Wcbn
WCBN: A Commitment to Risk
When Ted asked me to contribute to putting together some sort of article commemorating the existence of WCBN, and to draw attention to the Summer Bash at West Park on July 11, I jumped at it. Since the WCBN Summer Bash is the one time of the year the station makes its ties to the community-at-large completely and unapologetically public, in the form of a local-business sponsored local-music festival, I made a decision to use this opportunity to make my case for a significance of WCBN 88.3 FM in Ann Arbor.
WCBN is a unique institution in a unique town at a unique point in history, and I believe this station serves some pretty crucial functions for this town and its quality of life. Whether you are a listener or not, WCBN deserves respect and support from the greater Ann Arbor community, which it does not often receive from the university that holds its license (though t has been pretty cool lately, I ain't pickin' any fights here). But like alt good things in Ann Arbor, the station gets taken for granted at an almost abusive level . . . so next time you hear a pledge drive, see a WCBN-sponsored event is taking place, come across a strewn-about program guide in some coffeehouse commode, consider considering this:
In addition to writing in these pages for the past few months, l'm also a local musician and somewhat of a local promoter-type (l'm one of the organizers of the Summer Bash). Through living here and being on the scene now for a number of years l've come to at least meet - and in some cases know - many of the people who were involved in what happened here in the sixties and early seventies (when let's face it, Ann Arbor became Ann Arbor), and through some rather direct lines, what has continued to happen here culturally over the past 30 years. Artists and musicians come and stay here to study and work because of an easy lifestyle. One can be given much time to think and evolve as a person without hardcore urban stress. You can take things in any possible direction, as far as you want, and to some degree you will be tolerated, perhaps even welcomed to keep it up, at your own pace, for as long as you want. Because, generally speaking, a cultural-industrial complex does not exist in SE Michigan to recycle a critical degree of capital through the system, one can't expect much, if any, money; you'll probably never support yourself from your art, but you can take your time and give it a go. Because of the lack of industry presence, collectives have a tougher go. Amazing bands form, catch fire and burn out fast in anomie. But Ann Arbor, somehow, just does not go away, so many of us stay, and just work steadily at reproducing the culture we find most true to ourselves.
I do what I do, and I know there are plenty of others out there who could be saying the same thing: writing, recording, designing, archiving, all primarily out of the love of doing it, and we continue to do it here because we can. Ann Arbor is resource rich, and it's easy to find a niche to get busy in if that's what you want to do with y ourself , continuing to keep the dream alive of building bridges to greater adventure.
I just want to remind people of this because over the past 30 years Ann Arbor has also gotten more and more money rich. In case you hadn't noticed, our downtown is now completely developed. For it to grow any bigger, they'll need to start tearing down houses, and rent, already difficult to afford, is pretty much impossible on a working class service-industry level income, especially if you have any need for personal workspace or proximity to town (essential if you can't afford to park every day).
Arts-wise Ann Arbor is (and let's be honest here, kids) an extremely half-ass place (that comfortableness breeds-complacency thing) compared with a real city, but I imagine (and at this point you can call me crazy) it is the work of this community, the freaks, young and old, that is responsible in one way or another for Ann Arbor's continued appearance on those "best places to live list," and if you think John Engler doesn't pay attention to these things, you don't know politics. We are a government-sanctioned magnet for hi-tech capital, and people are moving in because of the openness of culture found here - developed, tested and pushed by our longterm service employees at the grassroots level.
We've un wittingly laid the foundation for Clinton's dream of the 21st Century - a place where liberals are safe to act like conservatives. Get rich on the global information industry and don't hurt anyone's feelings. But dreams have a funny way of not going as planned, and you can bet law-and order liberalism will rear a dark side as the stakes rise in our local economy. How many restaurants can we really support? How many expensive knick-knacks can be sold?
Brace yourself Ann Arbor, you may be putting the proverbial coke-mad revolver to your head as there s more and more money to be made here. Under law-and-order liberalism, everything not middle-class-safe is ultimately a threat, a problem to be solved (especially the "young people"), and in the drive to eliminate risk from the local environment, you wilt lose this, everything that makes this town nice and interesting and "quirky." If only the children of the upper class who pay that tuition can afford to live downtown, if only those bringing in over 70G a year can afford to eat in those restaurants more than once a year, it will be lost. Take those flyers off the posts and we will become, as Ted said, Birmingham.
And perhaps one day, the town will lose WCBN. Believe me, it wouldn't take much. Because some asshole DJ wouldn't take a Dave Matthews request (again), because some DJ told a joke that was offensive to someone's store-bought sense of self-worth, or perhaps because the university will be forced to curb its budget for such things, its hand forced by the lobbying of a white-trash state senator suddenly concerned with public relations. Just like that. It may happen because the station exists to encourage risk.
WCBN is a home away from home for its DJs, a point of intersection for local musicians and activists of all kinds, making an underground organizationally possible, and it offers evidence of soul on an almost continuous basis, whether that rubs you forwards or backwards. It is a warehouse of information made available to the people who need it. Young minds otherwise being trained to do damage, and it could be so much more if it didn't have to scrape and beg each year just to remain alive and be left alone. And if the station goes, so will the network that helps keep this local land fertile, so will a certain level) of local ambition, so will much gut-level ridiculousness. You don't want to know, trust me.
Maybe nothing can stop the rents from forcing people out to Ypsi, or wherever, the base will remain around Ann Arbor, but there is plenty to do to keep WCBN intact and healthy. Thank the businesses that support the station (this year's Summer Bash, by the way, is sponsored by Footprints and Whole FoodsMerchant of Vino, with help from PJ's Used Records, the Kerrytown Concert House, and Red Hot Lovers), give generously during pledge drives and interact with the DJs; they generally like it, though you may want to listen first for a while before making a request: the number is 763-3500. Oh, and if you feel like it, check out what happens when people that live here are given the spotlight at our clubs and galleries, I guarantee you it will be more entertaining than television, and cheaper than cable.
For all of you who have been are regular WCBN listener supporters, I speak for every one involved everwhen I say thank you, it is your station too, and being loyal to it can be a matter of faith. Sometimes we go off the air, sometimes we suck, but that's life.
By the way, the Summer Bash is not just any local music festival. Like the station itself, the bill is meant to express some top-level homegrown sounds that may have not quite hit a mass consciousness, though we wouldn't complain if they did (well, probably not). Bring a picnic, come early.
- Neil Dixon Smith
Beware Conformity!
8:01 am on my way to replace a tire eaten by a stretch of Ten Mile Road by Pontiac Trail. Radio on. Opera commissioned by Isak Dinesen on WCBN. The same NPR news headlines that run every half hour are being run now on WEMU and WDET, while commercial rock stations have obnoxious sociopaths spewing misogynistic, bad citizenship via male privilege drivel, and Ann Arbor's KOOL-1 07 is asking listeners to name the actor who played dad on the '60's sitcom, "My Three Sons."
Waiting for my car I am treated to more KOOL-107. Now it's Robert Palmer's "Bad Case Of Loving You" as filler between the cute, informative "banter" between ticket give-aways to see the Smothers Brothers at the Summer Festival. In the 20 minutes I sit waiting inside the tire shop, (bef ore going outside for less noise), KOOL1 07 pi ay s may be 1 0 minutes of music. I laugh out loud thinking what it would be like if the management played WCBN in their lobby instead.
Back in my car with one new tire not happy at being thrust onto the shell-shocked streets of Ann Arbor. 8:44 am. Italian sounding pop music on WCBN. A story about "Viagra Democrats" courtesy of NPR, and our friends at WEMU, and WDET. More obnoxious white guys on commercial rock from the Motor City. I don't even try KOOL-1 07. A promo for the Sunday afternoon Polka Party gives way to European rap music on CBN as I pull into the parking lot to switch cars with my wife. It's 8:51 as Jim Morrison sings "It's all over, war is over." What a great segue. Only on CBN I think.
I truly enjoy listening to WCBN, which can be a maddening and frustrating experience, as well as rewarding, humorous, and moving. That, my friends, is what freeform is all about. Other local stations fight for arbitrary ratings and when to program NPR shows like Car Talk, and Fresh Air, wanting to sway that all-important demographic to their "unique" style of programming. Not CBN, the little FM station which thrives on minimal fund - ing and an all-volunteer staff.
This is an age when the challenge thrown down by freeform is turned into a style of safe programming deemed not offensive by ratings-hungry radio administrators. It seems anymore that music programming is inversely proportional to the amount of band width occupied by visible light on the spectrum. Where visible light is surrounded by ultra-violet, gamma, x-ray and the like, freeform radio on CBN is surrounded by formulaic, regimented, personality-driven stations out to re-define hipness in their own image. Unfortunately, most people like familiar. Love familiar. Want familiar. Demand familiar. It's much easier to hum along to, and you can trust your kids with it. YIKES! In the shameful world of predictability called radio programming, the world of WCBN is a ripe, wonderful, vibrant form of life, providing breath, heartbeat and pulse to us all. WCBN is not always friendly or safe, but never harmful. Except of course, to conformity. - Dan Moray, The Two O'Clock Cowboy
Radio is Freedom
Deep in the heart of this evermore-specialized, wanna-be-futuristic society, right against the very gills of a prestigious, research-oriented university, there lives an experimental radio laboratory which for 25 years has been encouraging young minds to expand their radial musicological possibilities. Participants in this workshop-of-the-imagination take their freshest notions directly to the FM receivers of the public; the link twixt broadcasting booth and wherever radios locally live is a powerful one. Speaking as a member of 20 years, (a stretch of time donated with love), I have to say that WCBN-FM is the most meaningful circle of collective media action that I have ever encountered. As teams of individuals come and go, each one leaving a unique little legacy of their own in the fabric of the place, one has the distinct impression that we are making a difference, and a vitally important one, in the general cultural atmosphere of these funky united states.
We are not alone. There are other radio stations, (a precious few across the continent, usually but not invariably affiliated with universities), who share our creative mission. This is a never-diminishing struggle: To present a constantly expanding mixture of musics and insights within a rigorously non-commercial framework. Our listeners are in cahoots with us as we Annual Summer Bash in West Park Set for July 11 do all that we can to alleviate boredom in the pituitary of the body politick.
Yes! We have an impact on glands, bones and genitals. We change the chemistry in the stomach linings and cellular walls of all who tune to 88.3 mega hurts. This is cosmo-biology at its most awesome. Listeners have been birthed to our sound tracks. Children are raised up intelligently, to be ready for anything, and we help.
I know of one dedicated old man who listened religiously, and made it a point to have us tuned in as he lay upon his death bed. He died during my Thursday night Face The Music show. I was airing a strange, rinkydink orchestral depiction of a train ride recorded in Gennany during the 1920s. As the maginary locomotive gathered steam and began to roll on its imaginan tracks through an imaginary rural landscape (accompanied by the startled squeals and moos of bamyard animals), this listener felt himself leaving his body and called out a series of happy farewells ("goodbye! here I go! so long!") to his children, who told me he was delighted to be boarding whatever train t was that I had nadvertently conjured, using the trusty turntables of Radio Free Ann Arbor.
This is taking radio to extraordinary levels. And I soon carne to the realization that the spirits of departed listeners are now a part of our air signal. Also woven into said cunrents are all whose words & music have been sent out through the transmitter. Nothing goes away. There are only Changes. So we have many reasons for preserving and nourishing WCBN FM. Both pragmatic and cosmo-poetic. This is an altemati ve school of broadcasting. I use the word "alternative" in its real and meaningful sense. Too often it gets bandied about as a trite and disposable label for a certain category of pop music. Real alternatives change the face of human reality.
Real alternatives help young people to develop themselves as markedly unusual individuals, who go out into the world dynamically prepared to make a difference. We will continue our largely volunteered labors of love for as long as we can so that America does not succumb to its own predictability. Join us in transcending the stultifying limitations of mere marketing theory. Welcome and greetings and blessed be. - arwulf arwulf
Ragas to Reels
I love WCBN, Gods help me, I really do. It's like a whole other little world. More escapism and esoteric than you can shake a schtick at. Yes, I know you can only enjoy living vicariously up to a point, and it does sound a bit crazy, but we're all mad here. Really.
Music is a BIG part of my life, tho' less as a performer than as a spectator, or even curator...what's the term the beatniks used? Hipster, I think...yeah, hipster. It was for the folks who hung out in the jazz clubs all the time and could tell you aaaaall about the music, but never played a note themselves. They were inspired enough to pull out their own written or painted work from its energy, but never used the medium in and of itself.
The WCBN library holds all the proof I need that there is no inaccessible culture anymore; they've all bled together, all connected like a collective consciousness. l've heard didgeridoos played in Swedish folkrock bands, Native-American chants sampled in English techno, Indian ragas matched to Irish reels. There may very well be nothing purely new under the sun, but through combining a multitude of sources, you create an entity or object that's unique unto itself. Creation lies in the overlap, in juxtaposition.
That's the most interesting and reassuring thing I discovered here: that even when I wasn't actually on the mic, my personality still made it over the airwaves, mostly in the way songs were set in context to each other, or which ones were played on top of each other, or which were hacked to bits and reformed to make amusing little soundbites. Even if I didn't talk for an hour, I was recognizable. l'm a Luddite, but that doesn't mean l'm not creative. Communication through appropriation. NickCave and Karen Finley and Ultra Bide' let everyone know how I was f eeling from show to show just as much as my tone of (spoken) voice. Somewhere between Diamanda Galas' coloratura freak-outsand William Shatner's plaintive wail in "Mr. Tambourine Man" was a single, perfunctory cry.
It didn't take long to stop worrying about distancing my personal life from my audience. It all came out, anyway. I did shows dedicated to boyfriends, girlfriends, the side effects of my birth control, a friend of mine who'd been beaten by her husband, failed relationships, unplanned hallucinations, joy, lust, and sadness. And I wouldn't do it any other way. Somehow, tho', I doubt many other stations would have let me. Thank you, WCBN, you've put up with me for a long time. Thank you for letting me pick on you when I was in a bad mood and not backing down when I cried. All my shows are dedicated to you. - Ms. Mrrranda L. Tarrow, Promotions/Asst. Music Director/Radio Limbo!
Freeform & Me
WCBN: four magic letters - a mantra - savior of midwestern radio. Where to start?
My years as a DJ were heady years indeed. Apart from the usual rites-of-passage stuff, there was a great music scene then, both locally and internationally. It was a pleasure to work on the music staff and get great LPs to review each week, and then argue about them the next. Until my last year I did the graveyard shift. This was fine as I got four hours to do my thing, instead of the usual three.
Two memories stand out from many. The first is of a regular listener who usually called in requests on a weekly basis. She worked the graveyard shift at St. Joe's and sounded a bit bored. When she'd call, she'd often chat about the weather or her slave-driving supervisors until it was time for me to go rooting in the music library.
Anyhow, one day I was driving my taxi (the CBN-Yellow Cab nexus is a whole 'nother story), and I picked up a blind woman. She got in, said she was going to St. Joe's, and when I said fine she asked, "Hey, Johnny! How you doing?"
She was the only listener who ever recognized me outside of the radio station, at least the only one who ever said anything to me. I wondered about that - was it because she relied on her hearing more than most people? Or just because most people didn't listen to my show?
The second memory concerns the Van Halen-athon. A particular DJ then was insisting that all DJs play Rahsaan Roland Kirk for the week in honor of his self-proclaimed Rahsaan-athon. I appreciate Rahsaan's greatness but I was under the impression that freeform meant nobody told the DJ what to play. So I held a Van Halen-athon instead. All five albums, back-to-back, folio wed by a selection of my personal favorites. It was probably the easiest and definitely one of the funnest shows I ever did.
I expected plenty of calls that night, and brought a blank tape with me to record them for posterity. They ranged from gushing praise to outright abuse and everything in between. One guy called up and said: "Hi, I just wanted to call and, uh, tell you how cool this is. l'm an engineering student and, uh, l'm with my friends here. We're loving it. We've never heard Van Halen like this before, man, l'm blown away." Another cali carne from another DJ trying to pose as an outraged listener. He went on and on about how commercial Van Halen was, about how they were not what "WCBN is about," and so on. After listening for 10 minutes I said, "Thanks, [his name]!" And he hung up laughing.
I could list dozens of names of people who helped me out, blah blah blah, but l'm sure there will be plenty of that. Three stand out: Michael Kremen, Ken Freedman and Jim Hallemann. Thanks guys.
- John Meyer [John Meyer did freeform from 1980-83. He is old enough to remember when CBN broadcast on 89.5. He currently lives in Taiwan, where freeform, he tells us, is translated as "unpadded bra."]
All That You Can Be
As an incoming freshman last year, I wanted to get involved with CBN. The trouble was that I couldn't find it. I went to the University of Michigan's annual fair of student organizations and CBN was nowhere to be found. The only people who could tell me anything about it were people whose involvment with the station was as limited as mine. However, I knew enough about CBN that I knew I wanted to be involved.
I ended up on their web page one day (http:wcbn.org) and found a way to contact someone by e-mail (training@wcbn.org). A couple weeks later, I got an e-mail back from the station. By the winter term I had a show and became more involved with the every-day operations of the station. I finally began to understand why CBN had seemed so unapproachable before; CBN is run by students. Students have classes, jobs, friends, families, lives. Things slip through the cracks because CBN needs more people to come down and get involved. The executive staff of CBN is comprised of five full-time students. About 100 students, alumni, and community members are involved with broadcasting, fundraising, publicity, news, and sports. The only incentive for these staff members is their interest in CBN.
There is always work to be done at the station. Whether it be stuffing envelopes for a fundraiser, contacting local businesses for underwriting, filing new music or distributing program guides - there is always something. So we're always looking for people to get involved with us. So much work goes into keeping a radio station on the air 247 and there's something for everyone to do. As a part of the University of Michigan, we seek out student involvement.
As a part of the Ann Arbor community, we benefit from community volunteers. If you are interested in becoming part of ourfreeform station: take some time to listen to us. See what we're about, check out our web page, e-mail us or just stop by at 530 Student Activities Building. - Melissa Srbinovich, WCBN operations director
Selling the Soul of CBN
WCBN is your worst radio buy. WCBN does not deliver a consistent demographic. WCBN does not play the greatest hits from the '80s and '90s. WCBN does not airyour custom produced 30-second spot consistently and correctly. WCBN does not play twenty in a row. WCBN does not have a flexible rate schedule. WCBN does not have spectacular morning personalities who make spectacularly entertaining jokes about your mother, brother, sisters and favorite strippers. WCBN does not consistently score well in the Washtenaw Arbitran radio ratings. WCBN does not guarantee your business increased exposure. WCBN does not do remotes rom anywhere in the Ann Artoor Area. WCBN does not have a cool van loaded with free WCBN prizes. WCBN does not give you a whiter, brighter smile. WCBN does not have a money-back guarantee.
WCBN is none of the above and more: WCBN is everything you will not hear anywhere else. And, if it were not for a dedicated core of listeners, WCBN would be dead.
WCBN is freeform - usually good, sometimes great, and almost never what you'd expect. We never play commercials, but we do give our bandwidth to anyone with a good idea ... especially an unpopular idea. WCBN views the listener as a human being interested in exploring music as a broad phenomenon - not as a demographic which we can sell to.
While WCBN seems to be about everything except money, (and rightfully so) we still need it to run just like anyone else. For the most part, radio is "free" to the general public. Turn your radio on. Tune it in. Enjoy. Anywhere. Radios are everywhere - they come free in alarm clocks, portable tape play ers, stereo receivers and cars as an added bonus. The vast majority of people in the world who listen to radio will go their whole lives without ever sending a single check to any radio station. This is because, like the rest of mainstream media, most radio is supported by advertisers trying to sell you something else.
WCBN has only two sources of funding: The U, and more importantly, our dedicated listeners. And if it weren't for our dedicated listeners, 88.3 FM would probably become your local extension of the Christian Broadcasting Network. (They've offered our decade's-worth of operating expenses for the name WCBN.)
The U has been allotting the same exact dollar amount to the station for 25 years. Back in 1972, it went quite a long way. Twenty-six years later it barely keeps the lights on and the discs spinning. WCBN depends on listeners, of all shapes and sizes, to send in their hard eamed money once a year to keep this still experimental effort going. Our pledgers also are our most vocal listeners, saluting what we do well and telling us (sometimes quite vocally) what we're doing wrong.
But you don't have to be a listener to get involved in the process. WCBN is about everyone who tunes in to 88.3 Radio Free. Call the DJ. Request a song. Bring your friends around the radio, tum it on in the car, expose yourself to music you haven't heard before. Wrong or right, popular or not, as long as we have your support, we'll always be the voice of Ann Arbor, Radio Free.
- Nick Farr
*A note front Professor Vanhelsing: The following document was found among the laboratory recordings of Professor Trallfazz Vanhelsing. Until his disappearance, he was host of Radio Interzone, WCBN's technological research show. These recordings are all that remain of his research. They have been transcribed by his young assistant Pan, in an effort to find clues to his disappearance.
Broadcasting in the Next Millennium
As we approach the new millennium, one cannot help but notice the radical transf ormat on of radio broadcasting. What was once elitist and isolated, is nowan all pervading, popular, woiidwide phenomenon. Virtually every American comes in contact with radio media on a daily basis.
The new digital technologies, such as satellites and the web, have expanded the capabilities of broadcast radio. Take, for example, the new phenomenon of Intemet-based radio stations. One web site can provide live and archi ved audio, playable from directly within the browser. lts ability to surpass the physical constraints of the airwaves is a giant step in the evolution of electronic communication.
It's no surprise that WCBN is taking part in this evolution. Soon they will begin broadcasting on the Internet, 24 hours a day. This will provide the worid with access to their music and public affairs resources. Soon there will be many Internet radio stations available woridwide. This expansion of community will increase listeners' exposure to new ideas of the world's cultures, the sociological benefits of which are obvious. This exposure will also sharpen the awareness of quality in radio content. Scripted, playlisted, pop radio stations will be forced to redefine their programming. Smaller, independent altemati ves to these stations will be plentiful.
The redefinition of content is an important aspect of the next broadcast revolution. Many new forms of content are experimental, providing new avenues of experience and finer resolution of perception. Again, WCBN is at the forefront. From the sound collage of Ed Special, to the collaborative effort of Radio Kaos, their experimental radio programming has challenged the way listeners think and feel about their music, their art, their realities.
As in all scientific advancement, careful scrutiny of cause and effect is absolutely necessary. WCBN'S technological advancements in broadcast have created public affairs programming that is challenging, informative muckraking. It is important that shows such as Hear and No w are made widely available, for they demónstrate the cause and effect behind much of our sociological and political growth, a necessary step in the evolution of broadcast radio.
The next broadcast revolution is a new frontier to be explored and defined. Broadcasting in the digital era is reminiscent of the "wild west." Law and order is defined through the resolution of conflict. These instances set the precedent. As a forerunner in the new technologies, WCBN has an opportunity to forge a new respect for independent broadcasters. The history of WCBN calis into question the very policies of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The fact is that the station started as a carrier current piped into the University of Michigan dorms.
In closing, I would say that WCBN holds great promise as a catalyst for the broadcast revolution of the next millennium. I will keep my eye on them. Their influence on the community will provide much data for my research. - Professor Trallfazz Vanhelsing
Community & Alternatives
I got invovled at WCBN during my junior year of college at the University of Michigan. WCBN opened my eyes to musical genres and politics that I may never have stumbled upon. I learned about FCC rules and regulations, freedom of speech, Fela, and how organizations work - including group dynamics. I've gained so much enrichment (and even job opportunity) through WCBN that I can't seem to leave! It will be my nine-year anniversary this Fall. What follows are what I feel to be the two core strenghts of WCBN - community and alternatives.
Community: We hope that you can turn on the radio, find 88.3 and feel like you have arrived at home. I bet most residents of Ann Arbor have heard someone they know on WCBN either being interviewed on one of our locally produced public affairs programs, reading poetry on the Living Poets program or may be you've heard a locally produced CD from a band whose guitarist is your neighbor's hairdresser (on the local music show). But radio to WCBN, is not a one-way street. We always request listener feedback and hope that local nonprofit organizations will submit public service announcements.
Alternatives: WCBN provides an alternative to news and music. Instead of airing a stream of nationally produced radio programs that most other public stations broadcast, WCBN chooses a real alternative to NPR. Pacifica Radio is an nternationally acclaimed news network that provides in-depth stories from angl es that are muffled by the mainstream.
I don't think I need to defend WCBN's altemative musical approach. But, since f think it is misunderstood maybe a brief explanation is required. WCBN is a freeform radio station. Freeform means many things to many people but essentially freeform is a musical format that has no format. WCBN empowers the DJs to choose their musical selections, which vary in genre within one program or from program to program. Many public radio stations across the country are so concerned with ratings that their format has been flattened to one or two genres, like blues and jazz or rock and roll. Ann Arbor is blessed with WCBN, one of this country's last remaining freeform radio stations.
It's really amazing what a group of dedicated volunteers can accomplish on so few funds. l've heard many people say that when they leave Ann Arbor, it will be WCBN that they miss most. WCBN is truly a great Ann Arbor institution and l'm real proud to be a part of it. Thanks for tuning in. - Lisa Cohen
The Jewel in the Lotus
As a young girl who wanted to walk the dangerous path of sin and sloth, I was often reminded by my parents that I should emulate a lotus. My father used to put me through the paces of this oft-repeated call-response dialogue - with me bored, yawning, and already tired of the Lecture to come:
Have you ever seen where the lotus grows? Yes. Where does it grow? In ponds. Surrounded by what? Mud and slime. Aha! and is it a beautiful flower? Yes. AHA! That's what we ALL should aspire to be. No matter how ugly, dirty, or slimy the pond is, look how elegantly the beautiful lotus grows above it. So too should we rise, and so too out of our ignorance and stupidity willflower beauty, knowledge and wisdom.
Never did I imagine that I would be the one telling my father's story one day. I had to come halfway across the world, to find a place which actually follows my parents' wise teachings. Everyday the WCBN lotus rises above the surrounding swamp of commercial radio from which it sterns, and raises the consciousness of the citizens of Ann Arbor through different kinds of music from all over the world.
When I first joined WCBN, it was to co-host the Francophone music show, Radio Libre Ann Arbor. After two years of this, I felt that there was a void in the programming: Why was the Indian Subcontinent, with its rich musical traditions and its enormous impact on the music of the world, not represented? Therefore, as many others before me at CBN have done and will continue to do, created a new show titled Sounds of the Subcontinent. That s one of the secrets of the vitality of this station - we change avatars according to the worid we live in - and today's "global village" demands a fuller representation of the globe in the village of Ann Arbor.
The world is a big place, its peoples and cultures too diverse to be contained in just one day. This little writeup of our Sunday specialty programming doesn't even begin to describe the depth, range and scope of the music out there or in here. What we do at CBN is a modest little effort to bring you the world, in any small way we can. Come walk the world with us! Sundays are thus very special - dedicated specifically to the music of the worid outside our immediate one, we spin non-stop all around the globe from 9 am till midnight.
An appropriate start to the Sunday lineup is Café International (9-10), a musical travel-interview program, in which host Dan Rosenberg features music, travel stories and interviews from his recent trips. In the past 3-12 years, he has been to 20 countries on five continents where he has interviewed more than 500 artists.
This is followed up by Turkish Delight (10-11am) with Mert Aksu bringing us freeform lokum [a sugary desert] from Turkey while on Dromedary Express (11-12), Yalcin Yanikoglu and Randy Baier put on the burnous to keep out the heat and the sand, and take you where their camels lead! Just as I felt a certain void in our program four years ago, this summer we felt we needed to represent a HUGE chunk of Asia which was not being covered - China, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, etc. Thus rolled in the Tsunami Dream (12-1 pm), with Randy Baier bringing in tidal waves of music from eastern lands afar!
From there, we fly back closer home - Michel Chateau's Radio Libre Ann Arbor (1-2 pm) has been bringing Francophone music from Louisiana, Quebec, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Senegal, French Guyana, the Caribbean, Reunion ... for 10 years now!
Then we have Tex inciting the world to dance at the Ann Arbor Polka Party (2-3 pm) with honky-style polkas from Chicago and Toledo, Slovene swing from Cleveland, polka pop from Welk and his crowd, glittering Eastern-style polkas from Connecticutand New York ... and we link it all to contemporary Latino polkas from Texas, Mexico, and elsewhere. All Aboard! the Jaffa Jive (3-4 pm) boat anchored in the old port of Jaffa just south of Tel Aviv or sail with Dan Rosenberg to the shores of Greece, Lebanon, Egypt so we can getafull flavour of theEastem basin of the Mediterranean, North Africa and even Eastem Europe.
Some of our shows have evolved from one to several hosts over the years, with people growing interest in different kinds of music. Dan Bass, Richard Wallace and I now share Sounds of the Subcontinent (4-6 pm) which brings you the entire Indian Subcontinent as well as world music influenced by their cultures.
And how can one represent the world without oneself in it? What better representation of the USA in Sunday's CBN world than Jazz, and what better representative than that great maestro, Duke Ellington, who toured the world as the U.S. Ambassador of Culture? The Duke is on the Air (6-7 pm) with host Dave Crippen, is a departure point for Open Letter to Duke: Real Black Miracles (7-8 pm) with UsaCohen, Paul Friedman, Howie Kaplanand Hakan Uras! The first show features the vast range of Ellington's body of work and its evolution over the years, while the second connects Ellington's ideas and compositions with the out and free jazz of the '70s to the avant-garde of the '90s -- all the while demonstrating jazz's immense influence on international music and vice versa.
This also segues gracefully into three more Afro-rooted shows - one a hoary tradition, and one brand new. The CBN tradition, the Pan-African Heartbeat (8-9 pm), has four hosts this summer Mike Perini, Chris Peterson, Dan Rosenberg and me, with music ranging from juju to soukous, Georgia to South África, Santana to the pygmies - from all over the vast and stupendous African diaspora of the world! In keeping with our CBN musical habits, Chris Peterson justretumed from a long stay in Bolivia amazed that there was so much fantastic music we don't get to hear in our world. So, he created Inka Kola (9-10 pm) this summer, in which he and Sacundo Sepulvera bring us freeform music from Peru, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador!
What better way than to end closer to home with the long-standing CBN show, Radio Caliente (10 pm-midnight). The show sizzles with salsa, merengue, Latín jazz and hip-hop, rock en español, cumbias, mariachi - lo mejor de la música latina - come join the party! Radio Caliente - with its hosts Lucy Arellano, Manuel Magaña and Wilson Valentín - is also committed to inviting guests to the show, from Mariachi Michicano to a speaker on Puerto Rican political prisoners, and continues to go bey ond just playing music, but is committed to local and national Latino communal struggles.
So, do you know where your jewel lies? Wake up and smell the flowers! Every Sunday midnight, WCBNFM, 88.3 Ann Arbor.
-sukumari