The Current Music Blog
< Herb Alpert: Problem or Solution? | Main | Some news >

The Current birthday party exposes secret sisterhood

Posted at 2:11 PM on January 24, 2007 by Christina Schmitt (13 Comments)

The Current turns 2 today, so staff got together today for lunch and very rich cake. Yum.

Because The Current is staffed 24/7, I don't always get to see folks outside my normal weekday routine--like Brandt Williams, who DJs on Sunday evenings and is a hard-working reporter in the MPR Minneapolis bureau the rest of the week.

Staff parties, by the way, are where you learn very important things about your colleagues, such as who among us hates pickles. I hate them. DJ Jacquie Fuller hates them (Jacquie DJs weekdays 4-5 a.m.). The Current's reporter Nikki Tundell hates them. We don't like the way they're slipped into hamburger baskets and contaminate french fries. We are going to start a club for pickle haters. Do you hate pickles?

And do you love The Current? (Of course you do because you're reading this blog.) What's your favorite Current memory from the past two years?

Comments (13)

A friend of mine is the vice president of the Bob Dylan pickle haters fan club. Do you guys like Dylan? Cause then you could join that club . . .

Posted by Sanden Totten | January 24, 2007 4:36 PM

Love the Current, hate the pickles! How can pickles seriously call themselves a garnish? (My pal Jeanette calls them a "sub-garnish.") A garnish, by definition, is something that goes on top and merely provides aesthetic value. Pickles hide beneath your fries and leak their vinegary poison onto everything on your plate. It’s wrong! Why? Why hide anything under anything? It’s sneaky and downright unethical.

Okay—favorite Current moment. June 6, 2006. Mary Lucia and Bob Collins were discussing the superstitions surrounding that particular date. (Apparently, pregnant women induce labor on the 5th to avoid birthing the next Omen.) When Collins signed off, Mary saluted him with a hearty “Hail, Satan!” (reminiscent of that one fantastic Mr. Show skit) that had me laughing so hard, I nearly wrecked my car on 94. Knowing the effect Bob and Mary have on me, I now carpool with Christina to avoid such disasters.

Oh, and once I listened to Bob and Mary at the dentist's. It was during that freaky winter "heatwave" we had a month or so ago, and I was getting three fillings replaced. At the end of the weather report, Bob made a joke about an "inevitable interplanetary collision." Hilarious. Except I had a tube stuck in my nose pumping nitrous oxide to my brain, and I though Bob was serious. I do not recommend the combination of Bob Colins and mind-altering substances.

Posted by Jacquie Fuller | January 24, 2007 4:48 PM

Question about the Bob Dylan pickle haters fan club: Are you a fan of Bob Dylan's who just happens to also hate pickles? Do they have a Web site?

Posted by Christina Schmitt | January 24, 2007 5:03 PM

My favorite memories tend also tend to involve Mary.

There was the time early in the Current's life when she spent 10 minutes talking up Wilco's "The Lonely One", waxing rapturous over its beauty and emotional depth. She then proceeded to play the entirely wrong song. Being Mary, she was simply not content to let it play out. Mary actually interrupted in the middle of the song, announced that it was NOT the song she loved, then put on the correct song.

Another time she ripped a song off the air, right in the middle, and announced "Now there's three minutes of my life that I'll never get back... (my boss hates it when I do that).

Both times I could just picture the boss banging his head on his desk and asking himself why he hired this loose cannon of a DJ!

And of course the "Mary 'n Bob News Comedy Hour" oughtta be on prime time TV. Or maybe not.

Posted by Auntie Smedley | January 24, 2007 5:05 PM

I too love the news with Mary and Bob. But my favorite Current memory so far involves one of those psychic DJ moments--you know how that goes? You turn on the radio and they're playing the exact song you've been thinking about? This was even better.

Come with me in my head for a minute. Last summer, my grandpa, Pappy, was diagnosed with lung cancer, and my brother, who is 27 and wayward, decided he was going to leave Chicago and move east to take care of my grandpa. I was musing about all this in the car one day, whilst listening to the Current, and I thought "you know, maybe this'll be good for my brother. He'll have to straighten up because Pappy don't take no mess."

20 seconds later, I'm crappin you negative, Mary Lucia started James Brown's "Papa Don't Take No Mess!" The song that was the very source of my inner-monologue phraseology! When the first strains of it sounded, I may have cursed a bunch in disbelief. Then I just drove with my mouth agape for a minute.

That's what I love about the Current. Millions of songs in rotation, and you can still get the exact psychic song you need.

Posted by Maven | January 24, 2007 5:54 PM

Yes, another Mary and Bob newscast. Bob is talking about funny words or something. Mary admits there are certain words she simply will not utter, and one in particular is sheer anathema to her. Bob presses, so Mary writes it on a piece of paper and passes it to him. Bob reads the word: "hosiery."

That, and Mary asking Andrew Bird what he was for Halloween the previous year, and him answering, "I was a spork."

The music's been good, too.

Posted by Steve Seel | January 24, 2007 11:12 PM

Some of my favorite Current moments from the last 2 years involve musical epiphanies experienced whilst listening to incredibly brilliant sets put together by the Current DJs. Sometimes hearing particular cuts together makes you look at them in a whole new way. One example that really stands out it in my mind was a set Bill DeVille played during the summer of 2005. I was driving to a cabin up nort' when Deville played such a rapturous set of hip hop that I had to pull over and write down the time and what I could remember of the words. The set was comprised of a jazzy rap (Cantaloup Flip Fantasia by US3), a psychedelic rap (I wish I could remember who the song & group was, but I can't) and a saucy female rap (I Don't Stop by Desdamona). It was an unforgettable set, and I was flabbergasted to hear so much rap that I actually enjoyed and could relate to. I had had little exposure to hip hop or rap BC (before Current) and therefore had never developed a taste for it. Now I even own a few hip hop CDs - whoda thunk?!?

Several times a Current epiphany has occurred while I was driving, spurring an immediate detour from my original destination leading directly to the Electric Fetus. That's how I ended up with Amadou and Mariam (thanks, DeVille) and BRMC (thanks, Wheat), among others.

Current DJs are the greatest. Auntie says so.

Posted by Auntie | January 25, 2007 12:46 PM

Dear gawd, just the thought of pickles makes me heave. They give me the WILLIES! (Same with olives and capers. *shudder)

Lurve the Bob & Mary show! Lurve the Current!

Um, it's hard to say what my favorite Current memory is... there are so many good ones. I have a lot of personal ones, when I dance with my cat around the house as we listen to the Current.

I liked it when Seel played that Super Furry Animals tune during the Forum thread on merkins!

Oooh, and when Mary played Foghat... I cranked my radio up to 11!

Posted by Zelda | January 25, 2007 12:47 PM

OMG, Zelda just reminded me of the first time Mary played "Little Willy" on the Current. I couldn't believe my ears, not having heard that song in 3 decades. My maniacal laughter drew some pretty strange sideways glances from coworkers. The looks got even stranger when I tried to explain the origin of my glee.

Posted by Auntie | January 25, 2007 1:56 PM

I love pickles and hate ketchup & mustard. Actually, mustard is tolerable but the texture and taste of ketchup just makes me retch. But as for dill pickles...mmmm..... Those pickles at the party were phenomenal; I could have eaten the entire box.

Favorite Current moment? One night this past fall, I was driving into work on 394. As the Minneapolis skyline loomed ahead of me, Mark started playing Interpol's "Untitled". It was a perfect musical moment and chills went down my spine.

Posted by Mac Wilson | January 25, 2007 3:29 PM

There are so many I can hardly keep track. It's all been good. Like Auntie said, 2 years ago if you were to tell me that I'd actually enjoy hip-hop, I'd have laughed in your face. Now I own Atmosphere and Unknown Prophets and a couple other CD's of hip-hop.

My most vivid memory is in the first week or so during Wheat's show when I heard Delays "Nearer Than Heaven" for the first time. It was the first really new music I had heard in years that made me excited about music again. It made me giddy.

Also, I spent a spate of time driving between St. Paul and Bloomington on Saturday mornings for improv troupe rehearsals. Deville was the perfect way to ease into the morning at that time. He played "Windswept" by Son Volt and mentioned that it was the perfect driving song. I couldn't have agreed more and cranked up the radio and savored rolling down 494 singing along with Jay Farrar. A lot of the return trips home ended up on a pit stop at Cheapo's because he'd play something that totally caught my attention. I have a much larger CD collection now, but am forced to live in a shoebox in the middle of the road.

Thanks to everyone at The Current for all the great tunes. Happy Birthday (belated)!!

Posted by Frick | January 26, 2007 11:21 AM

Mac, you can have my pickles. Blerf.
When I ate meat, I put ketchup on everything - ham, chicken, steak, porkchops, you name it. (Been a vegetarian for 17 years now.)

Mock Wheat once played Kashmir and I was SOOO happy. Me likey Led Zepp.

Posted by Zelda | January 26, 2007 1:41 PM

cancer smell

Posted by GliukoXXL | February 17, 2007 11:23 AM

January 2007
S M T W T F S
  1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31      


Master Archive
Recent Entries
Tools
Categories
Services
Become a Sponsor