[Michael Schaerer's] life didn't turn out the way fans expected, but chances are neither did theirs.

In the early 1990s, Michael Shaerer was the frontman for Pale Divine, the biggest band in St. Louis. They played sold-out shows on Laclede's Landing, they had a record deal with Atlantic Records, and the radio stations even played some of their stuff sometimes.

But Atlantic didn't promote the CD, the CD ended up in cutout bins, the band eventually broke up, and that was that.

Wow.

The Police weren't perfect last night, and, perfectionists that they are, they probably weren't completely satisfied with their performance, but it certainly was more than good enough. I'll get in lots of trouble for saying this I'm sure, but their performance left me wondering, in terms of raw ability, how much better could The Beatles have been?

The reunited Police are playing St. Louis tonight. I'll be there with my wife, sister, and brother in law.

My wife was asking about a song that was playing on 89.1 KCLC, one of the few remaining listenable radio stations in St. Louis, tonight. She thought it was Aimee Mann; I thought it was Tori Amos. We were both wrong. You gotta love any radio station that publishes its playlist.

And then I saw my favorite from a couple of years ago, Carbon Leaf. She said yeah, she heard a song that sounded like them earlier today.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story today about the new "jack" trend in radio.

Essentially, it's about expanding the playlist from 300 songs (which seems to me a generous estimate in the case of some St. Louis stations) to 1,000 or more.

I think it's about time.

Last night (December 13, 2005) I saw U2 play in St. Louis at the Kiel, er, Savvis Center. It was the third time I'd seen them, and probably the best.

How many times did you hear a song on the radio, like it, then eagerly wait for the DJ to come on and announce what the song was, only to hear the next song? (Which inevitably is something worse, of course.)

It happens to me a lot. So I don't even wait for the disappointment. I grab a scrap of paper, listen for a few words that sound distinctive (or that get repeated a lot), then when I get home or somewhere that I can mooch a little Internet access, I hit the search engines.

I'll bet I ended up buying half my CD collection that way.

So I've been messing with Pandora, a new music service.

It's interesting. Not foolproof, but interesting.

A week or so ago I was in the car with my fiancee and a song I'd never heard before but that seemed strangely familiar came on the radio. "Sounds like New Order," I said. She said she was thinking the same thing but mentioned someone else it sounded like.

"That's a Peter Hook bassline if I've ever heard one," I said. "Gotta be New Order."

I heard the song again this morning, and this time, the DJ said who it was. "Yes, the '80s band," he added.

I missed the first play of the new single by U2 on the radio in St. Louis by about five minutes. Crud.