More radio play! Zak on KSDT (San Diego)!

One kind of fun thing about being an independent musician is that you occasionally don't find out about cool things until way after the fact. It kind of stretches out the cool factor, if you want to think of it that way. For example, since we can't sit here and monitor every radio station in the country 24 hours a day, we rely on occasionally checking published playlists (which not every station has available, of course) to see if I got any radio spins.

Well, today, my darling Kat (who shares duties with me running our little Frothy Music record label) sent me an instant message from work. There was some excited-looking typed gibberish, and then a link. I clicked it, and there was a playlist from KSDT, the indie student radio station out of UC San Diego. Glancing down the list from May 3 (yeah, almost two months ago), there I was! It's the first college radio airplay of my instrumental song "Waxing Gibbous". Yay!

This makes me really happy. I'm imagining some person kicking back on a Monday night in the 11PM hour, perhaps doing some studying in the dorms at UCSD, and chilling to the mellow acoustic guitar vibe of "Gibbous". I hope he or she liked it. Of course, since KSDT sends its sounds out over an Internet stream (like most radio stations these days), it's as likely that a person chilling in Sydney or Saskatoon was listening in as the student in San Diego. In any case, it's made my day.

Looking at the list above, the set I was in gives me some pretty great company. I was played directly after Weather Report, one of the pre-eminent jazz fusion bands in history. The show's set list also included Lole y Manuel, the amazing flamenco duo, with their song "Tu Mira" from the Kill Bill: Volume 2 soundtrack; a tune from Woody Herman who was one of the world's best big band leaders; and finally Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush doing a performance of the Canadian national anthem, "O Canada". Wow! I am loving the eclectic list, and it's a trip to see my name alongside those infinitely more well-known musicians.

By the way: KSDT is a student run station, and is very highly regarded in the world of college and indie radio. It really is an honor just to be played there. Now I have to hurry up and finish this blog post so I can send the DJs some love letters or something.