The view of Seattle from my aunt & uncle's porch
I wasn’t thinking about this anniversary when I booked our annual trip to the west coast, which includes a side trip to visit my aunt, uncle and cousin in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue. It’s a beautiful area, rimmed by mountains. When we go visit I’m more interested in seeing my elderly relatives and relaxing in all that natural beauty rather than checking out the local music scene.
Peter, on our visit to Snoqualme Pass
Before our flight, Peter was mentally torturing me by singing alternate versions of “Teenage Spirit” set to his own lyrics. ("Here we are now—Dunkin’ Donuts—we want bagels—egg and bacon. Let us buy them—now they’re cooking—here they are now—let us eat them. ") This went on ad nauseam for a few hours until I threatened to tickle him mercilessly.
My cousin, Ken Broadwell, had a slightly more blasé perspective on Nirvana, having grown up in the Seattle area while they and others were in their formative years. He thought of them as just an average bar band when they started out, and rattled off a bunch of local band names he said were much better than them. But isn’t that how most bands get started—playing some dive bar where the drunks may or may not care if you entertain them?
What was most fun was the tangent we got off to about college radio. We talked about how these stations were the first to pick up on Nirvana. Ken told be of the night he first heard “Nevermind” on a college station. The young DJ mentioned he’s just gotten this fantastic new record by a band called Nirvana, and proceeded to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” about 10 times in a row. Ken was impressed that the DJ could do that on a whim. He then talked about how important college /community radio was to him as a teen and into adulthood-- KEXP especially, which he says Paul Allen destroyed when he got his hands on it. Ken talked about how he heard his first blues records on college radio, as well as the first time he heard The Velvet Underground plus a number of bands that don’t get regular radio play.
For those who don’t know KEXP’s story, according to Wikipedia, “In 1972, the station started operations as KCMU, a small album rock station staffed by University of Washington students that broadcast at 90.5 FM to the UW campus… In 1981, under the direction of Jon Kertzer, KCMU turned to its listening audience for public funding after the UW's budget was cut. KCMU played mostly indie rock but also was the first station to play rap artists like Grandmaster Flash. Throughout the late 1980s, the station tapped into Seattle's burgeoning music scene. Members of local bands Soundgarden and Mudhoney worked as volunteer DJs, as did both Jonathan Poneman and Bruce Pavitt, the founders of Sub-Pop. During these years, Billboard Magazine called KCMU "one of the most influential commercial-free stations in the country." …In 1992, KCMU dropped many of its volunteer DJs and elected to run syndicated programming. Some listeners and DJs considered this a betrayal of KCMU's democratic mission, and formed a group called CURSE (Censorship Undermines Radio Station Ethics)… A program called World Cafe, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was a particular bone of contention. CURSE encouraged local KCMU supporters to stop donating money to the station in protest. Volunteer DJs who criticized the station's policies were fired, although a lawsuit from CURSE resulted in that policy being struck down by a United States District Court. World Cafe was dropped from KCMU's lineup in 1993, but none of the fired volunteer staff returned to the station.” I remember hearing the basics of this story that Wikipedia recounts, and thinking to myself that another little piece of independence had been taken away.
In recent years KEXP got a licensing deal to air some of its programming on New York City’s WNYE. KEXP’s promo people proclaimed the artists on its playlists were the most adventurous music we were gonna hear in years. Excuse me??! I guess it didn’t matter to them that the music played on WFMU (which has been on the air 50+years), WNYU, and any number of community / college stations in the tri-state area doing freeform and similar formats was more interesting in a single day than a whole year’s worth of their playlists. I was happy to see KEXP’s licensing agreement quietly ended a few months ago (although replaced with programming from another local indie station that I don’t much care for).
This ugly little story of a college radio station takeover keeps happening with upsetting frequency, the most recent example I know of is KUSF in San Francisco, which broadcasts in exile over the web. Before I go off on another tangent, I’ll save that rant for another blog after I head down there for our next leg of the trip. But getting back to Nirvana, whatever I may think of the band, they still got their start on independent radio. Tech-savvy music collectors such as myself are finding music on the web, but we need to remember that the vast majority of the casual music consumer still gets their music from radio. For kids who grow up in the computer age that probably won’t be the case. I’d like to think the next Nirvana might be discovered though the independent outlet that community radio has to offer.
No comments:
Post a Comment