Pretending the echoes belong to someone... subbing for Claire on 11/26

Today I received an email news update from the Chicago Tribune that Jeannette Sliwinski had been sentenced to 8 years in prison for the killing of three local Chicago musicians. Sliwinski had intended to kill herself when she accelerated up to 87 miles per hour before slamming into stopped traffic — but she didn't kill herself; instead she killed the three men in the car she hit: Douglas Meis, Michael Dahlquist, and John Glick.

I first heard about this story in the spring of 2006 when I was doing a Memorial Day show. I invited listeners to call in with suggestions of musicians who had died, and this was one of the stories I heard.

So I decided to honor their memory again today by playing a song by each of the bands that they were in: The Dials, The Returnables, and Silkworm. And I read a little about the story in the paper.

I got a call thanking me for the tribute, by someone (a friend, or a relative perhaps) who had been in the courtroom earlier when the sentence was read. He told me that with good behavior she'd only have to serve 4 years, and with time served, that's less than two years away.

I didn't know what to say; to me this story had been sort of abstract, another person's tragedy. But this phone call brought it home and made it concrete. There is real pain behind the news, but you don't fully understand that until you are talking to someone involved.

I did make me think about the nature of community radio. We the DJs come from the community, and we play for the community, and sometimes what we play is about the community, and sometimes the community calls us and we make a connection.

I thanked him for calling and giving the information. It was very touching, and I'm glad he liked the set.


*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
The Postal Service	We Will Become Silhouettes	Give Up	Sup Pop
The Beautiful South	You Keep It All In	Carry On Up the Charts	Mercury
*Morning Recordings	Join the Curtains	The Welcome Kinetic	Loose Thread
Kate Bush	Top of the City	The Red Shoes	Columbia
The Moodswings	Rainsong	The Moodswings	Arista
Maya Angelou	Since Me Man Has Done Gone and Went	Divas Exotica	Capitol
*White Williams	In the Club	Smoke	Tigerbeat6
*Speck Mountain	Stockholm	Summer Above	Burnt Brown Sounds
eX-Girl	Venus vs. Gas Onna	Endangered Species	Alternative Tentacles
Grandmaster Flash	The Message	The Message	Sakkaris
The Dials	Nothing But Crazy	Flex Time	Latest Flame
The Returnables	Teenage Imposters	The Returnables	Dirt Nap
Silkworm	Penalty Box	It'll Be Cool	Touch and Go
*The Mary Onettes	The Laughters	The Mary Onettes	Labrador
*Figurines	Hey Girl	When the Deer Wore Blue	Control Group
Rufus Wainwright	April Fool	Rufus Wainwright	Dreamworks
Laurie Anderson	The Day the Devil	Talk Normal Anthology	Rhino
Meryn Cadell	Inventory	Angel Food for Thought	Bongo Beat
*Muscles	Chocolate Raspberry Lemon & Lime	Guns Babes Lemonade	Modular
*Six Organs of Admittance	Jade Like Wine	Shelter from the Ash	Drag City
Nina Simone	Kangaroo	It'll End in Tears	4AD
Robert Pollard	Tomorrow Will Not Be Another Day	Normal Happiness	Merge
Troubled Hubble	Everything's Going to Be Fine in Canada	The Sun Beamed Off	Magic Spot
*The Owls	Apocalypse	Daughters and Suns	Magic Marker
*Citay	First Fantasy	Little Kingdoms	Dead Oceans
Aztec Camera	Down the Dip	High Land, Hard Rain	Tokuma Japan/Rough Trade
Bettye LaVette	Sleep to Dream	I've Got My Own Hell to Raise	Anti-/Epitaph
*Band of Horses	Islands on the Coast	Cease to Begin	Sub Pop
The Go-Go's	You Can't Walk in Your Sleep (If You Can't Sleep)	Beauty and the Beat	I.R.S.

Labels: playlists

posted by Tony at 7:08 PM