I posted about Indie 103.1FM in LA a while back, and I think that if you liked that, you might be ready for a really indie radio station. It’s time for you all to delve into the exciting world of… COLLEGE RADIO!
School is about halfway through the fall session all across the country, meaning that college radio stations are finally getting their new recruits broken in.
For those of you out there not fortunate enough to live in a college town, you’re really missing something. There’s just something different about college radio, as opposed to your usual Clear Channel owned piece of crap. College radio will not play the same 40 songs all day, all week. College radio does not bombard you with the new Britney Spears single three times in one hour (an actual occurrence on one Kansas City radio station). There’s no morning drive-time show, featuring loudmouth asses making the same jokes day after day after fucking day.
This is not to say that college radio stations are the be-all, end-all of radio goodness. Lord knows, you give up a bit when you listen to one of them. Those cool-sounding, well-spoken djs that keep you entertained? Yeah… there’s probably one of them amongst the thirty or forty djs working at the station. And they probably work the 2am-4am slot on Wednesday mornings.
The rest of the on-air “talent†is more likely to skew towards the most awkward music geeks on the face of the planet or mind-numbingly dull and uninformed broadcast journalism majors. The former is going to use “um†and “uh†and “er†about four or five times per sentence spoken, bit will have a pithy comment or interesting tidbit about most of the music they play. The latter will be able to speak well, but will know next to nothing about the music they play, even to the point of mispronouncing band names, or out and out fucking up of band names. My personal favorites being the dj that referred to Gorky’s Zygotic Mimcy as Gorky’s Psychotic Monkey, and the guy who pronounced Cibo Matto (“cheebow mah-toe”) as “Seebo Matto.”
Of course, this is the price you pay for getting to hear interesting music. Seriously, is there any other sort of radio station, other than college stations, where you can hear White Zombie, the Mountain Goats, Oingo Boingo, and DJ Shadow in the same twenty minute block? And, hell, at least at the station here in Lawrence (that would be the University of Kansas’ station, KJHK 90.7FM), you get a request filled in about ten minutes.
I’d also be remiss in my commentary were I to exclude the idea of specialty programming. On damn near every college radio station I’ve had the chance to hear, there’s been a wealth of special shows. These programs cover the gamut- everything from hip-hop to electronica to ska to metal to politics to sex.
Tune into KJHK Monday mornings 9am-noon Central standard time for the station’s Breakfast For Beatlovers, with Curtis, perhaps the best dj ever. He’ll play techno, reggae, soul, breakbeats, and hip-hop so smoothly, it’ll blow your mind. Tusday afternoons 2-4pm with Thaddius Maximus will also do much to break down any misconceptions you might have of college radio djs. The guy seems to enjoy himself, and plays good music.
holy shit!two bamf staffers (er…i guess i’m not really one anymore) live in lawrence!? shit! we should meet up dude.
College radio station initials…Check out the University of North Texas’s college radio station. It’s call letters are KUNT. Gotta love that, I sure do.