Jon Solomon on the 25 Hour Marathon

The 2025 version of Jon Solomon’s 25-Hour Holiday Radio Show on 103.3 fm WPRB rises on Christmas Eve at 5:00 pm ET and unfurls till Christmas Day at 6:00 pm ET.

We requested Jon to inform us how he prepares for this monstrosity (in a great way!):

So…you need to understand how I prep for a Christmas radio present that’s 25 hours lengthy?

I don’t consider myself as an anxious particular person, but beginning round Thanksgiving (generally earlier – thanks for nothing, mind) I get up practically each morning exceptionally wired merely eager about staying on prime of all of the new-to-me music I need to hear for potential inclusion throughout my 25-Hour Holiday Radio Show.

A pair years in the past my marathon on 103.3 fm WPRB reached some extent the place if I began enjoying materials I hadn’t aired on previous exhibits from the kickoff of the published at 5:00 pm ET on Christmas Eve and saved going till we reached midnight, I felt like all of the looking was price it.

If this new materials can attain even additional all the way in which to eight:00 am ET, then it’s time for my daughter’s show-within-the-show Maggie’s Reindeer Rumble adopted by thematic units all the way in which throughout the end line.

I was so burdened DURING the present, however with a refined strategy my stress will get unfold equally over the primary three weeks of December and that’s one way or the other really simpler to deal with. The marathon turns into the simplest half! In principle!

My common Wednesday night time three hour program on WPRB is kindly lined by a superb assortment of DJs throughout the vast majority of December so I can give attention to marathon prep, aside from an All-Hanukkah Show I’ve added the previous 13 years. That broadcast is much like Christmas, simply 1/8 of the size…

Having hosted this present on WPRB since 1988, I’m pushed to air as a lot new music as attainable as a part of the marathon, interspersed with items I premiere recorded for the present in-between longer units. This retains the present attention-grabbing on my facet of the microphone and hopefully shocking and thrilling wherever people are listening. There’s little higher than dropping a remodeling of a tune WPRB listeners love or airing a ridiculous mashup and the playlist chat lighting up with people in disbelief.

The marathon means a ton to me. I definitely didn’t got down to make it such an enormous a part of my life once I first went on the air at age 15, however I perceive the significance it has now to so many of us past simply the Delaware Valley, from these spending Christmas alone to those that grew up listening with their dad and mom who now share the published with their very own youngsters.

This yr a particular Best of the Marathon present will air after the correct present so I’ve time to incorporate extra outdated favorites as final yr’s broadcast was totally new finds and thematic units (equivalent to Ramones-o-Clock at 12:34 am ET, The All-Fall set on Christmas Day or Lindstrom’s 40:00+ hypnotic rendition of Little Drummer Boy which airs simply after listener favourite Snaildartha: The Story of Jerry The Christmas Snail throughout the most-listened-to two hour stretch of 10 am – midday East Coast time).

With an rising worldwide viewers, I attempt to program recognizing that my in a single day in New Jersey is another person’s Christmas Day.

So even when I needed to sleep in, I stand up shortly after my household heads to high school. I sort out Duolingo and pour a glass of chai. Before I head in to my workplace at WPRB, the place I work because the station’s Operations Manager, I attempt to do the entire following:

–Check websites like CAGG, Ernie (Not Bert) and Christmas Underground for brand new materials so as to add to my Reading List in Safari for future listening. One particular person can’t maintain tabs on every thing, not to mention hear all of it. These sources are important.
-Do the identical with Bandcamp emails about releases going stay from artists and labels I’ve adopted there beforehand.
-Comb the falalala.com boards, particularly posts about 2025 releases.
–Review the RSS feeds of much less energetic blogs within the off likelihood they’re posting once more.
–Check my inbox to see what finds listeners, mates, fellow DJs and previous contributors have relayed. Some of the very best materials comes on this approach.
People have been nice about ensuring they ship discoveries early, or passing hyperlinks my approach as they encounter them between January and November.

To be trustworthy, a number of emails from vacation music promotion firms I can delete with out listening to based mostly on cowl artwork alone (particularly apparent AI).

I’m doing this all as a rule whereas catching up on releases I already had on my Reading List, erasing titles as I hear ‘em.

Songs or complete data I’m into I deliver into iTunes and maintain solely what I charge 4 or 5 stars. There’s no want to carry onto dreck.

Gems go in a “2025 Xmas” folder for later association into full units a pair days out of Christmas Eve.

I’ve additionally acquired thematic folders in case I discover new songs impressed by the likes of these listed above, plus Black Sabbath, The Misfits, New Order / Joy Division, Beastie Boys, Neil Young and in a new-for-2025 plan…Kraftwerk.

So. Many. Folders.

I work out how some units sound greatest to my ears utilizing spreadsheets, particularly once I need to keep away from too many variations of the identical authentic.

I hear earlier than I’m going to work, I’d hearth up a CD from this stack of unreviewed annual Xmas collections in my workplace once I arrive or I maintain pushing by means of the Reading List.

After dinner I’ll get to the remainder, ideally.

For a pair hours, I’m caught up.

With the aural equal of “inbox zero” the stress dissipates and I fall asleep, braced to start out this course of everywhere in the following day.