Twice now in recent weeks, listening to Weekend Edition Saturday, I’ve heard great music showcased on NPR. One band was some retro-funk/techno combo, and the other garage punk. Trouble is I missed the names of the groups both times and I’ll be hanged if I can navigate the NPR Web site to extract such seemingly trivial information. You’d think these kinds of things would be simple. The search function under the Archives heading is getting me nowhere. Short of buying a transcript, is there any way to use the freakin’ site to find out what music was played between such and such a time on such and such a date? (That’s asking a lot, I know.)
Posted by mgk at March 13, 2005 08:38 PMMaybe here?
http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/
Yes, go here and select "Weekend Edition" from the drop-down menu:
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/asc/buttons.php?prgId=2&prgDate=current
No dice G., I'm not finding what I heard.
I have the day, station, and time to within about 20 minutes, but there's no way to retrieve information based on those metrics. :-(
Posted by: MGK at March 13, 2005 10:19 PM | Link to Comment
First determine whether the music was generated by the NPR feed or the local station. If it was indeed from the NPR feed, you should definitely find it by listening whatever program you were listening to. On the other hand it might've been local "bumper music" (as nonNPR Art Bell calls it) programmed around the segway between the NPR feed and the local component (local news within Morning Edition and All Things Considered, station ID, etc.). If it's the latter, I'd imagine the only way you can get that sort of "incidental music" is by contacting the station in question. Give them the time/date and program, and they should get back to you pretty quick. That sorta content is generally not logged and archived online, but NPR affiliates tend to log _everything_ and I'd be surprised if they weren't willing to share it with you.
EDIT: If it's an NPR feed you should be able to find it by listening through the archived recording and All Songs Considered.
Posted by: Midnight Platypus at March 14, 2005 12:09 PM | Link to CommentBut I stiiilllll haven't found . . . what I'm looking for . . .
Posted by: MGK at March 15, 2005 08:20 AM | Link to CommentCurrent radio got you frustrated? Then get your own show!
http://negativland.com/nmol/ote/text/getoshow.html
Of course, they don't keep logs at all....
Posted by: Midnight Platypus at March 15, 2005 11:13 AM | Link to CommentAll this just makes me want to say one more time--when is NPR going to start podcasting some of its shows.... Apparently they tried it one time with All Things Considered and haven't done a podcast since....
Posted by: Amy at March 17, 2005 09:03 PM | Link to Comment
Audible allows subscriptions to Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Those and I think Talk of the Nation are the only programs produced exclusively by NPR. The rest of the programming NPR distributes (Fresh Air, Diane Rheme, This American Life, etc. actually Wait Wait Don't Tell Me may be a NPR product) are produced by local affiliates. Most of the local shows are archived either through the affiliate itself or some other audio archive like Audible or Transom. Don't know if NPR's weird somewhat navel gazing / radio-retarding worldview accounts for podcasting (of course, neither does Pacifica really). But that's a tirade you'll have to read in my diss's epilogue.