Today I’m posting about my favorite radio station, WLUM aka FM 102.1, a Milwaukee-based alternative station. You can listen to it streaming at their website.

I read an article in the Journal-Sentinel recently about the death of graveyard shifts for radio DJs and it reminded me of my adoration for WLUM. It’s a station which has made an effort to keep radio legit by providing 100% local programming, and, well, with my odd sleeping habits I’ve sometimes found myself listening to it throughout the night until the morning show starts — and there’s an actual person there.

Through my life I’ve migrated across several local stations and with music that tends mostly toward alt and indie rock, FM 102.1 really meshes with my music tastes more than any other.  Their DJs feel genuine, their music is great, they’re extremely clever and they are radio as it should be. In the afternoons I love the 80s and 90s music of Flannel Flashback,  I highly recommend them.

Today (YES two blogs in a row?!?!) I’m giving love to the deconstructions of Seth Rudetsky (he’s doing a deconstruction a day in May!). Seth is a… well, he’s played piano in the pits of musicals, he’s done acting, he hosts a program on Sirius Satellite Radio, he’s a music director, he’s an author, etc. etc. Basically, when it comes to Broadway, Seth has been involved in whatever he can get his hands on. He has his full bio at his website.

On his YouTube channel, he posts deconstructions — basically, he plays some of his favorite bits of songs (mostly Broadway but a little pop, classical, etc. too — he recently deconstructed Kelly Clarkson and Michael Jackson in the midst of all his Broadway deconstructions) and explains, as only Seth Rudetsky can with lots of arm-waving and lip syncing, why he’s obsessed with them. I find him to be a little bit of the TV Tropes of music, in that after you watch a ton of Seth’s deconstructions you start to notice choices singers make in their interpretations of songs that you perhaps never consciously honed in on before.

I’m not a fan of traditional showtunes as much as Seth is but I still enjoy watching all his deconstructions. He is an example of someone who has such personality that they can talk about anything and you’ll be entertained. His channel is Zonkzink but I’m going to embed one of my favorite deconstructions of his from an event: Barbra Steisand and Bea Arthur. I saw this right before I saw my high school do Funny Girl and throughout Cornet Man and Don’t Rain On My Parade I almost had to hold back laughter remembering this video (definitely no Broadway knowledge required to see how hilarious this is).

Aww, poor neglected blog.

I wanted to do a post about one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Regina Spektor, who I’ve been pretty obsessed with lately. She’s a quirky, joyful, soulful young Russian-born pianist who’s probably best known in the mainstream world for her hit “Fidelity” (which is what I first heard from her).

Not only is she crazy talented, but she’s gorgeous and adorably humble to boot. I would love love love a chance to see her live — she seems like one of those unfortunately seemingly uncommon performers that is if anything better live than they are recorded. Here she is singing “Ghost of Corporate Future” live:

Besides her excellent songwriting (other songs of hers I’ve been in love with lately include Braille and Eet), she has done my favorite cover ever of the ubiquitously-covered Hallelujah and has contributed vocals to Ben Folds’ You Don’t Know Me.

They say she’s one of those artists you either love or hate, and I definitely love her. For me she’s definitely an artist where the songs I first fell in love with are not always the songs I ultimately come to love the most — a lot of her stuff feels like it needs to sink in over time, and that always gives me something new to fall in love with.