College Radio in Boston

Well, I hit the road this week and feasted my ears on a number of Boston-area college radio stations and even had a visit with the one station that I couldn't hear on my radio (WECB at Emerson College--stay tuned for a full report later). I have to say, the left end of the dial is packed with choices, so you Bostonians are pretty lucky. In my opinion, the best station that I landed on was WZBC 90.3 FM (Boston College), where I heard one of the most amazing sets of electronic/ambient/experimental music on Friday night around 9:30 pm. Wow, I just checked and here's the playlist from that show, complete with date stamps of when each particular track aired. I'm impressed that now the question: "what was that song you played at 9:30pm?" can be answered with technology! On WZBC I was also intrigued by some spacy stuff that I heard on Saturday morning, including a lengthy astrology report.

Other stations that I tuned in to in Boston included WERS 88.9 FM (Emerson College's popular station, which was doing "Local Music Week" with lots of in-studio guests), WMBR 88.1FM (MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts), and WUMB 91.9 FM (University of Massachusetts, Boston's folk-oriented public radio affiliate). On the downside, fundraiser season was in full swing and it was quite painful listening to some of the pitches on WERS, WUMB and WGBH (public radio). I often wonder why so many stations choose to fundraise at the exact same time...it can't be easy.