Curation. It’s one of today’s many buzzwords, though the practice has been with us for a long time. In the days of old, Medieval monks curated ancient texts in the early universities and eighteenth-century Englishmen curated canonical musical works for so-called “Antient Music” concerts. Nowadays we’re curating everything: social narratives on Facebook et al., playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, photos on Instagram, listicles on Buzzfeed, and so on and so forth. Andrew Sullivan even tried, with the help of his editorial team, to curate the entire web for a decade and a half.

I at least hinted at curation with my thoughts on the early stages of Apple Music and Beats 1 Radio. My hope was that live radio and DJs would lead to some compelling listening. Save a few times I’ve tuned in to hear St. Vincent, Josh Homme, Q-Tip, and Elton John (of course), I for the most part tune out within 5 minutes. The three DJs who’ve been given prime focus just seem married to Top 40 fare, and I suppose that’s to be expected.

Part of my disappointment is personal, though, as a few radio DJs left quite an impression on an adolescent me. (Then of course there’s Howard Stern, but he transcended “disc jockey” decades ago…) Two immediately spring to mind (in chronological order):
• Andy O’Riley — A DJ formerly on the Grand Rapids rock station 94.5 WKLQ. I tuned into Outta Control Saturday Night every Saturday night at (I think) 10:00 PM, and the program ran until about 2:00 AM. It really was appointment listening for me. O’Riley played hard and heavy deep cuts — rarely were singles featured — loud and uncensored. (At that late hour, it was safe harbor on the airwaves.) Before the ubiquity of the internet, it was a great way for me to sample bands that were both new and new to me, everything from Slayer to Pantera to Cannibal Corpse to Type O Negative and everything in between. The show ended when I was nearing the end of high school. I remember O’Riley’s last show, as he announced it as such and played the heaviest, most aggressive songs as a result.
• Lazaro Vega — A DJ and jazz director at Blue Lake Public Radio (at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp), 90.3 WBLV, a position he’s held for decades and continues through today. (In fact, I’m listening via web stream as I type this.) His show Jazz from Blue Lake airs 10:00 PM – 3:00 AM Monday through Friday, with each night’s show featuring a different artist or composer. (Despite this spotlight, other artists were also played to break up and branch off from the feature.) And late nights featured the “Out on Blue Lake” segment, featuring more avant-garde territory. This offered a crash course in jazz history, styles, and artists throughout high school. In fact, the first jazz CD I ever got as a result of hearing it on the radio was in response to something Mr. Vega played on the air: Thelonious Monk’s Monk’s Blues, a rare disc with Monk + big band. (Yet another early Tom Scott seed planted in my brain.) Another (immediate) radio-inspired purchase was James Carter‘s Chasin’ The Gypsy, an album that remains a desert island disc for me.

Without getting too far afield, I mention all this because O’Riley’s and Vega’s curating of bands and artists during their evening shows informed and shaped my adolescent listening habits (and by extension my adult ones too). Vega is on public radio and therefore more safe, but O’Riley and his ilk are an endangered species these days thanks to the national Clear Channel takeover of yore. Local and regional tastes and curation supplanted by a national, one-automated-playlist-fits-all approach. And now we’re relying on algorithms online. (Yeah, Apple Music features human curation, but Apple Music itself is to “meh” for me to really burn the calories to dig through it.)

And then there’s this blog. This is my 200th official post (not counting various drafts, abandoned or otherwise). While I won’t turn this into a sentimental retrospective, the milestone is worth highlighting, if for no other reason that it’ll make it the third “200-centric” post after those on Wagner and the saxophone. When I first started this over six years ago, it was more or less a repository of musical screeds. I expected few people would see it, and I had no plan. After a year or two and some fits and starts and receiving some unexpected links, I put more time and effort into it. All these posts and years later, I’m still without the time I’d truly like to dedicate to it, but I’m glad that it’s still going. I have many notions all the time (e.g., starting a podcast, but I’d thought about it for 5 years and not done it), but the blog is one of those things that actually persists. And now there’s a body of posts to point to for…I don’t know what. But there they are. And along the way I’ve done some curating of my own.

For starters, I’ll go out on a limb and say that this is the only site in which you can find in-depth posts by the same author on (in no particular order) Wagner, Dave Matthews Band, Einstein on the Beach, and Dave Liebman. And the two longest posts are about local politics and the DMB fan base, respectively. So that’s something. Of course, many other topics are covered, and ECM is likely the other big through-line. But, again, some folks don’t like the diversity of posts. It’s why this blog isn’t really linked to from any niche or topic directory (e.g., The Big List of Classical Music Blogs), and that’s just fine. Styles and topics change, but the one constant is me, and I’ve curated my own little corner of the web in a sense. My pet causes and pet peeves, favorite artists and album and concerts, and brainstorms are all in one place. And, as a bonus, folks read the posts (some more than others, of course).

Where I’m going with this, aside from simply mentioning this is post #200, is that this blog shall persist. Blogs in general are dying more than they’re growing. (Even The Dish, my go-to site each morning, rode off into the digital sunset earlier this year.) Old and new media seem ever more hesitant to feature longform writing (even though people prove time and again that if it’s compelling it’ll be read). And while I don’t think of this site as the bastion of longform writing or journalism, I have done a good job (I think) of avoiding simply having a post be just a link to another site as a way of piggybacking traffic as a middle man. Social media is good for that, but not here. I hesitate to call the blog a “body of work,” but it’s a body of something. There’s probably 200-300 pages of disparate material here. What that means is anyone’s guess, but I shall happily continue to add to it, continuing my curation post by post.

[For those that do read all of the posts, I hope you’ve enjoyed the break from the local (SCENE)metrospace coverage. You’re welcome. That was intentional; I didn’t want this “milestone post” to be yet another in that saga. (Though I do have some more to post, I’ve intentionally held off the last couple weeks for various reasons. The last thing I want is for my municipal obsessions to take over this site.) But, more importantly, thank you for continuing to visit.]