Indy Rock Or Strip Club Music?

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

There are things in this life we have exactly no control over. One of them is whether a radio station we like has the business model which will allow it to sell enough advertising and stay on the air, providing us with free music of a style we like to listen to. All too often you will find some new station that plays a great (to you) mix of music, put it on your presets and listen away happily until that day where you turn on the radio only to find some other station is there, with different music.  

This is not that uncommon, but just this Friday there was such a switch on one of the Dog’s favorite stations that it nearly caused cognitive dissonance in the old hounds mind. The station the Dog liked was called Indy 101.5, Strasburg-Denver. It played an eclectic mix of local and national Indy rock. On any given day you might hear music from the Ting Tings, The Killers or The Swayback. It was the kind of station that would play Fire, Water, Burn by the Bloodhound Gang rather than ‘You and UR hand tonight” by Pink.

There was a small group of DJ’s with the same kind of off center point of view of the world as the music the station played. You got the feeling of a small community who listened to the station on a regular basis. It was the kind of station where they would play “Gay Bar or Steak House, to give away concert tickets (the DJ would give the caller the name of a place and they would have to guess if it was a Gay Bar or Steak House, this is harder than you might think).

So, you can understand the Dog’s consternation when he turned the radio on Friday and heard Kelis’ Milkshake “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard….” Still it was brought a smile to his face as the Dog thought one of the late afternoon DJ’s was having some fun with the listeners. Not so much as it turned out. The beloved Indy station had changed to all stripper music all the time. It was almost like I had just booked Charlotte strippers for hire and they were just giving me a strip tease right in front of my eyes. Now, I wouldn’t complain about this, but it did give me a shock when I switched on the Indy station and heard a completely different type of genre.

Now the Dog is not unaware of Hip Hop music, he is a fan of the Black Eyed Peas, so there could be some thought this was just Hip Hop club music the Dog did not know, but this station is not just Hip Hop music, there are other artists and genres. Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leopard was played, a little later was Come On Feel the Noise by Quite Riot. The after listening a little while there was only one conclusion, this was stripper music. Now the Dog knows that men don’t give a crap about the music women take their clothes of too, hell he is fairly confident that somewhere tonight there will be some young woman taking her clothes off to Mariachi music, but there is a distinctive kind of music and lyrics which tends to be predominate in strip clubs. How would the Dog know? Well, he’s been to a few…just for research purposes, of course.

The thing is most of these songs have a heavy beat that someone could dance to, combined with suggestive lyrics. About the time you hear a song with lyrics that go “Oh, Daddy, I don’t think you are ready yet, cause I am boodylicious”  or “I don’t want to sit down, I just want to get down” you can be pretty sure you’re listening to music which is playing at some “Gentlemen’s Club” somewhere. Then when you hear George Micheal’s “I want your sex” you have to abandon skepticism, right?

Still it is possible the Dog is just old, right? He might not know what is what with the kids today. So let the Dog provide you with the last two pieces of evidence you will need. First off, the new name of this station, The Pole 101.5. As in stripper pole, but still there might be some doubt, until  you hear it said with a woman moaning in the background. If this were not enough, the primary sponsor is Shotgun Willies, one of the Denver area’s best known, ahem, show clubs. The tag line for this new station is “The Pole 101.5, lubricated by Shotgun Willies”.    

So there is the Dog’s little brush with cognitive dissonance, in the space of twenty four hours his radio went from playing lyrics like

“My sign is vital, my hands are cold,

and I’m on my knees looking for answers,

are we human or are we Dancer”

to

“Hear Kitty, kitty, kitty,

shake that thing like a cyclone,

and bring it home”

Some day’s the invisible hand of the market is just nuts. Will The Pole survive longer than Indy 101.5? If there is any justice in the world no, but the Dog is not going to bet against his fellow citizens having exactly no taste, it is a bad bet. This station is likely to run for 50 years.

The floor is yours.