There's nothin better late at night in this town than climbing in the car and turning on and tuning in to WFMU cracklin across the river with whatever weird shit they're playin tonight... Whatever it is I’m sure it will be brilliant/unusual/interesting as hell and for the most part, surprisingly new. Like that show with the home and thrift store audio tape finds, that’s a blast. A certain phenomenon usually happens to me: I flip on the car and whilst warming up the sweet old thing (72 Benz) tune in the station. Invariable they are mid-set on some far out wavelength. One manic jam leads into the next, and before I know i i’ve driven halfway across the city and up out onto the highway. Now at this point one of two things happens: either I go out of range before the jock comes back on to tell me what amazing stuff i’ve been hearing, OR s/he comes back on and then doesn’t tell anyway!!! Goes off on some other great tangent, maybe announced b4 the set, who knows? Now of course, I exagerate—often the djs will reveal to us what great stuff we’ve been listening to, but invariably there is one side—at least one side—per show that you simply MUST know more deeply, MUST have in yr library. And yet… you never will… Becuz the music will shift again and some amazing fragment that you had just swallowed whole will blow off forever into the air, even as it’s still exploding in the back of yr cortex. And oft times you’ll never hear it again. Ever. And you know what? It’s fitting and pure and beautiful that way after all, isn’t it? The music you heard became an actual experience, joining the endless log of musics and lived realtiy in yr head, and escaped for once morphing into A PRODUCT. You heard it and felt it/real time/out drivin the line, and it was better’n repetition an better’n commercials an better’n predictable (even when ya don’t like it much) and in short better’n good. Radio Radio The Sound Salvation: Thank you Radio Thrift Shop. Thank you Alan Watts hour. Thank you live broadcasts. Thank you Jonesy. Thank you WFMU. Lee Ranaldo—02/00