Full disclosure: I have hosted a hip-hop show on WSUM on and off for almost two years. My current show (which I host with fellow staffer Colin Finan), called, “Beats, Rhymes and Hype Radio” can be heard Monday mornings at 1:00 a.m. We enjoy what we do.
With the caveat out of the way, I can say I never expected the show to EVER be heard further than my boys listening back home in Michigan or the dorm rooms of a few freshmen who were tipped off by the ads we placed in this publication. But thanks to some crafty negotiating, a bit of luck and most importantly patience, tomorrow is the day this campus changes.
No more WMAD cheese ball bits. Re-program your car dials away from that tired ’80s station “The Buzz,” and don’t even think about being that WJJO guy. WSUM is college radio–a different breed of broadcast that eschews commercials, “hey dude” antics and played-out formats.
Growing up listening to one fine college radio station (WIDR on Western Michigan University’s campus), I was turned on to artists and genres I never would have fathomed because of the strangling omnipotence of MTV and its clones influencing my every action: Martha Quinn and Downtown Julie Brown told us all to tight roll my jeans, bob to New Kids and scorn the un-tucked shirt.
Looking back, my first taste of jazz and punk came via the awkward student DJs that didn’t (and still don’t) sound and act like the rest of the dial. Even though my allowance was spent on Tag Team instead of Tad, I still had those “different” radio tunes cycling through the back of my gelled head.
First and foremost, embrace this station as a resource for music you probably would have never picked up at the record shop. Better yet, pick it up after listening to it. The DJs have been hand-picked for their deft knowledge of the respective genres they represent. Let them blow your mind. It’s a few clicks away at 91.7 FM.
A few shows to point out: Goodbye 20th Century (rock, jazz, no-wave), The Back Beat (post-rock, punk and new-wave), IDBA (hip-hop, go-go), Jazz Wake Up (morning jazz) and, of course, Beats, Rhymes and Hype Radio (independent hip-hop)–yet another self-promoting column.
Every other week I examine a form of independent publishing that piques my fancy
Punk Planet
I’ll admit most of the music reviews we print on Thursdays are positive. My theory is, when there is so much good music to highlight, why waste the space dissing the latest Sponge release?
Daniel Sinker, editor of indie bible Punk Planet, begs to differ. On the back of his Chicago-based quarterly, some of the most vicious attacks on artistic expression lie in print. Why?
Sinker guarantees a review for every album that lands on his desk. “Ripping off the Smoking Popes and Parasites simultaneously while finding time for cute liner note photos,” thrashes one review. What makes Punk Planet so great is that Sinker (and his crew of editors by day, rockers by night) gets through to the interview subjects by the ‘zine’s unmatched indie-cred in an industry of poseurs upon poseurs.
The latest issue features Amy Ray, Unwound and one hot Mint Records birthday bash. The layout is a combination of the art school cover with rough staple-and-paste innards. Sinker knows how to borrow from the best of both worlds, in aesthetics and in print.
