WFMU 26.2
WFMU's annual two week marathon has just completed They raised around $1.1 million towards a goal of $1.2 million. They have a tagline to explain themselves: WFMU where Incongruous Segues are a basic human right. This was their greatest fundraising achievement and at the same time, they admit, less than their closest dance with an announced goal (and operating budgets needs). WFMU, if you are not familiar with them are an ex-college radio station in Jersey city NJ that incorporated themselves into a nonprofit when Upsalla college decommissioned in the mid nineties. In addition to explanations and internet streams offered by their main web site WFMU.org they also maintain the web log WFMU's Beware of the Blog.
It's required to ramp up the energy levels during this period and traditional to pair up the djs into tag teams, often creating unique and weird energy in the process. Highlights of the two weeks certainly included musicians Ted Leo and Carl Newman coming by Tom Scharpling's show both weeks and Kurt Vile being there the second week.
 The dark secret of the WFMU Marathon of is, of course that they will accept your money at any point of the year.
I missed DJ Ken Goldsmith (Kenny G), and his post avant-garde presence at the marathon this year. He teaches at U. Penn. The Ubu Web web stream that WFMU hosts is his main contribution at present (see also twitter: @ubuweb). Last summer he did a show which consisted of playing dead air for an hour, I thought I was listening to it until I discovered I had at some point accidentally turned iTunes off. Later at home I tried bringing the show up on WFMU's extensive archive of all their shows going back more than a decade. But since I use No-Script on my browser which sometimes interferes with their flash-based archive player I realized there may be no way of ever knowing for sure whether I listened to it or not. It will remain epistemologically uncertain
Being the same age as some of WFMU's more senior dj's I can recall the slow decline of "Album-oriented" FM radio through the seventies until by the end of the decade you had to admit that the top-40 am radio of 10 years previous had been more fun to listen to. Still I arrived at college in the early eighties (after four years in the Navy) and presented myself at the college radio station at U. Maryland with the expressed purpose of getting a show that I might play the Clash (who got me through that last year in the Navy), Minor Threat, the Flesheaters, and Gun Club for three hours a week, every week. Agreeing by barter to add Tav Falco, Motor Boys Motor, and the Rev. Gary Davis to that mix I got on. I have been making the argument for free-form music radio to anyone who will listen ever since.
There are two related arguments that need to be made. One is that Freeform adds something essential -- a living spirit of discovery. The other is that the focus group marketing approach takes something away. It is formally reductionist. A society relying on that approach for any sizable part of its arts culture - even its 'common' culture is in the process of dying. The most unfortunate side of the glimpse college radio gave of a world of a broader music life is the sad reality of tautological radio actually out there. I call it that because music radio in the US is largely an enterprise of creating and reinforcing a narrow stream of recorded music that exists to suit the business needs for manageable mass sales products. Its not that more can't exist, it does, its just that it would be less tidy and less amenable to oligopolies. Broadcast radio is uniform and bland, satellite radio segmented and pigeon-holed. I knew by the time I left college radio that the key to attracting a strong audience was an opposite approach, known as eclectic and routinely dismissed by "those-who-knew-better". People are more inclined to positively receive freeform radio as long as some Djs are viewed as kindred spirits and that they in turn view their fellow djs as kindred spirits, and recomend them. So it is best if there really is something there for everyone in your programming and that it is done well.
Doug Schulkind who does the Give the Drummer Some shows, and curates one of WFMU's independent streams Give the Drummer Radio captures this omnivorous curious and accepting attitude to a high degree. And he illustrates how the personnel of a station like WFMU builds and joins their audience from the ground and individual up.
WFMU has been successful enough at what it does, that I see flashes of ambition from them at turns. Ambition that goes beyond being the college radio station that refused to die. (like that old Slickee Boys song, but different) Although this is the topic that station manager Ken Freedman led a panel on at SxSW How to Save College Radio. WFMU has maintained an expanding presence at SxSW for years. For a station on a nonprofits budget WFMU has also managed to dramatically increase mobile and multicasts, parallel programming streams, podcasts, and a complete archive of past shows. They've done this through a thorough embrace of the possibilities of Ev-Do and the Internet, and through "getting invited to places". In addition to that there is The Free Music Archive (FMA) which they put together with money from a grant. The source of the grant was a fund setup from the settlement of the last big radio payola scandal. Sweet and poetic justice. Equally significant for them in staking out their new significant internet presence is shrinking the target that royalty rights collection concerns have been placing on Internet radio. They've done this by decreasing the amount of major label material they play and creating alternative licensing arrangements with others. They've referred to taking the first floor of the building they own which they currently rent out and converting it into a performance space.
Syndicating shows is another thing WFMU has managed to do, with a few other stations picking up Benjamin Walker's "Too Much Information" show. Many people entertain the notion that they could do a good music radio show once a week. Its not true, its just easy to imagine. No one makes that mistake with interview and narrative shows. It's obvious from first consideration that a show of that type is an enormous amount of work, and is so the moment any degree of production or assembly enters into it. Particularly a lot of work for a volunteer effort It's worth noting that Benjamin Walker's show moved seamlessly into a void left by a show that Douglas Rushkoff had been doing for WFMU.
Every year at marathon time WFMU and its listeners hold their collective breath to see if the will is there to provide the ways and means for another year. The fundraising models available to public (non profit licensed) radio stations is actually fairly varied and relaxed ranging from sponsorships and underwriting which can include airing announcements which are nearly indistinguishable from commercials. At the far end of that side of the spectrum is for a station to be listener-supported alone as WFMU is. Within the extended community it currently finds itself and mission it has this makes sense for it for now. Other public radio stations rely heavily on networks to distribute the cost and task load of news and programming needs. It's not just NPR either (npr needs a new logo which could feature one of Sarah Palin's "targets" over their current logo, and maybe the tag line: "Duck and Cover"), many public radio stations belong to several content networks. Some of the most notable shows on the public station I listen to locally [WAMU] are from American Public Media and include Marketplace Report, This American Life, and Prairie Home Companion. There is additionally, Public Radio International which displays their brief in their name and is responsible for the majority of foreign produced content airing on these shores. And a handful of syndicated shows are offered from the progressive Pacifica network as well. WFMU sidesteps all of that currently drawing on its own resources of human capital, recognizing its unique origins and general lack of formal responsibilities. WFMU's greatest strength at the moment is that its listener base understands them and what they are trying to do. Their sustainability rests on this slender branch.
11:21:41 PM  ;;
|
