Howdy,

My names is Andy Jones and I am one of the hosts of the Flashback Cafe. We’re on at noon. That isn’t what I’m here to talk to you about though. I’m here to tell you the dirty secrets of WPGU. That is to say - what exactly goes on behind the scenes here at the station.

One, we wear sweatpants and grungy t-shirts for the most part. It is the beauty of the radio. As long as you sound like you are wearing an Armani suit - you don’t actually have to be wearing an Armani suit. Of course, said sweatpants are only worn on the days when we wear pants at all. Be jealous. The breeze is wonderful. Keep in mind though, this is only the DJs. Many of our bosses are decked out in varying degrees of dress attire from the blazer to the argyle sweater, but they are The Man. Fight the power. Take off your pants.

Two, we are proud users of all the products of our advertisers. Some say - hey, sell outs, why do you have commercials when you should be giving us the tunes for free? I say - hey, hippy, get a job and put down a pipe. Commercials allow us to give you these sweet tunes and many of them are actually truly good. I have, on numerous occasions, taken the advice of our Student Legal Services commercial and used their services. I give them the highest recommendation.

Three, most of the DJs are using fake voices to give you a different picture of who they are. Mat Brown is actually a Portugese banana salesman with the accent to prove it. Steve Plock is actually a lion. Yes, the animal. Seeing him DJ is like watching a show at Chuck E. Cheese - wonderous and horrifying all in the same package. Liz Rush is a robot who knows how to do the robot. You’d be surprised how much extra it costs to upgrade a robot to dance. The Mad Hatter is… well, that actually is his voice.

That is the skinny on what truly goes on inside of WPGU. I’ll be back next Friday with more dirt… Oh, by the way, we are giving away tickets to the Sunday Illini game throughout the day so stay tuned… and the Delta Chi Fraternity is hosting “D-Chice Capades”. For $5 dollars you can come and skate with some great people. All proceeds from the event go to the Jimmy V Foundation for cancer research.

Earl Simmons:

Wait, Earl Simmons? Who the hell is that? Oh you probably know him better as Rapper DMX. Well in a change of events that I wouldn’t even describe as surprising it appears he may be spending up to another 8 years in prison. Currently the rapper is finishing up a 90 day sentence for felony charges of theft, drug possession and a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty on Dec. 30. Recently DMX while being punished (he was on a bread and water diet) for an earlier offense in the jail, upon retrieving a food tray from the passing cart a guard instructed him that he was not allowed to have it as he was still being punished. In anger DMX threw the tray back at the guard and thus landed him an assault charge against an officer.

Live Nation/Ticketmaster Merger:

Sen. Charles Schumer has urged Ticketmaster to sell off the resale site (aka: a scalping site) TicketsNow before going ahead with a Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger. If you remember, the service TicketsNow was behind most of the controversy surrounding the Bruce Springseen fiasco in which fans attempted to by tickets from Ticketmaster that were still available but instead of getting the standard price, fans were directed to the resale site and forced to purchase tickets at greatly inflated values.

Your 80’s Music Fix:

Def Leppard, Poison, and Cheap Trick will be touring together this summer, if you have a hankering for some hairspray and classic hits check them out at the following locations in the midwest:

July 15 - Cincinnati, OH
July 17 - Tinley Park, IL
July 18 - Milwaukee, WI
July 20 - Maryland Heights, MO
July 21 - Kansas City, MO
July 23 - Noblesville, IN
July 24 - Clarkston, MI

New Music abounds this week!

I haven’t even been able to get to the New Depeche Mode! I’ve been too busy playing tracks from the new Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Record It’s Blitz and exploring the self-titled debut from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. I’ve really been excited to bring you music from them and while I could go on and on about how the Shoegaze genre is back, I’ll just tell you that The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is a great pop record.

Join me everyday at 2pm to hear it for yourself.

There are times in which I really do wonder about certain hypothetical conundrums on the subject of Kanye West. Luckily Mr. West in an interview with DETAILS magazine decided to let us know all the answers to the questions that baffled us. I don’t even need to try and make fun of him, he does a far superior job whenever he references his own life.

Simply to name a few of these conundrums:

Is he really the greatest?

• “Put this in the magazine: There’s nothing more to be said about music. I’m the f–king end-all, be-all of music.”

Has he really lost his marbles?

• “Oh my God, I’m one of the greatest rappers in the world. I’ll get on a track and completely ee-nihilate that track, I’ll eat it and rip it in half. I wouldn’t have to think of it.”

Is it really the case he lacks a filter between what goes on in his brain and what comes out of his mouth?

• “I have, like, nuclear power, like a superhero, like Cyclops when he puts his glasses on.”

Since the Bonnaroo fiasco of last summer I can no longer believe anything Kanye decides to say. Anytime Mr. West speaks, it seems to be the case that he somehow regurgitated his lobster bisque and Kobe beef fillet right onto my intelligence and common sense.

“People ask me a lot about my drive,” he says. “I think it comes from, like, having a sexual addiction at a really young age. Look at the drive that people have to get sex—to dress like this and get a haircut and be in the club in the freezing cold at 3 a.m., the places they go to pick up a girl. If you can focus the energy into something valuable, put that into work ethic…”

Oh and his sexual addiction as a young person? This was it:

Super Mario Bros.: The Penis Remix in the seventh grade:

“My game was very sexual. The main character was, like, a giant penis. It was like Mario Brothers, but the ghosts were, like, vaginas. Mind you, I’m 12 years old, and this is stuff 30-year-olds are programming. You’d have to draw in and program every little step—it literally took me all night to do a step, ’cause the penis, y’know, had little feet and eyes.”

Morrissey’s new album Years of Refusal has been featured on both The Catch of the Day and Shrinkwrap. We’re playing the single I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris and we like it a lot. Not only can you find in it the traditional CD format but if you head to a local record store, you can dust off your turntable and toss on the LP version. Morrissey may have been signing the same song for 25 years but that just means that he’s perfected it. Check out the album and listen for I’m Throwing My Arms around Paris on WPGU.

Hey guys, let’s talk.

Do you feel like getting your groove on? Do you feel like getting your drink on? If yes:

Go to the Highdive in downtown Champaign tonight for Reggae night.

This isn’t an advertisement, I just want to spread the word about $2 Red Stripes. YUM!

Later,
Liz

Morrissey - “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris” - He’s back and more naked than ever! Some may be more excited about the latter part than others, but I think we can all agree on the former. This song has all of the unmistakable Morrissey elements - a splash of bitterness mixed into a heavy dough of depression and solitude, lightly dusted with some rejection and topped with a very British glaze. Bake for two and a half minutes.

The Decemberists - “The Rake’s Song” - This is the first taste of the new Decemberists album, The Hazards of Love, which is to be released in March. The band appears to be sticking to its strengths of writing musical narratives - this appears to be about a rake that turns into a person only to be brought down by his wife and kids. What can he do but take matters into his own, er, hands? It’s good to see that misogyny and baby drowning haven’t lost their place in indie music. Twisted but undeniably catchy!

Also to listen for:
M. Ward - “Never Had Nobody Like You”
The Whitest Boy Alive - “1517″
Bell X1 - “The Great Defector”
Gaslight Anthem - “Old White Lincoln”

So are you a Phish fan?

If you are…there’s a good chance when you attempted to get tickets for the tour, Live Nation inevitably screwed you over with illegitimate wait times and site errors…

If Phish isn’t your favorite, perhaps you find the Boss your cup of tea.

Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band followers had epic trouble trying to procure tickets to Bruce’s tour this season, if they did, the fans were possibly finagled out of proper pricing for the seats they purchased by Ticketmaster.

Thus it begins…

If you haven’t caught the news, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are merging, although they may claim it is for the benefit of the customer it’s sometimes difficult to see the prospect of customer service through the haze of ridiculous fees and surcharges. Of course some artists have chosen to take the high road and offer ticketing outside of the two largest companies in the live music biz. As you can imagine unless you’re an epic act capable of running a tour without the assistance of a large ticket broker and have the opportunity to work outside of labels/venues with a specific agreement with these two companies the possibility of escaping or avoiding these agencies is far fetched and hard to come by.

Ticketmaster Chairman Barry Diller is set to head the new combined company entitled: Live Nation Entertainment, it has promised no increase in the price for any given ticket.

“Ticketmaster does not set prices. Live Nation does not set ticket prices. Artists set the prices,”

He of course decided to make this comment while failing to comment on a possible fee increase or a change in surcharges.

May God help us all!

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to discover that New Ruins are all set to release their second album, “We Make Our Own Bad Luck” on Hidden Agenda Records. According to the band’s MySpace, the new album comes as the result of a year spent experimenting and recording in their homes.

While you are checking out their MySpace, you can listen to several of the new songs from “We Make Our Own Bad Luck.” Be sure to check out the song “Symptoms.”

The album is currently available for preorder through Parasol Records. The band is offering both a limited edition pressing of brick red vinyl that will ship on March 31st and a CD version set to ship out on April 28th. If you can’t wait that long, you can check out the band’s CD release show at the Cowboy Monkey on February 28th where presumably, they will have some form of the new album for sale…I hope. New Ruins will be joined by Common Loon and Tractor Kings.

Really small photo of the album cover:

Fishing with Dynamite, the funniest sketch comedy group on campus, is coming to the Canopy Club! Check out the show on Friday for $5, or get your tickets free from 6-9! The mad hatter’s just given’ em away!

Liz