Downtown Soulville

When I was 10 my nanny bought me a refurbished double tape deck with AM/FM radio at Canadian Tire. Up until then, I'd been producing primitive mix-tapes by holding the microphone of a Fisher Price tape recorder to the rec room stereo unit.

So, I'd wander for hours through strange frequencies picking up jazz, dance, alt-rock, gospel, talk... If I liked it I'd press down on the record + play button simultaneously. That's when radio was fun.

A couple of months ago a friend put me on to WFMU's Downtown Soulville, I felt 10 again. The show starts off appropriately with Chuck Edward's Downtown Soulville and dives straight into the rare soul 45 collection of host Mr. Fine Wine. The station is based out of New Jersey, so you aren't likely to pick up these waves without a satellite. Good thing the whole show is archived here, with a pop-up player to boot. Oh and hey, you can put away that tape deck, it's available as a mp3 download.