Soundbites

"This is clearly not a casual listener program," admits Basalla, who grew up in Berea and graduated from Baldwin- Wallace College. "Older people will be interested, because they remember their parents having cylinder records. People who enjoy music will like this. I don't want it to be a sterile "History of Recorded Sound, Volume 1.' Pop music is supposed to be fun and entertaining. I want to make it fun, and I don't want it to sound like this old stodgy guy. I don't want to impress people with how much I know either. You talk about college radio being alternative, and I can't think of anything more alternative than this."

For the month of February, Basalla, who works in library media services for the Cleveland schools, plans to feature early African American recordings (some of which he found on an Australian CD) to celebrate Black History Month. He says he will play some of Bert Williams's vaudeville comedy material as well as music by James Reece Europe, a conductor from the late teens, to mark the occasion.

The metal band Chimaira released its latest CD, This Present Darkness (on the Connecticut-based label East Coast Empire) on January 11 and will play a show at Peabody's DownUnder (1059 Old River Road) with Blofelt, Rut, and Guano on January 13 to celebrate its completion. Tickets are $6. Singer Mark Hunter (formerly of Skipline) said it wasn't easy to finish the disc.

"It was painstaking," says Hunter, whose parched vocals compare favorably to someone like Tom Araya (of Slayer). "Our lyrics deal with inner turmoil, and getting the right vibe in the studio was difficult. But once it was done, we felt a lot better about ourselves. Our whole gimmick is that we try to take everything that hurts you in life to see what you can do to make things better. We don't have any politics about anything. We look at people the way we hope they would look at us -- not as an item or trend or something; we'd just rather be known as people."

The band -- which also includes drummer Andy Herrick, bassist Rob Lesniack, guitarist Jason Hager, and guitarist Rob Arnold -- is slated to play the New England Metal Fest, which will take place on February 11 and 12 at the Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts. For more information on the show at Peabody's, call the club at 216-241-0792; for more info on Chimaira, consult the band's website (www. chimaira.net).