Rare Frequencies W H AT K G N U C O M M U N I T Y R A D I O L O O K S L I K E W H E N Y O U H I T P R I N T
Gregory Alan Isakov 21 The songwriter chats about his Colorado Symphony collaboration, cowboys, and more.
24
alsarah The Sudanese born singer, songwriter and ethnomusicologist shares her musical universe.
Dr. robert mcchesney 12 The leading media critic explains the Supreme Court’s role in dollars buying U.S. elections.
15 ray suarez The history of the Latino United States from the perspective of a top public broadcast journalist
The itchy-0 Marching band 27 The mysterious inter-dimensional marching band talks about their mesmerizing performance art project.
26 Dave Rawlings Machine The Dave Rawlings Machine stopped by for a studio session and revealed their elaborate internal acoustic mechanisms.
program guide
ALWAYS LIVE AT 88.5 FM (DENVER + BOULDER) 1390 AM (DENVER) / 93.7 FM (NEDERLAND) KGNU.ORG
contents Mission Statement KGNU is an independent, noncommercial community radio station licensed in Boulder and Denver and dedicated to serving its listeners. We seek to stimulate, educate and entertain our audience, to reflect the diversity of the local and world community,
4 STATION NOTES 7 J OEL EDELSTEIN 8 MADAME ANDREWS 9 PROGRAM SCHEDULE 10 PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS 12 ROBERT MCCHESNEY 15 RAY SUAREZ
21 24 26 27 29
GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV ALSARAH DAVE RAWLINGS MACHINE ITCHY-O MARCHING BAND VOLUNTEERS
and to provide a channel for individuals, groups, issues and music that have been overlooked, suppressed or underrepresented by other media. The station seeks to expand the listening audience through the excellence of its
88.5 FM / 1390 AM BOULDER + DENVER 93.7 FM NEDERLAND KGNU.ORG WORLDWIDE
programming without compromising the principles stated here. Rare Frequencies KGNU Radio Magazine Issue Date 2014-2015 Frequency of Publication Annual Authorized Publisher Boulder Community Broadcast Association, Inc. dba KGNU Volume 37, Issue 1 Editors John Schaefer, David Wilson Design Adam Batliner Art + Design Contributors Puahau Aki, Alternative Radio, Dave Ashton, Maeve Conran, Gavin Dahl, Joel Davis, EC Erb, Sam Fuqua, Nikki Kayser, Ginger Perry, John Schaefer, David Wilson Advertising Sales Wally Wallace, wally@kgnu.org Printing Signature Offset
KGNU STAFF Station Manager: David Wilson, manager@kgnu.org Music Director: John Schaefer, music@kgnu.org News and Public Affairs Director: Maeve Conran, maeve@kgnu.org Operations Director: Evan Perkins, evan@kgnu.org Membership Director: Nikki Kayser, nikki@kgnu.org Promotions Director: Wally Wallace, wally@kgnu.org Denver Program Manager: Dave Ashton, dave@kgnu.org Underwriting Manager: Kenneth Flowe kenneth@kgnu.org Boulder Trainer: Joel Davis, rtc@kgnu.org Engineer: Jim Mross IT: David Hardy, nedernet.net In-House Counsel: Gregg Friedman Outside Counsel: Aaron Kraft and Betsy Proffitt, Holland & Hart
KGNU BOARD OF DIRECTORS Joy Barrett, Treasurer Gavin Dahl Ken Fricklas RisĂŤ Keller, Secretary Liz Lane, Vice-Chair Robin Van Norman Jon Walton, Chair David Wilson, Station Manager, [ex-officio, non-voting]
KGNU STUDIOS Boulder: 4700 Walnut St Boulder, CO 80301 office: 303.449.4885 | 800.737.3030 studio: 303.442.4242 or dj@kgnu.org Denver: 700 Kalamath St Denver, CO 80204 office: 303.825.5468 studio: 303.825.0619 Comment Line: 303.447.9911
Station Notes GOOD FRIENDS WE HAVE LOST Robin Dadisman died on November 14, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada, due to complications from surgery. Robin was a KGNU volunteer for over 15 years, best known as the host of Cap’n Rob’s Fillet of Soul and Waffles on Saturday nights. He also contributed his creative skills to KGNU audio promos, web design, posters, mugs, and shirts. If you have any KGNU memorabilia from the 90’s or early 00’s, chances are pretty good that Robin had a hand in its design or production. Besides art and music, one of Robin’s passions was movies. He loved being a film critic for his family and friends. He also loved cars.
NEW BOARD MEMBERS
Soul and Waffles once aired. As many people recounted, Robin had a hilarious sense of humor. Robin was also deeply loyal. He was generous, kind hearted, and an insufferable nerd in the best way possible, as some have described.
Jill Rosenbloom
passed away on July 29, 2013 after a long bout with neuroendocrine cancer. In the 1980s, Jill started on late night KGNU radio doing Restless Mornings then Sleepless Nights under the moniker Marguaritor. Jill’s high energy and loving smile were familiar to many through her work at the Boulder post office. Her participation at KGNU led to a wave of employees from the post office joining the KGNU family, including the late John Penman. Another group worked in photo labs around town including Neil Parker.
Robin grew up in Boulder, graduating from Fairview High School. For many years, he owned and operated Boulderwear Silkscreen and Design in Boulder where he put his many talents to work. He had moved to Las Vegas in 2012 for work.
Neil introduced Jill to African music and she soon became a regular host of African Roots. Jill frequently had live music on the show and was an ardent supporter of the local African music scene as well as hosting artists like Habib Koite, Angelique Kidjo, and Thomas Mapfumo on air. Her love of African music led her to travel to Senegal with Afropop and included a visit to the home of Baaba Maal.
We held a deeply touching memorial for Robin at our Boulder studios on a Saturday evening at the same time that his Fillet of
Besides her on-air work, Jill helped out in the music department checking in new releases and serving on KGNU’s program committee.
KGNU recently added three new members to our board of directors: Liz Lane, Gavin Dahl, and Risë Keller. Liz Lane has been involved with KGNU for over 20 years and is a regular host of KGNU’s Connections and It’s the Economy programs. Liz lives in Louisville, working as an attorney focused on estate planning and elder law. Gavin Dahl started volunteering at KGNU in 2012 and has extensive community radio experience, having worked at stations in California, Idaho, Texas and Washington. He also has worked with Alternative Radio, Common Frequency, Prometheus Radio Project, and Open Media Foundation. Risë Keller recently returned to KGNU as a volunteer, helping work on updating KGNU’s bylaws. She first volunteered at KGNU almost 20 years ago, helping out with producing our program guide and answering phones. After living in California for several years, she has returned to the Front Range and KGNU.
RETIRING BOARD MEMBERS In 2014, KGNU will see four board members complete their second and final term on the board after six years of service. KGNU’s chair, Barry Gilbert, will step down in June. Meredith Carson, KGNU’s vice chair, will step down in July, as will KGNU’s secretary, Chris O’Riley. Board member Ken Fricklas will finish up his sixth year in September. We want to thank all four board members for their amazing service to the station and hope to see them at the station well into the future, continuing on as volunteers in different capacities beyond service on the board.
NEW STATION MANAGER
NEW WEBSITE FOR NEWS & PUBLIC AFFAIRS KGNU is excited to launch its dedicated news website this summer. News.KGNU.org will allow you to access all our locally produced news and public affairs. You will be able to access all the stories that you heard on air as well as additional content, including videos, pictures, and other information. You will be able to listen again to stories
4 | Rare Frequencies
that you may have heard, share the stories with friends through their social media, and find other related content. The new website will help the KGNU news department expand its reach into the community by offering multi-media content that brings KGNUs radio stories to life on the web.
Visit:
News.KGNU.org
In August 2013, David Wilson became KGNU’s station manager. David began volunteering at KGNU 20 years ago, starting on How on Earth, KGNU’s science show. David has worn many hats at KGNU prior to becoming station manager. Most recently, he worked as outside legal counsel for the station. He also was on the board of directors from 2008 to 2011. Many people at KGNU will remember David because he may have trained them while he was one of KGNU’s trainers from 1996 to 2005. David is not new to filling the shoes of Sam Fuqua. He regularly filled in for Sam as news director during the mid to late 90s.
many thanks to our underwriters ALFALFA’S MARKET alfalfas.com (720) 420-8400
CU PRESENTS cupresents.org (303) 492-8008
LYONS RECORDER lyonsrecorder.com (303) 823-6625
SAVE HOME HEAT CO savehomeheat.com (303) 443-9762
THE ALTERNATIVE LAW OFFICE OF MARK MILAVITZ alt-law.com (303)442-2166
DENVER FOLKLORE CENTER denverfolklore.com (303) 777-4786
MARK JAFFEE markjaffeedds.com (303) 449-8299
SAVORY SPICE SHOP savoryspiceshop.com (303) 444-0668
DENVER FOUNDATION denverfoundation.org (303) 300-1790
MARQUEE MAGAZINE marqueemagazine.com (303) 442-2480
SEICENTO BAROQUE ENSEMBLE seicentobaroque.com (720) 301-7747
EASE ELECTROLYSIS easehairremoval.com (720) 442-2606
MOAB FOLK FESTIVAL moabfolkfestival.com (435) 259-3198
SOUTHSIDE WALNUT CAFÉ walnutcafe.com
EIGHT DAYS A WEEK 8days.com (303) 443-7671
MOUNTAIN EAR themountain-ear.com (303) 258-7075
FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF BOULDER fumcboulder.org (303) 442-3770
MOUNTAIN SUN BREW PUB mountainsunpub.com (303) 546-0886
BLACK AND READ blackandread.net (303) 467-3236 BOULDER MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART BMOCA.Org (303) 443-2122 BOULDER BALLET boulderballet.org (303) 443-0028 BOULDER BOOK STORE BoulderBookStore.com (303) 447-2074 BROCK MEDIA brockpub.com (303) 443-0600 BOULDER WEEKLY boulderweekly.com (303) 494-5511 CAFFÉ SOLE caffesole.com (303) 499-2985 CELTIC CONNECTION celticconnections.com (303) 777-0502 COLORADO BLUES SOCIETY coblues.com (303) 415-2737 COLORADO DAILY coloradodaily.com (303) 473-1111 COLORADO MAHLERFEST mahlerfest.com (303) 492-8970
FLIP TASK fliptask.com GREATER PARK HILL NEWS greaterparkhillcommunity.com (303) 388-0918 GREEN GIRL RECYCLING greengirlrecycling.com (303) 442-7535
NATURE’S OWN naturesown.com (303) 444-4020 NEXUS PUBLISHING nexuspub.com (303) 442-6662
GREGG FRIEDMAN (303) 444-0500
OHCO ohco.com (303) 674-2466
HIGHLANDER MAGAZINE highlandermo.com (303) 642-7878
PERRY’S SHOE SHOP perryshoe.com (303) 443-4580
INDEPENDENT POWER SYSTEMS solarips.com (303) 443-0115
PHARMACA pharmaca.com (303) 867-3400
INDIAN PEAKS SPRING WATER indianpeaksspringwater.com (303) 440-0432
RAS KASSA’S raskassas.com (303) 447-2919
INDRA’S NET indra.net (303) 546-9151
RAT’S WOODSHACK ratswoodshackbbq.com
COMMUNITY FOUNDATION SERVING BOULDER COUNTY commfound.org (303) 442-0436
INTERCAMBIO intercambioweb.org (303) 996-0275
COMMUNITY SHARES COLORADO cshares.org (303) 861-7507
INTERNATIONAL FILM SERIES AT CU-BOULDER internationalfilmseries.com (303) 492-1531
COTTONWOOD CUSTOM BUILDERS cottonwoodcustombuilders.com (303) 449-3076
JAZZ ON 2ND AVENUE jazzon2ndave.com
CRESTONE MUSIC crest-fest.org (719) 256-4653
NAROPA UNIVERSITY naropa.edu (303) 444-0202
LONETREE ARTS CENTER lonetreeartscenter.org (720) 509-1000
REDSTONE REVIEW (303) 823-5392
SWALLOW HILL swallowhillmusic.org (303) 777-1003 TABLE MESA HARDWARE tablemesahardware.com (303) 499-7211 A TASTE OF ICELAND icelandnaturally.com (646) 282-9360 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY cumuseum.colorado.edu (303) 492-6892 URBAN SPECTRUM denverurbanspectrum.com (303) 292-6446 VINTAGE MOTORS OF LYONS vintagemotorslyons.com (303) 931-5280 WASHINGTON PARK PROFILE washingparkprofile.com (303) 778-8021 WESTERN DISPOSAL SERVICES westerndisposal.com (303) 444-2037 WHITE PEONY ACUPUNCTURE whitepeonyacu.com (970) 708-1576 YELLOW SCENE yellowscene.com (303) 828-2700
LOCAL BUSINESSES SUPPORT KGNU! These local businesses and non-profits contribute money, goods and services to KGNU. We encourage you to let them know you appreciate their support of KGNU. If you want to let our listeners know that your business supports KGNU, contact our underwriting manager Kenneth Flowe via Kenneth@kgnu.org.
KGNU Community Radio | 5
business thanks! ABO’S PIZZA
COMEDY WORKS
abospizza.com
comedyworks.org
INTERSTATE KITCHEN AND BAR
NOTHING BUNDT CAKES nothingbundtcakes.com
SIENNA WINE BAR AND SMALL PLATES
AEG LIVE aeglive.com
COMMUNITY SHARES OF COLORADO
interstaterestaurant.com
OFF CAMPUS CAFÉ
siennawinebar.com
ALFALFA’S
cshares.org
juliaskitchenboulder. wordpress.com
OGDEN THEATER
JULIEN’S CLIFFHOUSE KOMBUCHA
OLD LOUISVILLE INN
alfalfas.com
THE CORNER
ANNIE’S CAFÉ AND BAR
720-398-8331
annies-cafe.com
COSMO’S PIZZA
ARUGULA RISTORANTE
cosmospizza.com
arugularistorante.com
CRIMSON CANARY
AVERY BREWING COMPANY
crimsoncanary.com
averybrewing.com
currynkebob.com
AXIOS ESTIATORIO
DAPHNE’S GREEK CAFÉ
axiosdenver.com
daphnesgreekcafe.com
BACCO TRATTORIA baccoboulder.com
DAZZLE RESTAURANT AND LOUNGE
BACKCOUNTRY PIZZA
dazzlejazz.com
backcountrypizzaandtap house.com
BELEMONTI’S PIZZERIA belemontispizzeria.com
BLUE RIBBON FARM
CURRY N KABOB
THE DEER PILE DENVER CHOPHOUSE denverchophouse.com
DIZZY’S DONUTS dizzysdonuts.com
(303) 774-7717 Boulder Independent Business Alliance boulderbiba.org
DOT’S DINER
BIG CITY BURRITOS
einsteinbros.com
bigcityburrito.com
BJ’S RESTAURANT & BREW HOUSE bjsrestaurants.com
BLACK AND READ BOOKSTORE blackandread.net
BLACK JACK PIZZA blackjackpizza.com
BLACK PEPPER PHO blackpepperpho.com
BLUEBIRD THEATER bluebirdtheater.net
BLUE PARROT blueparrottrestaurant.com
BOULDER ARTS AND CRAFTS boulderartsandcrafts.com
BOULDER BEER boulderbeer.com
BOULDER OUTLOOK boulderoutlook.com
BOULDER THEATER bouldertheater.com
BOURBON GRILL 303-355-3821
BROCK MEDIA brockpub.com
BUS TO SHOW bustoshow.org
CERVANTES MASTERPIECE BALLROOM cervantesmasterpiece.com
CHEF BOB SAMPSON chefbobcooks.com
CHEBA HUT SUBS chebahut.com
CHERIBUNDI cheribundi.com
CITY O CITY cityocitydenver.com
6 | Rare Frequencies
JULIA’S KITCHEN
cliffhousekombucha.com
KACHINA SOUTHWESTERN GRILL kachingrill.com
KING SOOPERS kingsoopers.com
KT’S HICK’RY PIT BBQ
FOOLISH CRAIG’S CAFÉ foolishcraigs.com
FOX THEATER foxtheatre.com
GEORGIA BOYS’ BBQ georgiaboysbbqcompany.com
GOLD HILL INN goldhillinn.com
GOTHIC THEATRE gothictheatre.com
GREENBRIAR INN greenbriarinn.com
GREEN GIRL RECYCLING greengirlrecycling.com
GREEN SPOT greenspotinc.com
HALF-FAST SUBS ON THE HILL halffastsubs.com
HAPA SUSHI hapasushi.com
HARLEQUIN’S GARDENS harlequinsgardens.com
HEIRLOOM TRUCK heirloomtruck.com
HI DIVE THEATER hi-dive.com
HIGH COUNTRY NEWS
indianpeaksspringwater.com
oskarblues.com
SPRUCE CONFECTIONS
OZO COFFEE
spruceconfections.com
THE SUMMIT STEAKHOUSE
parallelseventeen.com
thesummitsteakhouse.com
PICA’S MEXICAN TAQUERIA
SUSHI TORA
picasboulder.com
sushitoraboulder.com
PIZZERIA DA LUPO
SUSHI ZANMAI
pizzeriadalupo.com
sushizanmai.com
PIZZERIA LOCALE AND CAFFÉ
SWALLOW HILL MUSIC
pizzerialocale.com
PLANET BLUEGRASS
T/ACO AN URBAN TAQUIERA
bluegrass.com
tacocolorado.com
POPPY’S CAFÉ
TAHONA TEQUILA BISTRO
morningglorycafe.com
tahonaboulder.com
THE POPULIST
TANDOORI GRILL
thepopulistdenver.com
tandoorigrillboulder.com
PROTO’S PIZZA
TANGERINE
protospizza.com
tangerineboulder.com
LULU’S
PTOMAINE TOMMY SOUND LLC
TED’S MONTANA GRILL
lulus-bbq.com
gigsalad.com
THE MARQUIS THEATER
PUNCH BOWL SOCIAL
TIFFIN’S
themarguistheater.com
punchbowlsocial.com
MARTINI’S BISTRO
PUMPHOUSE BREWERY
martinisbistro.com
pumhousebrewery.com
THE MEDITERRANEAN
RACINE’S RESTAURANT
themedboulder.com
racinesrestaurant.com
THE MELTING POT meltingpot.com
RED ROBIN’S BURGER WORKS
THE MERCURY CAFÉ
rrburgerworks.com
larkburger.com
LAWNS OF BOULDER lawnsofboulder.com
LE PEEP lepeep.com lingerdenver.com liquormart.com
LIVE NATION livenation.com
LIVING BLUES MAGAZINE livingblues.com
LOS CARBONCITOS loscarboncitos.com
LUCKY’S MARKET luckysmarket.com
mercurycafe.com
REDSTONE MEADERY
MILO’S PIZZA AND PO’ BOYS
redstonemeadery.com
milosboulder.com
rrboulder.com
MODMARKET
THE RIB HOUSE
modmarket.com
theribhouse.com
MOE’S ORIGINAL BBQ IN BOULDER
RIFF’S URBAN FARE
moesoriginalbbq.com
RIOJA
MOE’S BROADWAY BAGELS moesbagel.com
MOTHER JONES MAGAZINE motherjones.com
MURPHY’S GRILL
INDIAN PEAKS SPRINGWATER
walnutcafe.com
SOUTHSIDE WALNUT CAFÉ
sugarbeetrestaurant.com
HIGHLANDS PACIFIC RESTAURANT
illegalpetes.com
eatsnarfs.com
OSKAR BLUES LIQUIDS AND SOLIDS
PARALLEL SEVENTEEN
LARKBURGER
MOUNTAIN SUN BREW PUB
ILLEGAL PETE’S
ondostapas.com
palisademusic.com
larimerlounge.com
hcn.org
highlandpacific.net
smashburger.com
SNARF’S
sputnikdenver.com
LARIMER LOUNGE
LIQUOR MART
fatjackssubs.com
ONDO’S SPANISH TAPAS
SMASHBURGER
SPUTNIK
EINSTEIN BROTHERS BAGELS
FAT JACK’S SUPERSUBS
olirish.com
thesink.com
PALISADES BLUEGRASS & ROOTS FESTIVAL
ktsbbq.com
LINGER
etoncorp.com
ogdentheater.net
THE SINK RESTAURANT & BAR
ozocoffee.com
dotsdinerboulder.com
ETON
theoffcampuscafeco.com
mountainsunpub.com murphysboulder.com
NANNA’S GOURMET MARKET AND Tea Emporium nannastea.com
NOODLES & COMPANY noodles.com
RESTAURANT RUNNERS
riffsboulder.com riojadenver.com
ROLLINGREENS rollingreens.com
ROOT DOWN rootdowndenver.com
RUDI’S BAKERY rudisbakery.com
SALT saltboulderbistro.com
SALVAGGIO’S DELI allmenus.com
SERIOZ PIZZA seriozpizza.com
SUGARBEET RESTAURANT
swallowhillmusic.org
tedsmontanagrill.com tiffinsrestaurant.com
TURLEY’S KITCHEN turleysrestaurant.com
TWIST AND SHOUT twistandshout.com
VIA TOSCANA viatoscana.com
VILLAGE COFFEE SHOP villagecoffeeshopboulder.com
WALNUT CAFÉ walnutcafe.com
THE WALNUT ROOM thewalnutroom.com
WAPOS MEXICAN COCINA waposboulder.com
WATERCOURSE FOODS watercoursefoods.com
WATERLOO waterloolouisville.com
WHITE WAVE whitewave.com
WILD GINGER wildginger.info
YES MAGAZINE yesmagazine.org
ZAMPARELLI’S ITALIAN BISTRO zamparellis.com
Joel Edelstein Telling the Real Story for Over 30 Years In late August, 2008, the Democratic National Convention (DNC) was in Denver. Joel Edelstein was at KGNU, coordinating 60 volunteers in unprecedented round-the-clock unconventional convention coverage. There was special programming every evening, morning news, video and web content. Joel was almost always in the studio or in his office, except when he managed to grab a slice of pizza in the kitchen and catch a few hours sleep in a quiet corner of KGNU’s Boulder building. “At certain times in KGNU’s history, there are a few folks who you could honestly say would eat, breathe and sleep KGNU,” said former KGNU Station Manger Sam Fuqua. “Joel is one of those people. His leadership of our DNC coverage is just one example. There were several times over the years when I was in awe of his commitment to our news and public affairs department.” In Spring 2014, Joel transitioned to the next phase in his 35-year involvement with the station. He retired from his position as Co-Director of News & Public Affairs. He plans to continue as a volunteer producer. “It’s been a real privilege to have been able to work with him in the news department,” said KGNU News & Public Affairs Director Maeve Conran, who shared the news job—and an office—with Joel for many years. “Joel has brought so much of his expertise in international and national politics to KGNU, the station and its news coverage has been better for it. He has been so generous with his knowledge and skills with countless volunteers, including myself, over his many years at KGNU.” His work on the news staff at KGNU was a second career. Joel taught for 30 years
as a Professor of Political Science at the University of Colorado-Denver. That’s how he first connected with the station. An expert on Cuba and the political economy of Latin America, Joel was interviewed in 1979 on KGNU’s long-running international affairs program Hemispheres. Three years later, he became one of the program’s volunteer producers. Joel sees a connection between US foreign policy in the 1980s and today’s climate change crisis: “Just as there is a strong consensus among climate scientists that global warming is being caused by the greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere by human activity, there was agreement among most U.S. Latin American specialists that our intervention in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras was not warranted by security concerns and did not further democracy or human rights. Just as the energy companies sponsor propaganda to prevent action against global warming, Ronald Reagan’s White House established an Office of Public Diplomacy which fielded a team of 39 full time propagandists to spread the official story of Soviet aggression in Central America. I found KGNU to be a rare channel to tell the real story.” Joel became active in station governance during a 1989 conflict over the direction of KGNU. “In that year a small group of volunteers sought to fundamentally change the station, replacing volunteer producers with paid staff and seeking to increase listenership and increase underwriting revenue by moving programming toward mainstream appeal,” he said. “I joined others to maintain our original commitment to a volunteer powered, listener supported, independent community station.”
Joel joined the KGNU Board of Directors during that period and was Board Chair during an early-90’s re-drafting of the stations’ mission statement—the same mission that guides KGNU to this day. In 1991, during the first US invasion of Iraq, Joel started a Friday morning call-in program called “War Talk”. When that war ended, he retitled the show “Peace Talk”. In 1992, he recruited other volunteers to participate, creating the popular Friday talk program Connections. Joel was serving as Interim News Director in 2003, during the second US invasion of Iraq, and coordinated KGNU’s coverage. That same year, he helped create Sprouts: Radio from the Grassroots, a national weekly program featuring content from Pacifica network affiliates across the country. Sprouts is now in its 11th year and airs Sundays at 5 pm on KGNU. But the most important day in Joel Edelstein’s KGNU life came on a Sunday in 1994. He was at the station working on the next edition of Hemispheres. He met a fellow volunteer, Bridget Forsmark, who was there helping with KGNU’s Latin American news program. They’re married now and Joel says, “I will ever be grateful to KGNU.” In 2007, when Sam Fuqua transitioned from News & Public Affairs Director to Station Manager, Joel became News Director and longtime KGNU volunteer Maeve Conran was hired as Associate Director and soon after they became CoNews Directors. “Joel leaves a space that cannot be filled, but I’m thrilled that he will continue as a volunteer,” Maeve said. Joel plans to help with training as well as supporting the team that produces Outsources, KGNU’s weekly LGBT program. And listeners will continue to hear his expert analytic and interviewing skills on our airwaves. “I hope that KGNU will continue to grow and adapt, long after my generation is gone and long after 20th Century style broadcasting has yielded to newer ways of delivering our content,” he said. “I hope that KGNU continues to serve as a key part of the infrastructure of the progressive movement in Colorado.”
KGNU Community Radio | 7
MADAME ANDREWS: Gospel Queen Of Denver By Ginger Perry Look to the hills from whence cometh my help for my help cometh from the Lord. Keep looking up and be sure to spend this Sunday with someone you love. These are the words that Madame Andrews ended her radio show with every week. She started KGNU’s Gospel Chime Hour over 30 years ago, which began as an hour-long show and expanded to a two hour show, airing at 7 a.m. on Sunday mornings. Very dedicated, she drove up from Broomfield every Sunday, never missing a show. Now, five rotating DJs host the show that she single-handedly hosted all of those years. Madame Andrews was born in Bryant, Texas in 1933. Her parents died when she was young, and she went to live with her Aunt Sweet and Uncle Morris. She loved to tell stories about them. They were very musical, singing in church, as did her mother. When she was six, a woman named Evangelist Coleman scooped her up and took her on the road, singing at revivals. They traveled all over the Midwest. Dressed in pretty dresses, patent leather shoes and bows, Walter Mae, named after her father, brought the house down in town after town, her burgeoning talent showing through already.
A blues singer came through town and discovered Walter Mae. He came to her house and taught her how to play the blues on the piano as he strummed on his guitar. Walter Mae was afraid that Aunt Sweet would object and “whoop her,” as she put it, but eventually Aunt Sweet came around. Lucky for us! When Madame Andrews was young, a minister prophesized that Madame Andrews would be famous and would be heard all over the world. That was long before the internet, of course, but thanks to the internet, she was heard all over the world! She received calls from as far away as Japan and the Ukraine. She loved that. Madame Andrews was a pioneer in numerous ways. For example, she was one of the first African American women to graduate from college. She attended a small, segregated school in the south. Much later, she would go on to earn her PhD in theology from a school in Denver. Along the way, she got into radio and was trained by her mentor, Cosmo Harris, at KDKO. He was a strict teacher but taught her everything she knew, she said. He was the one that put that famous smile in her voice. He told her she was playing music for God’s people. She chose music according to what God told her, she said, and as Cosmo taught her, pictured the audience made up of individuals. In addition to radio, she had her own TV show in Denver. She wrote a weekly column for the Denver Weekly news, under the supervision of Cosmo Harris. She put out a CD under the title, The Gospel Queen of Denver. A member of the singing group, the Heavenly Echoes, she was also their manager. She put on a yearly program called the Unsung Heroes, in Denver, usually at Swallow Hill, which acknowledged people that did good things for their community, who mostly went unnoticed. In addition, she was the emcee for the Gospel Extravaganza at Chautauqua for over 20 years, always elegantly dressed and often wearing a tiara. After all, she was the Gospel Queen of Denver! You can’t talk about Madame Andrews without mentioning her sidekick, John Penman. One apocryphal story is that she saw him at a bus station and God told her he was the one that was to be her helper. I heard she saw him at the radio station, going through records, and God spoke to
her. Reluctant at first, she heeded God’s admonition and he became a permanent fixture on the Gospel Chime Hour, as well as hosting various shows at the station. They went to conferences together and could be seen gently ribbing each other at breakfast. Eventually, John took over the show, once Madame became sick, and continued till his sudden death. An unlikely pair, they truly were best friends. Former KGNU station manager Fergus Stone tells a story that the night of John’s death, John came to Madame Andrews in a dream. The dream was so realistic that she asked him to leave her bedside. Also important to Madame was her pastor and a woman she called Mama, Pastor Bishop Wilson. It was in fact Bishop Wilson who gave Madame Andrews her name. When Madame Andrews fell on hard times, Bishop Wilson took her in and Madame remained very loyal to her church and to Bishop Wilson. Bishop Wilson’s daughter, Lady Stephfano, and her granddaughter, Toni, took care of Madame Andrews in her final years, up until her death. Good-hearted and full of radiant joy, Madame Andrews was an exceptional musician and performer. She never had a harsh word for anyone and she lived her faith. She had a wonderful sense of humor. Exuberant and outgoing, she could be heard saying, “Baby, give me a hug” And then, “Give me another hug.” She was pure love. Madame Andrews and I were great friends. We would walk down to Marie’s for breakfast, singing all the way. We spent a lot of time together in her last years, singing, laughing, going to KGNU functions – just generally having a good time. Without fail, she would thank me graciously. A woman of dignity, she was always dressed up. Towards the end, she was starting to decline, her Alzheimer’s getting the best of her, but she could play the piano and sing right to the end. Madame Andrews died March 24, 2014, at the age of 81, peacefully and surrounded by loved ones. I imagine her being greeted by Bishop Wilson and John Penman, joyously, with music. Fergus Stone wrote about Madame Andrews, “She was truly one of a kind… We have lost a lot of great talent the last few years but I doubt if we are ever going to have anyone who is more special than Madame Andrews.” Amen! You can hear several of Madame Andrews’ performances on KGNU through our all-music website at afterfm.com/madame where we have archived these programs.
Program Schedule MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY THURSDAY BBC NEWSHOUR
7:00
HONKY TONK HEROES
DEMOCRACY NOW!
8:00
KGNU MORNING MAGAZINE
9:00
COUNTERSPIN
SUNDAY RESTLESS MORNINGS GOSPEL CHIME
CONNECTIONS
ALAN WATTS
10:00
OLD GRASS GNU GRASS
MORNING SOUND ALTERNATIVE
11:00
SATURDAY
COMMUNITY PUBLIC RADIO NEWS
COUNTERSPIN
6:00
FRIDAY
ROOTS & BRANCHES ETOWN
NOON
TERRASONIC
1:00
AFTERNOON SOUND ALTERNATIVE
NEW DIMENSIONS
2:00
REGGAE BLOODLINES
3:00
METRO
4:00
DEMOCRACY NOW!
METRO ARTS THE TAVIS SMILEY SHOW
BBC NEWSHOUR
5:00
FEATURE STORY NEWS
6:00
LABOR EXCHANGE / LA LUCHA SIGUE
HEMISPHERES
IT’S THE ECONOMY
KABARET
SEOLTA GAEL
HIGHWAY 322
A CLASSIC MONDAY
CORRIENTE!
MUSICA MUNDI
SWING SHIFT
THE PRESENT EDGE
THE HEAVY SET
SOUND LAB
JAZZ LIVES
OUTSOURCES
7:00
THE OPERA BOX
8:00 9:00 10:00 11:00
AFRICAN ROOTS
PASA LA VOZ MAKING CONTACT SPROUTS CHINESE RADIO
BBC NEWSHOUR BLUES LEGACY
RAGTIME / DIXIELAND
RADIOLAB THE GRATEFUL DEAD HOUR
DUSTY GROOVES
ELECTRONIC AIR
SMASH IT BACK
UNDER THE FLOORBOARDS
MIDNITE
1:00
THE BIONEERS W.I.N.G.S
INDIAN VOICES
FSRN
ALTERNATIVE RADIO
TRIBUTARIES LIVING DIALOGUES
ECLIPSE
DUB PALACE
SLEEPLESS NIGHTS
2:00 3:00 4:00
RESTLESS MORNINGS
5:00
EARLY M. NEWS
KEY:
NEWS
MUSIC
KGNU KGNU Community Community Radio Radio || 9
news
Whether it’s local, national, or international, KGNU covers the entire news spectrum and showcases communities that are underrepresented in mainstream media.
WEEKDAYS
Tuesdays 9am-9:30am
The Early Morning News Mon 5:00-5:30am
Presentations from the late philosopher and author who specialized in presenting Eastern spirituality to western audiences.
The Early Morning news brings local as well as global voices often missed by other media sources. kgnu.org/earlymorningnews
Metro Mon-Thurs 3-3:30pm Metro Arts Fri 3-3:30 pm
Community Public Radio News Tuesday-Friday 5:30-6:00 am
Locally produced news and public affairs call-in show that looks at issues effecting the community. kgnu.org/metro
A community-based news show from former staff members of Pacifica’s WBAI in New York.
The Tavis Smiley Show Friday 3:30-4:30 pm
BBC Newshour Weekdays 6am-7am and 4:30 pm
Tavis Smiley will bring us politics, news, culture and commentary.
News from the premier International radio service.
Feature Story News Mon-Thurs 5:30pm-6pm
Dot Org Mondays & Wednesdays at 5:25 pm
Independent daily national and international news.
Interviews with local non-profits. kgnu.org/dotorg
Free Speach Radio News Friday 5:30-6:00 pm
Democracy Now Weekdays 7am-8am / rebroadcast at 3:30 pm Monday-Thursday
Weekly Independent national and international news.
WEEKENDS BBC Newshour Sat and Sun 6pm-7pm News from the premier international radio service.
Radiolab Sat 7PM-8PM Unusual topics explored in thoughtful and captivating ways.
Tributaries Sundays Noon-12:30pm Interviews focused on healthy living. kgnu.org/tributaries
Living Dialogues Sundays 12:30-1pm View of the New Consciousness. kgnu.org/livingdialogues
New Dimensions Sundays 1pm-2pm Uncommon wisdom for unconventional times.
Labor Exchange Every other Monday 6pm-6:30pm
Threads of Yoga Sunday 1:55-2:00 pm
alternating with La Lucha Sigue Locally produced interviews with local and national labor activists and workers. kgnu.org/laborexchange
Yoga news.
Bioneers Sundays 2-2:30pm
Following the BBC headlines at the top of the hour, you’ll hear state and local news headlines, daily reports from the Capitol, when in session, and wide coverage of local and regional public affairs. kgnu.org/morningmag
La Lucha Sigue Every other Monday 6pm-6:30pm
Environmental/spiritual news.
Radio Nibbles Thursdays 8:25 AM
Outsources Mondays 6:30pm-7pm
Award winning news program hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.
Morning Magazine Weekdays at 8am
Local food and drink feature with John Lehndorff.
How On Earth Tuesdays 8:35am Locally produced science show featuring long-form interviews, features, and news about science. kgnu.org/howonearth
Connections Fridays 8:30am-9:30am Call-in program covering a wide range of topics. kgnu.org/connections
Counterspin Mondays 5:30-6 am & 9-9:30 am A critique and analysis of recent news coverage from F.A.I.R. (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting)
Alan Watts
alternating with Labor Exchange Locally produced news about Latin America and the Caribbean. kgnu.org/laluchasigue
Locally produced Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender news and interviews. kgnu.org/outsources
Hemispheres Tuesdays 6pm-7pm Interviews and occasional call-in focused on international and national issues. kgnu.org/hemispheres
Alternative Radio Wednesdays 6pm-7pm Talks by and interviews with dissident writers, academics, and activists such as Noam Chomsky, Vandana Shiva, and Michael Parenti.
It’s The Economy Thursdays 6pm-7pm Discussions on various aspects of the economy. kgnu.org/itstheeconomy
W.I.N.G.S. Sundays 2:30pm-3pm Women’s International News Gathering Service. News by and about women.
Indian Voices Sundays 3pm-4pm Explores Native American issues, music, and culture. kgnu.org/indianvoices
Pasa La Voz Sundays 4:00-4:30 pm Locally produced program aimed at informing the Spanish speaking community about topics such as health and education. kgnu.org/pasalavoz
Making Contact Sundays 4:30pm-5pm News on grassroots efforts for change.
Sprouts Sundays 5pm-5:30pm Magazine of alternative news.
Colorado Chinese Radio Network Sundays 5:30PM-6PM News and Information for Chinese Immigrants. kgnu.org/chinese
All shows are archived and accessible on kgnu.org
10 | Rare Frequencies
MUSIC
KGNU’s eclectic music format covers a wide range of styles and genres. Explore our airwaves and archives to find your favorites within our programming.
FREEFORM Morning Sound Alternative Weekdays 9:30am-Noon Diverse and eclectic sounds, on the mellow side. You’ll hear everything from Ambient Electronics to Reggae to Folk. afterfm.com/morning
Afternoon Sound Alternative Weekdays Noon-3pm Diverse and eclectic sounds on the more adventurous side. Tune in for everything from Free Jazz to Hip Hop to Cumbia. afterfm.com/afternoon
The Heavy Set Tuesdays 10pm-Midnight The art of improvisation and the shape of Jazz to come. The Heavy Set features cutting edge Jazz from the past and present. afterfm.com/jazz
Seolta Gael Wednesdays 7-8pm A weekly exploration of Celtic music. afterfm.com/celtic
Musica Mundi Wednesdays 8-10pm
Sound Lab Wednesdays 10pm-Midnight
“Music of the world,” traditional international music. afterfm.com/international
Adventures in freeform from the late night lab. afterfm.com/evening
Highway 322 Thursdays 7-8pm
Sleepless Nights Daily 12-3am
Folk Music and Americana afterfm.com/folk
Combines the aesthetics of the Morning and Afternoon Sound Alternatives while leaving the door open for more extreme audio excursions. afterfm.com/latenight
Ragtime America 1st, 2nd and 4th Thursdays 8-9pm
Restless Mornings Daily 3-5:30am Anything can happen as new DJs get their chops behind the mixing board. afterfm.com/latenight
WEEKDAY SPECIALTY SHOWS The Opera Box Mondays 7-8pm The start of our Monday evening Classical and Modern Composition programming. The Opera Box focuses on contemporary and vintage Opera recordings and connecting the Colorado Opera community. afterfm.com/opera
A Classic Monday Mondays 8-10pm Classical Music. afterfm.com/classical
The Present Edge Mondays 10pm-Midnight Exploring the leading edge of contemporary Classical Music, Avant Garde, and experimental sounds. afterfm.com/moderncomposition
Kabaret Tuesdays 7-8pm Local musicians and bands play live in KGNU’s performance studio. Kabaret has been a resource for Colorado’s music talent since 1978. afterfm.com/livelocal
WEEKEND SPECIALTY SHOWS Honky Tonk Heroes Saturdays 6-9am Classic Country and new music steeped in that tradition. afterfm.com/country
Old Grass Gnu Grass Saturdays 9am-Noon Bluegrass music from the traditional to the contemporary. afterfm.com/bluegrass
Terrasonic Saturdays Noon-1pm New traditions in international sound. afterfm.com/world
Reggae Bloodlines Saturdays 1-4pm Reggae and its roots: Ska, Rock Steady, Dub, Dance Hall & more. The second longest running Reggae show in the U.S. afterfm.com/reggae
African Roots Saturdays 4-6pm The only Colorado radio show focused on the music of Africa. afterfm.com/african
The Grateful Dead Hour Saturdays 8-9pm
Ragtime Music. afterfm.com/ragtime
The only show on KGNU dedicated to a single artist, this show presents recordings of the band’s live concerts.
Dixieland Marmalade 3RD Thursdays 8-9pm
Electronic Air Saturdays 9-11pm
Non-stop Dixieland Recordings afterfm.com/dixieland
House, IDM, Breakbeat, and more. afterfm.com/electronic
Swing Shift Thursdays 9-10pm
Under the Floorboards Saturdays 11pm-Midnight
Music from the Big Band and Swing Era afterfm.com/swing
Jazz Lives Thursdays 10pm-Midnight Jazz with a focus on Traditional, Swing, and Straight-Ahead Jazz. afterfm.com/traditionaljazz
Blues Legacy Fridays 6-9pm Blues from vintage & contemporary recordings. afterfm.com/blues
Dusty Grooves Fridays 9-11pm
Obscure personally produced music & audio art. afterfm.com/diy
Gospel Chime Sundays 7-9am A weekly journey through the roots of Gospel music and its contemporary forms. kgnu.org/gospel
Roots & Branches Sundays 9am-11am Highlighting the traditions of American Folk music and the new permutations of this genre as interpreted by modern artists. kgnu.org/rootsandbranches
E-Town Sundays 11am-Noon
Classic Funk & Soul. afterfm.com/funk
Musical variety show, taped before a live audience.
Smash It Back! Fridays 11pm-Midnight
Eclipse Sundays 7-10pm
Classic Punk and other junk. afterfm.com/punk
Colorado’s longest running Hip-Hop show. Old school sounds scratched with modern flavor.kgnu.org/eclipse
¡Corriente! Tuesdays 8-10pm
Dub Palace Sundays 10pm-Midnight
This show presents the music of Latin America, from traditional to modern. afterfm.com/latin
An exploration into the past, present and future of Dub. kgnu.org/dub
All shows are archived and accessible on kgnu.org
KGNU Community Radio | 11
ROBERT MCCHESNEY
ROBERT MCCHESNEY is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of many books including Rich Media, Poor Democracy and Digital Disconnect. He is co-author with John Nichols of Dollarocracy. His work has been translated into 30 languages. He is the co-founder of Free Press, a national media reform organization. The Utne Reader listed him among its “50 visionaries who are changing the world.” Mcchesney spoke at the University of Colorado at Boulder on October 14, 2013. For a recording of the talk or complete transcript, contact: AlternativeRadio.org
First of all, let’s start with the basics. What do we mean by dollarocracy? We mean one dollar, one vote, rather than one person, one vote. Money rules, not the will of the people. This really isn’t a very complicated idea. Those with lots of money have lots of power, those with no money have no power. Most people understand this. Jimmy Carter just this summer was meeting with some visiting German dignitaries at the Carter Center in Atlanta. It was supposed to be an off-therecord meeting, but someone brought along their iPhone and it became an on-the-record meeting. Carter said to the Germans, “America has no functioning democracy.” We are off the grid. Dollarocracy has consequences. It’s not an abstract matter. Every political issue we care about, whatever it might be, whatever one’s values, goes through dollarocracy. The route to having any sort of public response to the great problems of our times is affected by, distorted by, if not destroyed by dollarocracy. What you get with dollarocracy is the most obvious problem—corruption. The most important decisions are made on behalf of those with the most money, and those decisions therefore reinforce their privileges and power. In the infamous 2010 Citizens United decision, the U.S. Supreme Court made it possible for there to be unlimited spending by business, labor, and individuals on political campaigns, as long as the spending went to a group that wasn’t formally controlled by the candidate, as long as it was a so-called third-party group. Theoretically, this decision was supposed to make it so that all the spending would
12 | Rare Frequencies
be made public, people would see it on the Internet, to prevent any thrVeat of corruption, because you could look up who was spending all the money on the campaigns. In effect, though, there’s no regulation whatsoever. Much of the money is unaccounted for. We still have no idea exactly how much is spent. We just know it was an enormous amount.
The Supreme Court’s argument basically is, if I give $25 to a candidate or you give $25 to a candidate, that’s the same as someone giving $100 million blindly to a referendum that affects their business. That’s the same principle. It doesn’t work that way at all. That’s the reality. The Supreme Court was very cynical. They don’t really care about the fact that their defense of Citizens United is chockfull of massive holes, because their job basically was to unleash corporate power. It was Lewis Powell’s project. And that’s what they have done. That’s the whole point behind it. As a result of Citizens United, spending, which had been growing dramatically in the previous 20 years, increased to over $10 billion in the 2012 election cycle—$10.3 billion in our latest count. The $10.3 billion was about twice what was spent in 2008, and 10 times what was spent a generation ago, even
allowing for inflation. This is the situation we have now. We’ve got enormous amounts of money being spent. The Supreme Court’s argument basically is, if I give $25 to a candidate or you give $25 to a candidate, that’s the same as someone giving $100 million blindly to a referendum that affects their business. That’s the same principle. It doesn’t work that way at all. The civic virtue of the citizen, whatever their political views, when they give a small amount of money to a candidate is very different from someone giving $10 million or $20 million or $30 million or $50,000 to a candidate. You’re not looking for a tax loophole, a government contract, something that’s going to affect your bottom line. As a rule, you’re looking for someone who is going to make the country a better place. You’re participating as a citizen. The rich people don’t think that way. It’s not a donation, it’s an investment. Most rich people, corporations, and wealthy interests that are spending all this money that’s unaccounted for don’t want to publicize what they’re doing. It defeats the purpose if it comes out how much they’re spending. They try to keep it as quiet as possible, keep it on the down low, don’t let a lot of folks know what’s going on. There’s another reason why more money means more bogus. It’s because we’ve seen the complete elimination of journalism as a credible force in our society in the last generation, and it’s accelerated in last few years. There’s simply no political journalism to counterbalance the money, which gives the money that much more power to define how people understand politics. Most races are just not covered at all anymore, if
you go down the ticket. Only the very top is covered. What little coverage remains—and it’s not much—tends to be punditocracy, pointless prognostication, analysis of whether someone’s spin and political advertising is
Most rich people, corporations, and wealthy interests that are spending all this money that’s unaccounted for don’t want to publicize what they’re doing. It defeats the purpose if it comes out how much they’re spending. They try to keep it as quiet as possible, keep it on the down low, don’t let a lot of folks know what’s going on. being swallowed. Pretty much worthless. This really gets to the core problem, too, of why more money equals more bogus. Where does this money go? Sixty to seventy percent of all the money in campaign spending goes for TV political advertising, and 90% of that advertising, roughly, is negative attack ads. Ninety percent. We’re spending an enormous amount of money on negative attack ads. It’s the primary form of information people get about campaigns—negative attack ads.
Those ads, by the way, negative or positive TV political ads, are illegal in Germany, illegal in Britain. Other countries don’t do that stuff. That’s considered toxic propaganda that pollutes the political culture. There it’s prohibited even on the margins. They actually have debates and parties have to communicate and you have to talk to voters, and you have real speeches. You don’t have these campaigns, these negative ad campaigns. In this country we seem to think that’s the only way you can do elections. Wrong. It’s only in this country that we think that way. One of the things to keep in mind, during our research we went back to look at the beginning of commercial TV advertising. It was instantly hated. One of the things that was striking, people instantly got that this was really dubious stuff. There used to be surveys by the ad industry of how people regarded all advertising, and political advertising was put in as one of the subsets. It started in the early 1960s, and I read these into the early 1970s. In the early 1960s, they said, Do you like political advertising, sort of like it, don’t like it, hate it? Since everyone said they don’t like it or hate it, by the end of the 1960s they didn’t even offer the option that you like it because no one was answering that one. It was that you either you hate it a lot,
KGNU Community Radio | 13
you hate it more than you could possibly imagine, you hate it so much you would like to murder people. That was of the range of debate, all along. Another thing that’s striking is that in the 1960s and early 1970s these were mostly positive ads. This is before you had many negative ads. They were inane. They would be ads like President Jimmy Carter holding up some dirt and saying, “Look at me, I’m a farmer,” that tell you nothing about anything, but they were positive. In 1972, Robert Redford made a film called The Candidate, which was a spoof of how marketing and spin had taken over election campaigns. He played a young Senate candidate. You were supposed to see the sarcasm and satire in these TV ads, which were supposed to be inane, what he was doing. But you look at those ads today, they look like the Gettysburg Address compared to anything we saw in 2012. That’s how far it’s deteriorated. The big change, of course—it has especially arisen with the third-party groups—has been the rise of negative ads, from being 5% to 10% of the ads then, to 50% by 2000, to in this last election, depending on the race, between 80% and 99% of the ads. The more competitive a race, the more negative the advertising. It’s an iron law. The only place you get positive ads is where someone has a lot of money to blow in a slam-dunk race, so there’s no point in attacking your opponent and drawing any attention to them whatsoever. The other reason why negative ads work is the nature of our election system, the two-party system. In a two-party race, if you get 49.9% of the vote, you’re out of business, you’re broke, you’re done, you’re history. So anything that gets you from 49.9 to 50.1 is worth it. You don’t have to convince everyone, just whatever it takes to get you over that hump so you have 1 more vote than the opponent. In that contest negative advertising is a proven winner. The other thing that’s depressing about it, repetition works. Ten ads is better than five, 50 is better than 10. You have to go a long time before you get negative repercussions from excessive advertising. It’s under-
14 | Rare Frequencies
standable, because there’s no journalism to counterbalance it, so there’s no other information. You’re overwhelmed by the ads. And then what flimsy journalism we have reiterates the ad points. That’s what they cover the news on. That’s because the topic of the campaign—those who spend a lot of money can dictate what gets talked about. That’s the great problem that we have. The other point, though—and this is the crucial one—is that because there is no
The average commercial TV station got 2% or 3% of its revenue from candidate TV ads in 1992. It’s been increasing since then. In 2012, the average local commercial TV station got between 25% and 40% of its total revenues from candidate ads. It’s made an incredibly lucrative industry. journalism, the focus group surveys that are done show that these ads have an effect on people. They got focus groups before the election of voters together to talk about the campaign in 2008 and 2012 and they would say to the voters, Who are you going to vote for? What do you think of the campaign? And everyone says, I hate those political ads. I’m not sure who I’m voting for, but I’m not voting for anyone who runs those ads. What moron could believe these ads? They’re horrible. That’s what everyone says—in that voice. Then they get the same people together after the election and they sit around in a group and say, Who did you vote for and who didn’t you vote for? Invariably, people, when they give the reasons why they didn’t vote for someone, almost verbatim repeat what’s in the negative ad, because that’s all they know about the candidates. Even though they say they don’t believe them, they do work. That’s why these guys spend $6 billion doing them, because they actually do work. They aren’t morons. They do get the job done.
And one last ingredient. We’ve created an institutional force that stands to oppose any reform whatsoever. It is the corporate media system, specifically local TV broadcasters. And those aren’t local ma-and-pa operations anymore, if they ever were. The companies that own our local TV stations are usually owned by about 10 companies that dominate the whole country. A few of them, like News Corporation of Rupert Murdoch or Comcast or Disney are well-known household names, some of the largest companies in the country. They’re making a fortune from selling these TV ads. The average commercial TV station got 2% or 3% of its revenue from candidate TV ads in 1992. It’s been increasing since then. In 2012, the average local commercial TV station got between 25% and 40% of its total revenues from candidate ads. It’s made an incredibly lucrative industry. The irony—no, the tragedy here, the scandal here, the shamelessness here is that these broadcasters that are making this enormous amount of money get their broadcast licenses from the government because they are theoretically supposed to serve the public interest, they’re not just out to maximize profit. That’s why they get the license for free over all other people who might want to have that license. When the Federal Communications Commission and the courts have defined what that public interest actually means tangibly, the one thing they always come up with is coverage of local elections. That’s the one thing we need local broadcasters to do: give all those races air time, give debates air time, let candidates talk, let the whole ballot talk. Enrich local democracy, that’s what they’re supposed to do. As this money has gone from 2% to 25% to 40%, we’ve seen the virtual elimination of any coverage whatsoever on commercial broadcasting of local politics. Not just the candidates but even the journalism. Simply nonexistent. They shamelessly cash in their chips, knowing the weak and feeble FCC will never force them to meet the letter or spirit of the law.
Lately, when I’m asked to talk on the topic of how America is changing, I’m speaking to entirely or mostly Anglo audiences, who bring some goodwill, some curiosity, and maybe in the back of their minds a little bit of anxiety to the event. What will the change that’s under way mean for them? What will it mean for their kids or their grandkids? How will all this change the America that they know, that they grew up
rest of America, “We are you, you are us. Our fates are intertwined, perhaps to a degree that even makes you uncomfortable. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are intertwined.” That requires a change in the way all Americans think of this country—no longer as an English thing that ended up incorporating or absorbing other cultures, but as a continent-sized country that was multicultural
THE LATINO UNITED STATES knowing? Obviously, when you’re brought to speak to a Latino cultural festival, the understanding of what’s under way is a little different. The social and cultural anxiety is hopefully a little bit lower. I’m assuming the fear of a brown planet is a little different among my listeners today. It’s like we’re saying to the rest of the country, “Welcome to the America that I already know, welcome to the America that I already know is here. Welcome to my world.”
RAY SUAREZ , a veteran journalist, was host of NPR’s Talk of the Nation. He was chief national correspondent for PBS’ NewsHour for many years. He is the host of Inside Story on Al-Jazeera America. He is the author of Latino Americans. Suarez spoke in Denver, Colorado on November 16, 2013. For a recording of the talk or complete transcript, contact AlternativeRadio.org.
A few simple propositions, number one, we’re not new, our story is older than Plymouth Rock, our story is older than Jamestown; two, a lot of us are here because you were there: invading Mexico, invading Cuba, seizing Puerto Rico, occupying Nicaragua, breaking Panama off from Colombia, and on and on and on; and, three, once a group of people, any group of people becomes a sixth of the whole, in this case more than 50 million people out of 310 million, it’s no longer a question of how and whether those people over there are making it. We’re saying to the
from day one. I don’t know about you—and there are probably slightly different shades of opinion in the audience—but I think there’s a fundamental difference in the proposition between thinking that the U.S. is solely a Brit-
“We are you, you are us. Our fates are intertwined, perhaps to a degree that even makes you uncomfortable. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are intertwined.” ish-derived place that tolerated others versus thinking of it as the result of contending cultures, multiple empires, shifting and pushing against each other, creating a civilization that is not British, is not French, is not Spanish, but contains generous portions of DNA from
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all of those things, along with the original indigenous influences. Latinos are in the same moment the newest and oldest kids on the block. Juan Ponce de León was tramping around Florida in the 16th century and made it part of the Spanish Empire for centuries to follow. Today, Spanish-speaking newcomers are inheriting Florida and revitalizing its 21st century culture. And many Floridians are very unhappy about that change. In the more than 235 years since the Declaration of Independence, an essential truth has often been overlooked by the generations who watch anxiously as new immigrants arrive by air, by sea, by land. The U.S. has constantly been transformed by immigrants and has transformed them in return. It’s a two-way deal. It always has been a two-way deal. Immigration anxiety is fueled by paying too much attention to the first part, that immigrants change America, and not enough attention to the second part, that America changes immigrants. With each successive year that they’re in the country, they become less and less a part of the place they came from and more and more a part of this place. In schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, on TV, in the armed forces, in church, in all the places that make the country what it is, breathtaking change is under way. At some point in the 2040s a slim majority of Americans will trace their ancestry to people who arrived in this country from someplace other than Europe. For the first time in centuries, people who descended from the European empires that captured the continent, people who descended from the generations of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Czarist Russia, places large and small between Dublin and Moscow will be a minority of Americans. And, yes, it’s a big deal for people in the old and new minorities alike. The oldest continuously settled city in America is not Boston, it’s not Jamestown, not Philadelphia. It’s St. Augustine, Florida. From 1565 to 1821, St. Augustine, or San Agustín, was a Spanish-speaking city. As European empires fought their wars in the New World, the Florida city lived under different flags but it was essentially a Spanish place for three centuries. The next time a tense local con-
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troversy breaks out in Florida over the use of Spanish—and it will—just take a second to recall how much longer Spanish has been at home in Florida, rooted in Florida’s sandy soil, than relative newcomer, inglés. What is now the territory of the 50 states was settled by people from the Spanish Empire long before adventurers looking to make their fortunes colonized Virginia, long before persecuted religious radicals crossed the Atlantic and landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, long before the Dutch put a part of their global trading network in what became New York, and long before French priests and fur trappers spread out through the headwaters of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes. The nation has been multicultural from the very first years after European map-makers, mathematicians and mariners jumped on ships and sailed west to get east. We’ve come a long way since those European empires stole and brought people from coastal west Africa, brought them here in chains to work, since priests asked popes to decide if Africans and Native Americans even had souls in the first place. This is true. At the time, philosophers, conquerors, colonizers appealed to the Pope to make
The U.S. has constantly been transformed by immigrants and has transformed them in return. It’s a two-way deal. It always has been a two-way deal. a decision on whether Native Americans, the people they found already settled in the western hemisphere, and whether Africans, who were being brought here to work, had souls, whether there was any obligation to try to convert them instead of enslave them. This is not a guilt trip on anybody. History isn’t good, history isn’t bad. History just is. History is what happened to get us to where we are today. And there’s an America on the way that’s going to take us all to someplace new, even as we remain deeply rooted in the history that made us.
As we embark on what’s likely to be another nasty family argument in the coming years over immigration law—who’s welcome, who’s going to come, who’s going to stay, and under what terms—take a look at the places where the sentiment is most negative, take a look at where the most outspoken members of Congress come from. This is going to be an interesting brawl. I’m not sure America has really thought this through and asked itself tough questions about the changes that are under way, the changes reflected already in the 2010 census numbers. The number came in at a surprisingly high 50.5 million. Already, just a few years later, it’s closer to 53 million, capping two decades of stunning increase in the number of Americans who trace their family history to the Spanish Empire in the New World. I want to take a few minutes to talk about the environment. In America we Latinos are largely an urban people. I don’t want to fall into the trap of sentimentalizing Latino attachment to the land and attachment to nature in a way that it’s so common to do with Native Americans. We live in this country, we live in this culture. Our deep attachment to the land, which is part of who we are, hasn’t stopped people from either side of the U.S.-Mexico border from wasting enormous amounts of energy, from coveting family vehicles that get low mileage and spew a lot of junk into the air. The recycling rates are lower in working-class and poor neighborhoods than in other neighborhoods. So I won’t give you some romantic snow job about us having some mystical connection to nature that our Anglo brothers and sisters lack. I think a lot of that is just nonsense. But the environment and our life, our very future on this earth, is something that concerns every family, and so every Latino family. But our families in a particular way, because as a community we are not rich, not yet, anyway, so we can’t build buffers and borders and fences around ourselves to separate ourselves from the consequences of our abuse of the environment. If a solid-waste transfer center gets set up, that is, a place to take all the loads in the incoming garbage trucks and put them together for the trip to the landfill, where do you think it’s going to go? Poor and working-class people are more likely to live near waste transfer stations, to live near
medical-waste incinerators. If affordable housing is going to be built near a stinky landfill or a sewage treatment plant, poor and working-class people are more likely to live there. If a highway is going to be built to connect two already existing highways, it’s our neighborhoods that end up encircled by heavy truck traffic. If an old center-city neighborhood is discovered to be right near a Superfund site because an old factory poisoned the soil and water for decades, we’re more likely to live there. Our kids have more asthma, our workers get more nerve damage from industrial chemicals. Latino families pick America’s crops from soil full of herbicides and pesticides. Our sons and husbands and fathers are sent into old buildings getting rehabbed without proper breathing equipment and skin protection to pull out the asbestos that was commonly used as a building material when these buildings were first put up, without the proper training to do asbestos removal. Because we work hard and we work cheap, and fly-by-night operators without licenses know they can get desperate men to go into these buildings and pull out the poison, to upgrade them so that upper-middle-class people can live in them. It’s going to take a while for us to get rich, but it may be quicker to organize. It’s easier right now for us to get organized than it is for us to get rich. Public-opinion researchers have found that Latino and black Americans are less likely to deny the science around global climate change than other Americans are. I think that’s interesting—less likely to deny that climate change is happening. And it may be because we are still doing the hottest, dirtiest, most dangerous jobs in a lot of this country, and it may be that we are among the people most exposed and the least able to protect ourselves with political power and the muscle that money brings from the worst impacts human beings have on the environment. So we are not natural environmentalists, perhaps, but maybe pushed into being environmentalists by the role the economy gives to us play in 21st century America. One thing in common across minority groups and among newcomers is their relative youth compared with other Americans, which means that we’re still very much on the front
end of a lot of the changes that are going on as these new communities make their impact in different sectors of our society one by one. You can see it first where? In the maternity ward. So that’s the thin edge of the wedge. Then in kindergarten classes, then eventually in middle school and high school, and then in the community colleges, and then in the work force. 2010 was the first year that more babies who trace their ancestry to Africa,
When you look at America’s Latino population . . . more than 5 1/2 million people, more people than the entire populations of Montana, Idaho, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and New Mexico combined, is under 5 years old. Think about that. Asia, and Latin America were born in the U.S. than babies whose ancestors came here from Europe. That’s the first time in centuries that that’s happened. But it’s likely to be the case every year from now on. When you look at America’s Latino population, the largest single age cohort, more than 5 1/2 million people, more people than the entire populations of Montana, Idaho, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and New Mexico combined, is under 5 years old. Think about that. Of those 53 million people, the largest age cohort under 5 years old, breaking like a wave on school systems in Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, New York, Illinois. But now not only those old familiar places, but in Arkansas. Seven hundred thousand Latinos in North Carolina, more than 800,000 in Georgia. We’re in new territory now. Immigration is not just the challenge or a social change to be endured and accommodated and adjusted to on the coasts and on the border. It’s everywhere, soaking into the American pores. And I think the ferocious
and panicky tone the debate is taking on is a sign of that reality’s deeper penetration into the American whole. Remember, the Spanish Empire started the colonization and economic exploitation of a new hemisphere earlier and more aggressively than British did. That created a massive new thing in the New World: a Spanish-speaking zone that ran from Vancouver Island in the northwest of the Americas down to what is now the southern tip of Argentina. Those territories included what is now the American Midwest, in the days when Louisiana was Spanish, down through what is now Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Texas, across to Florida, all Spanish, much of it eventually Mexican, and now all part of the U.S. So don’t be surprised when you hear a Coloradan say, like former Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, whose family has been in this state for centuries, “We didn’t come to America. America came to us.” One day in 1917 my grandparents were sitting and minding their own business, young children in rural Puerto Rico, born some years after the U.S. seizure of the island in the war with Spain, and, for their lives until then, persons of unclear and ambiguous citizenship. But the Jones Act, passed in Washington, waved a wand and made them and their descendants American citizens, whether they asked to be or not. Latinos are European, Indian, African, and all three, two out of three, one out of three. They speak Spanish with a wide variety of accents or not at all. They are rural and urban, from deserts and jungles, mountains and grasslands. This has become a fascinating time to be writing urban history, social science, ethnography, watching the interaction between immigration and the economy, immigration and the work force, especially when you try to assess the impact of this new Latino presence. It defies easy categorization. Latino immigrants come from two dozen countries. The reasons they come here have varied over time—from Cold War-based turmoil and economic calamity, to political repression, to pure opportunity search. New populations, certainly Central Americans, the largest feeder group where I live in Washington, D.C. and now in Miami as well, have had a roller-coaster ride as different U.S. admin-
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istrations and shifting political sands have given Hondurans, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans a constantly shifting set of legal hurdles, a constantly shifting set of reception to their asylum claims, depending on whether the regime that’s running San Salvador, Tegucigalpa, or Managua is a friendly one or a hostile one. These new populations are bringing striking change to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Lumberton, North Carolina, to Huntsville, Alabama, the Yakima valley of Washington state, Kalamazoo, Michigan. This population is dazzlingly diverse, including Mexican country boys waiting to be hired for a day’s landscaping work on a street corner in Brooklyn, urbane professionals sharing jokes in two or three languages in a well-appointed Miami bank office on Biscayne Boulevard. Unlike Germans, unlike Italians, unlike Norwegians or Scots or any of the big immigrant groups of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Latino presence in the U.S. is constantly assimilating and constantly renewing, many generations here and totally greenhorn, all at the same time. Social service agencies now are led often by the children of earlier immigrant flows and serve new immigrant populations. States like this one, like Florida, Texas, California, New York, are home at the same moment to large suburbanizing, increasingly English-dominant and white-collar Latino populations and poor, low-skilled, non-English-speaking populations. From outside we’re looked on as the same thing. From inside, we’re still trying to figure out what these differences mean, how you straddle them, whether and when you make common cause. It’s really easy to assume too much common interest. How do you make political common cause between a rural Dominican, newly settled in the South Bronx, and a Puerto Rican supervisor in a municipal hospital who lives in White Plains, in Westchester County, a relatively affluent community? They live just a few miles apart. They come from a place right next door to each other in the Caribbean. One has been here maybe 50 days, the other one from a family that’s been here 50 years. It’s different. Is there natural solidarity? Should we presume there’s natural solidarity between a family that pronounces its name Martinez and lives in South Chicago and came to the U.S. at the beginning of World War I fleeing the Mexican
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Revolution and the Martinez family that just moved into the Pilsen neighborhood, a portof-entry barrio in the very same city, coming to the U.S. to escape small-town poverty in the state of Durango. While Anglo Americans might consider two Cubans named Ruiz to be pretty similar to each other, one has a family that came to Ybor City in Tampa 135 years ago and might consider himself a very differ-
So when somebody blandly asserts that there will be 135 million Latinos in the country in 2040, what does it really mean? Maybe a lot. Maybe a lot less than that astounding 135 million number might lead you to think. ent American from that other Ruiz who just got to Miami from Cuba after slipping away from a baseball game or a cultural delegation in Caracas and running to the American embassy. Will the same issues appeal to, affect those very different Americans, even though some of our fellow Americans look on them as the same? In 20 years, answering all those questions will be even harder, with decades more assimilation, intermarriage, and suburbanization. So when somebody blandly asserts that there will be 135 million Latinos in the country in 2040, what does it really mean? Maybe a lot. Maybe a lot less than that astounding 135 million number might lead you to think. When I came back from living in Italy and came home to Brooklyn, I ran into a lot of Italians who consider themselves as Italian as the Italian flag. Unlike them, I spoke Italian. They knew a couple of curse words, they knew a couple of phrases that their grandparents used, some food that they served at Christmas. Really, their concept of what being Italian meant was being Italian American and living in Brooklyn. In 20 years a lot of those 135 million Latinos are going to know very little beyond
a few curse words, some refránes from their abuelas, the names of some foods that are served at holiday time, maybe the words to some aguinaldos, and not much more than that. Do we, will we consider them the same as people who were actually born somewhere else in the hemisphere or children who were raised by people who were born somewhere else in the hemisphere? This isn’t easy stuff and there’s no right answer yet. So just mull over that, and we’ll talk to each other again in 20 years. It’s important for you to be thinking about all these changes, because our country is becoming a different place, just as the world we speak to is becoming a different place. When I was in Europe earlier this year, there was a gloominess there about the future that was very easy to spot, with some of the same features as our economic problems here at home: high youth unemployment, high longterm unemployment, social welfare systems stretched to the limit. Yet the immigrant difference here in the U.S. is that when public-opinion researchers, Pew and Kaiser and Gallup, go out and talk to Latinos, they find tremendous optimism about the future for themselves and for their children, even in the midst of these last few years, where the family portfolio of Latino America shrank by two-thirds. All the wealth that we had all accumulated up until 2005 dropped by two-thirds in the next five years. Incredible. Everything that people had worked for and saved for. They had struggled to buy that first house for a family. Much of it just erased by the real estate crisis, because so much of our accumulated family portfolio nationwide was in housing, and housing dropped like a rock. As the last people to get into the market, we were hurt the most when it fell. And even in the face of all that, we’re optimistic. We’re optimistic in a way that our economic competitors around the world are not. So if other Americans are wondering about whether or not it’s a good idea to have us here, they ought to think about the dynamism, the forward-leaning nature, the real belief in the future that these people who sacrificed so much to come here and start over again bring to the table. It’s really a remarkable part of the overall story that I think gets underplayed.
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molded together. I don’t really know, at first anyway, what it’s about.
KGNU: Do you write fiction as well? ISAKOV: I do, yeah! I write short stories and
INTERVIEW
Gregory Alan Isakov G RE GORY A LA N I SAKOV
KGNU: Joining us in the studio is Gregory
is a singer and songwriter who calls Colorado home. He is no stranger to KGNU. Over the years, Gregory has generously performed live on our airwaves and once at our secret concert series under the name Yak Gives a Long Roar! - an anagram for his name. On this occasion we had an opportunity to check in with Gregory in advance of his Red Rocks collaboration with the Colorado Symphony
Alan Isakov. He had a little time to stop by and chat with us, so, welcome and thanks for coming to the studio.
You can hear this interview, including Gregory’s solo acoustic performance of Living Proof and Virginia May at afterfm.com/isakov
ISAKOV: Thanks for having me. KGNU: Talking about your writing style, I’ve heard you mention that sometimes it’s a little mysterious for you. Because for the most part, or maybe completely, your songs are not about you.
ISAKOV: Yeah, it definitely feels that way. The process of writing for me is sort of a mystery, especially when the guitar is involved. Because, I’ll scribble lines all day and they come from all of these places in my life. Maybe I notice them in other people, or feelings, or in the middle of the night, and then when the guitar becomes involved it sort of all gets
poems. You know, a lot of the songs actually for our latest record, called The Weatherman, come from a series of short stories I was writing about this woman. She lived in the desert in a trailer park by herself. She talked to herself and everyone kind of thought she was crazy, and she always had the television on in the background and it was always playing the weather. But then, the weatherman starts becoming this mysterious mythical character who starts revealing the future. At first he was just telling her the weather and what it was going to be like tomorrow. But she asks, “Well, how do you know what it’s going to be like tomorrow?” and then he starts to explain all of this stuff that’s happening and that its going to happen to her in her life. It’s something really simple, a Weatherman, it happens every day, there’s this guy on the radio that’s telling us what’s going to happen and no one cares. So I took a lot of lines from those stories that kind of made it into the record. They’re not about that story, but definitely had a lot of the themes.
KGNU: Have you put that out there at all? ISAKOV: I haven’t yet. I have a lot of unfinished poems and I also write comics – just one block – one picture comics. So I do that too on the side which is another thing that I’m really into. But I really want to put out a series of comics at some point. Which I think will be finished before my book of poems, if that ever happens.
KGNU: Well it makes sense to me that you also write in a traditional literary way, because when I get a new release from you, I have a similar feeling to when I get a book from a favorite author. Like, if there’s a new Michael Chabon book out, I know I’m going to stay up way too late with that book. For me, there’s a parallel to how you approach storytelling in your songwriting and storytelling in literature.
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ISAKOV: Well, yeah, you know, I spend a long time making recordings and I don’t even know what a good song is anymore. All I know is that if I don’t feel something when I listen to it, during the window of time that I’m not completely biased anymore, or kind of jaded – there’s a small window that I can be a listener, like a true blank page listener – and if it doesn’t make me feel something it’s gone. Even if I thought, oh that was a cool line, or this is kind of a cool song. And then I’ll have one song that’s just coming out of the blue, there’s hardly any chord changes, and that’s the one that gets me, and that’s the one that will make it. So, it is a lot like writing a book. It takes that long for me to seem to get it right.
think as artists we’re always trying to grow and not repeat ourselves, and not do the same thing. You know, with this last record that I had, I thought it was like totally… like I took a left and went to the circus. I was like, I don’t know if people are going to like this. But my friends who would stop by the house while I was mixing would react like, “Well, I’m not sure what you’re talking about Gregor, it
Practicing has always been a weird idea to me. Trying to get to a feeling has been sort of the challenge. That becomes what I’m after, and that becomes my practice.
KGNU: I think too, when I hear your work, and this is not intended to say that your style is bound in some way. But, you have a sound – which is an achievement in itself, I mean its really elusive for a lot of people to develop a certain sound.
ISAKOV: Oh, I’ve never thought about that ... yeah.
KGNU: Nick Drake, for example, you hear it and you think, oh it’s a Nick Drake song. And your material kind of has your sound built into it. On the one hand, it’s amazing to have developed that. On the other hand, do you ever feel limited by things you might want to explore because you feel like it wouldn’t be representative of your work?
ISAKOV: It’s funny, I know what you mean, and I think I’m always trying to break it. I
22 | Rare Frequencies
sounds like you, man!” But to me it was really dramatic. So,I think, as much as I want to, I don’t know how far away I can get from, I guess, my sound – for lack of a better term.
KGNU: And so, putting in different instrumentation, I read that you learned a lot of new instruments just to be able to put in the record – or things like a broom as a percussive element?
ISAKOV: Yeah, a lot of different sounds like that, and I learned pedal steel and ukelele and I love sitting in with my friends bands
that play like Punk music… I love doing other stuff like that. It kind of makes me feel like I’m looking at things from a different angle. But, I’m noticing more and more, as I’m playing more over the last few years, that my aesthetic choices are the most important part – more important than my technical skills, you know? Practicing has always been a weird idea to me. Trying to get to a feeling has been sort of the challenge. That becomes what I’m after, and that becomes my practice.
KGNU: And the instrumentation, that is obviously a deliberate choice. But, that kind of leads into your work with the Colorado Symphony. Because, the elements that a pedal steel will bring to a song versus a ukelele – I mean, these are bringing completely different elements to a song – but it’s orchestration in some way. So to add that mentality of how you approach things musically to a collaboration with the symphony, how did that evolve?
ISAKOV: It was amazing. I worked with two great composers, Tom Hagerman from Devotchka was one of them. We’d send each other ideas back and forth and he’s a brilliant musician. He totally got where I was coming from with the arrangements and how deliberate I was about space in the recordings. And I think he did a great job working a fifty person orchestra around that kind of space and bringing everything in when it really needed it. But, there’d be probably like fifty bars of music where the woodwinds are just sitting there – because you want to use as much of the orchestra as you can – but we made really aesthetic
choices around that as well. It was one of the coolest experiences that I’ve been a part of.
KGNU: And then the other side of it is that suddenly you’re playing with an orchestra. So you have it conceptually, but now you actually have to do it. How did that feel in terms of collaborating?
ISAKOV: It was super humbling, you know? Because I’m sitting in front of these world class musicians that have been so disciplined and are in one of the most prestigious symphonies that there is and I’m playing this songs in C! (laughs) You know? It felt kind of strange for me. But then by the end of the second rehearsal we were all feeling good. It was just such a cool experience to get to play with these people that I was totally enamored by. KGNU: There’s a certain precision of a symphony and a certain lack of precision of a band.
ISAKOV: Oh yeah. Totally. KGNU: So to get those two to gel, was there any difficulty initially?
ISAKOV: Yeah, it took a minute for me. Plus,
everyone is reading arrangements and scores so if I run an intro too long, that’s just a train wreck! I have to know exactly where the lyrics come in and how many bars there are – which I just don’t think about when I’m playing with the band because we just read each other. Luckily we had an amazing conductor who just got it. In a lot of ways I really connect to symphonies and their sense of time because nothing is to a metronome. The meter is this living thing that can speed up or slow down and it’s very emotional and I really connect to that when I play with the band. Because we don’t really have four on the floor very much.
of old music. We have this one song called Feed Your Horses, and when I was recording with Brandi for This Empty Northern Hemisphere we always thought it would be fun to do a kids record together or a duet record. But then I thought, maybe we should do cowboy songs instead. So, we’re trying to figure it out, but, yeah, I think we’ll be doing that in the next… little bit actually.
KGNU: Would it be like Gene Autry style material? I’m just trying to imagine it.
ISAKOV: Yeah, there’s a couple of covers, but a lot of them are original. It’s been really cool to try and write in that kind of style.
KGNU: It’s an amazing thing, these collab-
KGNU: It seems like an interesting limit to put
orations with the Colorado Symphony, and I hope we’re just at the tip of the iceberg for how cool this will continue to be. I just wanted to follow up on a future project of yours that I read about. You’re thinking about doing a record with Brandi Carlile that would be cowboy songs?
ISAKOV: It’s totally like that for me. It’s funny because I want to get weird for a second but I have to stay true to the style.
ISAKOV: I’ve been writing a lot of cowboy songs the last couple of years. Kind of in a traditional sense and really listening to a lot
on yourself. For some reason I think of Jack Kerouac and his Book of Haikus.
KGNU: Well, very cool. We’ll look forward to hearing that some time down the road. Great to have you in. Thanks for taking the time to hang out in the studio.
ISAKOV: Awesome. Thanks for having me.
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Alsarah & The Nubatones is an International music collective out of Brooklyn, New York. They came together out of a collective love for Nubian music and a genuine belief that Soul transcends all cultural and linguistic barriers. Inspired by the pentatonic scale they blend a selection of Nubian ‘songs of return’ from the 1970s-today with original material and traditional music of central Sudan. KGNU’s Joel Davis caught up with Alsarah for a wide-ranging global conversation.
KGNU: You’ve moved around quite a bit. You were born in Sudan?
ALSARAH: Yes, I was born in Sudan and left when I was eight. Then I went to Yemen and left there when I was 12 and came to Massachusetts.
KGNU: Are there a lot of musical influences from Sudan, or anyone in particular whose music has influenced you?
ALSARAH: For me, one of my biggest influences is a very modern singer. Her name is Rasha. She’s the one who really introduced me to the idea of being a Sudanese female singer that writes your own music. Because that to me, before, wasn’t really something I thought of or considered. Mostly because people down played so much of the traditional music that women wrote that it wasn’t highlighted in the forefront of my mind. But Rasha was one of the singers who really brought that home to me. The idea of taking traditional women’s music from the sphere of unsophisticated art and moving it to a place of independence, to music that could be controlled by its own creator. And then I started looking at the entire tradition of women’s music in Sudan and Sudanese music in
people there seem to be somewhat unaware of how really war torn the rest of Sudan is. But I try to go back. I went back last year to the refugee camps in the Blue Nile area because there has been a lot of tension and warfare happening there. I’m working on a soundtrack for a documentary and I was gathering field recordings out there. So they’re very aware of how bad it is, but the rest of Sudan doesn’t seem that aware of them. So, to answer your question, Sudan is war torn depending on where you are standing in the war.
KGNU: I’m also curious about your evolution as an immigrant who started studying music when you arrived in the United States at the age of twelve to being a recording artist for the Wonderwheel record label and being remixed by artists like Nickodemus or Spy from Cairo. How did that happen?
ALSARAH: Well, when I moved to the States when I was twelve, I didn’t speak English and
KGNU: How did you wind up in Massachusetts?
ALSARAH: Totally random. My Mom wanted to take us somewhere where they had a really good public education system and where she could go to University. KGNU: It’s interesting to me, since you left Sudan at such an early age that you still seem to have such a strong connection to the traditional music.
ALSARAH: I’ve always been into traditional music in general, from different parts of the world. Even when I was younger, this love affair started much earlier on. At first it was indiscriminate. I was into traditional music from anywhere in any part of the world. But then slowly my interests started to hone in to certain regions. But I also always went back – all the time! When I was in Yemen, I would be in Sudan for four months out of the year on holiday. So even though I left young there was a big going home that would happen a lot. My parents were both big Sudanese activists. So, there was always a very pro-Sudan spirit in my house. It wasn’t one of those houses that was big on assimilation. KGNU: So, your Sudanese identity remained strong even though you weren’t always living there.
ALSARAH: Absolutely. 24 || Rare RareFrequencies Frequencies
INTERVIEW
Alsarah general, and what was in it and what was not. Because it’s a very male dominated musical culture, especially recorded music. And there’s a very strong division of low brow art and high brow art with women’s music being placed firmly in the category of low brow art. So, Rasha caused me to focus on Sudanese music specifically among the many traditional types of music that were swarming around in my mind. But there are so many musicians who have influenced me. Hamza El Din… it’s a long list.
KGNU: Do you still visit Sudan? Is it still war torn or are things settling down?
ALSARAH: It depends on the region that you’re in. If you’re in the capital Khartoum, you don’t notice the war that’s been going on for a really long time – there’ve been several different wars that have come and gone. But somehow it never really hit Khartoum so the
my Mom wanted me to get involved with as many extracurricular activities as possible to help me socialize with people better. And I was already into music, I had already started this very strange hobby of collecting tapes (laughs) at that age.
KGNU: What kind of tapes? ALSARAH: Any kind of tapes! I just liked tapes. But it had to be a tape from a country I didn’t have. So my whole goal was to have a tape from every country in the world. I started doing that when I was about nine. I was in Yemen still, and I liked to go to this used book store, like a little comic book store close to my school. I would go there after school and I would buy a used book. Right next to it was a tape shop. And the guy had all original tapes and then he had, like, bootleg tapes that he would sell for really really cheap. So, I worked out a deal with him where I would go buy
these bootleg tapes for really cheap and if I didn’t like them I could return them and get another (starts laughing) bootleg tape instead! And we kind of worked out this like trade deal. And I had the same trade deal going with my little book store comic book guy, so I could return the books and take other used books instead. It was a really good barter system that I had going. So it was like my version of a public library membership!
and there I heard about this magical word – ethnomusicology. So I started searching for a university that offered classes in ethnomusicology and I found that there were only two schools that let you study that field as an undergraduate – one in UCLA and one in Wesleyan University. So I went to Wesleyan
point or the other. So we all came together and just started putting together our repertoire.
KGNU: Well, it’s interesting because it’s one of the reasons that your music has really stood out to me. Because you’re really mining that terrain of bringing the traditional in with the modern and coming up with really kind of a new tradition.
ALSARAH: Thank you. The idea of toeing the line between traditional and modern has always been an interesting thing to me. I’ve always thought, why think of traditional as this thing that needs to be preserved, or at a stand still, instead of looking at it as an ever living ever evolving thing? Why think of it as traditional with beginning period, ending period, closes off, new thing starts – you know?
KGNU: (laughing) The bartering power of a nine year old girl!
ALSARAH: Exactly! I’m kind of surprised that they all humored me, but that’s cool that they did. So, I collected tapes and when I moved to the States I joined a choir that they had. I really liked it, because it was the only class I didn’t need to speak English for and also because the choir director liked to teach songs in other languages like Italian, Latin, and since to me, not speaking English, all Latin sounds were the same, so I kicked ass in that class. I was like, you know? I can imitate anything and hence began my hobby of imitating songs in other languages. So it started there. And then my ESL teacher, her husband was a piano teacher and he offered to give me free piano lessons. Then my Mom switched me to a performing arts high school. She noticed that I was heavy into the arts and not so much the other classes. I would cut school, but I would cut school and got to the library because they had a World music section, and you know, it’s harder to punish a kid for cutting school and going to the library! So at the performing arts school I got deep into World music, they had a world music choir. My biology teacher was also a bad ass fiddler. I just stumbled into a very strange experience in Massachusetts. The more I talk about it the more I realize how lucky it was and how different it was from most childhoods. Then I joined a Summer World music camp
KGNU: Exactly, what the
and studied ethnomusicology. At the end of the four years there I decided that I didn’t want to pursue ethnomusicology as my career. Because what I learned was that it’s all about dissecting music, not about making music. So, I moved to New York to try being a perform and eventually met up with this group doing traditional music of Zanzibar and Kenya from the 40s through the 80s. That all brought me back around to the idea of fusion and tradition and where fusion and tradition intersect, and that took me back to looking at music from Sudan and central Sudan. Also, I began looking at Nubian music from south Egypt, and north Sudan. That led to me trying to start the Nubatones. So all of these musicians I had worked with on other projects started to come together. The scene in New York is really small. The people who play different instruments and play different music are not very many so we all end up knowing each other or crossing paths at one
tradition it just sits in a museum and gets dusty and you look at it through a glass or across a velvet rope? It’s not supposed to grow? It’s a living thing! The people are still alive, the cultures are growing and living in this world, and so it makes sense that the traditions should evolve.
ALSARAH: Exactly. Yes. But you know some people are just obsessed with this idea of preservation and finding something pure? Refusing to accept that there’s nothing really pure anywhere in the world no matter how remote or far away you go. People have wandered from one end of the Earth to the other. And they’ve all met each other at one point and things have seeped into each other’s traditions. And so for me, I’m much more interested in traditions that have come out of different traditional people together, you know?!? KGNU: Yes! ALSARAH: You can stay rooted and look forward!
KGNU Community Radio | 25
RAWLINGS: Exactly. But I’m glad to hear
INTERVIEW
Dave Rawlings Machine We were lucky enough to have a visit from Dave Rawlings Machine in our studios. They were in between a two night run at the Boulder Theater and had enough time in their schedule for a live studio session. “The Machine” was breaking in a new line up featuring Dave Rawlings, Gillian Welch, Willie Watson, Paul Kowert, and John Paul Jones. They spoke with KGNU’s Sam Fuqua.
it on the Reckoning album which was an acoustic album that The Grateful Dead did round about 1980 or something, and then later heard the Jesse Fuller version. So, I don’t know, it was a song that we weren’t planning to cut when we went into the studio but it got played once or twice and it sounded good, so, on it went.
KGNU: I sure love to hear you harmonize in your singing and I love good harmony singing. What does it feel like when that is all clicking in harmonized singing? Because it feels great to the listener.
KGNU: The Dave Rawlings Machine live on
RAWLINGS: It feels great to the singers! I’m
KGNU. The Machine consists of Gillian Welch, John Paul Jones, Willie Watson, Paul Kowert, and Dave Rawlings. Dave, thank you so much, and thanks to all of you for being here this morning.
lucky to be in the middle of this little semi-circle right now, and you know when you got all those tones hitting you from different sides it’s great. You know, there’s a certain kind of vibration or buzz you can get from that I don’t know how else you find it.
RAWLINGS: Well, we’re oiling it up this morning and trying to get it going for the day, so thanks for having us.
KGNU: Why Boulder? Why start your tour here?
RAWLINGS: We’ve always had good shows here. We love playing here. The amount of great acoustic music that’s come out of Boulder, and has played in Boulder, and that people go see in Boulder is something that we musicians know about. (laughs) So we tend to come here! It’s a banjo lovin’ town!
KGNU: Yes, a lot of strings in the town. The song you just played was the Monkey and the Engineer. Who’s song was that?
RAWLINGS: Jesse Fuller, I believe… a San Francisco street singer. I probably first heard
26 | Rare Frequencies
WELCH: It really does shake your whole body. JONES: It’s a harmonic massage! RAWLINGS: Yes. Exactly! KGNU: You put out a record, I think you mentioned the Monkey and the Engineer being on it, a Friend of a Friend...
RAWLINGS: Back in the early ‘60s, yeah! (laughs)
KGNU: It’s been awhile! Fans are wondering… RAWLINGS: Well, you know, there may be additional cogs and gears in the Machine coming out sometime in the future. We’ve been working on a little bit of stuff. I don’t really count my chickens…
JONES: …until they’re cooked!
that you feel some sort of anticipation in the world, you know? One never knows. But, that’s one of things, we’re really fortunate that there are little windows of time that we can all get together and play. Because, there are a lot of phone calls that are, ‘what about these seven days… what about these eight days’ – and I always feel really lucky when it works out.
KGNU: How do you pick the songs? I assume you pick the songs, Dave?
RAWLINGS: I guess? We kind of play different things at sound check and when we’re together and if something seems to work out well we try to throw it into the show. I mean, there isn’t a lot of rehearsal involved in the Machine. I think when we started up this little iteration of it, we played for a couple hours the night before the first show and then off we went. So, if you’re looking for precision there’s probably better places to get it.
KGNU: Do you still do This Land Is Your Land? I saw a clip where you do the whole song.
RAWLINGS: I do as many of the verses as I can remember, because, they’re great!
WELCH: You’ve restored a couple of the less common verses. Which people who are pretty deep inside the Woody Guthrie catalog, or know the life of that song really well, you see their eyes kind of get wide as Dave goes deeper and deeper into the less common verses. It’s a great song and every night we play it, I love doing it.
KGNU: At the Fourth of July fireworks it tends to get whittled down to a couple of verses.
RAWLINGS: It’s a song that, yeah, the meaning of it really does change as you dig a little deeper into it.
KGNU: Well thank you so much for coming. WELCH: Thanks for having us on the show. It’s so great to have local Boulder radio available. I mean, this is how it’s supposed to work. You know? You come into town, you play a show, you say hey it would be fun to play on the radio and you call your friends at the radio station, you come down you play, right?
KGNU: It’s great! It’s a beautiful thing. You can hear the entire interview and performance with the Dave Rawlings Machine at afterfm.com/daverawlingsmachine
KGNU: You guys are now a 40-piece band? ITCHY-O: That is correct. KGNU: There are several of you here in the studio. How many drummers are in Itchy-O?
ITCHY-O: Too many! (laughs) There are 8 in the
INTERVIEW
Itchy-o
drum battery, 12 with the 4 cymbal players. And then we have 5 taiko players that rotate in and out. Taiko is Japanese festival drums.
KGNU: So, costumed inter-dimensional explorers. It is kind of a weird and visceral experience checking out Itchy-O Marching Band. One of the things you do is build into this kind of what I think you call ‘hive mind’ of
of these guerrilla-style subversive marching bands. Is there any specific political agenda?
ITCHY-O: No no not at all. We like to think of ourselves as transcendental escape artists. KGNU: With this mashup of cultural references, it seems like you’re building a space and an experience for people that’s almost like a temple of sound.
ITCHY-O: Our biggest aim is for people to come away with a spiritual experience. That’s our prime agenda. KGNU: So Itchy-O Marching Band, founded 4 or 5 years ago. You’ve been expanding. When I read some early coverage of the project it talked about a 16-piece and then a 32-piece. You’re up to 40 members, is this something that’s going to continue to expand? I mean at some point you can’t really fit into a venue anymore.
ITCHY-O: Maybe we’ll have different chapters across the world and maybe we’ll play on ice. KGNU: Your new record is coming out on the Alternative Tentacles label run by Jello Biafra, known for a range of sonic experiments. You put out a debut EP back in 2011 called Inferno. What’s the direction that this record is taking you? How does this fit into the arc of Itchy-O’s development? ITCHY-O: When we recorded Inferno we had not brought in any of the taiko drums at that point. That has really launched this project and kicked it into overdrive. The mysterious inter-dimensional marching band hive known as Itchy-O paid a visit to our studios to produce a live sound scape and share tracks from their forthcoming album. The Denver band’s new release will be coming out on Alternative Tentacles later in 2014. Itchy-O’s performance art project has expanded to 40 members over the years and continues to mesmerize and intermittently terrify Denver residents. They spoke with KGNU’s Gavin Dahl.
experimentation. There’s no individual who is the face of Itchy-O. Itchy-O kind of is itself.
ITCHY-O: That is correct. We like to think of our audiences as well, organized crime. We often filter into venues from every doorway. There are people who play on stage but a vast majority of the band plays in the middle of the audience. So the divide between the stage and audience is broken. KGNU: So its sort of disorienting but also challenging the audience to become the Itchy-O Marching Band in a way. Your crowd tends to come in full regalia as well.
ITCHY-O: Yes, more and more we’re seeing our fans come dressed up. They’re either in it or not. KGNU: So Itchy-O is part of an underground
KGNU: So you’re a non-traditional marching band, no brass and adding in the taiko influence, but then vocoders, synthesizers, theremin… this definitely has a sci-fi aspect to it. More broadly you said one of the goals is to try to drive an audience to a spiritual experience. Are you from our dimension? Is this music that you’re creating from the future? Are you from some distant past? ITCHY-O: Yes. KGNU: I want folks listening on the radio to get a mental image. Your marching band uniforms feature what looks like a badge, like law enforcement around the heart, but its actually a mirror. That set me thinking about how we ascribe authority to someone with a badge and in this case you’re sort of asking us to see ourselves in that.
KGNU Community Radio | 27
Festival 2014 FESTIVAL HOST BAND
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ITCHY-O: Whoa. Pretty deep. (laughs) KGNU: You wear crazy masks as well and the theremin player here in the studio rocking this helmet that’s covered in mirrors. So it’s also a visual experience, too. You said some performers are on stage and some are in the crowd. So it’s sort of anarchy in the space as well as in the ears.
ITCHY-O: Absolutely. KGNU: When you talk about dissolving the performer and audience divide, its not like you’re going to have random ticket holders up banging on the taiko drums, but you’re challenging the notion of spectacle being this one directional experience. The energy of just a couple of you here in the studio space has been really fascinating. I have a chance to see up close what you’re doing on this gear. You have a Micro Korg over here, you have a vocoder, another synth and it looks like some handmade stuff over here with a theremin and some other really intriguing gear. I want to also ask you about the connections you have in the music world. You’ve shared stages with some big names and also have some ties to the Bay Area with Extra Action.
ITCHY-O: Yeah, we consider Extra Action our big band sister. We have some alumni in
Itchy-O that played in Extra Action and brought the marching band fever here to Denver.
KGNU: So you’ve shared stages with Devo, with Beats Antique, The Melvins, with David Byrne & St. Vincent. I can’t really come up with influences that are directly obvious. You’ve taken the marching band in this other-worldly direction. When you guys are performing together are you trying to build a now, kind of snap people out of their…
ITCHY-O: Absolutely, I think there’s something that happens that’s timeless during our shows. In terms of comparisons, I don’t know if you remember there was a band from the nineties called Crash Worship. We get compared to Crash Worship as well and Extra Action kind of spawned out of Crash Worship. I think the best comparison I’ve heard is we’re something between Crash Worship and The Residents. (laughs) KGNU: I want to thank you guys for coming in and sharing your very adventurous approach, melting your audiences into this disoriented and yet very present state. ITCHY-O: Thank you. Listen to the full interview and performance at afterfm.com/itchyo
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28 | Rare Frequencies
volunteer profiles Leland Rucker Leland Rucker, a long-time volunteer at KGNU, finds there’s a lot to like about life around the station and listening on the airwaves, such as “the interaction between the listeners and hosts.” He also “enjoys the fundraising and getting to know other volunteers, and really likes the incredible variety of music that the station plays,” continuing, “I learn something new from almost every show.” But
while variety is fun, Leland, who describes himself as an “Americana fan,” does have his favorites, such as the Sunday morning lineup: “I love…Gospel Chime, Roots and eTown, but I’m rarely bored listening to anything.”
Morning Sound Alternative. He also appears in “a five-minute news-interview segment on Thursday mornings with Maeve Conran on cannabis legalization issues,” and is involved in fund-raising for the station.
Leland originally found out about KGNU while he was working at the Colorado Daily some years ago, through one of the stories the paper did on the station. “I wanted to get involved in radio, and the community radio concept appealed to me,” he says. Leland first joined KGNU in 1987-1988, and for a couple of years did a show called At the Turntables, reviewing CDs with fellow host Gil Asakawa. After a hiatus, Leland “joined the station again in 2009, when the Roots and Branches program was created.”
Out in the wider community, Leland works at Free Speech TV and writes the Weed Between the Lines column in Boulder Weekly. Perhaps his work with other area news organizations influences Leland’s high regard for another aspect of KGNU’s programming and mission as well, for he points out he is “really appreciative of KGNU as a local news outlet, an important element that we really need here in Boulder but that we almost take too much for granted.”
Roots and Branches (Sundays from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.) is one of the KGNU music programs Leland now hosts; he coordinates the other Roots and Branches hosts as well. Additionally, listeners can catch him on the fourth Monday of each month, when he deejays the
For Cherrelle Speight aka DJ Girlfawkes, sharing music on the air is a mission of liberation. “I’m freedom fighting with my playlist, it’s the revolution on the air,” she proclaims. Her passion for playing new, independent music is not without purpose. “It’s against music that somebody tells you that you need to listen to, it’s against music that’s produced by somebody who’s going to make a million dollars off of it whether it’s good or not,” she muses.
Cherrelle Speight
This Texas transplant developed her approach at college station KTXT while attending Texas Tech in Lubbock Texas. “We were that only institution that was really supporting anything in the arts, music, everything that happened locally,” she remembers. Drawn to Denver for the weather and cycling opportunities, she has impacted the independent music scene in the three short years since her arrival. Not only has she made a name for herself as a selector on KGNU’s Afternoon Sound Alternative, Sound Lab, and Sleepless Nights, she serves
Asked if he would recommend volunteering at KGNU to others, Leland answers this way: “If you’re interested in volunteering for a good cause, learning more about how radio works and want to meet like-minded people, KGNU is a great place to be.” Explore Leland’s archives at afterfm.com/LelandRucker
as Artist Hospitality Coordinator for Denver’s annual Underground Music Showcase (UMS). Easygoing and gregarious, Cherrelle describes her duties working closely with bands at the UMS as “90% fun, 15% super stress, 20% lugging stuff around, and 5% worry.” Helping headliners Mudhoney and Cults last year was particularly rewarding for this down to earth DJ who is not unwilling to give 130%. The community and opportunities at KGNU have been instrumental in her making a life in Denver. Employment takes a backseat in her mind to her engagement with the station. “I have a day job but that’s never the first thing I tell people I do. It’s always like ‘I’m a DJ for KGNU, and I volunteer and do these other things.’ That’s what I do.” That’s liberation inspiration from a self-styled hero for the people. Explore Cherrelle’s archives at afterfm. com/DJGirlfawkes
KGNU Community Radio | 29
Irene Rodriguez
Irene Rodriguez has been at the helm of KGNU’s Early Morning News show (Mondays at 5 am) for 3 years. Irene started the show to be an additional avenue to bring underreported issues and voices to the KGNU listening audience. “The issues, people, and movements that work for change that do not have the resources to buy media time, nor the power structure in place to demand equal time in dominant, corporate, or mainstream media have a space in The Early Morning News.” Irene has mentored several producers in the Early Morning News Show including her three daughters, Cecelia Kluding Rodriguez, Elane Spivak, and Graciella Breece. Together, the Early Morning News team has travelled the world bringing back voices and stories of the oppressed and underrepresented.
Steve Miller
30 | Rare Frequencies
tion to Iran later this year. News out of these areas is difficult to access so it was important for us to experience the area, people, and culture for ourselves rather to depend on the interpretation of others for what we wanted to know.” Irene has also covered many stories in Colorado that have also been largely ignored by the main stream media. Her documentary on Los Seis of Boulder - the 6 Chicano activists who were killed in two car bombings in 1974 - was aired nationally on Sprouts. It will be rebroadcast this year to coincide with the 40th anniversaries of the activists deaths.
“We have been able to enter countries that have little accessibility such as Cuba, North Korea, and have scheduled to join a delega-
Irene and the Early Morning News team regularly cover local social justice issues. “Recently an activist told me, “When I first saw you everywhere I go, I thought you were undercover police following me. Now I know that you just cover everything that is important to me.” That comment is what keeps us going.”
Steve Miller first connected with broadcasting out of high school. He recognized immediately that he liked radio. After Steve got a degree in radio and television broadcasting in Saginaw, Michigan, he moved to Grand Rapids where he got wind of a group starting a community radio station just like KGNU. That was in the late 1970’s, about the same time KGNU was getting under way.
and I forget we only air three minutes. I forget I’m even recording. These people have dedicated their lives to this. So I really respect that in people. I think that is a really noble thing to take that much time out of your life to dedicate to a nonprofit, I mean, they are not in it for the money. They are in it to help people. That’s what I enjoy talking to people about.”
“When I discovered KGNU, I said ‘This is what those guys wanted’. They didn’t want the PBS or NPR thing. The community thing - this is what I envisioned. When we moved here after living in Los Angeles for twenty-five years, the public NPR radio stations there are huge and it just didn’t feel right. I started listening to KGNU not just the music I enjoyed but all the shows. I thought this was a really cool community and radio station. I wanted to participate.”
In addition to running a tapenade business, Steve also is a special education substitute teacher in schools primarily around Boulder. He was a teacher for years back in Los Angeles with a Masters degree in school counseling. “Some of these kids, the variety that I work with… you’re exhausted mentally and physically. Some of these autistic kids, they wear you out. It’s fun, for the most part. It’s rewarding because they recognize me even when I’m a substitute.”
For the past 3 years, Steve has been interviewing local non-profits for KGNU, including producing segments for DOT.org. Steve says the best thing about interviewing non-profits is meeting people, you normally wouldn’t meet. “I have a bad habit of recording too much because I get involved in the interview
You can hear Steve’s interviews with local non-profits regularly on KGNU’s DOT.org, which airs around 5:25 PM Mondays and Wednesdays during the afternoon news. Explore Steve’s archives at: afterfm.com/SteveMiller
volunteer list Puahau Aki Peju Alawusa Shareef Aleem Hussein Amery Christine Andersen Monica Arevalo Arleigh Carl Armon Amy Armstrong Steve Arnold Ty Arthur Tica Ashton Ewket Assefa Dan Atkinson Charles Ballas Jim Banks Wendy Bannan Joe Barger Joy Barrett Shana Barrios Michele Barrone David Barsamian Beth Bartel John Baxter Kim Baxter Chris Beaver Thomas Behler Elijah Bent donnie betts Mike Bieszad Mike Bilos Andre Blackman Dave Blackwood Roshan Bliss Nathan Bloodsworth Joscelyn Blumenthal Carolyn Bninski Janis Bohan Carol and Josh Bollinger Elizabeth Bowman Stephen Brackett Michael Bradshaw Graciela Breece-Rodriquez Melody Brinkley Dianne Brintnall Jeannie Brisson Kate Brooks Daniel Brown Dave Brown Roz Brown Skip Brown Stephanie Brown Michael Buck Ted Burnham Jennifer Calabrese Kellie Cannon Cory Campbell Duncan Campbell Ian Campbell Jim Cannon Anne Cantelow Meredith Carson Allie Cheroutes Josh Chetwynd Jim Ciarlo Robin Claire Dark Cloud Mariah Coe Brian Cockrell Bjorn Coker Joanne Cole Ryan Collins Doug Collum Brian Comerford Holly Conrad Lucila Contreras Gina Corey Jen Cornell Tom Cowing Claudia Cragg Joe Craighead Dennis Creese Steve Cser Dan Culberson Martin Dadisman Frank Dagnillo Gavin Dahl Kristen Daly Danny Daniloff Joel Davis Shakti Davis Wesley Davis Joe de Cordoba Nichole DeLorimier Marshall Demeranville III Jonny DeStefano Joe Diamo Beth Dobos Helen Dohrman
Will Donohoe Phil Dougan Mark Doyle Breanna Draxler Sharon Dryden Frank Dubofsky James Duncan Sara Duniven Shay Dunne Marcus Dupree Chuck Edelstein Joel Edelstein Daniel Edwards Robin Edwards Karl Eggert Nichole Elmore Wendy Emrich Roy England Paul Epstein Elaine Erb Gary Erb Brett Ericson Guy Errickson Brian Eyster Judy Feland Astrid Felter George Figgs Eric Figueroa Mike Finn Mary Fingland Lorraine Filomeno Tricia Fitzpatrick Ron Forthofer Mary Forthofer Sandra Fish Justin Forbes Briget Forsmark Craig Fornier Alishia Francis Glenn Francis Jennifer Frank Kathy Frazier John Fredericksmeyer Ken Fricklas Gregg Friedman Sam Fuqua Little Fyodor Michael Gage Luna Galassini John Galm Tony Gannaway Miguel Garcia Jeff Garrison Danielle Gauna Jean Gehring Doug Gertner Barry Gilbert Kathy D. Gilbert Ja’mal Gilmore Cecilia Girz Peter Glenn Dennis Glowniak Thia Gonzales Dave Gloss Roxy Goss Thea Gonzalez Chip Grandits Desiree Grandpre Rob Greene Leo Griep-Ruiz Josh Gross KC Groves Karen Gruber Christina Guo Matt Gushee Brandon Hagen Seth Haines Damon Haley Theresa Halsey Kenneth Hamblin III Erin Hamilton Karen Hammer Zachary Hancock Catherine Harley Justin Hartman Rebekah Hartman Jim Haynes Tim Helman Cameron Henderson Drew Henderson Laura Henning Leilani Rashida Henry Brian Hiatt Terry Hicks Chris Himes Holly Hirst Jeff Hlad Josh Hoelieb Emily Hogg
Virginia Holder Jeff Holland Sue Hollingshead Mike Hollingsworth Andrew Hogle Mateo Homan Dugar Hotala Len Houle Cathy Howell Dafe Hughes Josh Hukriede Sandra Hunter Terre Hurst Dewayne Jackson John Jackson Tyler Jacobson Karen Janson Jason Jeutheuser Jim Jobson Johnny Johnson Zach Johnson Adelyn Jones January Jones Michael Jones Joe Juhasz Remy Kachadourian Martin Kaegel Jim Kaferly Ross Kahn Angelica Kalika Tom Kamholz Ibrahim Kazerooni Richard Keifer Lisa Kelekolio Risë Keller Sean Kenney Elena Klaver Alan Klaverstrom Evi Klett Cecilia Kluding-Rodriquez Marcia Klump Jim Knopf Diana Korte Gene Korte Elzabieta Kosmicki Nat Kramer Kendra Krueger Michael Kruger Karl Kumli Donna Kuntzler Celeste Labadie Aaron Ladley Faye Lamb Frank Lambrick Bill Landers Blair Landers Liz Lane Daria Leverne Raymone Lee John Lehndorff Jason Leutheuser Leslie Lewis Dave Lichtenberg Robert Linder Mahlia Lindquist Robert Littlepage Brett Littrell Elizabeth Lock Terri Loconsolo Tonja Loendorf Leslie Lomas Jeffrey Lund Anne Marie Lombard Jessica Lovering Farrell Lowe Judy Lubow Jerry Maddock Lucila Maestas James Maguire Bill Mahon Jacque Major Donovan Makha Ludmila Matrosova Brigitte Mars Marcella Marschell Christine Marsh Zack Marsh Kathleen Martindale Christian Martinez Matthew Martinez Mike Massa Marta Matthews Neil McBurnett Lance McCarty Alex McCarthy-Hessel Tim McCarthy Allen McCowen Pat McCullough Louisa McGarty
KGNU could not continue without the labor and love generously donated by over 300 volunteers. We thank each and every one listed here, and all others who dedicate their time to participate in independent radio. Tim McGeary David McIntosh Dave McIntyre Amy McKnight Tone McReynolds Heather McWilliams Scott Medina Eva Mesmer Kathy Metzger Joseph Mezey Pete Miesel Skip Miller Steve Miller Mason Millhiser Mike Mills Yukari Miyamae Chris Mohr Matthew Molina Tom Moore Susan Moran Dylan Muhlberg Nancy Munson Jennifer Murnan Hannah Leigh Myers Ron Nadel Sonia Narang Chris Nathan Pat Naylis Jim Nelson Chip Nesser Jennifer O’Neill Chris O’Riley Tim O’Shea Danny Overby Angela Palermo Jeff Palmer Annie Pautsch Barbara Paris Neil Parker Joel Parker Kathy Partridge Ruth Pearson Leah Peebles William Pepple Ginger Perry Joe Pezzillo Chris Pfiefer Tom Plant Kim Poletti Lucas Polglaze Jim Pullen Curtis Powells Steve Priem Stevyn Prothero Karen Raforth Christine Ralston Suzanne Real Terry Reardon Jane Reddy Skip Reeves Julia Reid Donna Rhodes Jennifer Rice Joe Richey Jacinto Rico Frosher Riox Barry Roark Erin Roberts Tom Roberts Tony Robinson Pat Rodgers Irene Rodriguez Morgan Rogers Rett Rogers Wendy Rochman Jeff Romain Tiffany Rosengrant Brad Rosenzweig Leland Rucker Jack Rummel Jordan Rundle C. Russell Glenda Russell Steve Rush Melissa Russo Luz Saldano Sue Salinger Wesley San Rachel Sapin Susan Savage Berndt Savig Steven S-Boemeker LeAnne Schamp Stefan Schardt Miriam Schiff Shelley Schlender Greg Schultz Michael Schmidt Steve Schoo
Ursula Scribe Selena Stephanie Sere Set Adrien Seybert Jon Shaw Jaime Shuey Katharine Shuler Michael Shuster Laura Silk Jose Silva Abby Silver Lamar Sims Kenny Skinner Neil Smart Bob Smith Creighton Smith Kialah Smith Stephanie Smith Alan Sobel Elana Sobel Cherrelle Speight Elane Spivak-Rodriquez Shawna Sprowls Steve Stalzle Elle Steinfurth Laurie Stephenson Cheri Stevenson Fergus Stone Scott Stovall Veronica Straight-Lingo Juliette Strauss Norman Strizek Jamie Sudler Miz Susan Mandy Sutyak Eve Szokolai Marge Taniwaki Nancy Taddiken Adam Taylor Deb Taylor Kerry Tenfjord Brad Thacker Tim Thomas Mike Tipton Vols Toadd Gretchen Troop Tony Tucker Dan Tulenko Sondra Tutela Gretchen Tweed Jeremy Two Elk Richard Two Elk Doug Uhm T Valladeres Bonnie Vanduersen Robin Van Norman Steven Vey Garian Vigil Mark Vignali Mimi Virdi Letef Vita Sally Voyle David Vorzimer Brandon Walsh Stephen Walter Jon Walton Carolyn Wegner Jeannie Weiffenbach Farrell Weil Jennette Weisskopt James Weise Blair Weigum Louis Weisberg Courtney Welsh Wendy Welsh Roger Wendell Ray Wentz Zack Wentz Joan L. Wernick Tony White Stephen Whitehead Paul Whitens John Wiener Whitney Wilcox Dan Willging Julie Willging Rita Wold Louis Wolfe Cary Wolfson Stephen Wright Moutious Yessoufou Ricci Young Andrew Zicklin Dale Zigelsky Phranke Zygmut
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GET INVOLVED WITH KGNU! KGNU depends on the time and talents of hundreds of volunteers. We have a variety of off-air and on-air volunteer opportunities. Whether you are interested in music, public affairs or working behind the scenes, KGNU welcomes you. KGNU hosts New Volunteer Orientations every other month at both our Boulder and Denver studios. Check our website, www.kgnu.org, or call 303-449-4885 for details. We have a busy schedule of community outreach events. If you’d like to help us spread the word about KGNU, call 303-449-4885 and ask about outreach volunteer opportunities.
KGNU IN 3D! In 2001, KGNU moved into our permanent home in Boulder at 4700 Walnut. Some of our critical broadcast and production equipment is now in serious need of replacement and upgrade. We sometimes joke around here that we are “solidly in the 1990’s” with respect to technology. But it’s true—we are working with outdated equipment, some of which is no longer made and difficult to maintain. Congress has also eliminated a federal program that helped fund critical equipment upgrades for public broadcasters. To help us move fully into the 21st century and provide an amazing experience to our listener-members, we have launched a capital campaign to facilitate improvement in 3 key areas—KGNU in 3D! DIGITAL, NOT DUCT TAPE The heart of KGNU pulses from our studios. Yet, despite our best bootstrapping efforts, our studios are two decades shy of modern. It’s essential for us to upgrade security, modernize soundboards, and install a digital
32 | Rare Frequencies
The station also has many committees that perform critical functions:
> Events Committee organizes KGNU benefit events
> KGNU Board of Directors is the licensee of the station. The board meets on the second Monday of the month at 6:00 PM. Meetings alternate between our Denver studio (even-numbered months) and our Boulder studio (odd-numbered months).
> Executive Committee prepares the board meeting agendas, serves as the station Personnel Committee
> Community Advisory Board (CAB) is a group of listeners who meet to discuss the station’s policies and programming goals. The CAB meets twice a year, once in Boulder and once in Denver. Meeting dates, times and locations are announced on our website and on-air. > Budget Committee monitors the station’s budget > Development Committee supports KGNU fundraising
library in each broadcast studio. Upgrades to our membership software, website, playlist system, and training systems are also long overdue. Equipped with a modern digital studio and systems, we can leap into the present and provide a sharper, more reliable sound to KGNU listeners on any device they choose. DURABLE, DIVERSE AND INDISPENSIBLE KGNU is an essential, independent community resource. As we saw during the tragic floods of 2013, KGNU is vital in a crisis. So it’s critical that we invest in backup power generation to ensure that we can be on the air during our community’s times of need. KGNU also needs to continue to strive to leave a greener footprint, including improved weatherization and HVAC upgrades. These investments will make us greener in times of calm, and much more reliable in times of chaos when you need us most. DEPENDABLE AND DEVOTED TO OUR COMMUNITIES KGNU’s connection to our communities extends far beyond the content we broadcast. While we were born in Boulder, we’re committed to fully serving our listeners from Boulder
> InfoTech Committee supports station computing needs and website > Infrastructure Committee helps maintain and improve KGNU facilities and signals > Nominating Committee recruits, interviews and recommends new board members > Program Committee reviews station on-air programs and proposed new programs > Strategy Committee Helps oversee KGNU’s strategic Plan
More information about KGNU committees is available at kgnu.org or by calling 303-449-4885.
County to Denver and its surrounding communities. By replacing HD equipment and increasing IP connections between locations, we can better service our communities through making our Denver station into a fully operational primary broadcast studio. Greater systems independence will make it easier for Denver volunteers to host shows, engage with the station, and smoothly deliver independent content to our communities. It will also make KGNU more dependable in case we were ever to lose our ability to broadcast from Boulder due to flood or fire, for example. HOW YOU CAN HELP! In order to make these improvements, we need your help to raise $250,000. We have already had a group of dedicated supporters commit $100,000 towards the capital campaign. Please consider donating today to the capital campaign to help us raise the $150,000 we still need to raise. You can go to our campaign website, www. kgnu.org/3D, or call our station manager, at 303-449-4885 for more details on how you can give to, and fundraise for, the campaign. There are also numerous ways we want to thank you for contributing to the capital campaign; more details can also be found on our website. Your donation is tax deductible as provided by law.
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CALEXICO MATMOS KID KOALA BUDOS BAND TINARIWEN ANDREW BIRD NEGATIVLAND BAHAMAS MEN IN BURKA RALPH STANLEY
DEL MCCOURY A TRIBE CALLED RED
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ORNETTE COLEMAN FEMI KUTI PUNCH BROTHERS PAPER BIRD DJ SHADOW WOOD BROTHERS
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SEUN KUTI HAUSCHKA ARK LIFE
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