Podcast #188 – Hip-Hop Radio Archive (rebroadcast)
The Hip-Hop Radio Archive aims to digitize, preserve, share, and contextualize recordings of hip-hop radio from the 1980s and 1990s from commercial, college, community, and pirate stations of all sizes, telling the stories of the shows and the people that made them. Our guest is founder of the archive, Ryan MacMichael. This is a rebroadcast […]
College Radio Watch: Moonies, Nirvana, and Trent Reznor’s College Radio Ties
This week, so many fascinating college radio stories caught my eye. We learn about college radio’s profound influence on music culture in the 1980s and 1990s in a piece about the marketing of Nirvana as well as in Trent Reznor’s recent speech at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Reznor explains that college radio […]
Podcast #187 – Archiving LGBTQ Radio History
This week our guest is Brian DeShazor, an independent radio researcher and founder of the Queer Radio Research Project. Formerly the Director of the Pacifica Radio Archives, DeShazor has taken a special interest in uncovering and highlighting the LGBTQ voices that have graced the community radio airwaves. On the episode, we discuss the history of […]
How to turn your FBI surveillance into a radio show
As some of you know, I study and teach two subjects in depth: the history of broadcasting and the history of the USA National Security State. These two topics merge when the objects of government wiretaps realize that they are being listened to, then make strategic comments or even entertain their eavesdroppers. At this point […]
Podcast #186 – African-American Preachers on Wax
On this week’s episode, scholar Lerone Martin shares with us the fascinating history of African-American preachers who distributed their sermons on 78rpm records during a time when they had limited access to the radio in the 1920s-1940s. Martin, Associate Professor in Religion and Politics at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at […]
College Radio Watch: WCWM Comes Back from Water Damage and More News
I was sad to read about college radio station WCWM’s troubles after a burst pipe in its building led to major damage last summer. When I visited the College of William and Mary radio station in 2017, I was amazed by the historical materials in its basement home, including an impressive collection of very old […]
Radio Station Visit #154: Mercer Island High School Radio Station KMIH-FM
Mercer Island High School radio station, KMIH is the third in a trio of high school radio stations that I visited while in Seattle in October, 2018. First licensed in 1970, KMIH holds a class D FM license, currently over 88.9 FM in Mercer Island, Washington. Hand-made KMIH poster. Photo: J. Waits Founded in 1969, […]
Podcast #185 – Funding Change Threatens Canadian Community Radio Stations
A change in Ontario university funding rules threatens more than a dozen campus community stations in Canada. Barry Rooke, executive director of the National Campus and Community Radio Association is our guest to help explain the situation. He explains how the structure of Canadian community and college radio stations differs from those in the U.S. […]
Sound Stories: Toronto Hip-Hop & Radio; First All-Podcast Radio Station In 2019 or 2005?
Every week we seek out compelling stories about sound and radio and share them on Twitter. Here are some of the most intriguing from the last week: Vote looms on bringing jazz radio back to MHCC“The Mt. Hood Community College Board will vote next week on whether to bring jazz radio station KMHD back to […]
Help Us Tell the History of Indymedia & LPFM
This November 30 marks the 20th anniversary of the protests against meetings of the World Trade Organization that shut down the city of Seattle. It also marks the birthday of the Indymedia movement, which brought together grassroots media activists from public access TV, print, community radio and internet technology to create a radical open publishing […]