Mike Hicks

Kloss, and Probably a Cigar

Agh. The water is off in my building (the maintenance guys are doing something or other). So much for doing dishes, laundry, or taking a shower...

I think my level of happiness with The Current has been greatly enhanced by the fact that I have a good radio: the Tivoli Audio Model Two (with Model Subwoofer). I really wish it had a lighted tuner dial, but I don't really need that anymore since I'm only listening to one station (during daylight at least—I tune in Radio K every once in a while). It has a great sound and has a long cable between the left and right speakers, so I have them located about six feet apart (which is what stereo is meant to be). I think it's really optimized for classical music, but layered contemporary music works well too.

I've been thinking about how the station is affecting the current media landscape in the Twin Cities (and SE MN). The big thing about KCMP is that it brings a trifecta of goodness:

• Eclectic music (or enhanced triple-A or whatever you want to call it)
• Professional and knowledgeable disc jockeys
• A powerful, high-fidelity (FM stereo, soon to include digital) transmitter

We've had KFAI for quite a while, and the on-air hosts there are pretty well-respected, but it has short range (and block programming—blech). Radio K has a good range (you can sort of hear it in Rochester), but is on an AM signal that easily gets drowned out by noisy electronics. The station uses student DJs for the most part—which is important because they should have an actual outlet to broadcast on—but there is a lot that people who have been involved in the local music arena for 10 or 20 years can add.

Everyone knows it's an apples-to-oranges comparison.. I'm just trying to more fully define it. The Twin Cities can't live on Radio K alone, and shouldn't. Nor should we live on 89.3 alone, since aspiring DJs need somewhere to get started. If Radio K ever ended up on the auction block, I'd lobby for it to go to another educational organization somewhere rather than be merged into a bigger operation (of course, it's hard to get bigger than the U, but whatever ;-).

At least one person has mentioned that Cities 97 and Drive 105 have shifted their programming, but I haven't tuned in enough to know for sure. They're drowning in sweeps-related ads at the moment, though, so it's a bad time to check (mostly for the sake of your sanity).

There's a lot of music I want them to play that hasn't gotten on the air yet, but I also have to consider this: If you merely wanted to play one song from each person/group listed at MusicScene.org, a directory of Minnesota music, you'd have to devote a whole week to it—and the list is incomplete. Considering that Minnesota has less than 1/1000 of the world's population (though perhaps more than its share of music), it would take 10 to 20 years to take even a sample of what all is out there. Fortunately, sifting through that stuff isn't my job—it's what people are supposed to be doing behind the scenes at radio stations and other music organizations, though.

Radio K has a whole network of people reviewing stuff, and from what I can tell, 89.3 is building one up too. I'm glad they've mostly gotten the late '90s/early '00s music out of their systems. They've probably got to work on expanding their world music to include places outside of the UK, France, and Scandahoovia, but it's decent. Metal is deficient, but this is MPR after all (and 93X is actually not too bad for people who like that, IMHO—I think it won the City Pages readers' poll for Best FM Station last year).

Well, the station is going to begin a new phase on Monday when DJ schedules get shifted around. The bigtime folks will get their airtime cut back a bit so they can focus on behind-the-scenes stuff more, which should help improve music selections. I wonder if they'll expand the local show… They had originally announced it as two hours, but it has onle been on from 5-6 PM on Sundays. As with local shows on other stations, there's been a bunch of great stuff there that doesn't get in regular rotation (which I suppose is another fairly big nit to pick).

I wish I could fatefully predict the demise of Drive 105 (not that I hate the people or anything, but the computerized rotation drives me nuts), but my predictions usually prove to be way off the mark. I won't be surprised if KCMP blows one (or a few) stations out of the water in the coming months, but I won't be surprised if it's only a minor blip either. If it ends up being anything significant, it might mostly end up being kind of the "Ventura Effect" of radio, where it draws many people who had turned to iPods, Internet streams, and satellite radio back to the medium. I think the localism angle is something that even the iPod would find hard to beat.

Posted by mike at February 19, 2005 02:43 PM | Music | TrackBack