Road Trip!!!

After a recent holiday in California, that included long stretches driving around, I realised, on the whole, how good American radio stations are.  Apart from the excessive adverts on some stations, the quality of music on offer is unparalleled to some stations in the UK. 

The bulk of the stations played a mix of rock music from over the decades and I heard some bands I haven’t played in a long time.  I was surprised how they’d play up-to-date music mixed in with old standards and it would go from Cream playing ‘White Room’ to Muse, then from Journey to Prince, to Kasabian followed by The Beatles, to a bit of Springsteen, followed up by Alice in Chains.  It was eclectic, but the music was nearly always uniformly great.

I know that major Corporations own a great deal of American radio and the playlists are tightly controlled, but it is difficult to find so many stations playing comparable music in the UK. Don’t get me wrong, they do exist, but not in the vast amounts I found in just one state in America.  I think local radio is thriving much more in America.

Which leads to one of the problems I experienced whilst on my road trip.  As I moved from area to area I had to constantly retune the radio as I moved from one signal area to the next.  I’d hear one DJ strongly promote the local Clam restaurant between music tracks, only to fade off and get crackly, before retuning and finding the next local DJ promoting the nearest snow chain garage! This would happen every ten miles or so at some points on my trip.  The exception to this was San Francisco’s KFOG station, which not only lasted us for much of our journey from Carmel to San Francisco, but it also played some of the best music we heard on our holiday.  It is one station I will be tuning into via their website back here in the UK.

Scenery from Carmel to California

When in the mountains I would lose signal altogether and I would howl with anguish, as my wife rolled her eyes at my hysterical reaction, when we would lose signal just when the solo on a particular track would kick in and then pick it up again just as it ended.  Frustrating stuff.

Scenery on the Drive from Lake Tahoe to Mammoth Lakes

There are also so many stations closely packed in across the spectrum, that as we moved around one station would get crossed with another and you would hear two bands vying for my attention, like a faint ghostly guitar duel. Strangely enough, sometimes it worked very well and the overlapping song created the ultimate ‘mash up’.  Led Zeppelin meets David Bowie and having a zany, but beautifully formed love child.

I was also surprised at just how many Spanish and Christian radio stations there were.  It would be funny to scan the airwaves and here some loud, energetic Spanish voice exhorting you to buy something, only to be followed by the zealous, enthusiastic tones of a preacher showing you the path to salvation.  Needless to say, both types of station were rapidly skipped past. 

But that damned Christian rock was confusing!  I’d tune into a station, hear some great guitars and drums and although it sound slightly dated and cheesy, I quite like this at times and I would stay tuned in.  Then the chorus would kick in and you’d hear a stream of ‘glories’ and ‘hallelujahs’ and you’d realised you’d been hoodwinked again.  There’s nothing wrong with Christian rock per se, but lets just say I prefer my rock music to have a bit more grit and backbone. Give me rock about love, betrayal, driving in your car or any other topic, but eternal salvation just doesn’t cut the mustard.  Go figure!

View in Yosemite National Park, plenty of Rock, Grit and Backbone!

So, all in all, I enjoyed the musical choices we made in the car. I had a small stash of CD’s on hand for when we lost signal altogether or when there were so few stations we liked, but we played these surprisingly less than I thought we would.  American radio may be highly controlled and many artists have lamented its demise (I’m thinking of Tom Petty and his ‘Last DJ’ album), but when you only have the latest insipid chart music played on rotation in the UK, even this controlled rock music is a breath of fresh air.  It certainly provided a welcome soundtrack to my holiday and I’ve come back to dig out some old favourites I have neglected over the years.  What more can you ask for?