I admit I have a weakness for shows on the CW network. I don’t set aside time to watch ’em, but if they’re on, I defer to them over pretty much everything else (except Lost, the best serial drama ever). And it’s not even because I think the actresses are cute.
Except for Sophia Bush and that chick who plays Supergirl on Smallville, who are both pretty hot though in totally different ways, most of them are just average celebrity-attractive. And I don’t think I like CW shows because they’re so, a-hem, well acted and DELETEed.
Other than Smallville, all of the other non-reality CW programs I’ve come across – Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, and Supernatural – are, basically, glorified soap operas. I guess I like the CW shows I’ve seen because they’re full of young people and life and stuff, which for an old dude like me is reassuring. I’m glad I’m not young anymore. Young people, apparently, are incredibly stupid. (Like, really, Clark?! Grow a freaking pair, will ya? Or Lex is gonna kill us all. And Jenny. Seriously. You’re a freshman. What even made you think you could hang with B?!) Anyway, I was glad to hear last week that Aledo native Dan Hunter, a.k.a. Playradioplay!, had a song on One Tree Hill last week, “Elephants As Big As Whales,” from his major-label debut, Texas.
Everyone knows that traditional music media – commercial radio and MTV – are becoming supplementary to new modes of music distribution such as digital file sharing and TV shows and commercials. For a mid-list artist like Hunter and workaday indie acts, the new modes are pretty much all there is. To the CW’s credit, the network’s shows include about as many bands and performers that have gone national – Nada Surf, Fall Out Boy, The Bravery, The Hives, Gavin DeGraw, and others – as relative no-names. And, perhaps to negate the suggestion of tacky self-promotion (also called “product placement”), not all of them are on record labels owned by Warner Bros., the CW’s parent company. … I’ve never particularly cared for The New York Times, even when I lived in New York City and The Gray Lady was all I had to read. My frustration reached a climax last week when I came across “An Indie Scene That Comes With a Texas Twang in Denton,” a travel story about how great and hip Little D – and Big D and Austin – are.
Does Fort Worth, a metropolis a couple of miles closer to Denton than Dallas and the 18th largest city in the country (according to 2006 U.S. Census data), merit a mention? Of course not. I would have thought the Times above being simply lazy and buying into the common perception of Fort Worth as Dallas’ little sister city and of Austin (226 miles from Denton) as some sort of consummate indie-music mecca. Alas … . The Toadies are about to drop a new album, the local giants’ first in, like, 20 years. (Not really, but.) Co-produced by David Castell and Bart Rose at Rose’s Fort Worth Sound studio, No Deliverance is expected to drop on Aug. 19. Visit www.myspace.com/toadies.
Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
