Fun little piece about wishing quite often and not being afraid to admit it. This has a good flow to it and begs for a little attention. Play when you need a bit of the earnest arts in your show.

A This American Life "imitation," at least in the structure of the show. The mood is a bit lighter, more formal and news magazine-y, but the laughs are coming the whole way. We don't need more Scorpions on the radio; thankfully we're getting a tongue-in-cheek version here, and it roars alongside cutesy pieces about talking birds, child rock stars and Austin Powers knockoffs. It's an interesting theme and each piece in the show presents its own unique audio. Play this on weekends, in the afternoons, over lunch -- any time the news of the day becomse too cumbersome and you need a string of laughs.

Spray paint cans -- love the sound! I could listen to this alone for a few minutes straight. Throw a pretty cool monologue about the power of graffiti art on top of that, a rogue life lesson, the frustration of an artist struggling to find a medium, then finding one (the streets) that is regulated. If you like a view from the vibrant, anarchistic, non-commercial crowd, or if you want a piece to attract that crowd, go for this.

An overview of Baltimore's urban poetry scene segues into some smooth freestyling. Upon first listen, I wasn't sure where this piece was going -- even listening back to it a second time, I'm still focusing on the vernacular and not the message behind the piece. I think that's the point, to prove how a mystique is created by the spoken word, not even driven or tarnished by music. One great theme here: language is power, because when God spoke the world came into existence.

Great interviews! This could have been a dry subject if the human element in this wasn't played up so well. Nice editing job. I think the nat.sound related to the music could have been placed a little bit better throughout the piece, esp. during the interviews, rather than just dropped in the beginning and at the end. But I'm still liking this a bunch.

Smooth and entertaining, maybe rambling a bit too much, but it makes sense considering the subject and the perspective, these girls who try to fight themselves from becoming too enamored with the rock and roll lifestyle they aren't interested in living but somehow can't stop being hooked on. The funny thing is that these "rock" bands, as noted in the piece, are not bands that are going to hit it big, leaving their significant others wondering where the excitement in their relationship is coming from -- probably not from watching their boyfriends chug beer in the parking lot. This feels like a rainy day magazine-style piece.

While the music in the first half-hour is pleasing, I downloaded this for the last 25 minutes or so containing the interview with Matmos, who makes for a great interview, especially concerning their production techniques on the surgically enhanced "A Chance to Cut." The questions are sharp and the responses are thoughtful and entertaining. The interview would work well within any progressive music show, and the entire hour would respectably fill any hour of programming you need to fill.

You can really feel Dunkley's frustration here -- not only evident during the rant where he drops the f-bomb -- as a man just trying to make a living the way he knows how. At first I wanted him to be mic'd better because I couldn't hear what he was doing over the background noise, but I started to like hearing how he worked within the atmosphere of the station. The ending is choppy. The writing is solid, except where the words in the voiceover to closely mirrors the soundclip (the part where Dunkley talks about making money). The sound of the subway performance drives this piece and regularly reminds the listener, even when the voiceover begins to take the story away, that the real nut is a man and his music.

I read about this event some time ago in the NYTimes and was surprised and happy to see this story about it. Just like the Times story, this radio piece piques my interest about the event without giving too much away. Good sense of visualization. Nice placement of sound. Well-balanced journalism. I could hear this in a variety of shows, from news to arts.

Moments of good humor but the interviewer isn't convincing. Stick with the concept and redo the dialogue to make it tighter.

A nice collection of international voices in Syracuse. The story unfolds smoothly enough in the first minute, but it seems like the issue of politics is bluntly introduced -- maybe the writing in this section could use some work. But the voices carry the piece the rest of the way through. A highlight is the comparison of U.S. government to Ghanaian government.

I liked all aspects of this, particularly because this is a fascinating issue. I wonder how the Bush people think about framing their man in the public eye. That has to be a very tough job. For some reason I really dug the Nixon quote about hearing a lot about the new Nixon. Maybe it's his sugary vocals.

Well done. I played this piece as part of a review of the presidential race, just before the DNC. Hopefully other stations will have a spot to plug this in before it's no longer relevant.

Fascinating! A surplus of sound from the hypermusical instruments and the orchestras that fleshed out the basic compositions for the classical crowd. Enjoyable, encouraging, and touching.

I'm sure there are some youth out there who would really dig this, even though I didn't.