I was driving a few weeks ago with my wife in her car, which has a cd player. We’re a little (or I suppose a LOT) behind in media technology for the motor vehicle with my truck only having a tape player. Up until last Thanksgiving that was our primary mode of transportation, so we listened to a lot of radio and silence when my tape player went out a few years back. Fortunately my good buddy hooked me up with an old iPod and adapter that plugs into the cigarette lighter and lets you play on a free radio channel. That is the way I pass time on the long drive to and from work now.

Anyways, back to the drive with my wife in her car. I made some mix cds for her and on one of them was some great Jimi Hendrix b-sides. We both love old Hendrix stuff. I used to be an ardent fan a decade or so ago, collecting the remastered cds when they would be released. I loved not just the music but the liner notes and photos in the cd booklet. It was great flipping through that while listening to the music. Hendrix had this charisma that went beyond the image of a black rock star in an era of mostly white music icons. His music was an experience, and he knew that, hence his band was called “The Jimi Hendrix Experience.” I know there was some hippie drug stuff tied into that experience as well, but the music was something that transcended its time and is still an experience over 4 decades later.

If all you’ve heard from Hendrix is the standard classic rock radio hits, you’ve been highly short-changed. Sure, Jimi’s take on the Dylan track “All Along The Watchtower” is amazing, the solos genuinely phenomenal and awesome. “Purple Haze” is an incredible addition to rock music’s greatest anthems and riffs. “Foxey Lady,” “Fire” and “Crosstown Traffic” are some less well-known tunes that still are radio fodder. But there’s SOOOOO much more to experience that showcases his insane ability to turn a guitar into more than an instrument. That ability to turn a 6 string guitar into an experience all its own can be discovered in tunes like “1983…(A Mermaid I Should Turn To Be)” from Electric Ladyland. At over 13 minutes, it’s a song that media back then and now won’t play for time’s sake. But it encompass’ his jazz and blues background and inspiration as well as kicking into some funk and psychedelic sides. There’s also the classic Bold As Love (the title track from Axis: Bold As Love that John Mayer covered years ago; Jimi’s solo is far better), Burning Of The Midnight Lamp, also on Electric Ladyland, which has one of the best wah-wah themes ever writtern, Third Stone From The Sun on Are You Experienced, and a ton of other great songs.

These songs are more than just music, they’re an experience. Last week on The Appetizer I shared with listeners a revelation I had weeks ago about what life would be like without color, and likewise without music. The challenge and notion presented was to close your eyes and see colors when you listen to music. Hendrix makes that experience easy, which is why this weekend we’ll experience the colors of music with a little big of Jimi Hendrix, as well as Ben Harper, The Light Parade from Abilene, Tx, Dream Theater, new band Resonant Discourse and much more. Join us.

I have to admit that though I used to consume a lot of cassette tapes (back when that was the way to listen to music as opposed to vinyl records), and yet I can’t recall for the life of me what a cassette tape cost in terms of albums. I don’t remember if they ran $8 or $10. Maybe more. I know cds ranged from $15-$20 brand new unless you got them on sale for $10. Then the Internet became the place where consumers went to for music because you could just grab a single track without having to buy the whole album. You could dictate the market for music instead of it making the rules (in terms of you buying music).

Still, $10 buys albums. That’s a cool thing, especially with all the speculation that inflation is going to drive the prices up on our lifestyle as Americans and as free thinkers. That’s wild. Just about everything else I buy, whether online or in a store, costs much more than it did 10 years ago, 5 years ago, or even 2 years ago. Especially food. My favorite restaurants have changed their menus repeatedly in the last 5 years. Yeah they have new dishes, new pictures, and of course new prices. It’s not a huge difference, but there used to be stuff on the Chili’s menu that cost $4.99 that wasn’t a side salad or bread. You used to be able to get something at Red Lobster that wasn’t on the Starters menu for $4-5. It’s not that way anymore. But music has stayed consistent in that realm, at least on iTunes, which is probably the main place most of us are consuming the music we listen to. We all (or most of us) have an iPod or mp3 player that we link to our iTunes or computer for music and that’s what we are connected to. I know I buy gift cards to iTunes to budget my music consumption, and in that $10 goes a long way.

Why am I making this big deal about $10 and music and iTunes? If you’re asking if I’m going to start running iTunes ads because The Appetizer is now sponsored there or has a deal, the answer to that is no. I wish I had a sponsorship with iTunes or a music retailer. That would be a great thing to partner with a store in what I do. No, the reason I bring this up is to actually ask you as a reader and consumer of music and The Appetizer to take what you’d spend on 1 iTunes album, and put it towards another outlet that contributes to the music realm, the indie music world in particular. And that is public radio. Yeah, public radio has been in the news a lot in the past few weeks with the controversial stuff involving ex-CEOs and members of the executive staff and remarks made to people posing as other people. Personally I feel the backlash against NPR and public radio is politically motivated more than anything. But that’s a different conversation. I’m not plugging NPR.

I am trying to raise support of public radio, in particular the stations that carry my show The Appetizer. Those great stations include KACU in Abilene, Tx, KVLU-1 in Beaumont, Tx, and KTRL in Stephenville, Tx. These stations are GIANT contributors to music, and to people searching for something off the beaten path. Artists that are becoming well-known across the country like Iron & Wine, Ray LaMontagne, Bon Iver, The Civil Wars, and others have grown in audience because public radio has done so much to showcase them. Public radio (KACU, KTRL, and KVLU-1 in particular) have been huge resources for Texans who connect with indie artists, attend concerts and more. Because of these contributions to music, support them with $10 in the name of indie music. If you did it in the name of The Appetizer, even better. But $10 helps stations in big ways.

I know that this week and this month is fundraising season for most public radio stations. Your $10 helps these stations continue to play the music that you want to hear, not something that Billboard or a major label exec says to play. That’s how public radio works. I worked for a little while at a station that was told by Billboard how many times each day they had to play certain songs. It drove me nuts, for a few reasons. First, I was already sick of hearing these same songs over and over every day and having to repeat that without any control was more than annoying. Plus, not being able to decide for yourself when you run a station as to what you can and can’t play is debilitating, to the radio industry as well as the music industry. Public radio operates by different rules. As a program co-director, only my station manager tells us what to play. He and I collaborate on what we’re broadcasting. That’s why you get such cool guests on the air as well as amazing talents in indie music on public radio. We have that kind of freedom. But it comes at a cost. The listenership contributes to the lifeblood of this endeavor.

I implore you to invest $10 (or more) in these stations, in the name of The Appetizer and indie music. Trust me, that President Hamilton (or Franklin if you’re more generous) will go a long way. Thank you.

Click on these links to contribute to these stations. Let them know you’re giving in the name of The Appetizer and indie music.

89.7 KACU FM
90.5 KTRL
91.3 KVLU-1