Next week is my last Saturday night radio show. There are a number of reasons why I'm quitting, but the main one was in full effect tonight. There was a show going on where no less than three bands I'm in were playing. This was a bar show that started after 10pm, and I'm on air at midnight. After the last band I had to tear off the stage, and even then I was ten minutes late. This has happened to me a lot, and I'm kind of sick of it. There's no co-host for me to turn to when shows like these happen. I haven't had Saturday nights free in almost 14 years. This was no big deal back in the day... I was single and never went to bars. What the fuck else was I going to do?

Reason number two is the loss of Ube and Tobe from the station. I looked forward to hanging out with them every Saturday, or at least chatting for a few minutes. Or at the very least, hearing what they were playing. Those guys got me into a lot of good bands. It's kind of lonely up there now. Not as fun, and something has been lost musically as well.

Reason number three is prep time. I've become really obsessive about not repeating too much. To do this, I have to spend a lot of time gathering new material. And if I'm pre-taping because of taking a night off, that takes way, way more time. Reasons one and two seem to amplify reason three a lot.

So next week is the final edition of the show. I already know everything I'm going to play. I want it to flow like a "greatest hits 1995-2009" mixtape. It would be fun to recreate an episode circa the 90s, but I've gotten into too many good bands over the past decade for that to be fair. However, here were a few old standards tonight, and there will be more next week.

I've talked about this a lot on air and in other places. Hopefully I'm not coming off as self-important, but this is a big deal to me. The music I play... I dunno, I just think people need to hear it. When I started doing radio, I worried a lot that if I didn't play "real" punk rock on the radio no one would ever hear it, and shitty versions of the genre would take over. I still feel that way to a lesser extent, but I also feel like I've done all I can to prevent this. Hopefully the show was of use to some people, hopefully it improved their taste in music, even if only in some tiny way.

I'm going to talk openly about this on air next week, and thank a lot of people. And I've picked the perfect song to end the show with. Stay tuned!

Edit: I totally wrote half of this crap already. Sheesh, Ash.