surprise show in delaware

[hazel]

i was at pier one today and the girl at the counter saw my wilco button on my purse and she said wilco played a surprise show in delaware at the brandywine raceway about 2 weeks ago! (she mentioned it was a tiny little place). i knew nothing about this show, she said the local philly member supported radio station 'wxpn' announced it about 24 hours before it was to happen and that there was a bunch of people who camped out. i used to listen to that station all the time before i got sirius , so i haven't in a long time. i see no mention about this show on the board. after i got over being that i missed the show and knew nothing of it i couldn't believe someone noticed my button and actually knew what it meant and that made me

 

did anyone around here know about this show?

[cryptique]

I doubt there was such a show. They're playing in Delaware in August.

 

They would have had to play this alleged show sometime since 5/17 (ten days ago), because there weren't any gaps in the schedule before then that were long enough to have gotten to Delaware (from west of the Mississippi) and back.

 

Don't believe everything you hear at Pier 1.

[hazel]

i'm gonna call xpn and find out as soon as kids corner is over.

[markosis]

i'm gonna call xpn and find out as soon as kids corner is over.

 

and I'm probably the only other person here who knows what kids corner is.

 

I checked the XPN boards and I didn't see it mentioned.

[hazel]

i called xpn twice and i'm just getting the recorded message. this girl seemed to be sincere but then again i found it strange there was no mention of this show anywhere. people are strange.

[thisyearsgirl]

you would think SOMEONE here would have stumbled upon it and reported back if it had happened.

 

also, delaware seems like the wrong part of the country for the band to be in, seeing that the concert dates around that time were in kansas, texas, new mexico, colorado, and missouri.

 

btw, i used to listen to WXPN a lot during my lunch and prep period at work. they play some great music you don't hear a lot on the radio.

[tongue-tied lightning]

i'm an XPN fan

 

maybe she meant they are going to be playing in August ?

[dagwave]

I would venture a guess that the "surprise show" is being confused with the ticket line campout at the venue for the August show.

 

Just another in a long long list of reasons to continue the international Pier 1 boycott. Not to mention satellite radio.

 

On another note, XPN is by far the best and only radio station worth listening to- at least in the PA area!

[willywoody]

i listen to the wxpn stream from 2-4 days a week usually and heard nothing about this.

[markosis]

XPN is by far the best and only radio station worth listening to- at least in the PA area!

 

Nah, WPRB in Princeton blows XPN away. And they cover a wide listening area. Check em out 103.3 FM.

[Three dollars and 63 cents]

I used to listen to WXPN when I was in high school and college. If I adjusted my radio antenna just right, I could pick it up very vaguely. I don't listen to the radio much online now, but when I do, I always tune in to XPN. That's the first place I ever heard a Wilco song, in fact.

 

Hi hazel If I can find a ticket, I'm going to try to come down for the Wilmington show.

[hazel]

i have to say xpn will always be my favorite, it is where i discovered wilco for the first time.

 

i guess that girl at pier 1 WAS confused, she said she heard about it on xpn so maybe they were just talking about the campout and line that formed for tickets to the aug 10th show. i was just excited to find someone around here who knew who wilco was.

 

hi maggie hope you can make it!

[blue_94_trooper]

I'm an XPN member and fairly active on their boards. No way this would have escaped my notice. If it happened it happened w/o involvement from XPN and completely unnoticed by a large number of Wilco fans on that board.

 

Also, Brandywine Raceway was turned into a shopping center over 10 years ago.

 

btw - KEXP blows XPN's doors off for variety. I support both but stream KEXP at work. John Richards is probably my favorite DJ at the moment. Some of the best at XPN (e.g. Matt Reilly) sit on the bench while Michaela Majoun and Helen Leicht clutter the airwaves.

[hardwood floor]

I'm an XPN member and fairly active on their boards. No way this would have escaped my notice. If it happened it happened w/o involvement from XPN and completely unnoticed by a large number of Wilco fans on that board.

 

Also, Brandywine Raceway was turned into a shopping center over 10 years ago.

 

btw - KEXP blows XPN's doors off for variety. I support both but stream KEXP at work. John Richards is probably my favorite DJ at the moment. Some of the best at XPN (e.g. Matt Reilly) sit on the bench while Michaela Majoun and Helen Leicht clutter the airwaves.

 

haven't heard KEXP but i can echo the comment that WPRB blows away WXPN

 

WXPN is the worst excuse for an "alternative" radio station in America. It's actually the most heavily formatted station you'll ever hear. They blow their own horn like they're some cutting edge, free-form station, but they NEVER stray from their tightly formatted playlist of 60 percent women singersongwriter stuff, 35 percent tired familiar oldies (steeley dan, david bowie, rem), 4 percent current male singersongwriter stuff and 1 percent actual good new music you've never heard before. and that 1 percent is probably a little high.

 

WXPN never takes risks, never plays deep album cuts, never plays anything remotely edgy or experimental, never plays anything with balls. it's music for middle-aged suburban moms and dads who want to think they're cutting edge because they know who She and Him are.

 

WXPN sucks.

[dagwave]

haven't heard KEXP but i can echo the comment that WPRB blows away WXPN

 

WXPN is the worst excuse for an "alternative" radio station in America. It's actually the most heavily formatted station you'll ever hear. They blow their own horn like they're some cutting edge, free-form station, but they NEVER stray from their tightly formatted playlist of 60 percent women singersongwriter stuff, 35 percent tired familiar oldies (steeley dan, david bowie, rem), 4 percent current male singersongwriter stuff and 1 percent actual good new music you've never heard before. and that 1 percent is probably a little high.

 

WXPN never takes risks, never plays deep album cuts, never plays anything remotely edgy or experimental, never plays anything with balls. it's music for middle-aged suburban moms and dads who want to think they're cutting edge because they know who She and Him are.

 

WXPN sucks.

 

 

possible explanations:

 

1. your girlfriend dumped you for WXPN

2. WXPN fired you for not making the floors shiny enough.

3. Your car has only AM radio and no air conditioning.

4. All of the above!

[tugmoose]

it's music for middle-aged suburban moms and dads who want to think they're cutting edge because they know who She and Him are.

Hey, I'm not a mom or a dad.

 

:wub :wub :wub :wub :wub :wub :wub

[mfwahl]

Best. Show. Ever.

[thisyearsgirl]

haven't heard KEXP but i can echo the comment that WPRB blows away WXPN

 

WXPN is the worst excuse for an "alternative" radio station in America. It's actually the most heavily formatted station you'll ever hear. They blow their own horn like they're some cutting edge, free-form station, but they NEVER stray from their tightly formatted playlist of 60 percent women singersongwriter stuff, 35 percent tired familiar oldies (steeley dan, david bowie, rem), 4 percent current male singersongwriter stuff and 1 percent actual good new music you've never heard before. and that 1 percent is probably a little high.

 

WXPN never takes risks, never plays deep album cuts, never plays anything remotely edgy or experimental, never plays anything with balls. it's music for middle-aged suburban moms and dads who want to think they're cutting edge because they know who She and Him are.

 

WXPN sucks.

 

you obviously didn't grow up in a music market like the one i did in fort wayne, not a small town by any means. (at 225,000 in the metro area, i'm assuming we are/were considered a secondary market)

 

i had no choice but oldies, classic rock, country, talk, or top 40 until 1995, when i was a senior in high school. my attachment to oldies and classic rock to this day definitely is a result of this, which is cool, but i barely knew who stone temple pilots and nirvana were until '95. (and, so you know, i didn't have cable until about 1994 either, and mtv was already pretty much a waste already, other than 120 minutes, which i usually missed being that it was on at midnight on sunday night, and i was a straight-A geek who needed her sleep!) there's something wrong with that. of course, i caught up to a lot of other young people once i went to college, but i definitely feel like i missed something.

 

now that i live in chicago, i can definitely see that big cities have the advantage as far as radio goes. i love/loved WXPN, but i also think WXRT here in chicago is great, which i know a lot of people don't like for the same reasons you say you don't like WXPN. just being able to hear a beatles song, followed by the new wilco or spoon, which is trailed by a blues song is pretty cool to me.

 

all this just basically is to say it depends on your frame of reference, i guess.

[thisyearsgirl]

Hey, I'm not a mom or a dad.

 

:wub :wub :wub :wub :wub :wub :wub

 

neither am i, and i only like a few songs on that record, but she is a doll, i have to say.

 

i still love her in almost famous and think she carries off that girl group sound quite well.

[honestgabe]

Some of the best at XPN (e.g. Matt Reilly) sit on the bench while Michaela Majoun and Helen Leicht clutter the airwaves.

 

 

yeah whats up with that? Matt Reilly is such a great DJ, when he first came on board my friends and I always looked forward to when he was on. Indie Hit Parade was a thousand times better than Y-Rock on XPN.

[moxiebean]

haven't heard KEXP but i can echo the comment that WPRB blows away WXPN

 

WXPN is the worst excuse for an "alternative" radio station in America. It's actually the most heavily formatted station you'll ever hear. They blow their own horn like they're some cutting edge, free-form station, but they NEVER stray from their tightly formatted playlist of 60 percent women singersongwriter stuff, 35 percent tired familiar oldies (steeley dan, david bowie, rem), 4 percent current male singersongwriter stuff and 1 percent actual good new music you've never heard before. and that 1 percent is probably a little high.

 

WXPN never takes risks, never plays deep album cuts, never plays anything remotely edgy or experimental, never plays anything with balls. it's music for middle-aged suburban moms and dads who want to think they're cutting edge because they know who She and Him are.

 

WXPN sucks.

 

I'm glad someone said this - I was a grad student at Penn when WXPN made the transition from quirky student-run/programmed college radio station to the entity it's become today. One of their first steps was to pull the student djs off the air & standardize the programming (you know, be more "professional") And while they were one of the first stations to champion world music and the whole mostly-acoustic singersongwriter genre it got to be a predictable and homogenized listening experience real quick. If you tuned in during the day in the early 90's you pretty much knew you were going to hear something by John Wesley Harding, Sarah McLachlan, and Tracy Chapman - all fine artists but a bit much to take day after day after day. I was just glad the neighboring Drexel student-run station was on the air.

[aricandover]

Gil Edwards sucks

[blue_94_trooper]

I'm glad someone said this - I was a grad student at Penn when WXPN made the transition from quirky student-run/programmed college radio station to the entity it's become today. One of their first steps was to pull the student djs off the air & standardize the programming (you know, be more "professional") And while they were one of the first stations to champion world music and the whole mostly-acoustic singersongwriter genre it got to be a predictable and homogenized listening experience real quick. If you tuned in during the day in the early 90's you pretty much knew you were going to hear something by John Wesley Harding, Sarah McLachlan, and Tracy Chapman - all fine artists but a bit much to take day after day after day. I was just glad the neighboring Drexel student-run station was on the air.

 

It's not a college station and hasn't been since the mid-70's (I guess you're older than me). They are dependent upon member funding (they get no cash from Penn... only HR services, the building they're in, and some other operational infrastructure type stuff). They have found a niche that enables them to stay solvent by catering to the types of people who are going to support them financially. They can't afford to be experimental. KDU plays a lot of good stuff but most of the time I'd rather go to my iPod than listen to a student DJ mumble on-air. Their signal also isn't very strong. Most of what has been said about XPN's programming is true but as far a terrestrial station that reaches the Philly suburbs, they are miles better than the alternatives. (FWIW - their listeners voted Sky Blue Sky as 2007's album of the year.)

 

That being said, KEXP is a similarly run station (associated with, but not funded by UW) and they manage to stay much more on the "cutting edge" (whatever that is any more) and solvent with a budget almost as big as XPN's. Their morning and mid-day (Pacific time) jocks are great, after that it gets a bit thin. I highly recommend checking out their stream at KEXP.org.