Continuing my series of FM radio station reviews I come to my favorite radio station- 89.9, CBE-FM. I attempted to give it its own Yelp listing but Yelp's corporate overlords must have stricken it from the record. See, Windsor CBC TV and radio operate out of the same physical address and so Yelp considers them one and the same - even though I discovered there's two listings for WCSX since some genius considers "Classic Rock" to be a part of the official name.
I don't have a broadcast TV and might catch a bit of CBC TV out at my parents condo. I used to prefer their Olympic coverage and aren't much of a hockey fan but definitely prefer them over US coverage. But consider this exclusively a review of 89.9 FM and not the TV station 9 nor the other Windsor CBC radio station which is all talk. (Two public radio stations, one music and one talk! How much better WDET would be if it could branch out like that!)
89.9 is the number one preset in my Jeep and it was in my Ford Freestyle before that and my Ford Explorer before that. I've never heard the Replacements song Left of the Dial on CBE but it definitely captures that spirit with the music they play. Every year I make a huge Spotify playlist featuring music I discovered that year and a hefty amount comes from stuff I hear on 89.9. I often find myself using the Google search a song feature in the ride as music plays that piques my curiosity.
The DJs on here have started to feel like old friends and they all seem to have the coolest sounding names: Saroja Coelho, Julie Nesrallah, Odario Williams, Rich Terfry, Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe, Laila Biali, Errol Nazareth and George Stroumboulopoulus, to name a few. I had to look up those spellings, especially Strombo whose full name isn't often used for obvious reasons. The news guy who comes on briefly at the top of the hour has a totally normal sounding name though - Tom Harrington. I find that funny and fitting.
Strombo's Sunday night show is great. Different genres, no algorithm though there's always an interview around 9:30, a track or two from Tom Waits at ten and the last hour from 11 on focuses on metal and punk.
Laila Biali plays jazz, Errol Nazareth plays world music and Odario plays chill alternative - great nighttime music. I still miss Laurie Brown whose spot he took, a little, but I've grown to appreciate Odario more and more. And the wonderful Ms. Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe has replaced the retired Laurie Brown as my radio crush. I could listen to the smooth, honeyed tones of Ms. Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe's voice all night, even if the show she hosts, The Block, is only on for a couple of hours. She plays urban music from the 60s and even older to present day. I started following her on social media and she sometimes reposts my Instagram stories videos of me driving with The Block bumping. Be still my beating heart! And I never tire of saying that name - Ms. Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe!
Friday nights CBC does an hour long deep dive into a classic album with stories about its creation interspersed between the songs. It's Rich Terfry who usually hosts that. Any day, any time I flip on 89.9 there's likely to be something good on and if there's not I got other presets and I can check back in a little bit. It's pretty much knocked WDET out of the box although I still listen to 101.9 some here and there. read more
