Rep your local radio experience

DrWu

Let's face it radio sucks, most of the time. But every town has a tiny glimmer at the end of the dial. Here's one from around my way. On the way out to the airport to pick my Mom up tonight, I caught a hold of a Portland radio staple since at least the late 70s. KINK 102 FM's legendary LIGHTS OUT program. During the day KINK is strictly an AOR light stronghold, "Sunny Came Home" and Leo Kottke in tight rotation. But after 10pm, its like APearson grabbed hold of a twizzler and the programming list because it is a Halpern head wrap nag champa blowout in full (d)effect. Tonight's main course was celtic violin over heavy synth stylings, hard on the heels of African kalimba lullaby, fucking cowrie shell percussion sounds like running water. Shit had me reminiscing about kindergarten naps with soundtrack by Jean Michel Jarre Oxygene. I was mad relaxed. I got so much love for wacky local radio culture like this.I wanna hear about your favorite local flava. You know the morning drive jock who's been around forever and keynoted your high school graduation, quiet storm holdouts and Sunday afternoon Yiddish Theater on green party radio. This is a Wolfman Jack in "American Graffiti" call to arms. What's good in your hood?

m_dejean

Right now it's all about 101.8 FM Pirat Radio 69, a pirate radio station here in Copenhagen which is basically a propaganda (in the good sense) vehicle for Ungdomshuset, a internationally known Copenhagen squat/countercultural center. They are about to get shut down by due to political bullshit, and the radio station is one of the measures they've taken to combat the evil forces of city hall.

So, the premise is political, but it's really just a general breath of fresh air in the media landscape here, which is has been boring as fuck for years. A lot of the music being played is of course straight punk/hardcore style, but anything that is non-commercial is being played. I heard a guy do a killer northern soul set one day. Given it's illegal, anarchistic nature it's pretty amateurishly made, but who gives a fuck. It's giving those who usually don't have a voice a chance to expose the masses to something else than the same old same old. We need more initiatives like this.

DrJoel

Since high school i have been all about 88.5 in Philly. WXPN, they have kept it AAA forever, but these days they open things up a bit to good and bad results. They're trying to catch a younger crowd it seems and playing a bunch of indie rock stuff, but there is still much more good music on here than Clear Channel can filter and syphon. They have a ton of good shows that have been around forever, Sleepy Hollow is the Sunday morning new age bliss thing, Echoes is the late night "alien music" chanting over kick/snare. They have blues show. They have the Folk Show, they have Mountain Stage, they have nationally syndicated Live @ The World Cafe which has good guests sometimes. They actually just built their own studio (they were located on Penn University's campus) which has food service and two performance rooms. They have a free concert every Friday at noon at their studios.

Every Christmas they do the top 50 albums of the year...they used to play every album in it's entirety, three disc sets...no problem. These days they do 3 tracks or so and then the top 25 get played in full.

Plus they started a thing a few years ago, "The 885...." where they do a countdown of 885 greatest/best..whatevers. First it was the 885 days of the Blues, then it was albums, then bands, etc etc. Very entertaining.

Listener supported radio.

DrWu

Right now it's all about 101.8 FM Pirat Radio 69, a pirate radio station here in Copenhagen which is basically a propaganda (in the good sense) vehicle for Ungdomshuset, a internationally known Copenhagen squat/countercultural center. They are about to get shut down by due to political bullshit, and the radio station is one of the measures they've taken to combat the evil forces of city hall.

So, the premise is political, but it's really just a general breath of fresh air in the media landscape here, which is has been boring as fuck for years. A lot of the music being played is of course straight punk/hardcore style, but anything that is non-commercial is being played. I heard a guy do a killer northern soul set one day. Given it's illegal, anarchistic nature it's pretty amateurishly made, but who gives a fuck. It's giving those who usually don't have a voice a chance to expose the masses to something else than the same old same old. We need more initiatives like this.

Cool to hear that pirate radio is still in effect. I thought that the internet kinda killed the whole thing.

m_dejean

Cool to hear that pirate radio is still in effect. I thought that the internet kinda killed the whole thing.

They've got that covered. There's a 24-7 internet stream too.

Via their myspace page:

http://myspace.com/piratradio69

or directly:

http://icecast.freeteam.nl:8000/pirateradio69 (open the stream in itunes or whatever)

ToccuDomu

Locally, we have a few stations of merit:
???KFAI 90.3 which I believe a few strutters rep via their participation in the Rhymesayers show. Hosts a number of other cool shows, especially if English isn???t your first language. Its interesting to listen in on the Somali and Hmong programs here and there. http://www.kfai.org/
???'The Current', Minnesota Public Radio???s foray into non-format radio
-The University of MN???s radio station 770 AM (sadly, though, this isn???t that true AM GOLD)

But what I really need to rep is 89.9 KMOJ, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KMOJ Community radio born out of public housing, broadcasting all kinds of goodness since back when. They???ve hit a rough patch recently, and while the new adulturbancontempowhatever isn???t always my thing, on the rare occasions I find myself stuck in traffic in my car, I dial it in.