LOUISVILLE SLUGGERS

Hello from The Gathering in Louisville, where the best and brightest radio programmers (an oxymoron, I know) and music supervisors spend three days watching bands, schmoozing with their label friends and drinking. It was 26 years ago that the Afghan Whigs sang on their masterpiece, Congregation, “Don’t forget the alcohol, ooh baby, ooh baby,” and some things never change: I can count the number of sober people in attendance on the fingers of one hand—including me. As Rihanna says, I’m here to “work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work.”

Time to start day-drinking! That’s DC101 PD James Howard to my right and Dubs from WEBN to my left. Reenacting the infamous Gary Hart and Donna Rice photo with me is promo legend Bill Burrs.

Our own Michelle S. flew private to hang with Kanye in Wyoming. I flew Southwest to hang out with KROQ’s Kat Corbett and Interscope artist Mikky Ekko, whose brilliant set at Churchill Downs was Triple Crown-worthy, and included “Stay,” the super smash he wrote for Rihanna. Beggars Group’s Brien Terranova paid for the selfie booth we're frolicking in at right, hence the Interpol logo.

Here's Concord’s Nan Fisher. We started doing Alternative radio promotion back in the ’80s, when it was fun.

“Hi, I’m Albert Hammond Jr., the most affable and [in our seasoned opinion] talented member of The Strokes. Playing in a hotel ballroom at 1am for a room of drunk programmers is the highlight of my storied career.”

The Gathering has one more day of festivities and distilleries, but I don’t believe in overstaying my welcome, except at HITS. Congrats to the team at Amplify for putting together this event.