Radio Radio

March 20, 2007 - 8:37 AM by

I remember growing up and having personal relationships with my favorite radio stations – calling in for the contests on the Top 40 stations as a kid, and calling to request the latest hit by The Archies.

And later, when I had switched to the progressive rock FM mode, it would be calling in to request The Grateful Dead, and even later, in college having been won over by punk, having a direct line to the program director of the hip new wave station to lobby for more Ramones, Costello and The Jam.

But I never developed that connection with any Israeli radio stations, where the inconsistency of song selection and indiscriminate aesthetics suffocates any thoughts of station loyalty (alright, 88 FM can be pretty amazing at times).
But an incident last week brought back memories of those days of radio community for me. Driving home late at night, and listening to Galgalatz (the Army radio channel stocked by DJ soldiers devoted to music – instead of news and talk), I was mesmerized by a song that came on after the 1 am news bulletin – bright, ringing Anglo pop, with an unforgettable Brian-Wilson-derived melody line, rippling guitars, British Invasion beat, but still sounding totally current.

I listened with bated breath to find out who this mysterious artist was, but the DJ immediately segued into ELO’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” – an omen of things to come. She told the listeners about the ELO song afterwards, but neglected to ID the first song, not the first time that’s occurred with Israeli radio stations. Ugghhh, I banged the steering wheel, as, like Jeff Lynne, I couldn’t get the previous song out of my head.

The next morning, I took the matter into my own hands, called Galgalatz, talked to a nice, young soldier named Tomer who told me he’d have a look back at the play log and call me back.

Five minutes later, he actually did, and I learned that the song was “Phantom Limb” from the new album by The Shins, the great indie guitar pop band from New Mexico, of whom Natalie Portman’s character in the film Garden State gushes, saying that “this band will change your life.”

shins

By 1 pm, I had made a beeline to my favorite Jerusalem record store Balance, and by 2 pm, I was hitting the repeat button on the CD player, thrilled that the song sounded as good the next day as it had sounded the previous night at 1:05 am.

And now Tomer at Galgalatz will be my new recipient of requests for oldies by The Archies.

Tags: • Category: General, Immigrant Moments, Pop Culture 

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