Good-bye and Hello...

And that, I think, was the handle--that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting--on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave... So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark--that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

--Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

I'm not one given to melodrama and hyperbole. When I cough and howl, there is a bit of circus sideshow barking involved, but I like to think I have a small point somewhere in there. In case you haven't heard, my radio show got shit-canned by a format change:

For Immediate Release
Contact: Scott Murray
651-334-8015

Sinatra and Company come home to "The Mighty 1220", WMGT beginning December 1st.

Former KLBB GM Scott Murray has assembled a team of former KLBB employees and will lease the station from Dan Smith, president and owner of WMGT.

Former KLBB General Manager and Twin Cities media veteran Scott Murray is bringing the Adult Pop Standards format, "Music of Your Life", back to the Twin Cities. Starting December 1st, Murray, along with a team of former KLBB staff members including longtime on-air personality Reed Hagen, will launch the new format on "The Mighty 1220" WMGT, a 5,000 watt AM radio station based in Stillwater, Minnesota. WMGT will now be the exclusive musical home for some of America's most recognized artists; Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley, Tony Bennett and many others. WMGT will also play new music artists to join the musical legends…Michael Buble', Diana Krall, Norah Jones, Peter Cincotti and Madeline Peyroux to give listeners a taste of old and new each hour of the day. "It's really powerful when you come out of a Dean Martin favorite and launch into something smoky and sultry from Diana Krall", says Reed Hagen, WMGT Program Director. Scott Murray added, "It's the music you'd hear if you were dining at some of the top restaurants in town. The music gives you that feeling of living the good life."

In addition to Music Of Your Life, WMGT will continue to broadcast Green Bay Packers football, Stillwater Ponies Football and a few other existing programs. WMGT is the only Minnesota radio station with broadcast rights to Packer football.

So there ya have it. Oh well. Life goes on.

There wasn't a single "Alt Country" show on the air anywhere in this town when I signed on to WIXK back in July of 2001, aside from Ken Hippler's hillbilly show over at KFAI. Now there's that god-awful Nashville puppet show on K102 on Saturday nights (when everyone and anyone who would be listening to edgier music is out in a club watching a show...yeah, Mick Anselmo's a programming genius), a little bit of it is interspersed into the playlists at the Current, and they run Grandpa Roots' Old Time New Orleans bullshit banjo show on Sunday mornings, and somebody told me the other day the kids are doing something on the University's station. Great. More power to them, all of them, except the posers at K102.

So, I'll have all the time in the world to blog now. Back to the old days, before the great Dan Smith called me and restarted the on-air madness. Two AM, a self-released CD from Utah, and an email from 13 year old girl in Waco, Texas about how cool Kenny Chesney is. The pen is mightier than the sword my friends.