Since you seem pretty adept at scripting, and have mysql running -- how about using that mysql database to your advantage? Use 'Expect' to control emptool, and get a complete listing from the empeg database ('ls -r' as I recall). You could use that as input to a 'player' table in mysql; then join the player table with your jukebox table looking for the appropriate instances of NULL (or date/time, or whatever) to figure out which mp3's to add or remove from the player. Adding or removing mp3's could, again, use the Expect/emptool combination.