College Radio in Sin City: BEA Conference Report by Kyle Barnett

Vegas at Night
Photo by Alex Koch

One of my frustrations as a blogger is that I can't be everywhere that I want to be. Recently, I've missed a bunch of college radio and indie music-related conferences that I'm sure would have been both fun and full of fodder for Spinning Indie.

So, I'm grateful to my friend Kyle Barnett for being my eyes and ears at last month's Broadcast Education Association (BEA) conference in Las Vegas. Kyle and I met in Bowling Green, Ohio back in the late 1990s when we were both grad students and college radio DJs at WBGU. I'm always drawn to people who are not only music fans, but also enjoy theorizing about it, so we were fast friends. And now, Kyle's got one of the coolest jobs in the world. Not only is he a bona fide academic, but he's also the faculty advisor of the college radio station, Bellarmine Radio, at Bellarmine University in Kentucky.

Thanks to Kyle and his crew for sharing their tales from Sin City!

Bellarmine Radio Folks Alex and Nick and NAB
Photo by Kyle Barnett

BEA Conference Report
by Kyle Barnett

I arrived in Las Vegas from Louisville for the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) conference in late April, with two undergraduates from Bellarmine University, where I teach media studies classes and serve faculty advisor of Bellarmine Radio. With me was Nick Mattingly, the station’s incoming station manager and Alex Koch, program director. I had wanted to attend BEA for a few years; in part to expose my students to what else is happening in college radio, and in part to find out what those stations were doing on the Internet. Like many newer campus stations, Bellarmine Radio is an Internet-only operation, for now (more on that later). We started from the premise that college courses should introduce you to new ideas and that college radio should do the same. You start reading different books at college, why shouldn’t you start listening to different songs? We headed to BEA in hopes of hearing from others about their experiences with college radio, particularly those also on the Internet.

Photo by Alex Koch

The BEA conference is part of a series of events tied to the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) annual convention, itself a flurry of activity, with panels and exhibitors from the around the world. For the first few days, the “NAB show” overlaps with the BEA conference. The choice of the word “show” is no accident. The event is designed to dazzle. Exhibitors entice attendees with the latest this-or-that, from radio automation software to ultra high definition television to 3D images and sounds. Students from James Madison University created this video while at the conference.

Photo by Alex Koch

The Broadcast Education Association conference, the academic wing of an otherwise big-money industry event, seems modest in comparison. Though most know Las Vegas as Sin City, it is also Conference City. Each year, Las Vegas is at or near the top of the list for cities with the greatest convention business. However, it doesn’t follow that conferences in Las Vegas are necessarily robust or vibrant. The problem at BEA – and countless other conferences, I’m sure – is that the call of the Vegas strip is too great for most people to stay put. We too hit the casinos; don’t get me wrong. But for too many the week’s recipe was: Go to your panel, give your paper, and forget the conference.

Photo by Kyle Barnett

Despite this, BEA did have its stalwarts – and interesting presentations. “The Benefits and Potential of Internet Radio” panel led to an interesting discussion, centered on varying opinions about whether web radio should retain or jettison a sense of localism (my answer is a resounding yes, which is why I find satellite radio’s lack of place so bothersome). For some on the panel they found a perceived “death of localism” as freeing, while I enjoy experiencing “local” radio from near and far, via the web. For me, localism still defines radio, even in the digital age).

Harrah's Mens Room
Photo by Kyle Barnett

At the “Convergence on a Dime: Student Media Migration to the Web” panel, there was also a lot of talk about using the Internet to promote radio stations and to aggregate content between student media forms (radio, television, print). Like many Internet college radio stations, we’ve experienced the strange fact that we have listeners from St. Louis to Shanghai but are still largely unknown in the city of Louisville. The web can potentially solve that, but we also left the conference aware that we’re just one needle in an ever-expanding haystack.

Surprisingly, there was little discussion of musical content, genres, or formats. Most of those presenting at BEA were faculty advisors, whom seemed more teaching technological skills and encouraging professionalization. I’m sure a college radio conference (preferably one where students were better represented in the conversation) would have had much more discussion on music. The topic of format rarely came up, though there were some interesting exceptions. We learned that Belmont University’s cable radio station, The Voice, only features musical content from its music students (!). What was perhaps most troubling was that when format was considered, it was often in the service of appealing to alumni, whose dollars are more important to universities than ever, in an era of dwindling federal funding and tighter purse strings.

Bellarmine Radio Folks in Las Vegas
Photo by Kyle Barnett

As for my students, they came away from BEA energized and feeling good about what we were doing. Since arriving at Bellarmine in 2006, the students and I dismantled a classic rock format inherited from my predecessor, partnered with a low-power FM station that carried our signal, and is now investigating the possibilities of our signal being carried via HD Radio – a move that other college radio stations are considering with a mix of excitement and trepidation.

We came away feeling ahead of the curve in terms of college radio on the web. On the other hand, we had a vague sense of concern, too – over growing pressures to “professionalize” college radio, to take it out of the hands of students, reducing radio to an exercise in job training or public relations. The people who understand the importance of college radio, its larger educative and democratic promise, know how much more it can be. After our trip to BEA, we left with a stronger sense that we in college radio will need to work harder at protecting what we’ve created.

Thanks Kyle for a great report!

College Radio and Indie Music at BEA and IASPM Conferences

The BEA Convention is happening right now in Las Vegas, bringing together broadcast educators from all over the world. It looks like a mix of "how-to" sessions, a range of panels, academic paper presentations, and confabs with staff from various stations.

In scanning through the program, I see that there are a number of of college-radio specific topics and awards being presented. Candace Walton (University of South Dakota) is slated to present a paper called, "Integrating Ethics Into the Campus Radio Station." Another panel focuses on starting up and running an Internet radio station. A session with student media advisors included David Nelson (University of Central Oklahoma) presenting on "HD radio: College radio's influence on the adoption of HD radio" and Marjorie Yambor (Western Kentucky University) giving the paper "Nurturing the Nexus: Aligning Administrators, Professors, Managers, Staff Members...and College Radio."

Other sessions focus on radio broadly, including the panel "Radio's Demise Has Been Greatly Exaggerated," in which various panelists will discuss the current state of radio. One of the panelists, Madeline Bills (San Francisco State) will present "The Role of Community Radio." Tomorrow Eric C. Covil (Northwest Missouri State) will present, "Using Guerilla Radio to Teach Ethics at a Student Radio Station." On Saturday, Barbara Calabrese (Columbia College) is presenting "Ethics and Diversity: Practical Applications in College Radio." There's also an entire panel on leadership and college radio on Saturday.

Coming up in a few weeks, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) Conference will take place in San Diego. I'm not seeing any college radio-specific papers on the agenda, but there are some papers dealing with indie music, music formats, punk, hip hop, and a myriad of other genres. Wendy Fonarow will present "Arguing about the Boundaries: The Contesting Definitions of Indie Music." Additionally, there will be a paper on vinyl, "'Never Mind What's Been Selling, It's What You're Buying': Capital Exchange in Buying, Collecting, and Selling Vinyl Records." There are a bunch of really interesting-sounding papers related to technology (You Tube), Internet music criticism, and how subcultures like punk are facilitated online. Sounds like fun!

I can't make it to either of these conferences, so if you are, I'd love to hear some feedback about how things went and how radio and indie culture were represented.

Hectic Music Week: EMP Pop Conference, Music & the Brain, Record Store Day, Coachella, NAB Show, WBAR-B-Q, and KFJC Bowling Party

The next 10 days are jam-packed with music and radio-related events, including conferences, festivals, and parties being hosted by college radio stations. Who said music wasn't alive and well??


EMP Pop Conference (April 16-19, 2009)

First of all, the annual Experience Music Project (EMP) Pop Conference starts in Seattle today (through Sunday, April 19th). Sadly, I won't be there this year, but I attended in 2008 (and posted a bunch of summaries) and it was an insane who's who of rock-star journalists (and musicians and academics). I love getting all intellectual about music and have given papers at similar events put on by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (their annual conference is in San Diego in May).

This year I was particularly excited to hear that two of my idols: David Grubbs (amazing musician from Gastr del Sol, Squirrel Bait, etc. AND an academic) and Holly Kruse (wrote a great book Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes, which is one of the few pieces of academic research that covers college radio and indie music) will be on a panel together. Super bummed to be missing that. But, I am looking forward to watching the blog-space for full reports from you lucky folks soaking in the conference.

For the college radio angle on the conference, check out some of the blog posts by affiliated station KEXP, including some interviews with this year's participants.

Symposium on Music and the Brain: Spontaneity and Improvisation (April 17-18, 2009)

I just heard about this fascinating free conference at Stanford University, all focused on the neuroscience of music and improvisation.

Record Store Day (Saturday, April 18, 2009)

This Saturday, April 18th is Record Store Day, a chance to show your support for your local record shop. See the website for all the details, including testimonials from various artists. The global celebration will include special events at record stores, ranging from live performances, to deals on limited edition releases. Major labels, like Warner Brothers are even involved, hyping some of their special vinyl releases. You can search for local participating stores here. Among the many events, Amoeba Records will be having live performances and giveaways at their stores in San Francisco, Berkeley and Hollywood.

Coachella (April 17-19, 2009)

Oh, and, um, there's this massive music festival, Coachella, out in the desert of Southern California this weekend too. Lots of indie-ish bands (and big ones too) over the course of 3 days (April 17-19), from Paul McCartney to Vivian Girls and everything in-between. I'm not sure if any college radio stations will be broadcasting from there, but there will be a live webcast on the AT&T site. Public/college radio station KCRW will be there and they are promoting the fest on their website with links to in-studio performances by Coachella artists.

NAB Show (April 18-23)

This weekend there is also the massive National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, which includes a bunch of different conferences within the conference (Broadcast Management, Broadcast Engineering, etc.) and NAB Show. Sounds like it covers all kinds of content, including radio, TV, video games, Internet, and technology in general.

BEA 2009 Convention (April 22-25, 2009)

Following NAB, the Broadcast Education Association hosts their 2009 convention in Las Vegas, where broadcast researchers and educators convene to chat about radio and broadcasting in general. This year's conference theme is related to ethics.

KFJC Listener Appreciation Party (April 25, 2009)

The station where I DJ, KFJC, is starting its 50th anniversary celebration with a Listener Appreciation Party at Redwood Lanes in Redwood City on Saturday, April 25th starting at 8pm. It's free and there will be bowling, bands and DJs spinning live. Death Sentence: PANDA! and Slow Poisoner are on the bill, as well as KFJC DJs Cy Thoth, Cadillac Margarita, Captain Jack, and Belladonna. We're also hoping that lots of alumni DJs will come to the party.

WBAR-B-Q (April 26, 2009)

WBAR (the Barnard College radio station that I visited last month) hosts their annual WBAR-B-Q on the Barnard campus in New York City. It's a free event with a great lineup of live bands including Gang Gang Dance and Metalux. Read all about it on Brooklyn Vegan.

How many of these events will you be partaking in?

My Radio Journal Article and the Origins of Spinning Indie

It was just about a year ago that the idea for Spinning Indie was born. As I completed the edits on a piece that I was writing about college radio for an academic journal (which I submitted in summer 2007), I realized that I had a lot more to say about the subject and needed an outlet for all of those ideas. I'd spent much of last December voraciously reading everything I could find about college and indie radio to add some context to my article. There was very little college radio scholarship out there, so most of the books that I read were about related topics like the history of radio, freeform radio and pirate radio. The college radio scholarship that I did find was fascinating, much of it done for MA theses and PhD dissertations. In fact, some of the most impressive work about college radio was done by graduate students, many of whom seemed to be active radio participants as well as scholars. Holly Kruse's book, Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes, was the stand-out among everything I read. It was also inspiring, as the book deal stemmed from her dissertation.

Since I started Spinning Indie, I've been able to connect with more college radio academics, definitely a small crew of great folks. In the months to come, I plan to summarize more academic articles related to college radio. In the meantime, the fruits of my academic labor are finally available for consumption, as my Radio Journal piece was published a few months back. I was hoping to be able to provide free access to the entire article online, but unfortunately there's only free access to the abstract (you can pay to see the entire article).

My piece, "Does 'indie' mean independence? Freedom and restraint in a late 1990s US college radio community" appears in Volume 5, Numbers 2 & 3 (2007) of The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media. This is my very first academic article, so needless to say I'm excited to see my name in print.

My article actually goes back in time to discuss a period during the 1990s when college radio was often working to define itself against commercial culture's embrace of "alternative" music. Since "indie" and "alternative" were being gobbled up and repackaged for commercial airplay and commercial sale, many college stations found themselves becoming even more vigilant about supporting independence from corporate control and corporate media.

The station that I write about in my article took a radical stance, only adding artists on independent labels to regular rotation. In addition to that, to be added to the library, releases had to be free of any major label funding or major label distribution. As I write in my article,

"Deciding to include major label releases at any college station is a political statement and deciding to ban major label releases is equally political. Yet many releases do not clearly fall into one space or another, which is confusing and controversial when they are banned from a station. What is indie? Who decides? This becomes both an aesthetic and a power issue."

What was fascinating to me, was that some new people at the station didn't seem to understand or appreciate this policy. I write:

"While staff members at the radio station were supportive and proud of the indie-only policy, I found that people struggled with it and at times felt restricted by it. This article will interrogate that tension between theory and practice, raising the question ‘Does indie mean independence’? at this college station."

In the article I also give nods to some college radio scholarship and talk a bit about the contested and vague definitions of "alternative" and "indie" in the 1990s. I also discuss some disturbing trends in college radio, in which many stations are becoming more and more like commercial stations, with narrow playlists of songs.

I conclude, saying:

"As the radio industry had continued to change in the 1990s and in the early 2000s, the questions raised by this article take on added relevance. Holtermann (1992) and others cite concern about the increasingly homogenous playlists at college radio stations in the 1990s. Low power and ‘pirate’ stations were in some instances established as a reaction against college radio not fulfilling its promise. Sue Carpenter reflects that her pirate station in L.A. was ‘. . . not only a reaction against bad radio but a reaction against authority’ (Carpenter 2004).

If college radio continues to reflect mainstream radio more so than independent radio, than it may lose more and more listeners to low power stations, satellite radio (with hundreds of niche channels, yet corporate-controlled), the Internet (with indie radio stations, big commercial stations, podcasts, band websites and access to mp3s) and iPods (where anyone can make their own playlist of music).

Yet college radio stations with a strong philosophy about independent music can still hold an important place on the radio dial. College radio has been rarely studied and it is a compelling space in which to explore the tensions between mainstream commercial radio and the underground, independent responses to that. As they are often student and volunteer-run organisations, college radio stations have their own institutional structures, although they are still in close contact with the commercial record industry. This station is but one example of a college radio station with a strong philosophy about exposing unheard music to listeners, and future research would benefit from taking a broader look at college radio as a whole and at independent-minded stations in particular."

Long live indie college radio! And long live college radio scholarship. If you're working on something related to college radio, definitely send it my way, as I'd love to review more academic articles for Spinning Indie.

Radio Journal Article Analyzes "Alternative" Programming at Boston and NY College Radio Stations

The main impetus behind starting Spinning Indie was that I was becoming increasingly obsessed with college radio after spending a bunch of time researching indie radio for an academic article that I was working on for The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media. My article, which is focused on the role of "indie" at one specific college radio station in the late 1990s, is now officially published and will soon be accessible online in Volume 5.2 of the journal.

In the meantime, I just discovered that the previous issue (Volume 5.1 from 2007) of Radio Journal includes another piece about college radio by Tim Wall called "Finding an alternative: Music programming in US college radio" (note: this link will only work for a short time until the next issue is published online).

According to the abstract for the paper:

"Radio stations based at universities make up only about 11% of all over-the-air stations in the United States of America, but college radio is often presented as offering an alternative in music radio to the for-profit stations that dominate the airwaves. College stations are now seen as a key means of promoting 'indie rock'. This article traces the development of university-based radio stations in the United States, and reports on a five-year study of music programming in three stations based in Boston and New York, to examine their claim to alternativeness. The paper concludes that the stations do use different forms of music programming, that the programming extends well beyond the scope of 'indie rock'..."

In his paper, Wall took an in-depth look at the programming policies of three college radio stations between 2002 and 2007. The stations he examined were Fordham University's WFUV in New York, WERS at Emerson College in Boston, and WZBC from Boston College (alright! This was my favorite station on my trip to Boston in April). Through his research he found that:

"...there is not one type of alternativeness; and the distinctive sense of alternativeness articulated by the jazz, world, indie rock, folk and Americana music played on the college stations was as much rooted in the cultural histories of those musical genres as it was in the way they were programmed and presented."


Here is a bit of a summary of what he found at each college radio station:

WZBC (Boston College)

Wall tells us that WZBC is run by students and has a free-form format. Of note, is that the station has a relationship with public radio, but that this didn't seem to influence the majority of the programming. (When I perused their website, the only public radio indication I saw was that they air the program "Democracy Now")

He says, "In my independent discussions with three station presenters, they each stated that they had a very committed listenership in the Boston area, but they also argued that it was widely perceived that most Boston College students were not interested in the station’s output. In doing so, they constructed parallels between their own personal sense of being outside of mainstream college life with the commitment of a group outside the university and a musical form that they perceived to be 'alternative' and 'underground'."

This comment, that listeners tend to not be students, is something I've heard about many college radio stations. He continues:

"...in our conversations the staff went to particular lengths to distance themselves from the 'college rock' forms of radio they perceived as the norm in college stations...The presenters selected music on a track-by-track basis as the show progressed, usually chosen in response to the record currently playing. Most often these records were from a pile the presenter had pre-selected and brought in from their own collection, but also drew on records from the station’s extensive library..."

WERS (Emerson College)

During Wall's research study, WERS made significant changes to its programming policies. He writes that by the end of 2005 "block programming" was replaced by "strip programming" from 2am to 7pm that was " '...a blend of folk, rock, jazz, world, blues, soul, electronic and reggae’..."

The playlists at WERS are more tightly controlled that at freeform WZBC. Wall writes: "By the end of the five-year period, the station’s daytime programming operated on an entirely centralised playlist, although the presenters of the specialist reggae and hip hop shows had freedom to select their own music."

As I mentioned after my own visit to the radio stations at Emerson College, WERS seems to be more pre-professional than many college stations. He writes: "Rather than a commitment to a particular lifestyle, WERS staff were either interested in a career in broadcasting, or felt that it was an effective way to pursue their interest in particular kinds of music."


WFUV (Fordham University)

Finally, Wall wrote about Fordham public radio station WFUV, which had the least amount of student involvement and was the most tightly controlled, "professional" station of the three.

He writes:

"Station staff spoke quite proudly of the station as an AAA station, and their role in establishing the format within more conventional radio practice. This format – Album Adult Alternative – is relatively new in US radio, although it has antecedents in Adult Oriented Rock (AOR) and Adult Contemporary (AC) formats. As the names suggest all three are aimed at adult (aged 25+) listeners and grew out of FM radio. AAA stations are presented, in the words of station staff, as offering an alternative to the 'rock-clichés and rock-lite formula of AOR', and the 'pop sensibilities of AC', by playing 'music at the margins’'of American rock, with a strong folk/acoustic and world music flavour."

In distinguishing WFUV from WERS and WZBC, Wall writes:

"While staff at WZBC and WERS in 2003 felt that it was important to have music and other programming systems that differed from for-profit stations...WFUV saw these as professional tools...Their professionalism was very important to them, and they used this self-identity to distinguish themselves from other college stations. On the other hand, they associated themselves with the college’s commitment to education as a way of distinguishing their values from those of the stations whose primary objective was profit."

WFUV definitely seems to benefit from having a paid staff and great funding. Wall didn't mention this, but they have a project coming up this fall that is going to provide yet another "alternative." According to their website,

"WFUV (90.7 FM) will launch an alternate channel online...and in HD at 90.7 FM in the New York City area, to include a blend of established and emerging NYC-based indie rock, electronica, world, dance and other musical hybrids, in Fall 2008. The new site is supported in part by The New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors."


In summarizing the whole paper, Tim Wall writes:


"The case studies reveal that there is no one form or expression of alternativeness in American radio...More important than a simplistic sense of 'college music' as alternative rock, it is the themes of progress, cultural uplift and alternative lifestyle that have threaded throughout the development of American education and broadcasting, and they continue to play an important part in the discursive practices of college radio today."


I'm glad to see more academic attention to college radio, which is, indeed an alternative to commercial radio, no matter what form it takes. However, as Wall pointed out, these stations really just scratch the surface in terms of the wide range of programming philosophies and interpretations of "alternative" that can be found at college radio stations in the US.

College Radio in Iowa City - IASPM Conference Paper

A few weeks back I wrote about Nick Rubin's college radio-themed paper that he presented at the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) conference held in Iowa City in late April. Well, I got my hands on the other radio paper from the conference. On April 26, 2008, Brian Goedde presented his paper "Selling College Radio in the Geographical Place and Conceptual Space of the University, the City, and Beyond," about KRUI 89.7 FM, the radio station at University of Iowa.

It's a nicely written overview of the campus radio station. In particular I like his discussion of who the listening audience is and his tales of DJ foibles. He writes:

"The roles of KRUI are as individual as those who comprise its staff and— I would like to say its listeners, but neither I nor they really know who these listeners are. 'It’s hard to say who the listeners are unless they call in,' [Programming Director] Erica said. There were surveys done years ago, I’m told, but the station has changed substantially since then...


'You ask about my audience,' said...a Pathology MA student...whose KRUI alias, on Fridays between 7 and 9 pm, is 'Frosty.' As Frosty talked his hands hovered over the boards, absently rehearsing his next series of buttons to push. 'I always joke that the number one audience has got to be Micky’s kitchen crew. I’ll get requests like, "I got the shittiest job in the world, I deliver pizzas every Friday night. It’s a lot to do after school, but having Funk music gets me through." Or a kitchen crew will call—"we like what you’re playing" "Well what do you want to hear?" "Nothing, just keep playing it." That makes a guy feel good.'...


'My first show was at was a Tuesday night, 4 am,' he said. 'Errors are more forgivable at that hour. I stayed up all night, then came in here and talked about 150 words per minute when I hit the microphone. It was atrocious. [The station manager] called me after my very first air break at 4:15 and said, "You’re doing a really good job, I’m up late working on a term paper, could you play some Public Enemy for me, and otherwise just slow down a little when you’re talking on the mic." I was convinced this guy never slept and listened to every show. I lived in fear. A terrible show is a lot of mistakes. We’re all learning here; mistakes happen. The board is pretty complex. Just before my show someone hit a button that turned off the mic so I spent fifteen seconds of dead air. That was frustrating.'"


I was also intrigued to read about a show at the station where the DJs don't consider themselves to be all that knowledgeable about music. Instead, they pick their music selections based on the album art. Brian writes:


"In the case of Allison and Derek...co-hosts of the Tuesday mid-day show Grumpy Old Grad Students, KRUI presents music that they themselves are curious to hear for the first time.

'One thing to qualify right away is that we’re not big music buffs,' Allison said...'I have friends who say, "the music you listen to is really interesting" and I’m like, "Well, it’s randomly selected."'

Derek: 'We choose the songs by album cover art.'
Allison: 'And interesting names.'
Derek: 'We get there 10 minutes early and grab some CDs, some that we’ve played before that we like. But I would say 60-70% we’ve never heard.'
Allison: 'But we do good, we played Vampire Weekend and they’re the top indie band. That was a random selection.'"

I don't think these DJs are alone in using album art and band names as indicators of whether or not they might be interested in a release. I wonder if they are truly playing things at random or if they preview the albums right before playing them. If it's totally random, I'm curious how the flow of the show works and if the selections make sense during segue ways.

I definitely play music that I've never heard before, but I always read DJ reviews and preview a bit before playing anything so that I have a good sense of whether or not I like the track. But, I'm pretty focused on creating a specific flow to my show and not every DJ has the same perspective on what the perfect "flow" is.

By the way, KRUI has a nice blog and pretty impressive list of bands and in-studio guests who've come by, including The Pines (coming up this Saturday), Brother Ali, Film School, and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. There are also links to many specialty show blogs from the website, including a metal show, a south Asian music show East India Rock Company, and eclectic post-rock, math rock, ambient, drone metal, etc show Room Temperature Lounge.

College Radio and the Popular Music Industry - IASPM Paper at Iowa City

You probably remember that I was pretty excited to see that there were going to be 2 academic papers about college radio presented at the IASPM (International Association for the Study of Popular Music) conference in Iowa City in late April. Well, I couldn't make it to Iowa City, but I did connect with Nick Rubin, who is one of the college radio scholars who presented at the conference. He sent me a copy of his excellent and thought-provoking paper "'Your Better Alternative': College Radio and the Popular Music Industry," which he presented on April 27th at University of Iowa.

Nick is a graduate student at University of Virginia, working on his dissertation about college radio (Alright!), teaching classes on the history of rock and roll, and DJing at their college station WTJU.

His paper talks about the tension between the assumption that college radio is alternative and radical when in fact stations often act in more mainstream ways, reflecting practices of commercial stations (like adding music that record labels are hyping, making decisions based on charts, and requiring DJs to play a certain percentage of new adds). He writes:

"...college radio Music Directors often restrict their DJs through overt or subtle means. Playlist requirements require DJs to play a set number of songs per hour taken from a preselected group of new 'rotation' CDs; the administrator's goal is both to enhance a station's first-on-the-scene image, and to provide more reliable programming for listeners..."

Nick describes the practices above as similar to commercial radio, which to a certain extent I agree with (especially if the requirements are very restrictive), but to a large degree I see a big difference between the two. I work at a station with playlist requirements (you must play about 1/3 new adds), but I never feel controlled or restricted by them. My station adds over 40 items a week and the new bin is up for 8 weeks, so there's a ton of material to choose from and I can always find music that fits with the aesthetics of my show. I agree that some DJs do feel restricted by these types of rules, but I think it's OK for a station to have a point of view about the type of "sound" it's going for and that, to me, is the goal of having a large, curated bin of new (to the station) Music Director-approved selections.

What fascinated me the most about Nick's paper was his discussion about the role that promoters play in college radio. Some music directors rely heavily on the advice of promoters and won't even add bands to a station's library if they don't have the backing of a promoter. He writes:

"Bands who don't hire a promoter are at a disadvantage, as one Music Director suggests: 'We get between a hundred to two hundred CDs a week...But normally you can tell bad stuff; it doesn't have a major promoter behind it, or, if the band's promoting itself, you know, it's not too good...'"

Wow! I can't imagine that every station feels this way. I know that my station doesn't discriminate against promoter-less bands and having a promoter is certainly not a sign that the music will fit with your station's air sound. But, one of Nick's interesting points in this paper is that many station music directors don't rely solely on their own judgment, but seem to rely on external sources like promoters and CMJ charts in order to make programming decisions. Thankfully he heard about some exceptions to this:

"...certain stations largely opt out of the game with promoters. Liz Schroeder, formerly of AAM Promotions, reports that 'the bigger more influential stations are more likely to be dismissive.' Laura Jellum of Spectre corroborates, ' 'XYC and 'NVR and 'FMU - They do what they want and barely talk to promoters, but we service them anyway.'"

As I've discussed before, college radio stations are a diverse group of organizations, including commercial stations, public radio affiliates, non-commercial, 100% students, blends of community and student DJs, indie-oriented, mainstream, very controlled, freeform and everything in-between.

Like Nick, though, my preference is for stations that have their own point of view, are more focused on indie & undiscovered music, and don't rely on playlists and promoters to guide programming decisions. I'm not a fan of 100% freeform programming, because I am a fan of really great Music Directors as station curators. Amazing Music Directors can be really good at finding and sharing interesting music with their stations and listeners and provide the glue that holds a station together so that it doesn't just sound like a random collection of DJs with no connection to one another or a broader station goal.

Nick concludes:

"...given college radio's reputation and self-image as 'alternative' and 'indie' - as oppositional to commercial radio - we should critique the practices that impinge on the self-expression of its DJs, and that shortchange the artists working outside of capitalized and professional distribution channels."

What do you think about some of these issues raised by Nick's paper? Do you work at stations with programming rules? Do you add music from bands with no promotional backing? Is it important for college stations to try to rebel against (or at least think about) corporate control?

Festivals - EMP Pop Conference Highlights Part Six

I think this will be my final post about the 2008 Experience Music Project Pop Conference, held in Seattle April 10th-13th. There were tons of great presentations, including many that I missed...but that's always the case.

The "Festivals" panel on April 11th was one of the most cohesive panels that I saw, with presentations that played off of each other beautifully. First up was Regina Arnold (who you may remember from her Gina Arnold rock critic days), now a Stanford grad student working on her dissertation about rock crowds and power, from which we heard a tidbit, "Rock Crowds and Power: The Early Years." She focused her paper on a May 1969 festival at San Jose State called the Aquarian Family Festival (aka Aquarium Be-In or Aquarium Fair) and both the difficulty is researching such a festival from that era and the tensions related to it (free vs. paid festivals, licensing issues, crowd behavior, etc.). Posters from the event feature bands that never played and attendees looking back on it often misremember details as well. Some things that did happen were Jimi Hendrix being flown in on a Lear Jet, lawsuits, and Hells Angels being hired as security.

Next up, John Street from University of East Anglia presented "Performing Politics: From Rock Against Racism to Live 8." In discussing the history of Rock against Racism (founded in 1976) and Live 8 (2005), he looks at the role of musicians and music at these festivals. In some respects, organizers like Bob Geldof were up-front about hiring musicians who would draw the largest audiences in order to expose the causes to the greatest number of people.

Jennifer Stoever-Ackerman from SUNY-Binghamton gave her paper, "'Lollapalooza Every Day, Every Year': Music, Multiculturalism, and Whiteness in the 1990s," which seemed to evoke nostalgia from many of the GenXers in the audience (myself included) who had attended early Lollapalooza shows. She talked about the marketing of multiculturalism at early Lollapaloozas and argued that the lineups didn't live up to the multi-culti buzz and press hype. The audience was largely white and middle class and acts became increasingly less diverse from year to year. Yet, despite this, she claims the "dominant memory of Lollapalooza" is "multicultural." This was interesting for me to hear, as my memory of those early shows was more that the festival was attempting to present bands from a variety of genres that aren't typically on the same bill (metal, alternative rock, rap, and indie). To me, some of the most interesting bands were on the "second stage," where the lineup was definitely more diverse and at least featured some female artists.

Finally, Laurel Westrup discussed the UK Glastonbury Festival in her paper "When Subcultures Collide: The New Travellers at Glastonbury 1978-2005." She talked about the tensions between the a hippie subculture called the New Age Travellers and the festival organizers and mainstream concert-goers. She described the New Age Travellers (aka Crusties) as a diverse subculture that began in the 1960s with hippie sensibilities that now embraces elements of punk and rave culture. In 1992 a New Travellers band The Levellers played the main stage of the festival after concert organizers banned the "travellers" from the festival. This incident highlighted several tensions, including subcultural assertions that they were selling out, yet also a strange twist in that they were playing a festival that banned people from the scene that they came from.

Previous EMP Pop Conference posts:

EMP Pop Conference Highlights Part One

Strippers, Retro Divas, and Yoko Ono - EMP Conference Highlights Part Two

Music and the War in Iraq - EMP Conference Highlights Part Three

Sublime Frequencies' Experimental World Music - EMP Conference Highlights Part Four

Politicians Don't Know Pop Music - EMP Conference Highlights Part Five

Politicians Don't Know Pop Music - EMP Conference Highlights Part Five

In an intriguing presentation at the Experience Music Project Pop Conference on April 12th, Mike Barthel (a media studies grad student) and Rachel Arnold (a grad student in public administration) gave their paper, "Yesterday's Gone: The Use of Pop Songs in Presidential Campaigns."

Although I saw flaws in their research and its applicability to current campaigns, I was most interested in their assertion that people interested in entering politics tend to know very little about popular music and those who do are embarrassed by that. They used this finding to explain, in part, why so many random and inappropriate songs are often chosen as campaign theme songs.

Now, I always assume that political campaigns are overly researched and that people must be hired to pick music and theme songs. They suggest that it's much more random than this. I suppose that makes sense when you think about Ronald Reagan using "Born in the U.S.A.," George W. Bush using "I Won't Back Down," and McCain selecting "Little Pink Houses."

Barthel and Arnold decided to test the musical knowledge of future politicos in order to get an understanding of how these types of selections are being made. They surveyed public policy students, arguing that these students would be future political leaders and decision-makers. Their findings were horrifying, at least to the audience of music geeks at the EMP Pop Conference! They said that none of the students surveyed could name the lead singer of Blondie and only 58% knew all 4 Beatles. Nobody knew any of the current campaign songs. Additionally, the students had little interest in the question, "If you could pick a song for your own campaign, what would it be?"

The presenters asked if campaign songs would be "more effective if politicians had a greater understanding of pop music" and argued that "our study shows that those in power are really bad at using music to get their message across." Most disheartening to me was their point that, "politicians think music is fundamentally unimportant to politics."

Do you think music is important to politics? An audience member mentioned all the buzz around You Tube user-generated videos (especially with Obama) and that the new campaign songs may actually come from the people, rather than the political machine.

Previous EMP Pop Conference posts:

EMP Pop Conference Highlights Part One

Strippers, Retro Divas, and Yoko Ono - EMP Conference Highlights Part Two

Music and the War in Iraq - EMP Conference Highlights Part Three

Sublime Frequencies' Experimental World Music - EMP Conference Highlights Part Four

Sublime Frequencies' Experimental World Music - EMP Conference Highlights Part Four

I'm finally getting around to finishing up my summaries of the amazing Experience Music Project Pop Conference that I attended a few weeks ago in Seattle. The very first presentation that I saw was one that I was probably most excited about since it focused on an indie record label, Sublime Frequencies, that is a favorite of many college radio stations.

In "Experiments with World Music, Vol. 2: The Sublime Frequencies of Cultural Difference," David Novak of Columbia University discussed how the Sublime Frequencies label is presenting a new, more experimental take on world music with its many volumes of found recordings from places like Sumatra, Bali, Burma, Syria, and Vietnam (to name few), which include clips of radio broadcasts, music from cassette tapes purchased at flea markets, and other oddities. Their latest (and 43rd!) release is Bollywood Steel Guitar.

According to the abstract for the presentation:

"...Sublime Frequencies represents world music in a mode that is strikingly experimental, both in its noisy rawness and its obscurantist approach to the documentation of local music and cultural origins...In this paper, I consider debates around Sublime Frequencies appropriation of source materials drawn from regional media, and discuss how listeners experiment with familiar-but-foreign popular musical forms in the curation of distant media sources. I describe how recordings otherwise considered world music are reclassified among underground music fans..."

Novak discussed how Sublime Frequencies represents a second wave of world music which is more underground that what we traditionally think of as "world music." He used the term "ethnographic surrealism" to describe how their take on world is different from, say, Alan Lomax and Smithsonian Folkways' releases.

Novak didn't really discuss this, but I think that this surreal, experimental take on music from around the world may even make it more palatable to college radio DJs. As an example of this, at my station many DJs are scared off by world music, but are eagerly diving in to Sublime Frequencies releases, perhaps for their camp value (especially the 60s/70s/western-inspired rock and pop pieces), randomness (sound collages and radio transmissions), the hipster associations of the label (one of the founders is Sun City Girl Alan Bishop), and the hidden gems on every release.

One point made by Novak was that a characteristic of the Sublime Frequencies releases is that the origin of the music is not well documented and the real musicians are generally not given credit. Artists and biographies are downplayed and he links some of this to the punk and DIY spirit embodied by the label owners.

Toward the end of the presentation we learned that Alan Bishop was in the audience, making for, I'm sure, a very nerve-wracking presentation for Novak! Bishop alluded to the many misconceptions out there in the media about his projects, but acknowledged that he hasn't really worked to correct those misconceptions either...thus adding to the obscurity of the material being discussed.

If you missed my other summaries from the EMP Pop Conference, you can read them here:

EMP Pop Conference Highlights Part One

Strippers, Retro Divas, and Yoko Ono - EMP Conference Highlights Part Two

Music and the War in Iraq - EMP Conference Highlights Part Three

Music and the War in Iraq - EMP Conference Highlights Part Three

The most intense panel that I saw at last week's EMP Pop Conference was themed "Music and the War in Iraq," and featured three very different perspectives on the role of music/sound in the military.

Military Recruitment Music
Jonathan Pieslak gave his paper "For Duty, Honor, and Country: The Recruiting Music of the U.S. Military and the Islamic State of Iraq," in which he discussed U.S. military advertising that portrays military service as "patriotic and honorable" and utilizes solemn "honorable duty" music that's generally classical. He briefly mentioned that the U.S. military also has advertising that emphasizes "action, adventure and excitement," which uses faster-paced metal music by artists like Godsmack. In contrast, he also showed chilling recruitment videos by the Islamic State of Iraq that included images of suicide bombings and a soundtrack of poetic recitations (Nasheeds), which are religious calls to duty (vs. music, which is outlawed by this fundamentalist group).

Soldiers' Music Listening in Iraq
Lisa Gilman's paper "American Soldiers' iPods: Layers of Identity and Situated Listening in Iraq," highlighted the results of the author's interviews with soldiers who had returned from Iraq. She mentioned that soldiers' listening habits were far more diverse than the media might suggest and said that the men and women she interviewed reported listening to Frank Sinatra, Wu Tang Clan, Creed, old punk, country, Jay Z, Norah Jones, Dave Matthews, and even anti-war songs.

What was most interesting about this paper was hearing the contexts in which people used music. One woman said that she listened to a single country song over and over again in order to drown out noises of the war while she slept at night. Another person listened to old punk while exercising in order to vent frustrations. Others reported that they couldn't handle listening to aggressive music (like AC/DC's "Back in Black") while in Iraq because of the violent associations. Others talked about listening to and talking about music during their downtime as a way to bond with others with similar interests.

Lisa also talked about how gender, class, race, and military ranking related to music choices and control over what music was played in work environments. For example, in work places, the highest ranking person controlled the music selections (for example, the surgeon in the medical unit). At the end of the paper she mentioned that the funeral staple "Taps," was incredibly distressing to one soldier because of its association with death. Audience members at the presentation added that "Taps" these days is even sadder since it is often played on a speaker hidden within a bugle (digital bugle) as there is a shortage of real bugle players.

Sounds of War
The final presentation on this panel was J. Martin Daughtry's "Noise, Narrative, Trauma: The Significance of the Sonic in Conflict-Era Baghdad," a fascinating paper that talked about the uncontrollable sounds of war (guns, engines, tanks, explosions) rather than music. He talked about the way that soldiers learn to listen in order to survive in that environment, such as being able to discern whether bullets are near or far, U.S. or enemy. He outlined three types of sounds: 1) masking sounds (wind, engine noise, traffic, etc.), 2) communication (radio chatter, conversations), and 3) weapons (gunfire, mortars, etc.).

In acknowledging that his paper wasn't so much about music as about sound, he queried, "Where does the meaning of music reside?" He argued that soldiers "listen through fear...," which provided some context for the music discussions mentioned by Lisa in her presentation.

Summary, plus Rebel Music in Iran
While listening to the entire panel I wondered a bit about the role of music in Iraq in general since there are certainly groups that are opposed to music (see below for an example from Iran) in that culture. I also would like to know more about radio in Iraq. Do soldiers listen to local radio? What's on local radio in Iraq? Is there any music? Is there western music? Are there underground military radio broadcasts? Sort of in this context, there was a fascinating article in today's SF Chronicle about outlawed underground rap music in Iran. According to the article:

"In Iran, all music - except that with religious lyrics - was outlawed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the political and spiritual leader of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which toppled the Shah of Iran. The cleric said music was 'intoxicating,' and he promised to end the 'invasion' of Western culture under the shah and promote Islamic values. But as years passed, radio and television stations began playing classical Persian music - mostly with religious themes.

[Rap artist] Felakat, who has a considerable following in a nation where 70 percent of the population is under 30, is part of an underground scene where songs are recorded in clandestine studios, burned onto CDs and distributed via a flourishing black market to stores selling religious music and vetted videos. If caught by authorities, stores can be closed, and their owners imprisoned and fined."

If you have insights about music and radio in Iraq, I'd love to hear them.

Up next, a review of the "Festivals" panel and a paper about music and politics at EMP.

Strippers, Retro Divas and Yoko Ono - EMP Conference Highlights Part Two

Some of the highpoints for me at the EMP Pop Conference last week in Seattle (April 10-13th at Experience Music Project) were presentations about talented and powerful female musicians, from Yoko Ono to Candye Kane to a little-known (these days) vaudeville performer Eva Tanguay (pictured above).

Slate.com music critic Jody Rosen presented his paper "Girl Gone Wild: Eva Tanguay's Madcap Feminism," which was probably my favorite paper of the entire conference since it brought to my attention a very interesting musician from the turn of the last century who was entirely unknown to me. Jody noted that even though Eva Tanguay was a huge vaudeville star (attracting more than 15,000 fans to one of her solo shows), publicity seeker (she was the first popular singer with publicists on her payroll and staged publicity events), and dramatic presence (she wore of dress made of 4000 pennies, assaulted someone with a hat pin, and had high profile feuds); she is still all but forgotten today, barely mentioned in music biographies. At least after this presentation a few more people became aware of this artist, myself included.

One of my all-time favorite music writers, Ann Powers (seated in the center of the photo above), chief pop critic for the L.A. Times also brought a feminist slant to the conference, presenting her work "In Love with a Strippa: Sex and Power in the So-Called Post-Feminist Age," in which she outlined the origin of exotic dancers (look to the Algerian Village's "Little Egypt" performers at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair) and discussed their presence in music videos of today. She talked about the "good-time girl" strippers in '80s videos by Motley Crue and David Lee Roth and contrasted those images with the sadder "tarnished fantasy" portrayed in hip hop's take on stripper culture as exemplified by Juvenile in the video "Rodeo", in which strippers are shown not as fantasies, but as peers in the same underground economy as the musicians/protagonists in the video.

Kara Attrep gave a great paper "She Yoko-ed the Band," which outlined the demonization of female musicians, like Yoko Ono, Courtney Love, Clara Schumann, and Mary Parks, who have been criticized for allegedly leading to the downfall and death of their more famous male partners. Most interesting to me was hearing more of the back story on Yoko Ono and her successful career prior to meeting John Lennon. She was an early member of Fluxus, staged her own Carnegie Hall performance to a packed hall, and was very much seen as an up and coming artist in the 1960s. She claims to have not known John Lennon's music, definitely not an awe-struck groupie-type.

I also heard about lady blues performers in Maria V. Johnson's (she missed the conference, so her paper was read by the moderator) "Who's Gonna Be the Vessel? Blues Women Performing Alternative Community." She gave shout-outs to the work of former sex worker/musician Candye Kane, Delta diva Denise LaSalle, and Nedra Johnson (who asks her audience to "envision God as a fierce gay man or a granola dyke").

In upcoming posts I'll talk about some of the papers related to war, the military, elections, festivals, and indie/punk culture.

EMP Pop Conference Highlights - Part One

I spent the weekend in Seattle, where I was excited to finally attend the annual EMP Pop Conference at Experience Music Project. This year's theme was "Shake, Rattle: Music, Conflict and Change" and is described this way on the conference website: "How does music resist, negate, struggle? Can pop intensify vital confrontations, as well as transform and conceal them? What happens when people are angry and silly love songs aren't enough?"

The place was jammed with a who's who of music journalists and academics, including Greil Marcus (shared an elevator with him!), Robert and Georgia Christgau, Ann Powers (LA Times chief pop critic), Oliver Wang, J.D. Considine (anyone else remember him from that geeky cool VH1 music critics' round table discussion show Four on the Floor?), Charles Aaron (music editor of Spin), and Gina (now going by Regina) Arnold to name a few.

When the conference began in 2002, it set out to be a different sort of music conference, one where academics, journalists and musicians could all present their perspectives about pop music, since typically conferences are very segmented as either academic or non-academic in focus. Certainly folks from all of these categories were in attendance, but for the most part the presentations that I saw had a decidedly academic bent, which to me isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's just worth noting. During much of the conference there were 4 simultaneous sessions, so it was impossible to see everything that I wanted to. Additionally, some presenters canceled or were thwarted by the big American Airlines flight cancellations last week...so in some cases I saw papers being read by someone other than the author.

In terms of the focus of Spinning Indie, I didn't see any presentations specifically about college radio (or radio in general) and only saw a few that dealt with indie or underground music, including great papers on the anarchist publisher/label AK Press, underground world music label Sublime Frequencies, a presentation on female indie blues artists, and an excellent panel on festivals (including Lollapalooza's failure at multi-culturalism and subcultural clashes at Glastonbury in the UK). I learned about some artists who I'd never heard of before and also got an interesting glimpse into the role of music in elections, the military, and war.

Since there was so much to absorb, I'm going to break my posts down into several smaller posts highlighting my favorite panels and presentations. Stay tuned!

Academic Take on Students and Community Staff at UMass's WMUA

College radio hasn't been studied much by academics, so it's always exciting to find a new article that takes a look at my beloved genre of radio.

There's a fascinating journal article by Dickie Wallace called "Reinventing the Wheel vs. Grinding the Same Old Axe: An Ethnographic View of the Students and Community Members at a Massachusetts College Radio Station" in the March 2008 issue of WPCC (which is focused on community radio).

The article discussed University of Massachusetts, Amherst's college/community radio station WMUA 91.1 FM and the struggles that exist there between older, long-time station staff from the community and younger, ever-changing undergraduate DJs. It's a great article that points out that although the station is controlled by students, long-time community member shows and a block programming structure actually work to make it very difficult for new, undergraduate DJs to get on the air. Tensions are highlighted by a few things, including:

"...many undergraduate students are taken aback by the structure and how hard it can be to establish oneself...they are turned off by the competition with so many older people, Community members, for coveted show times...In turn, many Community members have spent years with the station...Many have built up a following...When WMUA does it on-air fund drive, these regulars bring in the lion's share of support from their listeners..."

The author also makes a valid point about community members providing continuity at the station, something that I personally think is vital for a station's survival. He writes:

"[Community members]...serve as an institutional memory that would otherwise be cyclical as new classes of students come to college every autumn, stay for four or five years and move on."

On the flip side, long-time staff can make a station seem conservative and unchanging:

"Community members, however, can become territorial about their time slots and roles at WMUA, especially in reaction to new waves of eighteen year-olds, who are all too ready to revolutionize the station..."

I'd be curious to hear about how other college stations deal with this tension between students and community.

Thanks to Uncarbonated for turning me on to the community radio issue of this journal.