Programming changes?
Pete of Nashville Jumps
do on the station?
These are merely ideas I've had that I'm throwing out for possible
discussion, and I hope no offense is taken because none is meant. My
biases as a DJ and music listener will be pretty obvious.
1. Let's award specialty shows much sooner. And let's not actually
require that they be "specialty" shows--they can just be shows with no
rotation requirements--"free-form" shows, maybe. They would be
awarded to anyone who exhibits ability and willingness to create
interesting shows without guidance. They would be seen as a norm to
be achieved after a certain period of having to play rotation--a
couple of semesters for a DJ without any particular expertise, or as
little as a few weeks for someone who has special musical knowledge
that they can't use to the fullest while still having to play
rotation. Why would this be good? DJs who can be more free with
their choices would probably be more enthusiastic DJs, and would
create more cohesive shows, without having their groove interrupted by
(sometimes random) grabs from rotation. And we would be able to tap
unusual musical knowledge sooner and more fully. It can be
discouraging to have to mix selections from rotation in with very
different, but good, music that you're more interested in. People
sometimes just play a block of rotation to get the requirement out of
the way before getting to their "real" show. Once I looked at the
first couple of playlists from a DJ who has turned out to be one of
our best and noticed that he/she had played almost exactly the same
block of rotation songs two weeks in a row. That's not the way things
should be done. No offense meant to those who pick rotation songs,
but I think it is almost inevitably going to toss speed bumps into
good shows on a regular basis. I realize an argument against this is
that people will play more Radiohead and less [name hip but still
obscure indie band here], but honestly, I'm not sure that would be a
disaster. And there are already guidelines that tell us not to play
too much mainstream music, rotation questions aside.
2. For non-free-form shows, increase the local K requirements a
little bit and decrease the other K requirements to match (or even
more). We alienated a lot of local bands when we dropped most of the
community DJs. This move might help relations with them. Playing
local bands is one way in which WRVU can be different from the
thousands of music streams people can listen to online. I don't
expect WFMU has ever played anything by Cheer Up Charlie Daniels, and
they aren't likely to show up on Pandora.
3. This is where my biases show through most. Put more older
recordings--GOOD ones, of course--in automation. It's very good that
we do include some now, but we can go far beyond the Beatles and the
Clash. I think we need really fun, exciting songs which are not well
known but are in styles that are more or less familiar to many, thus
grabbing the ear of people beyond indie rock and hip hop fans and
making them want to listen more to hear the song again, or others like
it. We probably have some like that in the repertoire; we need more.
Os Mutantes, the Soft Boys, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Chuck
Jackson, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Cab Calloway, NRBQ--those are a few that
I'd pick. Honestly, I think we should decrease our emphasis on new
recordings. There is nothing intrinsically better about playing them,
nothing purer, nothing hipper, nothing more bohemian, nothing more
high-minded. I don't mean that we should go for familiarity and make
Hal an oldies station. I mean that there are a LOT more great ear-
catching records in the past (recent to remote) than there are in the
present, and that we currently are not mining that repertoire like we
should be. I realize, of course, that actually picking the records is
going to be pretty subjective.
M. Scott Cardone
I think this probably should have gone out to the staff list instead of the save-wrvu list, but oh well. In any case, i'm with you on local bands, because I think that's part of our function in nashville. I don't know about not having rotation requirements whatsoever, though. I do think it's been a problem that the rotation shelf certainly features some genres over others, which is why there are speed bumps, but that will always vary with the music directors. I think we still need a rotation, though, because part of our function is to get the new music out there. I agree that there is plenty of good stuff in the past, and so many of our shows play that stuff, but part of being a radio station is pumping up and promoting the new releases, so I think DJ Hal should still probably include mostly new stuff. I think debut shows have a pretty steep rotation requirement (seven tracks an hour is like half of the show), and maybe general rotation is still too much, but I'm not sure if everyone should be entirely free of rotation whatsoever. Without rotation, I think we fail to serve what is generally considered to be the purpose of radio overall, which is to let everyone hear what's new in music. I think playing a good, listenable show is important too. People like older songs, and older songs are good, so it's fine to include them in your show, but new stuff is very important. It's not necessarily better than old songs, nobody's saying that, but it's never been heard before, and it's what you'll be hearing if you go to a concert or go pick up a new album. People are interested in what's happening now in music probably more than what happened before, since they want to experience the now and it's impossible to re-experience the before. I feel like I'm writing a philosophical defense of why we need to be playing new releases.... I think it kind of goes without saying.
That got long and ramble-y.... I think I'm just so weary from writing formal letters and emails regarding VSC.
Anyway, Pete, I'm with you on the local bands, but not so much the abolishing of rotation requirements for most DJs.
-Scott
-Scott Cardone
(513) 377-7275
Pete of Nashville Jumps
interesting and maybe connect with more people. Still, you're right
that it's off topic.
See, I think there has been an assumption that a need to play new
releases goes without saying, but I'm not sure it does. If music is
new to you, it's new, and good music is good music. (How banal can I
get?) We aren't here to promote the industry, except the local
industry, and that's purely by our historical choice.
You may not be surprised to learn, by the way, that while some of our
DJs work in some facet of the music industry, I've been a librarian
for 23 years.
I certainly respect your opinion and I know I'm well in the minority,
but maybe there is a middle ground on the topics we disagree on.
Pete
On Oct 4, 9:11 pm, "M. Scott Cardone"
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M. Scott Cardone
I agree that old music is valuable, but I still think it's a duty of radio to be current. I agree with you that if music is new to you, it's new, and that there's plenty of older good stuff that we could spin that nobody's ever heard before, but literally every single new release is new to everyone, and nobody's ever heard it before. The other facet of this is that for the bands that are new and just cutting their first tracks, radio is how they get out there. Bands that have come and gone already do not need our help getting exposure because they're not around to need it anymore. Their music is good, but they by definition aren't making any more of it, so I think we necessarily need to hype them up less. With good modern bands that nobody knows about, we have a chance to help them get exposure. If there's a great new band out there, we hold the power to help them hit it big and make more music, but if there's a great old band out there from the 60s, I personally will relish hearing them and playing them, and people will enjoy discovering them, but it isn't going to help them make more records for us to listen to. I think that's the key difference. As long as we're not failing to get the new stuff out there, though, I have no problem playing old stuff... My show is primarily stuff from the 60s and 70s... I just think if the whole station were that, we'd be missing the point and we wouldn't be relevant.
Of course the other point of view is that we don't owe anybody anything, and we're simply here to play good music that people want to listen to, and I agree with that to a certain extent. We're obviously not here to prop up the industry; if we were, we'd be a top 40 station. But, I think we're here at least in part to give the bands outside of the mainstream music industry a fighting chance, and to do that we have to play their new releases. That's my take anyway.
-Scott
Mojo
I would add the suggestion that all the DJs (myself included, for the midnight to 2am crowd) take the training for the new Studio C and do as many of our shows there as possible for MORE EXPOSURE.
I have other ideas general and specific, and I'm sure others do too. Please post them to this thread!
Mojo from Spoonful
--> Support WRVU 91.1 FM, Nashville, TN <--
M. Scott Cardone
Kathryn Edwards
Victor Clarke
Pete, while I personally agree completely that recording quality used
to be a lot higher and a lot of new music isn't made with nearly as
much care, Scott has a really excellent point that we have kind of a
duty to play new releases to help those bands get exposure. Radio
airplay is still a big thing for a lot of bands that are just starting
out, especially at stations like ours that they have a better chance
of getting on compared to a commercial station that has to stick to a
chart except for a few hours a week of "local spotlight" type stuff.
If we move the primary focus away from new music, essentially in my
opinion we're saying that radio no longer has any sort of promotional
power and that we're just this antique novelty where people who grew
up listening to radio tune in to hear other people who grew up
listening to radio play bands who owe their success to radio's heyday.
It also kind of goes along with the argument of us being a "learning
lab". As I said I don't really care for most indie rock but from a
Music Director standpoint, if a CD comes to me in the mail with a note
saying that it'll hit Nashville shelves in two weeks and/or that this
band has upcoming Nashville tour dates, it gives me even more of a
reason to do my job well and actually get it through the programming
process and into rotation in time for it it to make a difference for
their career. The purpose of rotation is for promo companies to have a
sense of security that if they send us something good, it's guaranteed
to be played at least a certain amount.
What we HAVE been trying to do with rotation is to make it a lot
smaller and more frequently updated because it's gotten way too
bloated in the past, and what I agree that we can absolutely do better
on is coordinating with DJ HAL. I'm pretty sure HAL is due for a
massive cleanout himself and once that happens I'll talk to the
Archive Director and see what would be better, aggressively updating
HAL with the newest stuff and counting on the DJs to represent their
various genres, or balancing the genres in HAL and give the DJs the
responsibility for new releases mixed in with whatever they want, or
what.
I do agree with raising the ration of local Ks to total and a few
other things you mentioned, and if you (or anyone else) want to talk
more about this shoot me an email through the official MD address;
that's probably better than using the listserv. I just hesitate to
make drastic changes to the core structure because although there are
a ton of people who put lots of thought into their playlists and have
lots of guests on their show and generally put tons of work into it, I
sometimes have to remind myself that WRVU is still an extracurricular
activity for us students, that I really shouldn't be putting it ahead
of my grades as much as I do, and that some students really do just
like to come in and grab random stuff off the rotation shelves for an
hour because it's not as much of a time commitment and they're still
exposing themselves to new music. We don't want to push out the more
casual DJs; they'll probably already have to fight for spots harder
than before given the crazy amount of trainees we have (go Emily!)
Victor (current MD)
On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 10:06 PM, M. Scott Cardone
<michael....@vanderbilt.edu> wrote:
--
Victor Clarke
Vanderbilt University 2011
victor....@vanderbilt.edu
Pete of Nashville Jumps
interesting and I hope others did. The comments reminded me of the
good things about concentrating on new music. I don't deny they're
there.
While I do personally think that "recording quality used to be a lot
higher and a lot of new music isn't made with nearly as much care," I
wouldn't use that exact formulation to support a move toward more
older records. I think that there are a lot more good records in the
past than there are in the present simply because there's a heck of a
lot more past than there is present. THAT would be my justification.
Beyond that, I do have a personal bias against electronica and
extremely minimalist, rhythmless recordings, but my quest to wipe out
those kinds of music in favor of jump blues and punk rock can't start
here.
I'd love to contribute some songs to the next Hal upload, if given the
opportunity.
Pete
On Oct 5, 12:09 am, Victor Clarke <victor.e.cla...@vanderbilt.edu>
wrote:
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