New Trey Anastasio Album, Apparently...

It seems like Trey Anastasio released a new album back in July, and I had no idea. It's supposed to be some sort of collection of cuts to quench the thirsts of fans in between his "real" albums, but allmusic is saying that it's actually better than "Shine" and "Bar 17," so I'm excited to listen to it. I'll try to get my hands on it soon to give it a proper review.

Also, you can expect a review of Joni Mitchell's "Shine" within the next few days.

Clear Channel Gets Bought...

It appears that the almighty superpower of terrestrial radio in America, Clear Channel, has been bought by a no-name company.

While this comes as a surprise for many, I think it's been a somewhat long-time coming. There has been speculation in the radio world as to when and if this was going to happen for a few years now.

While people who know me may expect for me to be more excited than a bouncing chihuahua, I'm not sure whether this will help radio. Obviously, it can't get much worse, but we'll have to wait and see what this "mysterious" company decides to do with Clear Channel. Seeing as they plan on selling off a lot of radio stations, there is the possibility of the overall quality of radio improving, but when companies like CBS Radio are going to buy most of them, it's hard to say whether anything will change.

But hey, at least there's hope.

For those of you playing at home, Bain Capital and Thomas H Lee Partners bought Clear Channel for $18.7 Billion.

Full story at BBC.

Classical Station Coming To Miami...

It seems like classical music will be returning full time to South Florida. WMCU 89.7 FM has been purchased by The American Public Media Group (pending FCC approval, of course).

I personally question how long this will last. We've seen new formats come and go, but in the end all that'll matter will be what the Arbitron ratings say. According to the Miami Herald article, however, we shouldn't have to worry about them flaking on us since they appear to be pretty hardcore when it comes to classical music.

I still remain skeptical, though. Afterall, this is South Florida, the premier wasteland for radio.

From the Miami Herald.

P Duffman Goes HD...

I recently purchased a JVC HD-R1 receiver for my car, and it's absolutely brilliant. Obviously, I purchased it at a lower price being the incredibly savvy shopper that I am. It's much nicer than my previous JVC receiver, who's cd-playing operation stopped working about a year ago and recently began turning on and off whenever the hell it pleased. The big deal, though, is that it's HD. While I've always poked fun of HD radio right from the beginning, I figured I may as well ante up the extra cash for it to check it out for myself.

For the most part, it's pretty much what I expected. The clear channel HD2 channels are pretty much crap, while some of the other HD2 channels are pretty fun. WDNA (Serious Jazz) sounds glorious in HD. The drum hits are crisp and tight and the horns sound incredibly pure. WLRN's HD2 classical channel is awesome, too. The Coast's HD2 channel is entertaining; hearing "We Didn't Start The Fire" in HD is never a bad thing.

Meanwhile, stations that are utter shit are proving this to be even more evident with their poor use of HD. Power 96 and Hot 103.5 seem to be having radio sex via-HD2 channels. Power 96's HD2 channel sounds like Hot 103.5. Meanwhile, Hot 103.5's HD2 channel sounds like Power 96. Way to give the public more variety, dumb-fucks.

And as if poor programming wasn't enough, they've decided to not only slap the listeners in the face, but to also jam an over-sized dildo into their assholes by compressing the hell out of their audio, mainly 93 Rock. Wait...it's HD...isn't it supposed to sound better? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. It turns out the geniuses over there decided it'd be a good idea to compress their HD audio, making their normal analog signal sound better.

Anyway, I still haven't fully gotten into HD radio, but I think I've gotten a pretty accurate taste of it so far.

With my recent purchase, I will now own something and be adept in the following forms of radio:

• AM Radio
• FM Radio
• Shortwave Radio
• Satellite Radio
• HD Radio

All I need now is to get a HAM license, though I'm not sure I'll actually bother with that.

Audio Fossils On The Internets!

Hello everyone.

Yes, I figured it was time to give Audio Fossils its own space on the interwebs. This site/blog will be dedicated to keeping listeners informed of things going on with the show, but most importantly it will keep you all updated on random crap, because we all need more random crap in our lives.

While the details and aesthetics of the blog are still being worked on (I know the colours might not be the best thing in the world), everything else is pretty much set to go.

So, bookmark this page to check back on updates, and those of you who are a bit more web-savvy can add the RSS feed to whatever RSS handler you have.