More Podcasts Posted

Been ripping out the podcasts of late, ahead of the trip out west.

This Podcast Could Be Your Life #19: Part 2 of my interview with Andrew Lee, and a radio clip from June 1991. Andrew & I talk about ideologically driven radio vs market-driven, and podcasting & new media.

This Podcast Could Be Your Life #20: Pre-LP Convention spiels, endorsement of Mark Rutherford for LNC Chair, explaining my role as Floor Whip for Rutherford, audio clip of Gary Johnson speaking at 2002 Convention in Indianapolis

Click here to find the entire archive.

New Podcast - Guest, Andrew Lee

Been a few weeks since I posted a podcast, but the latest is up and available for your free download. Here's a link to the full archive: http://web.me.com/mikekole/Website/TPCBYL/TPCBYL.html

This installment has an interview with my friend Andrew Lee. I was astonished when he told me afterwards that he had never been interviewed before. Andrew was the Program Director at Indy's WXNT 1430-am, hired Abdul Hakim-Shabazz and produced his show before moving to assignments in Tucson AZ & Minneapolis MN.

We had a great conversation about radio, and I really enjoyed discussing the latest Rush Limbaugh incident. Lee is the Program Director at a station that carries Limbaugh in a fairly liberal city. I found it all fascinating.

This installment includes Part 1 of the interview. The next will carry the conclusion.

Archives In The Hall

On Friday, I did take my collection of radio show tapes to the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame's library and archives for storage. Many thanks to Archivist Dianna Ford, who took such an interest in the materials, and gave a really great tour of the facilities. As you might suspect, they have some amazing artifacts in there!

My first stop was to WCSB. I'd call it my old stomping grounds, but the studios have relocated from CSU's Rhodes Tower over to the Cole Center. All of my shows were broadcast from Rhodes Tower. The old studios had walls lined with cork, for sound absorption. It had a peculiar smell, and if you spent more than a half hour there, you went home 'smelling like the station'. Student Media Specialist Dan Lenhart left a WCSB t-shirt with Randy Allar for me to wear at the Hall.

Randy Allar once trained me in radio production. Not long after, I was training students in production as well. Here Randy shows me the layout of the 'new' WCSB.

This was a very proud moment for me. I was initially floored to even have the request made of me. My shows were never the most popular when they ran. They were respected, enjoyed, useful, educational- but never the top show. I was always lurking somewhere in the shadow of Steve Wainstead, who always seemed to have the top show whenever he was on. This is a great shadow to be lurking in, to be sure. Second to Wainstead is still high atop the mountain. But while I've foregone popularity in other areas of life, I always felt somewhat under-appreciated... Is that even the right word? Anyhow, I always seemed to want some kind of recognition that, yeah, you're doing good work there, Kole. Well- here it is!

The Library & Archives of the Hall is separate from the main museum, and is attached to Tri-C's campus at 30th & Woodland. I was told that eventually, the library will be open to the public. Visitors will be able to read and listen to stored materials (won't be able to check them out, though), including my shows. I'll be very interested to go back once it's operational!

Archivist Diana Ford accepting the first installment of my collections. The original cassettes and playlists will be kept forever at the Hall's Library & Archives. She and her staff will transfer the music from the CD copies I made of all the cassettes. She was very happy that I saved her a lot of time. I joked that I wished I knew that she wanted the materials two years ago, when I started making the dubs.

When Dianna Ford took us on a tour of the archives, the very first thing I saw was a shelf full of film canisters. I would so love to see this. It's the original!

So- why did I never pursue radio in Indiana upon arrival in 2002? Well, I was spoiled by my experience at WCSB. I always got to play whatever music I wanted to. 100%, absolutely everything was at my discretion. You don't generally get that luxury in commercial radio settings. Why not political talk? It doesn't really pay that well, for one thing. Most starting talkers have to make appearances in order to supplement their radio paychecks. I'd done that before, in Cleveland, when I was doing sports at WHK, ever so briefly in 1994-95. I knew right away that it wasn't the way I wanted to make a living.

So, I podcast when I'm so inspired. It's a beautiful thing. About $300 in equipment gets you up and running, and I can record a show whenever I feel like it. Listeners can subscribe on iTunes and get the show files downloaded when they are issued. My current podcast is definitely just for fun. If it never gets any recognition, I'm very cool with that.

'propaganda' Into The Hall

On Friday, I will head back to my old stomping grounds in Cleveland to make a donation to the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame. The Hall has asked me for my archive of my old radio shows! I am wholly honored.

My radio 'career' in Cleveland was primarily at WCSB, 89.3-FM at Cleveland State University, and my longest-running show was called 'propaganda', airing from September 1989 through August 1995. It began as a music show, and later evolved into a program covering odd phenomena, conspiracy theory, and bizarre music. The 1989-90 music shows were the most valuable, as I look back at it, having interviewed Cleveland bands and played their music. I moved away from the long-from interviews at that point, and the sounds I pursued moved from punk and hardcore to grunge and then noise and math rock- bands like Halo of Flies, Helmet, Craw, Pavement, Jesus Lizard, etc.

I recorded most of the shows on cassette tapes. My big project over the last two years has been to convert the tapes to digital files, on CD, then backing up as m4a files on my hard drive. I'm giving the RnR Hall of Fame the cassettes and my original playlists for their archive, and lending them the CDs for easy transfer. The cassettes often needed pitch correction, and the cassette-to-CD unit I used has Pitch Control on it. It will be much easier for their archivists just to transfer the digital files.

I'm giving them the 'propaganda' shows on Friday. The conversions aren't finished, so the next time I visit, I will provide them with the remainder of my shows. Here's the list of my shows at WCSB:

1987-89: Blows Against The Empire, with Matt Dudas
1988-89: The B-Sides, my first solo show, graveyard shift
1989: The Grunge Match, out of the graveyard, playing Nirvana before they made it
1989-95: propaganda
1995: Laissez-Faire! Libertarian news & comment
1998: Blood & Shaving Cream, AM drive playing the 'punk & alt hits'
2000-02: Rock N Roll Radio, with Shelly Gould-Burgess
2001-02: Laissez-Faire! Libertarian news & comment

Here's a breakdown of the evolution of 'propaganda':

Sept 1989-Oct 1991: 5-hour show with long form interviews with Cle bands
Jun 1991: Added the Church of the SubGenius' "Hour of Slack". WCSB still runs it.
Oct 1991-Jan 1992: 3-hour show, no interviews, music becoming more experimental
Feb 1992-Mar 1993: Moved to Sunday nights
Apr 1993-June 1993: Burned out on music, looking to make show more adventurous
July 1993-April 1994: co-hosted with Rev. John X. Piche, hilarious freeform shows
May 1994-Feb 1995: co-hosted with Steve Wainstead, moving towards politics
Mar 1995-Aug 1995: politics had taken over, the show would be re-named Laissez-Faire! and air in the same time slot.

I really want to go to the Rock Hall with Matt Dudas to present those show tapes together. Matt was instrumental in getting me involved at WCSB. If he hadn't reached out to me, I may never have found my way.

Those were some fun days. Too bad we didn't have digital cameras then. The pics are very few and far between, and while the audio archives are fun and in some few cases valuable, to see the mayhem of those days again would be priceless.

Abdul Leaving WXNT

This was shocking, sad news to receive today. My friend Chris Ward texted me a few minutes after receiving Abdul Hakim-Shabazz's tweet that Friday would be his last show on WXNT, 1430-am. It's disappointing to me for several reasons.

First and foremost, Abdul was always very good to me personally. He had me on the show many, many times- as a candidate for Secretary of State in 2006 and County Council in 2010, as the opposition to light rail, and as a proponent of fair redistricting, as party to a lawsuit against the Town of Fishers for sitting on a valid petition, commenting on State of the Union and State of the State addresses, etc.

Abdul was always fair with the Libertarian Party in general. His motto of "I am an arms dealer" was applied to us in a very inclusive way. Libertarians aren't always included in media dialogue, unless it's to be a dog to be kicked. Abdul included us because we are a bona fide political party and on the ballot. That's fairness, and it has always been deeply appreciated.

But I'm a fan of live radio that focuses on local topics. This is something woefully scarce in Indianapolis media. I was spoiled in Cleveland, with live local talk on several full power stations, plus the college radio scene, which I was a part of. When I came to Indy some 10 years ago, it was immediately apparent that radio here SUCKED in comparison. All of the media, really. Being in the state capitol, it always appeared that the media was interested in covering 'big' statewide news, at the expense of local issues. If the Star put the staffing into a City Desk that it does into Sports, it would have something vibrant. Alas. So, Abdul- yes, a guy from Illinois and with a foot still very much in the door in Illinois- was bringing better, more interesting, more useful radio to Indianapolis than the natives were creating.

And now, because WXNT apparently doesn't get any money budgeted to it, will shed Abdul in favor of yet another nationally syndicated show. In other words, they're trashing their top asset, and replacing it with something utterly forgettable. *sigh* This is where I dream of having piles of riches in reserve, so that I could launch a real local radio station, just to show 'em what that's like.

And again, Abdul has always been very good to me. A friend. So, I wish him well in whatever he undertakes to put him back up to at least 3 jobs at once. A good man deserves as much.

Jonesy's Jukebox Is Back!

Sex Pistols' guitarist Steve Jones hosted some of the most entertaining radio over a 4-5 year run on LA radio station Indie 103.1, until the station suddenly changed formats. Jones did a perfectly freeform show, playing songs he wanted to play, telling stories about his bands' good ol' days, jamming impromptu riffs on his acoustic guitar or even whistling tunes, and fantastic interviews. I loved listing to the podcast versions when I had lengthy car travel for work, and was quite saddened when Indie 103 vanished.

Now Jonesy's Jukebox is back! It's on legendary LA station KROQ-FM, 106.7, and yes home of Rodney Bingenheimer's "Rodney On The ROQ" show.

It does not appear that the show is available in podcast form yet, but you can listen live or to archived bits via the station's website. The show airs live every Sunday from 7-9pm Pacific (10-midnight locally) and can be streamed live.

LA Weekly story on Jonesy's return.

Many, many thanks to Bryan Stumpf for tipping me off to the new show!

RIP, Jonesy's Jukebox & Indie 103

You may have noticed a little set of links to the lower right under the header of "Stuff I Like". Nothing political there, just other things that brighten the world for me.

Well, sadly, Indie 103, a Los Angeles radio station, was plowed under in January in favor of programming in Espanol.

I loved that station, as much as a guy in Central Indiana could. Steve Jones was the main attraction for me. The Sex Pistols guitarist did a very entertaining daily show, where he played things he liked, because he wanted to hear them. He invited guests from his musical background, but also tapped into the Hollywood celebrity network to do interviews that were not the standard.

Jones would often break out his guitar and into song mid-thought. He would whistle a tune. It was decidedly unformatted, and a lot of fun for this college radio lifer. I listened to every podcast, and often listened to the live stream while I worked at my desk. Now it's gone.

I completely relate to what Jones had to say about his future prospects in radio, via the LA Times:

"Wherever I go, I will still do my show the same; I wouldn't change it. I don't think I should, and I hope any of these people that are thinking of hiring me aren't going to try to mold me into something else," Jones said. "I'd be bored out of me brain. I'd last two weeks if they had me reading some nonsense. If you want someone to read a piece of paper, just hire someone else. There's loads of people that do that."

Bingo. That's exactly why I never ventured into commercial radio after the college radio days, because after having the freedom to do exactly what I wanted as a creative process, I couldn't take being on a radio assembly line. I can't listen to it, either.

I had a brief exchange on Facebook about self-indulgence and artists, where this quality was issued as a put-down. For my money, the best art is created by the self-indulgent, perhaps narcissistic individuals. I don't think of Jonesy as the latter, but certainly his show was the former, and it was all the better for being a reflection of him rather than being something that pandered to an audience, or tried to generate an audience via calculated moves. When I think of my favorite artists (Dali), authors (Clancy, Quinnell, O'Brien, Dostoyevsky, Rand), bands (Sex Pistols, Gary Numan, Minutemen/Mike Watt), it is the idiosyncrasies and self-indulgences that make them notable, distinct, and worth my time.

Jonesy's Jukebox was spontaneous and riveting, which is about the best compliment I can issue to live radio. Commercial radio has generally choked the daylights out of spontaneity and wonders why it is dying on the music side. Notice that the talk thrives, even if it is doctrinaire, because the hosts have talent enough to be spontaneous.

It's a shame to see Indie 103 and Jonesy's Jukebox go. I'm glad the station was podcasting highlights of JJ, because I still have the MP3s. Sadly, I'll have to delete something special from the "Stuff I Like" list.

Road Trip iPod Lineup

Gregor brought to mind that since I am working on the road so much, I really don't get to listen to much local radio. As a substitute, I cram the iPod with podcasts. All of these are free downloads. Simply go to the iTunes Store page and type in the names in the "search" window. Make sure you have plenty of hard drive space!

Here are my regular listens:

1. Cato's Daily Podcast. These are short (4-9 minutes) topical discussions. The program was greatly improved when new host Caleb Brown was introduced. Brown interviews Cato policy analysts on issues of the day. The ones I've enjoyed most have been on the subject of regional planning and light rail mass transit, although the insallment titled, "Is Hilary a Neo-Con?" was a goodie. Cato's main page.

2. Jonesy's Jukebox Jury. Steve Jones, guitar player for the Sex Pistols, lives in LA and hosts a great daily freeform radio show on Indie 103.1. It plays like the best of college radio that I was lucky enough to be a part of back in Cleveland (I was at WCSB, but also check out WRUW), with Jones playing tunes he wants to hear (no 12-song playlist!) and sharing insider tales about the musicians heard on these songs. Jones also plays his guitar and sings from time to time, even sometimes breaking it out spontaneously as he reads a set list. He also hosts LA scenesters. This has led to the "Jukebox Jury". Every Friday, Jones hosts a panel of four guests who comprise the "Jury". They spin a tune and then each declares it "Mustard!" if they like it, or "Pants!" if they don't. They're British terms that Jones uses. (His Cockney is a crack-up.) There are always huge laughs during the show, and Jones will surprise you. Think "Sex Pistols" and you'll have a firm impression. Jones breaks his own mold.

The podcasts are only of the "Jury" show, which is too bad. Indie 103.1 can be heard for free by streaming via iTunes, so I sometimes listen live (Noon-3pm Pacific). Average podcast length is 90 minutes, and I generally listen to the whole show in one shot while on the interstate. There isn't another show this length I can say that about. Jukebox show page.

3. The Watt From Pedro Show. Mike Watt, together with Jones, is my other punk rock musical hero. How grand is life that each has a podcast? Watt (bass) played in the legendary band The Minutemen with childhood friend, the late D Boon (guitar, vocals), and George Hurley (drums). Watt currently plays in the Stooges (yes, Iggy Pop's band), and has four other current working bands that are more or less his.

I find Watt endlessly engaging. I share his blue collar background, and while I don't share his politics, I really soak up his ethic, and his vocabulary. (He has his own lingo. Check out his Hoot Page and look for terms like "econo", "konk", "boat", and "thudstaff".) He's a workaholic musician who doesn't take part in the rock star BS, but instead takes in the places he visits and their people. The podcasts are intensely personal, as he talks about his past with Boon (especially) and the people in his life. He often interviews musicians he's touring with.

Unfortunately, I skip a great deal of this 3-hour show. Watt has a format: Open with music from John Coltrane, play a few rock tunes, talk/interview, Brother Matt's Spin Cycle (dance & beat DJ stuff), and an old radio theatre bit. I listen for Watt and his insights. The Spin Cycle can be as long as 50 minutes, and I skip the whole thing every time. Ditto the radio theatre, which can be up to 40 minutes. That's a lot of filler, if you ask me. But hey- the show is a free download, so I don't mind skipping over. I just wish it was three full hours of Watt instead of about an hour and twenty minutes. TWFPS homepage.

4. Free Talk Live. This isn't the best radio in the world, but when I'm out and about and not likely to hear libertarian views via terrestrial signal, this is where I turn. There isn't much in the way of contrarian views on FTL, so it gets to be a bit too much of a know-it-all fest at times, and that's saying something because I agree with the vast majority of what they're saying. A lot of Ron Paul coverage lately, for which I am eternally grateful. FTL's homepage.

Which podcasts make your playlists?