while the existence of LA’s new radio station ‘indie 103‘ doesn’t exactly qualify as breaking news any longer, i only recently got around to giving it a listen, and i have to say, i’m intrigued yet confused.

their station ID’s proclaiming to be ‘YOUR independent radio’ had me a little curious, as i assumed it to be a clear-channel trick to nab an otherwise anti-radio market niche. and as it turns out i assumed correctly, as explained in this illuminating LA weekly article. but since ‘independent’ and ‘clear-channel-affiliated’ are about as far apart as penguins from santa, i didn’t see how it could be that there is now a radio station that manages not to make me cringe quite all the time. (generally i’m opposed to radio itself because it doesn’t come with a button allowing you to skip to the next song if this one doesn’t do it for you at that moment, and radio hasn’t introduced me to anything new since junior high).

as the article tells, apparently CC only deals in ad space and the former owners of that frequency (entravision, a hispanic/dance station) hired someone to do the programming who is not directed by the Man himself. now we have a station where i have heard cursive’s ‘art is hard’ played on city-wide fm radio on multiple occasions? i certainly won’t complain about that. do i find it sort of weird that indie is a demographic now? of course. does it make sense that for some reason heavy rotation of the beastie boys’ back catalog of non-singles has been deemed part of the indie canon for the purpose of this radio station? no, not at all, but i’ve heard at least one track on each of the several drives i’ve opted for indie 103 over ipod for curiosity’s sake, and i usually just laugh and bear with them — i guess they’re just learning.

my only complaint is that if they really want this to work, they better step it up a notch, you know? say, with actual dj’s and/or a website with any information whatsoever. they’re making it pretty plain that the station’s certainly not a mechanism for helping indie artists or labels, what with the whopping twelve singles actually named by artist/track on their website and absolute lack of song ID on the air at any time. but maybe if on the next nielsen survey there’s even the slightest bump, i guess this could be the first step in the right direction.

[and as a post-script to non-angelean readers — is this a phenomena occurring anywhere else in the US right now, with the seemingly paradoxical ‘indie radio’? or am i being test-marketed to as we speak?]

****additionally, you can listen to a stream and make your own judgments, if you care.