Every week this summer, WPRB will highlight one its DJs in “Get To Know WPRB’s DJS.”

Name: Dan Buskirk

Show: “Jazz with Dan Buskirk” Mondays 11:00AM -1PM.

Type Of Music Played: “Post-Coltrane era jazz.”

Reasons for Being a DJ: “I think I’m a frustrated musician and this is my way of getting that out.”

Day Job: Writer.

Hometown: Philadelphia.

Listening To Now: Roswell Rudd, “The Incredible Hunk.”

Favorite Summer Food: Oysters.

Currently Reading: Kingdom Under Glass by Jay Kirk (biography of Carl Akeley, an American taxidermist for the Museum of Natural History).

Favorite City Visited: Paris.

Anything else?: Dan  ”Enjoys taking advantage of the freedom at WPRB to play funky and free jazz that stretches beyond polite boundaries. Hail Sun Ra, hail William Parker, hail jazz’s past and future…”

This July 4th weekend, indie-rock champions and local WPRB favorites the Feelies are playing three shows at Maxwell’s in Hoboken.  Born out of Haledon, New Jersey in 1977 by Glenn Mercer and Bill Million, The Feelies have been mainstays of indie-rock ever since they began playing shows in their hometown and New York in the late 70s.  When I was in high school, I looked desperately for bands that had the same meticulous and precise energy as Talking Heads, and The Feelies were one that I very happily found.

Their classic 1980 album Crazy Rhythms is a mixture of a twangy, interweaving, and bright guitar work with drums that ascend, descend, and drop off completely, making the album sound haunting and clear (like it might’ve been created in a laboratory somewhere in North Jersey).  The band was weirdly dissimilar from both the sound of punk and new wave popular in New York at the time, but retained some qualities of both genres in their sound, and created a unique style that really lasted in my memory.  They stayed popular in the underground music scene early on, and they recorded three other equally great albums through 1991, each having a huge impact on indie music at large.

It was only three years ago that the band officially reunited after a 17-year hiatus, playing a few shows at Maxwell’s before playing a much-anticipated opening for Sonic Youth at the River to River festival in Battery Park, and then playing the entirety of Crazy Rhythms at the All Tomorrow’s Party music fest a year later.  Since then, they began writing new songs and recorded Here Before, again showing what they can do with their minimalist approach and all that pretty guitar work.  This weekend they play Maxwell’s for the 4th year in a row on the Fourth of July, as the band has consistently played shows on national holidays since it began (yet another interesting and folk-lorish detail you might want to know).  What a better way to celebrate our nation’s history than with these American pioneers of indie-rock…  The first two shows are sold out, but tickets are still available for Sunday’s show.  Check them out!  I’ll be going to Sunday’s show and will be writing about it next week.

Real Name: Griffin Winton-LaVieri

DJ Name: Griffin

Show: Wednesdays 4-6PM

Type of music played on show: Indie-Rock

Reasons why you decided to be a DJ?: “Because I like listening to radio!”

Day Job: Student.

Where are you from originally?: Pennington, New Jersey.

What can you not stop listening to right now?: The new The Pains of Being Pure At Heart album.

Favorite summer food?: Blueberry Buckle (Which is blueberry coffee cake).

What are you reading right now?: An economics textbook by Paul Krugman.

What is your favorite city in the world that you have visited?: Seattle.

The show is $5 and all proceeds go to support Danger Danger Gallery, which in turn is supporting an entire generation of young artists. Please come out and say hi.

Full details after the jump!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=44128148801
http://www.myspace.com/dangerdangergallery

Lineup:
Seanicus (opening set 10pm)
(live set – electro-house-techno-DnB-IDM)

Altitude Sickness and Josh
(electro vs. analog synergy set)

Altitude Sickness
(live electronics, remixing)

Josh
(dj set – hiphop, pop, rock, electro)

Details:
Start Time:Saturday, January 24, 2009 at 10:00pm
End Time:Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 2:00am
Location:
Danger Danger Gallery
5013 Baltimore Ave
Philadelphia, PA

WPRB & R5 Productions are proud to present, for your listening pleasure, a night with The Rosebuds, with The Love Language and National Eye. It’s going down on Thursday, 1/15 at Johnny Brenda’s (1201 N. Frankford Ave) in Philadelphia! Come out for this 21+ show! Starts at 9 PM!

Husband and wife duo The Rosebuds hail from North Carolina and write songs full of infectious pop will strike a chord with you. We’ve been jammin’ on their new record, Life Like (Merge Records), for a while now!

Also on the bill are The Love Language (another N.C. band) and Philadelphia’s own National Eye. Come out early and leave late — it’s a Thursday night you won’t want to miss.

Stay tuned to WPRB because we’re giving away tickets to the show!

Let us know if you’re gonna be there… stop by the WPRB booth and say hi!

» RSVP on Facebook!

This past Saturday’s sponsored show was such a blast that we thought now’s a good time to give you a sneak peek at upcoming WPRB events. We’ll be writing more about these bands and adding some extra shows as time goes on, so stay tuned to this spot.

We hope you’ll consider attending one (or more!) of these! Meet WPRB DJs and staff, get some free WPRB swag, and of course, watch some amazing bands. Last but not least, we’ll be giving away tickets to all of these shows on WPRB!

WPRB FALL 2008 EVENTS
Schedule subject to change.

MON 08-25
Philadelphia Fringe Festival Preview
At Plays & Players Theater (1714 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, PA)

SAT 09-06
Hotrod Hoedown
At the United German Hungarian Club (4666 Bristol Road, Oakford, PA)

TUE 09-09
Silver Jews, Monotonix
At the First Unitarian Church (2125 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA)

FRI 10-10
Wire
At Johnny Brenda’s (1201 N. Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia, PA)

SUN 10-12
Jonathan Richman (of the Modern Lovers)
At the Sanctuary at First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA

Yesterday, WPRB’s staff took a trip to visit our radio tower. Why? Um, because we’ve never been! You’ve probably passed our tower dozens of times and never realized it. We tell you about it every night when signing off. But really, what do any of us know about it?

What we do know: WPRB moved to this tower back in 1991, which boosted our broadcast range up to 14,000 watts. (That’s a lot!) Our tower shares space with several other stations, cell phone transmitters and whatnot. It rests peacefully in a state park, amidst spectacular green foliage. It’s so tall that some kind of bird (A condor?! A hawk?! An eagle!?) can be seen flying around the top. Last but not least: without the tireless work of WPRB’s Chief Engineer (Scott Fowler) and the tower, we’d be nothin’. The tower completes us.

After the jump are a collection of photos from our trip, so take a look!

The giant New Jersey Network satellite dish, compared to the size of the WPRB staff.

Spare satellite dish parts, just hanging around. Need one? (Kidding!)

Base of the tower.

Caution. Seriously! This place might be cool and all, but there’s tons of metal and high voltage electricity everywhere.

The door to our the WPRB “shack”. We use the phrase “shack” lightly because it’s the most high-tech shack we’ve ever encountered.

Conveniently set to “WPRB Rock.” Fun fact: the Optimod Audio Processor, a standard in broadcast technology, was designed by WPRB alumnus Bob Orban, who “wasn’t happy with the sound of albums being heard on the ‘new’ stereo FM stations.” Thanks Bob, for making such a great piece of equipment, and for keeping WPRB sounding great!

Scott gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the guts of WPRB’s transmitter.

The high tech way of making sure WPRB is still on the air.

In a space this small, there’s a place for everything.

An upside down sign.

Being held by a thread… sort of: the guide wires that keep WPRB’s tower up.

The WPRB staff, trying to reach the top of the tower, the only way we know how.

Though we have official staff recaps coming at you shortly, have a listen to interviews we taped with some of the audience at last night’s Free Yr Radio event.

» Listen

Not only did we tape interviews, we reported live from the event on WPRB! Julia from x Clean Yr Room x chatted quickly with DJ KPC at 6PM ET.

» Listen

Click here to get your ticket! »

This is a free, all-ages event! Visit FreeYrRadio.com to get your ticket to the show! You won’t want to miss this!

» Add this event on Facebook | Last.fm | Yelp | Going | GCal | Upcoming

What is Free Yr Radio? It’s a joint effort between Toyota and Urban Outfitters to generate awareness and support for independent radio stations they’ve partnered with. This year, WPRB was selected as a program partner, and we’re honored. They’ve graciously organized this concert, as well as a benefit compilation, to introduce this year’s selected stations to new audiences.

And for a bit of some really amazing news: Free Yr Radio has donated a brand new Toyota Yaris for this year’s Membership Drive! Between October 1st and 8th 2008, one lucky WPRB listener will actually get to win this. More details to follow very, very soon.

And now, more about who’s performing!

WPRB and Secret Machines go back quite a-ways, at least to the age of Web 1.0, before MySpace and Facebook, in those heady days when Google stock was worth just as much as Station Manager Cody’s old 1984 Toyota Corolla SR5 (exactly $0, since he gave it to the Salvation Army).

Anyway, unlike that car the Secret Machines are as valuable as ever. Texan transplants to New York City, the Secret Machines are currently on tour, and we’re thrilled they’ve decided to visit Philadelphia! Since September 000 (Ace Fu, 2002) to their last record for Reprise Records, Ten Silver Drops (2006), WPRB DJs have been charmed by the group’s early-era Flaming Lips approach to “pop [choruses] with demented twists.” In a live setting, they’re just as compelling; after their set opening up for Blonde Redhead, another DJ remarked, “They played their entire set as if it was a continuous post-rock opera.” The band plans to self-release their forthcoming next album through the World’s Fair group.

Opening up our event is local DJ and nightlife wünderkind, Dave P. Since the mid-90′s, Dave P and his crew have hosted Making Time, Philly’s premier dance party featuring live music from The Next Big Things and more. Every time we give away tickets to it on WPRB, the phone’s are ringing off the hook. So yeah, we’re really psyched to have Dave — on his birthday! — take some time out for us.