Howabout drinks, food, and bowling!

Admission is $5 with proceeds going to benefit WXNA 101.5 FM.

More info in the coming weeks here on wxnafm.org . For vendor info, email daydreamrecordshop@gmail.com

Best of 2024

Our Favorite Records of 2024

WXNA FM

Do we have to leave 2024? I mean, is it absolutely necessary? What’s that you say? Space-time-continuum? Time is but an illusion? Etc. Etc. Etc. Yeah, yeah, we get it. But look, why don’t we just luxuriate in the glow of 2024 for just a little while longer. After all, many WXNA DJs have once again provided us with a list of their favorite tracks and records from this past year. Take a look, have a listen, and we’ll see you in 2025.

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Long Distance Dedication: DJ Jaimie Hart

WXNA FM

DJ Jaimie Hart of Web of Sound of WXNACheck out our long distance dedication to DJ Jaimie Hart and Web of Sound (Saturdays from 10 – 11 a.m.) from the popGeezer of This is Pop (Saturdays from noon – 2 p.m.)

Saturdays are a special day on WXNA. The line-up is terrific, and I don’t say that simply because I have a show on Saturday.

And, being on the more ancient side of the DJ age chart, I particularly enjoy hearing shows from the “young folk” that play the music of my era, or even earlier.

Both of these factors play into why I enjoy DJ Jaimie’s Web Of Sound.

Every Saturday at 10 a.m., Jaimie’s Web is “a radio show that spins a web of music history by connecting producers, musicians, record labels, songwriters, and other musical works,” in her own words. Usually thematic, Web covers that music history deeply. In the past six weeks, Jaimie has played tracks spanning from the 1920’s (i.e. Bessie Smith) all the way into the 21st century. On any given week, you may hear early to mid-20th Century Blues, mixed with Motown, Punk & Post-Punk up to contemporary sounds. She was around when only a very few of her selections were “current hits.” And Jaimie brings this weekly musical history lesson to you in a warm voice with great enthusiasm.

So, take my invitation to hear decades of popular music from a knowledgeable young person on air or in the archives at wxnafm.org

Meed Your Wizards: Randy Fox

WXNA FM

A peek behind the curtain… Meet Randy Fox, WXNA Programming Director and host of Randy’s Record Shop, airing Mondays from 7-9 a.m. and Hipbilly Jamboree, airing Sundays from 1-3 p.m.

Born: Gary, Indiana but grew up in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky (Yes, just like the John Prine song)

Home: Nashville since 1986, am I considered a Nashvillian yet?

Drafted into WXNA: March 20, 2012, the first meeting of former WRVU DJs that would lead to WXNA going on the air more than four years later!

Spins:

  • Randy’s: Rock’n’roll from its birthin’ to now with whatever else strikes my fancy!
  • Hipbilly: Honky Tonk, Western Swing, Rockabilly, Bluegrass – Hipbilly Music!

How did you discover independent radio? Three-part answer: In high school I fell in love with midnight broadcasts of The Dr. Demento Show which was a syndicated show on commercial stations, but its origin was in the freeform underground radio days of Los Angeles’ KPPC-FM. The mix of genres and both new and ancient music, as long as it was weird, charged me up in a way no commercial radio had ever done.

When I started college at Western Kentucky University in 1981, Bowling Green was sadly lacking in any independent radio stations, but I was soon making frequent trips to Nashville, and I would lock my radio dial on WRVU 91 Rock as soon as I got in range of its signal. I continued listening when I moved to Nashville in 1986, eventually worming my way on the air in 1998 as a “community volunteer DJ.”

A year or so later, with the arrival of Internet access, I discovered WFMU-FM online and the idea of independent, freeform radio that was separate from a university came into full focus for me. So when WRVU died as a broadcast station in 2011, the path ahead was obvious!

Most played song:

  • Randy’s: Mekons – “Memphis, Egypt”
  • Hipbilly: Janis Martin – “Bang Bang”

Vinyl, CD or mp3? Vinyl with the occasional CD

Fave WXNA shows: As Programming Director I can’t choose just one — I love all the children in the family!

Pinch-me moment: Any time someone tells me about a song they heard on WXNA that blew their mind and led them to discovering music that they now love!

When I die:

Bury me deep
With a rock’n’roll record at my feet
Phonograph needle in my hand
Gonna rock my way
Right outta this land!

(Thank you, Ronnie Dawson & Lux Interior!)

About Me: One of my core beliefs is that our ability to dream big and hopeful dreams that fly in the face of all logic and reason, is the essence of humanity. When it comes to radio, I can’t say it any better than this quote from community radio pioneer Lorenzo Milam, “A radio station should not just be a hole in the universe for making money, or feeding an ego, or running the world; A radio station should be a live place for live people to sing and dance and talk: talk their talk and walk their walk and know that they (and the rest of us) are not finally and irrevocably dead.”

Long Distance Dedication: DJ Housequake

WXNA FM

Check out our long distance dedication to DJ HOUSEQUAKE and The Housequake Vinyl Hour (Fridays from 6 – 7 p.m.) from DJ George LaBour of Hi Stax of Motown (Fridays from 7 – 9 p.m.)

To me, The Housequake Vinyl Hour captures what a great radio show should be.

When I tune in, I always know what kind of music I’m going to hear; yet, DJ Housequake always meets my expectations while keeping the sound fresh and inventive. He puts together a playlist that stays within the genre of dance music without the sound ever getting stale. The show emanates an atmosphere, a rhythmic pulse that’s simply irresistible and utterly intoxicating.

On top of this, DJ Housequake shows his love for the music not just through spoken praise during the talk breaks but also through the clear depth of his vinyl collection. The personality of the host shines through every minute of The Housequake Vinyl Hour, and that’s one of the things I love most about the show.

Best of all, it’s just plain fun!

Meet Your Wizards: DJ Mello-D

WXNA FM

A peek behind the curtain … Meet DJ Mello-D, host of Groovy Potential, airing Tuesdays from 5 – 7 p.m.

Born: Oxford, Mississippi

Home: Nashville for life! I currently live in Donelson — East-er Nashville!

Drafted into WXNA: From the get-go, having also been a DJ at WRVU with most of the founding board members.

Spins: Anything with a groove, from classic and indie rock and soul to jazz, country, global grooves and beyond.

How did you discover independent radio? My family moved to Nashville in 1981 while I was in high school. I found Vandy’s WRVU 91 Rock on the left side of the FM dial almost immediately, discovering R.E.M. and The Replacements at the beginning of their careers, along with so many great local artists and tons of bands I’d never heard before.

Most played song: Minnie Riperton’s “Baby, This Love I Have”

Vinyl, CD or mp3? Vinyl primarily, but also CD. I only play physical media on Groovy Potential.

Fave WXNA shows: Eargasm, Untune the Sky, Hipbilly Jamboree, Runout Numbers, Nashville Jumps, Hazy Ways, Gilded Splinters… there are so many! I love most of the programming on the X.

Pinch-me moment: Being asked to compile two volumes of Craft Recordings’ Jazz Dispensary series, based on my old radio show D-Funk. If you look in the liner notes for either volume of The Dank D-Funk Blend LPs, you’ll see a nice blurb promoting WXNA!

When I die: Roll me up and smoke me!

About Me: I’m a music lifer. I’ve been obsessed with music as far back as I can remember. I asked for records for Christmas when I was a kid. When I realized I didn’t have a natural gift for playing music as a young adult, I started working in record stores, finally graduating to co-owning one when I bought half of Grimey’s in 2003! I love that I can share my passion and my record collection with the listeners of WXNA.

Long Distance Dedication: Tom Priesmeyer

WXNA FM

Check out our long distance dedication to DJ Tom Priesmeyer of Swing Shift (11am – 1pm on Fridays) by the popGeezer of This is Pop (noon – 2pm Saturdays)

During the first phase of the Covid outbreak, and while I was briefly allowed to work from home, I streamed WXNA on the “big stereo system” quite often. One Thursday mid-morning, I first heard Tom Priesmeyer’s “Swing Shift.”

The big band orchestra Jazz and Swing that is the heart of Tom’s show is one of my favorite genres of musical sounds, so I was immediately drawn to the show. Beyond the music itself, Tom’s deep annotation of his weekly playlist selections – his audible liner notes – makes the listening experience richer and truly educational.

If you need a detailed history of the bands that Iowa’s favorite musical son Bix Beiderbecke played for, or the inaccuracies of his fictionalized 1950 biopic “Young Man with A Horn” – and who doesn’t? – then this is the show for you.

Tom’s voice is warm and gently professorial, which makes the facts and stats go down with the proverbial spoonful of sugar. The playlist covers big band Jazz’s wide musical spectrum, which, for me, is a pure shot of Dopamine.

And if you need the maximum daily requirement of acoustic bass, you need Swing Shift in your life.