I've had a bit of love/hate relationship the last couple of years with the venerable indie-rock station out of Los Angeles known as "Indie 103-1." Even though they use the "indie" moniker which would normally deter me, the station actually reminds me more of the heyday of "alternative" rock radio and the "modern rock" sounds of WOXY/97x before they left the FM airwaves and went after the Pitchfork crowd as woxy.com. When I first started listening I dug their overall playlist, but the rampant number of commercials that aired kept me from listening on a regular basis. Somehow, I was able to get over all the ads and started to listen a lot, but then last year they abruptly sacked my favorite DJ so I boycotted the station. Unfortunately, I was never able to find anything else that clicked quite as well and eventually I gave in and started listening again. Past grievances aside, I've now become totally hooked on former Sex Pistol Steve Jones' brilliant free-form show, "Jonesy's Jukebox," and I have to give a shout-out to his great new Monday feature, Jonsey's Jukebox Jury.
Just as I never would have dreamed I would become enamored with a radio show hosted by a former Mighty Mighty Bosstone (the aforementioned favorite DJ that got canned), becoming a devout follower of a former Sex Pistol is not something I would've expected either as someone rather indifferent to punk rock. Of course it's been a few years since Jonesy was crunching power chords for the Pistols and if you were to tune into his radio show today none the wiser, you would probably never guess that it was actually a former punk icon behind the mic spinning the tunes. The man literally plays anything and everything on his show, brings in a hodgepodge of music and celebrity guests on a regular basis and hilariously rambles on about whatever pops in his head in between it all. And as an added bonus, he usually brings his guitar in and noodles around in between songs or adds a couple of choice riffs or chords at the end or beginning of a song he's playing.
It probably comes across as a bit asinine or rambling to the uninitiated, but once you become acquainted with the show and Jonesy's quirky humor and British-isms it's entertaining as shit. In his new segment, "Jonesy's Jukebox Jury," Jones comes on the air an hour earlier on Mondays and moderates a celebrity panel of "jurors" who rate new music clips. The concept of the show is anything but original, but (whether intended or not) it's a great excuse to give Jonesy more time on the air to chat it up with friends. So far he's assembled a great mix of panelists, ranging from local writers and industry-types to actual musicians like Tim Burgess (Charlatans) and John Taylor (Duran Duran). Granted, any time I stumble upon a good music-related discussion I'm probably going to be hanging on every word, but Jonesy's Jury has been especially interesting so far in its brief existence.
Tune in today (and every Monday) on-line at Indie1031.com at 1pm to hear the latest episode of the Jury and M-F at 2p ("12 bells" L.A.-time) for the Jukebox. Shortened Podcast versions are also available for download anytime.
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