Don’t Save KUSF: Refresh It

One year and one day ago today, the not-oft-heard but beloved-by-some (including me) KUSF (90.3 FM) was removed from the airwaves in a bloodless coup. The over-three-decade-old San Francisco University-based free-form radio station’s dial position was basically sold to Entercom Communications, which quickly performed some maneuvers with another oganization to move the failing KDFC (102.1 FM) “lite” classical format down to the left side of the dial. The details are inside baseball for radio nerds, and KUSF loyalists are still fighting the fight to reverse this decision. They most assuredly won’t succeed in reversing what has already been done, and I don’t think they should even try.

It’s not that I don’t believe in free-form radio. I love it. But, it’s truly a format for music nerds (like me). This type of community-based radio — as admirable is it may purport to be — never really succeeds in spreading the gospel of appreciating un-recognized and unheard artists to a mainstream audience. Would that it would. But it won’t.

One of the undisputed tenets of the Internet is that it has a fantastically long tail. If you look way down toward the end of that long tail — squint and I assure you that you will see it — you will find the other people out there like you who care about 70′s Nigerian funk and Screamo bands that are based in the greater Michigan area. This fundamental change to how people consume media is a god-send to those who feel a need to be connected to others who want to share the same passions. Guess where all the zine makers of the 90s ended up? You can bet your ass they’re all members of an online community or two.

This fundamental fact of the future that exists today means that any radio station that does not embrace the Internet as a broadcasting and community-building medium will fail. KUSF failed. Maybe not because of the Internet, but partly because it didn’t really have any Internet plan. As an arbiter of avant-garde taste, it felt to me as a listener that KUSF was too long asleep at the wheel. They were spinning records in a radio bunker for a few thousand people in San Francisco instead of growing their potential online community. They eventually managed to put up an Internet feed, but their website was hardly ever updated and there wasn’t any real public direction or way for people to participate except to pick up the phone and call in a request. I loved doing that at times, especially when DJ Schmeejay or Irwin were spinning records on their weekly morning shows, but all too often I had to wonder: What, exactly, and who, exactly, was driving the station?

College kids. Inspired, hip, try-shit-out college kids were making this Jesuit-school college station defiantly different. College kids who are presumably there to learn something innovative about how to broadcast music to people.

I won’t trot out the old “crisis is opportunity” Chinese wisdom bullshit, but the Save KUSF contingent might want to at least consider embracing the idea that building up something new is more valuable than desperately trying to save something already lost. Don’t know how to set up that Internet radio station for your university? Go down the hall and grab those nerdy dudes in the computer science class. Need some promotional materials? USF has an art program with people who desperately want to become edgy graphic designers, doesn’t it? No money? Ask the administration to funnel just a smidgeon of the direct marketing effort they put into contacting alumni members with life insurance and USF-branded credit card offers into your new Internet-only radio station (and promise them a custom-made PSA thanking every alumnus who pledges 100 dollars or more for the station).

Need someone to help get the word out about your new Internet-only radio station? I’m ready. I bet there’s a whole community of people who are, too — even if they don’t know it yet. In fact, they won’t know it until you get a group of people together and raise your voices to broadcast something new, which is, as the old Chinese proverb goes, harder to do than trying to tear something down.

If the Internet has taught us radio nerds nothing about radio, it’s that it doesn’t take a radio tower to broadcast. What does it take?

Categories: community, music, radio, San Francisco | Leave a comment

I Do Resolve

I’ve always kind of hated resolutions. Yet, I’ve begun making them the last few years after countless years eschewing them. So, let’s get this over with. For 2012, these are a few things I think I can (and should) do:

Write more. This is easy. I can do this. As with so many things, you write better by writing more. Pretty simple fact, whether you’re talking about writing or playing guitar. I include blogging in this resolution, but it also should include more creative writing. I’ve got some chops, but I need to be writing every day to make any kind of legitimate progress.

Learn CSS. No, really. I have some design skills, but I get tripped up on CSS because I’ve never taken the time to learn it from the ground up. Instead, I just keep hacking away and not ever using the full power of CSS. I owe it to myself (and my employer) to be able to do more than just dive in and troubleshoot CSS issues in a hacky way. I’ll probably also learn more about WordPress in tandem with this resolution. I suppose if there were a test at the end of the year, designing a theme would be the perfect coda for this type of self-taught enterprise.

Consume less. I eat too much. Drink too much. Flat-out consume too much. It’s about time I cut that out. Like my “write more” resolution, this is one I began in the past but need to make larger gains toward. One strategy that keeps me on this path is taking a “small batch” approach to consumables. It’s been years since I bought anything at a Costco-style business, and I’ve moved progressively toward quality over quantity with this approach. I will move further in this direction. I admittedly pay more with this strategy, but I consume less. (I’m not any fatter with this strategy, that’s for sure.)

Simplify even more. I’ve been excellent at this. I have much less physical stuff in my life than anyone I know, but I can go even further with this one. The hard part about this resolution is that the further you go with this, the more your home tends to look like you don’t have, when I suppose the point is to show that you don’t want.

Get friendlier. I’m an only child who loves solitude, but I probably went too far in the direction of solo quietude this past year. Time for me to get out more and show my friends that I love them by spending more time with them.

Plenty of more possibilities for my next year, but these are all doable — just like the resolutions I set for myself in 2011 that I realized:

  • Sleep more: I’m now the king of afternoon naps and have a set bedtime on weeknights. I still have insomnia issues, but I get more sleep. (P.s., I’m typing this at 5 a.m. after not sleeping as well as I had hoped.)
  • Eliminate all debt: It’s amazing that a piddling student loan from college can take well over 15 years to pay off. It’s equally amazing that I’ve paid that off, as well as every other monetary debt I’ve owed.
  • More mindful spending: When you must purchase something, don’t cheap out and choose the short-term winner. It’s all about value.
  • Share more music: I shared 20-25 new songs every month in 2011 with a group of friends. It kept me searching for new sounds and hopefully filled a few ears that wanted to hear something new.

 

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Night Owl [A Haiku]

In the darkest hour,
In the middle of the night,
I call out your name.
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Song 4U: Gui Boratto

Gui Boratto is a Brazilian DJ/architect/designer/insert-creative-label-here who started out in the advertising world. I guess he’s proof that not all people who go into advertising end up as soulless husks of their idealistic selves.

I have no idea how much that former advertising career means to Senhor Boratto, but his roots in advertising make sense to me. His music feels like the perfect soundtrack to that comfortably cliched and classic type of luxury-car commercial filmed at night on a rain-soaked, switch-back mountainside. His elliptic, hypnotic music has wound its way up and down my mind’s dark landscape a few times lately.

Why not take Gui for a drive right now?

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Song 4U: Beatnik Jr.

It seems like electronic dance music has been on a roll for years now. As a trend, I had thought it would start to wane, but it keeps pumping along, even after LCD Soundsystem hung up their headphones. I get kind of burned out on this sound, but once in a while I hear a tune that really gets my toes a tappin’.

Beatnik Jr. is a four-piece from Los Angeles who appear to be just getting going. They offer this song for free as a Soundcloud download (click the download arrow and make it yours). It’s full of chunky bass that should make your booty shake.

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