OnAir January 2023

Dear Listeners,

This (longer) issue of OnAir, which we are jokingly calling the WKCRestrospective, requires a slightly more in-depth introduction. At the beginning of my research for OnAir, I did quite a bit of talking with alumni and listeners – both of which agreed on one thing: they had no idea what’s been going on at the station since the beginning of COVID. As someone who only joined in September of 2020, postCOVID WKCR is all I’ve ever known; only through some extensive research have I been able to piece together a solid understanding of KCR’s history.

What I’ve found is that the dysfunctional bits and bobs that are integral in running the station are the same today as they were 30 years ago, and what has changed are the methods that we use to address them. The January issue of OnAir aims to shed some light on what has been going on at WKCR since the start of the pandemic, and how we’ve been able to come out on the other side of it more successful than ever. We hope that this issue gives you an inside look into the sources of technical difficulties that undeniably plague our station (and maybe even justify some of them).

You can expect some familiar articles in this issue like artist profiles (it’s Bowie-galore) and our third interview in the Senior Interview Series. However, we’re also venturing into slightly new territories this month with multiple

FEATURE PIECE

Remotely Operating: How WKCR Made It Through the Pandemic

by Maria Shaughnessy

Iwould like to introduce a new member of the KCR team: the Remote Computer.

By this point, it seems like we should have given it a more endearing name, seeing as most of our staff is intimately aware—and tired—of its ever-persistent glitchiness. Listeners will know it well, too: poor audio files? Blame the remote computer. The same African Show playing six weeks in a row? Blame the remote computer. Cereal Music never starting on time? Well… that one has been going on for a bit longer than we’ve been using this technology.

The remote computer is an old (circa 2012) desktop computer, which was hurriedly set up in the two weeks of March 2020 before Columbia officially sent all of their students home, and which was the only way WKCR was able to stay on the air during quarantine. To get slightly technical, the computer can be remotely accessed through the personal laptops of students (through a very complicated and delicate set of steps) to upload audio files of pre-recorded shows (made in software such as GarageBand or Audacity). These shows are then put into a playlist, which spans the length of one day. Each

night, a “Remote Engineer” is responsible for loading the computer with each new or archival show for the next day.

As a programmer who started at WKCR during Covid, I knew about the pre-recording process

Graphic by Madelyn Elizondo.

and creative side of producing a remote show, but it wasn’t until I joined the mysterious Remote Engineering Team that I realized just how complicated the whole system was. I spoke to Red Stein (CC ‘22) to better understand how the 2020 WKCR board dealt with the sudden change to programming that had to happen due to the pandemic.

Red, who served as WKCR’s Jazz Head from February 2020 through September 2021, Summer Manager during both 2020 and 2021, and Director of Operations from May 2021 through February 2022, was one of the few people left to run the show while WKCR’s physical doors were shut. From the beginning of our conversation, they made it clear that this was a close-to-impossible situation: “We had no other option. We weren’t allowed into the station. We thought Columbia would make an exception and obviously they didn’t.”

When it became clear that the KCR doors were going to close, a frantic preparation began. The board had no time to digitize our archival shows before the station was shut down. The remote computer, set up by the station manager at the time, Jeremiah “Son of Man” Aviles (GS ‘21), was WKCR's saving grace.

It soon became clear that the hiatus was extending past the expected two weeks. Once staff members realized they would not be able to return to in-person programming, confusion ensued. “We were freaking out trying to get a remote system in place that was very much always supposed to be a band-aid. And then once we realized that was the way it was gonna be, it was a very demoralizing time at KCR”, Red told me.

By that summer, most of the board members had left, with the exception of about half a dozen people who continued to man the station until September of 2021, when the station doors opened again. In addition to the board members that left, many of the programmers also decided to call it quits. Though programmers were understanding on the whole, the newlyfashioned remote programming method led to one overwhelming response: “That sucks, I’m gonna leave for now.”

Over time, and with the reopening of in-

person programming, KCR's staff has not only returned to pre-Covid numbers, but grown to levels not seen for a decade. The remote computer, a “band-aid” system which was originally meant to last only a few weeks, was pivotal to supporting this growth, and has now been in place for almost three years.

While there is no denying that the system is imperfect, and often a real pain to deal with, it has allowed the station to advance in ways that had previously been unthinkable. Department heads are no longer required to take every single overnight show to ensure we stay on the air 24/7, and when an alumnus is out of town, they are still able to entertain their decades-long audience, who tune in weekly just for them.

Moreover, the remote system has allowed the station to shift its priorities and grow in unprecedented directions. Without the constant burnout of department heads and mad rush to fill the schedule, we have been able to dedicate the necessary time to restructuring station leadership, creating a streamlined onboarding process for new students, expanding our presence both online and on campus, initiating new projects (like this very OnAir guide you are reading). . . I could go on and on. Our mission has always been the same: to serve the fine listeners of WKCR some of the best (and arguably worst) alternative, commercial-free music that college students have to offer. What the remote computer has done is allowed the neglected parts of ‘KCR to flourish.

Though we're almost back in the full swing of normalcy, our in-person return to the station has made it clear just how urgently we need to revamp it to keep it running not just during Covid but for the future, proud as we are to be the"home of technical difficulties." If you enjoy the work we do and want to keep us on the air (or are persisently annoyed by the ubiquitous webstream outages or our increasinglyoccurring tech mishaps), please consider making a donation to WKCR. Information on how to donate can be found on the last page of this guide. Thank you so much for your listenership!

SPORTS

Sports Return to WKCR: A Conversation

by Ted Schmiedeler

Ted: Hello to all our On Air Guide readers! My name is Ted Schmiedeler, and you may recognize me from the live sports broadcasts that have been on WKCR over the last couple months. We have a special piece today: I’m sitting down with Sports head Josh Kapilian to talk about the return of sports broadcasting to KCR. Josh, can you introduce yourself for the readers?

Josh: Hi everyone, my name is Josh Kapilian and I’m a senior in SEAS studying computer science and music. I’m librarian and Sports head here at KCR.

T: How do you feel about sports coming back to WKCR?

J: I think being able to diversify our airtime is huge. Since COVID hit, we’ve been pretty limited to exclusively music shows, with a few interspersed News & Arts shows. Being able to bring back something that is such a foundational part of KCR’s history serves both to enrich our experience as programmers and also the listener experience.

T: Definitely. As a first-year, I never knew KCR without sports, and broadcasting has gotten off the ground so quickly that it feels like it’s always been an important part of the station.

J: Yeah, it is really nice to see things get off the ground so quickly. I think that speaks to how many folks at KCR were interested and willing to put in the time and effort to get things up and running. If you just look at these first six games we’ve done, you see a good variety of backgrounds that people are coming from and the other types of shows they program at KCR, and I think that’s really exciting.

T: For sure. Josh, for readers who don’t know, what does it take to put on a sports broadcast?

J: First, there are the few weeks leading up to a broadcast when we have to identify which games work in terms of finding programmers and not preempting the same show over and over again. Sports is different from a normal show because you have people both in the studio and at the game, so it’s a much larger operation than a normal music show. Day of, we have the on-site team, which normally consists of two or three broadcasters and a field engineer, announcing the game and monitoring the equipment to make sure everything is working. Then back on campus there’s usually just one person who’s receiving the signal from the field team and interspersing station IDs, music like “Roar, Lion, Roar,” as well as coordinating with the shows

Photo by Bryan Zhang.

before and after us to make sure the transition is seamless.

T: It’s been awesome to call the games so far this year. I’m normally part of that field team that you mentioned; we set up at the field or courtside and call the plays live. One of the most important steps on my end is researching both teams before the games. I always send Josh a message a day or two in advance asking for the stats packets because those are like the sacred texts of live broadcasting. Whenever there’s a break in the action I have some stat to fall back on, and sometimes they can get pretty ridiculous. One time during a timeout I joked that the visiting UMass Lowell men’s basketball team was 1-0 on Tuesdays, so it was looking rough for Columbia. Unfortunately, I did foreshadow a Lions defeat. Another thing that I find fun is building good chemistry with the person I work with. The broadcasts really get filled with energy when both announcers are bouncing back and forth naturally, and I think we’ve done a great job with that so far this year. I love doing the play-by-play announcing, especially for women’s basketball. I sometimes do my best Mike Breen impression (“Bang!”) when someone hits a deep three. Also, shoutout to the women’s basketball team for getting top 25 poll votes for the first time in school history! So Josh, you’re part of the on-site team. I would kind of describe you as the mastermind behind the whole operation. What does that entail?

J: Yeah, so since sports broadcasting takes place in a different studio than our normal shows, the first step is to coordinate a broadcast transfer to the correct room. Then it’s a lot of coordination with the field team to take over when they need breaks, because talking for multiple hours straight is often exhausting. If the field team does need a break, I can cut away to something else: For example, we aired an archival interview with WKCR alum Gary Cohen from a few years back; other times we’ll play different renditions of “Roar, Lion, Roar.” We try to stay agile because a game could go to overtime and then we have to figure things

out with the next show. Once things are off the ground, it’s pretty easy and it’s awesome because there’s a lot of energy and excitement in the station when the broadcast comes in over the monitors. The Homecoming football game, as well as a few of the men’s basketball games, was very much down to the wire, and you really appreciate the energy from hearing everything unfold.

T: So if I’m correct, you’re working a DJ mixer in the station. Do you have a favorite station ID or sound effect from that mixer?

J: Yeah, so for context there’s a mixer from what has to be the early 2000s in the station, and it’s running on a physical hard drive that spins every time you boot it up. About a decade ago the sports department loaded up a bunch of old interviews, sound effects, as well as a bunch of station IDs said by famous personalities that I like to cut to during sports broadcasts for the fun of it. Somehow we have Samuel L. Jackson. I don’t know how that happened but I’m definitely a big fan of that one. We also have Al Bagnoli, the football coach, which was fun to use during the football games. In terms of other sound effects, we have things like the Olympic theme in there. I don’t think there’s any context in which we would use it, but it’s fun to play around with.

T: Very cool. To wrap things up, do you have any sports broadcasts that you’re especially looking forward to in the spring semester?

J: I am a huge baseball fan, so I’m very excited to be doing those games both here on campus and announcing up in the stadium. I also am excited to see more of where the women’s basketball team will go. They had an amazing run last year and it seems like they could possibly best that this year.

T: Hopefully a March Madness bid for them! Josh, thanks so much for talking with me today. Stay tuned for more WKCR sports broadcasting in the months to come!

MEET A MEMBER

An Interview With Benny Magid

by Leni Bryan

First, can you introduce yourself? What do you currently do at the station?

My name is Benjamin or “Benny” Magid. I am the Director of Operations at the station.

What do you do as Director of Operations does? How did you get into the engineering/ technical side of the station?

On paper it means I oversee the operations team, which itself consists of the Business Manager, Librarian, Archiving Head, and Head Engineer. That’s kind of in flux, meaning I oversee those four positions.

We all know you as the “tech” guy, so how did you get into engineering for the station?

So I was just a measly programmer freshman year. I came in and did my Daybreak on Thursday mornings. I kept to myself and didn’t

really know that anyone else did KCR, so when Covid hit during March of my freshman year, I kind of stopped. The only thing I really liked about programming was that I could play records, and when I was at home I was like, “Well, I can’t really play records, and don’t really need to do anything else, we’ll see what happens with the radio.” I come back the next year and before the school year even starts, I reach out to Red, our former Director of Operations. I was like, “Hey, how do I get back involved? Can I have a show?” and Red said, come meet with me, “we are in desperate need of a librarian and an engineer.” It was me and Josh Kapilian there. Josh and I looked at each other and he said he’d take librarian so I was like, “I guess I’ll take engineer.” So then I was doing a lot of the training. We had a bunch of people onboarding that spring, and the station was really busy. And so Red said, we need another Director of Operations, so that’s gonna have to be you. And so the job just sort of fell into my hands by chance. But yeah it feels like fate, it feels like where I should be.

WKCR is an (almost) completely analog station, right? Can you tell us a little bit more about what that means? Is this unique for college radio?

Even as you walk through, it’s really cool to see. We don’t use the reel-to-reels as much as we did even eight years ago. Even in the early 2010s we were still using the reel-to-reels a little bit. But seeing those around and then seeing the gigantic library shows you a little bit of the history of the station. It’s more–you could call it more established, or legitimate, or more recognized as an 81-year old station, and you

Drawing by Tanvi Krishnamurthy

can see that visibly in the analog equipment. In terms of how we actually use that, a lot of the programmers, myself included, still use vinyl records on air. Sometimes we play cassettes on air, especially for In All Languages shows. We’re still doing a lot of CDs, obviously that’s not analog but the idea is still there, and the fact that we’ve got these big, old soundboards. All of it visually alludes to the history of the place, and we try our best to respect that.

You joined WKCR before the pandemic. Can you share a bit about how the station has changed?

Partially because of the weird time slot I had pre-pandemic (5am on Thursday mornings), I didn’t know the happenings of the station. But I really feel like organizationally, each department functioned as its own selfsustaining organism. The executive board was the only board, so that was the end-all-beall. We’ve expanded the board to have more positions, which also benefits and helps out the operations department. In general, it’s a much more integrated experience now. You’re going to be interacting with people outside of your immediate department or immediate show. It’s really streamlined, the onboarding process, and we’ve developed a better sense of community here. So that’s one way it’s changed. And then the most obvious way it’s changed is that we have the remote computer now, which means that the day-to-day life of a department head is very different. The job is a lot less stressful. The day-to-day is less stressful. I mean, the New Music head had to make sure someone was staffed every night for Transfigured (1-5am). That is insane. Jazz head was notoriously difficult because there is so much jazz throughout the week, and someone has to be on for every single one of those shows, including Daybreaks at 5am. The department head had to do the shows if no one else could, so it was in their best interest to have someone else fill it. But yeah that was the reality of the station, I don’t think it was because people wanted each department to be separate, but that’s just how it had to be because there was

so much work for each department head. There wasn’t the amount of breathing room that department heads have now, and that the E-board has now, which allows us to work on different projects.

Has the general body of programmers grown? I’d say [now] we are about where we were in terms of number of active members prepandemic. It’s tough today because we’ve never kept good records on it, but as far as I can tell, that’s where we seem to be. But that’s still a feat considering we were at—call it a dozen if you are generous—a dozen people actively present at the station during the pandemic, so that’s a 10x growth.

You are graduating! What are you going to miss about the station?

Oh my god! You know, Columbia is a somewhat small undergrad population, depending what you consider as undergrad population, but it’s still relatively small. Despite that, you’ve still got so many grad students, so much bureaucratic administration that it doesn’t feel like a small school. I needed a place like KCR these past two years to feel like I’ve got a physical place, and to feel like I’ve got people. You know, I’ve got my friends, but I had my entire sophomore year and the last half of my freshman year at home. And so I think the people here have a space to be together, to share interests and craziness, that’s something I’m really going to miss. I’m going off into the corporate world, and I’ve got a taste of that and I know people are not as weird as we are. You can’t just take a handful of corporate people and expect that they are going to be as fun as KCR people, so yeah, I’m really going to miss that. The fact that I can come here and call it my own space that I can share with people. I can still, hopefully, come in and do a Daybreak as an alum, but it’s different. I’m not going to be actively seeing the same people. It’s going to be a different involvement, and that’s not something I’m going to be able to get back once I’m out of school. The records will always be here, so that part I won’t have to miss.

NEW MUSIC

Bowie and Glass: Back from the Brink

by Sam Seliger

In 1976, David Bowie was on the brink. Deeply alienated by the rock-star life in a foreign country, he was seriously hooked on cocaine and almost completely out of touch with reality. His six-foot frame was weathered down to a mere 90 pounds from subsisting entirely on white milk, white powder, and red bell peppers.

So he went back to Europe, spending the summer at a French chateau working on Iggy Pop’s album The Idiot before going to West Berlin, the city that would become his home base for the rest of the decade, and working on an album of his own, inspired by that city’s burgeoning experimental rock scene. Such a course of action was not necessarily the most logical way for Bowie to put his life back together—decamping to a French chateau and/ or embedding oneself in a underground art scene are typically ways that rock musicians nurture drug habits, not kick them—but it not only worked, it opened a period of unequaled creativity and inspiration.

Bowie had always made uniquely ambitious and complex pop-rock music. Even his biggest hits were compositionally intricate, with far

more chords than the typical rock songs, not reliably beholden to the genre’s norms of chordal motion, and with uniquely complicated melodies that, even at their most direct (as on 1970’s Hunky Dory) were unpredictable and hard to sing. He made a kind of high-concept progressive rock that listeners could actually wrap their heads around, using the same musical building blocks as most other pop music to build something less predictable and with more pieces.

Low, the first album of Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy, has a different sound than everything that he had done before it, reflecting the growing influence of Krautrock

and the input of new collaborator Brian Eno. The entire album sounds foreign and alien, from the synthesizer and keyboard sounds not intended to much resemble any instrument at all, to the drums run through early pitch-shifting equipment (creating a piercing and artificial sound that resembles a drum machine), to the wordless voice and synthesizer chants that comprise the album’s second side. Bowie’s label initially refused to release the album, and even the more discerning critics were not particularly fond of it, yet it sold about as well

as its predecessors and the singles did well.

At the micro level, the songs were well outside the bounds of mainstream commercial music: the instruments were unrecognizable, bathed in strange effects and often turning up in strange places, with guitars often taking over secondary melodies while the chords merely echoed in the background. Yet at the macro level, they are actually quite accommodating. The compositions on Low and throughout the Berlin trilogy, particularly the second album Heroes (among Bowie’s crowning achievements), are far simpler than his previous output. They reliably maintain tonality, with melodies that are leagues more direct than anything else in his catalog at that point. Many of the songs are two-chord romps, rolling back and forth between the tonic and subdominant for fiveminutes or so. Bowie’s lyrics, which had gotten progressively more esoteric and obtuse as the decade wore on (barring several episodes from the disappointing Diamond Dogs and Young Americans), were suddenly concise, and often quite direct. Even on the instrumental tracks, the music was easy to listen to, and put the earfriendly melodies at the forefront.

At the same time, Philip Glass was working on a career-defining trilogy of his own. As a rising figure in the New York experimental music scene, Glass, along with his contemporary Steve Reich, had pioneered a new approach in the Western art music tradition. With tonality fully obliterated and melody and harmony short on uncharted territory, they explored the nuances of rhythm and texture through repetition, phase shifting, and other experimental angles. A decade in, Glass had his star turn of sorts with the 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach, a tangle of abstract tableaus, poetry, repeated numbers and solfege syllables, little in the way of actual lyrics, and no plot. Artistically groundbreaking, the work was a critical and conceptual triumph, and although it was not particularly popular, it did have a level of musical consonance and direct melodicism that audiences could grab on to,

atypical of the avant-garde.

Glass followed Einstein on the Beach with two more semi-biographical operas: Satyagraha, about Mahatma Gandhi, in 1979; and Akhnaten, about the titular Egyptian Pharaoh, in 1983. Although all three maintained Glass’s signature focus on repetition and texture, they were increasingly approachable, with Akhnaten having something of a legible plot, as well as legitimately memorable and melodic arias. He was a composer of the avant-garde, to be sure, but not beyond the scope of contemporary popular music. He signed a recording contract with a major label in 1982, and his first album, Glassworks, which was expressly composed as a chamber work for popular audiences, sold quite well.

In 1992, after years insisting against joining the canon of classical symphonic composers, Glass finally capitulated to his friend, conductor Dennis Russell Davies. For inspiration, he turned to a surprising source: David Bowie’s Low. It wasn’t the first musical encounter between the two: a young Bowie, along with Brian Eno, had attended Glass’s UK debut in 1971. It wasn’t even their second musical encounter: Bowie had been a featured guest artist in John Cale’s set at WKCR’s 1979 Carnegie Hall benefit concert, at which Glass was the headlining act.

Beyond merely using the album as spiritual inspiration for his debut symphony, Glass actually used the album’s musical material. The boundary-collapsing intention was obvious: if he was going to bring his work into the symphony hall, he would be taking his less classicallyoriented peers from the underground scene with him. The “Low Symphony” took many of Glass’s standard musical tools—repeated arpeggios, gradually-building arrangements, and less-than-traditional orchestration, but the three instrumental tracks from which the material is sourced (each corresponding to a movement) are undeniably recognizable. Given the simplicity of the source material and the familiarity of the orchestral setting, Symphony

No. 1 - Low is surprisingly approachable for a work rooted in the avant-garde. More symphonies followed, and Glass eventually finished his Bowie trilogy with Symphony No. 4 - Heroes in 1996 and Symphony No. 12 - Lodger in 2019.

At this point in his career, Glass was in the midst of a turn not unlike the one that Bowie went through during and after his Berlin period. He had for years been on the cutting edge of the visible avant-garde. Frequently acknowledged (and at times praised) by critics, Glass had enough prominence to engage with the major gatekeepers of the Western Classical Music tradition, yet he had largely refused, preferring collaboration with rock stars and soundtracking popular experimental films to buttoning up for the concert hall.

Yet Glass’s life was changing, as was his catalog. Throughout the previous era of his career, he had increasingly become interested in spiritualism and East Asian religious practices. He was reaching middle age as he entered the third decade of his career. His previous works had begun to reveal an affinity for the classical canon.

Glass’s decision to betray his antiestablishment stance didn’t lead to overnight popular success or acceptance—his first symphonies were not performed by major orchestras, but that would come with time. The works themselves were ready-made for appreciation by a large-scale audience. Much as Bowie had with his original triptych, all three Berlin symphonies take Glass’s avantgarde building blocks and combine them into a digestible product.

Bowie's original trilogy continued his run of solid, but not superstar, sales; however, much of the post-punk music it inspired quickly began to surpass it in the market. And as a result, Bowie began to walk back from the brink, giving more overt musical expression to a process that he had been experiencing since his initial move to Berlin, building a new life of greater stability. By the mid-1980s, he had become a major pop star on the back of collaborations with Nile Rodgers and Mick

Jagger.

Glass was making a somewhat similar decision as he began to reinterpret Bowie's work, moving gradually from the most visible figure of the avant-garde to a figure of the mainstream. Like Bowie, Glass’s work was widely inspirational and widely aped. His style of broad composition within tonal constrains became the soundtrack for any corporate audiovisual content cynically aspiring to any level of sophistication or positivity, and the textural approach to composition has remained popular and substantive among the avant-garde. While his first symphonies were premiered by smaller ensembles, the Lodger symphony was premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

With the Berlin Trilog(ies), Glass and Bowie began the process of reconfiguring their avantgarde approaches into mode approachable material in the most uncompromising way possible. This was pop music, not in the sense of the genre that ABBA and Britney Spears perform, but in the sense of populist music, music made for the masses, even if such mass recognition wouldn’t come until later.

They both go back from the brink of the self-destructive avant-garde to make something modern and populist— and maybe even (gasp!) popular—that uses forward-thinking, non-traditional pieces to build something that can not only be enjoyed on a large scale, but broaden people’s horizons. A closed-minded avant-gardist might accuse them of selling out, but that would miss the point. Populism can be easily degraded and used for profit and malice (something that we are very familiar with today), erasing the more noble elements. Works like the Berlin Trilogies are unique in this regard, as they maintain sophistication and artistic ambition but aspire to a broad appeal. As Bowie and Glass walked back from the brink, they landed in a unique space, in which these avant-garde elements could be used to construct populist art.

FEATURE PIECE

Summer at the Station

by Ale Díaz-Pizarro, Student Life Director

For the summer, most college radio stations pack up along with the students who run them, either closing down until the start of the fall semester or kept barely afloat by a meager summer staff or by automation.

But WKCR has never been like most college radio stations, and this is certainly not the exception. In fact, summer at the station is often its most productive time.

That was certainly not what I expected when, as Student Life Director, I joined the WKCR Executive Board in February 2022. Though I later learned that there was a summer component to the job, I expected it to be a passive commitment, a ‘life support’-style engagement that was the minimum needed to keep the station running during the four months Columbia students were off for break. Instead, as Station Manager Schuyler Rabbin-Birnbaum (CC ‘23) puts it, “the summer period gave all of us on the board a great opportunity to put our best foot forward for the coming semester.”

The WKCR E-Board is comprised of the Station Manager, the Program Director, the Director of Operations, the Student Life Director, and the Publicity Director. Together, the five members oversee all aspects of WKCR’s daily operations, from programming choices to administrative decisions to the onboarding and training processes for new Columbia

students interested in joining the station. Though all E-Board members begin their yearlong tenure in February, the changing-of-theguard occurs right as the busy semester picks up, making summer “an incredibly valuable time for WKCR’s leadership to step back and make higher-level goals for the year to come,” in the words of Director of Operations Benny Magid (CC ‘23).

This was especially important in the summer of 2022. WKCR had not had its full roster of summer staffing since before the pandemic, depriving it of two crucial summers of planning and reorganization. 2020-21 had been about mere survival via remote programming, and the focus of the 2021-22 school year was simply to bring the station back to life by returning to live staffing. Fall 2022 would be the first chance

From left to right: Recruitment Director Andy Wang (CC '24), Director of Operations Benny Magid (CC '23), Station Manager Schuyler Rabbin-Birnbaum (CC '23), Student Life Director Ale Díaz-Pizarro (CC '25), Budget Manager Olivia Mitchell (BC '23), and Classical Department Head Maria Shaughnessy (BC '24) during the Activities Fair, one of the recruitment events planned-for during the summer.

Photo by Publicity Director Jacob Grayzel.

in two years that the station, now back on its feet, would get to start building instead of just reconstructing. “As we entered our first full year post-Covid,” describes Benny, “we laid some essential groundwork for new policies, recruiting procedures, and live programming.”

Over the sixteen weeks we were on duty, the E-Board worked closely with Director of Broadcasting and Operations (and Columbia liaison) Philip Masciantonio, who took inventory of everything that had to be done around the station and guided us through each phase. During the first phase, lasting about four weeks, E-Board members got a thorough course in FCC regulations and copyright law, preparing to devise a new mission, vision, & values statement that aligned with the station’s purpose, its history, and our new goals for it.

MISSION

WKCR exists to preserve and share music, the arts, and history with listeners in the New York metro area, curating content (both musical and spoken) with an eye to historical and artistic value regardless of commercial significance.

VISION

WKCR will continue the pursuit of artistic exploration that is mindful of historical precedent. We will maintain communityloved programming while giving a platform for critical radio segments that engage with the current musical, artistic, and journalistic landscape.

VALUES

access · preservation · exploration consistency · passion

With the new mission statement at the helm, it was full steam ahead for the following twelve weeks, as the E-Board hammered out new station policies that had fallen by the wayside

during Covid, developed a plan (and a palette) for WKCR’s social media presence, and—in a move long awaited—finally managed to bring back alumni programmers, a step that Schuyler deems as “really [going] a long way in getting KCR back to full strength."

Two of the most crucial building blocks to realize WKCR’s vision were laid during the summer. The first was the coordination of our scheduling changes (see p. 18-19): at the crossroads of Phil Schaap’s passing in September 2021 and the return to full live programming, the station faced the need to rethink and revamp its schedule. Several weeks of deliberation yielded a weekly schedule that both preserved the storied shows of KCR while offering new room for programmers to experiment, providing a necessary balance of novelty and tradition. These changes were not undertaken lightly: we knew to expect pushback, so we made sure that the new elasticity (without which an educational station cannot grow) did not infringe on the storied shows that have made KCR a staple of New York radio.

In studio, the second cornerstone for the year ahead was the refinement of recruitment & onboarding procedures. In the first full year back, we expected an influx of new programmers, and we made all the

Director of Operations Benny Magid (CC '23) MCing WKCR's Fall Welcome Concert, planned during the summer and in conjunction with Undergraduate Student Life. Photo by Jacob Grayzel.

preparations to welcome them. These included segmenting the options open to new members into programmers, engineers, librarians, and publicity team members, coming up with a pathway for each that did not necessarily include a licensing exam. We also reformed said exam and added an FCC Licensing Tutorial, created intern and member rosters, crafted all onboarding materials, and set dates for events such as the club fair, our general interest meeting, our welcome ‘WKCRBQ,’ and our bonding-focused record store crawl. No one appreciated these preparations more than I did: as Student Life Director, I oversee training for all new members, which often has me juggling schedules for over fifty people every week—a process that was streamlined thanks to our summer work, and which ensured no potential WKCR member fell through the cracks.

This was a pattern across all summer achievements: the work undertaken during these sixteen weeks allowed us to run at full efficiency once the year started in earnest, the brunt of the work having been done already. As Program Director Sam Seliger (CC ‘24) explains it, “the momentum that we built and maintained was absolutely crucial for WKCR becoming so robust in the past four months, and our work finally set us on a course for our long-term future.”

But logistics aside, and no less importantly, the summer period afforded the E-Board the vital opportunity to come together. “Since the station’s board is mostly isolated from its general body during the summer,” explains Publicity Director Jacob Grayzel (CC ‘23), “we were really compelled to rely on each other’s potentials and collaborate with one another.” When you are one of five people tasked with keeping WKCR running for the summer, meeting at least weekly and running frequently into each other in the studio, you develop a rapport with your four colleagues that is already rock-solid by the time the semester kicks in.

The summer functions as a sort of trial period that ‘greases’ the E-Board to work well together, ensuring all five enter the year working as a unit, familiar with each other’s perspectives, ways of working, strengths, weaknesses, and interests. That makes all the difference: only a strong E-Board can spearhead the changes and developments WKCR needs, and provide the leadership required to get the station there. And with sixteen weeks’ worth of planning, the path is already laid out. With a semester of hindsight, Jacob puts it best: “the summer session is when the station leadership defines their legacy, the school year is when they execute it.” I’m sure I speak for all five of us when I say how proud I am of the work we’ve done at WKCR this semester and how it’s both restored the soul of and breathed new life into the station we all love. As we enter the penultimate month of our time as E-Board, I’m also certain I speak for us all when I say it’s been an absolute honor to steer the station through this time, and what a pleasure it’s been to serve as part of your 2022 E-Board.

If you value the work we do during summer sessions and would like to support us in continuing them, please consider making a donation to WKCR. Information on how to donate can be found on the last page of this guide. Thank you so much for your listenership!

Business Manager Olivia Mitchell (BC '23), Student Life Director Ale DíazPizarro (CC '25), and Station Manager Schuyler Rabbin-Birnbaum (CC '23) manning the table during the WKCR Fall Welcome Concert.

Photo by Jacob Grayzel.

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2022 Programming

Part of the 2022 WKCR Executive Board's summer tasks (see p. 13-15) included rethinking and reworking grammer interest and expertise. Between February and December 2022, six new shows were added to blends tradition and innovation, keeping WKCR as both the home of old classics and the nest for new

DEP'T CHANGE REPLACING

Extended Technique

Wednesdays & Thursdays 3-6 pm

News & Arts

IAL

American/ Latin

Monday Morningside

Mondays 8:30-9:30 am

Expanded Sunday Night

Back in the USSR 11 pm-12 am Celtic Show 12-1 am CUT 1-3 am

Reconfigured Sunday AM

Notes from Underground 12:30-2 am El Sonido de la Calle 2-4 am (Alternating)

New Music

Classical/ New Music Jazz/ Latin Jazz/ Stationwide

Workaround Fridays 9-10 pm

Afternoon New Music Wednesdays 3-6 pm Afternoon Classical Thursdays 3-6 pm

Providing contemporary allows

Birdflight Mondays 8:20-9:30 am Our community student interest

Alternating Balkan/Celtic 11 pm-12:30 am Coordinated Universal Time 12:30-2 am

Notes from Underground 12:30-2 am Jazz Till Dawn 2-6 am

Allows oriented

Allows and introduce language

Previously Wednesdays at the same time. Becomes schedules.

Sin Fronteras

Wednesdays 12-3 pm

Phil Lives Mondays 3-5 am

Sunday Profiles Sundays 2-7 pm

Out to Lunch Wednesdays 12-3 pm

Wednesday success listeners, Jazz

Monday Mornings in Mono Mondays 2-5 am Offers the continued

Jazz Profiles Sundays 2-7 pm IAL/Jazz Profiles Sundays 2-4/4-7 pm

Expands diversifying

Programming Changes

reworking the weekly schedule, a process that occurs every few years as the music landscape shifts along with proto the weekly schedule and five reworked. In line with WKCR's 2022 vision (see p. 14), the resulting schedule new sounds.

RATIONALE

Providing different benefits for each department, Extended Technique aims to cement a place for contemporary classical music in radio and to push the boundaries of what is considered Classical. It also allows for our ever-growing contemporary collection to be frequently used.

community can be served well by a beginning of the week news show, and gives a platform for our student news programmers to program in the morning hours. A lot of student programmers have expressed interest in programming a short form news show.

Allows each dedicated regional show to have weekly airtime, allowing listeners to hear specific communityoriented programming more frequently.

Allows WKCR to continue its history of supporting and promoting burgeoning underground music communities introduce a focus on contemporary latin hip-hop, making the program analogous to the typically Englishlanguage Notes from Underground.

Becomes a student-only live DJ set on Friday nights to better accommodate student DJs' weekday evening schedules.

Wednesday OTL will become Latin Jazz show Sin Fronteras, our second interdepartmental show following the success of Extended Technique, to represent the vast body of Latin Jazz in our collection and in interest to our listeners, especially of the Latino community.

Offers a dedicated Schaap archival to preserve WKCR's invaluable Schaap heritage and to provide loyal listeners continued opportunity to listen to his shows.

Expands breadth of jazz catalog, and allows other departments to coprogram more of the schedule, diversifying our program offerings.

Show Listings

Afternoon Classical, Fri. 3-6pm.

JAZZ

Daybreak Express, weekdays 5-8:20am

Out to Lunch, weekdays 3-6pm

Jazz Alternatives, weekdays 6-9pm

These three programs comprise the core of our jazz offerings. Programming consists of everything from New Orleans jazz, jazz age, swing era, bebop, hard-bop, modal, free, and avant-garde. In short, you’ll encounter the entire range of recorded jazz on these programs. Hosts rotate from day-to-day, offering an exciting variety of approaches, some of which include thematic presentation, artist interviews, or artist profiles

Birdflight, Tues.-Fri. 8:20-9:30am

Archival programs from the late Phil Schaap, one of the world’s leading jazz historians, who hosted this daily forum for the music of Charlie Parker for about 40 years.

Traditions in Swing, Sat. 6-9pm

Archival programs hosted by the late Phil Schaap, this award-winning Saturday night staple presents focused thematic programs dealing with jazz up until about World War II. Schaap presents the music, much of it incredibly rare, from the best sound source, which is often the original 78 issue.

Phil Lives*, Mon. 3-5am

This overnight show features archival broadcasts of longform programs from late NEA Jazz Master Phil Schaap.

CLASSICAL

Cereal Music, Mon.-Thurs. 9:30am-12pm

An entirely open-ended classical show to start your weekdays. Tune in to hear the most eclectic mix of classical music on the New York airwaves!

The Early Music Show, Fri. 9:30am-12pm

Dedicated primarily to European medieval, Renaissance, and baroque music, all from before 1800 (plus or minus 50 years).

Extended Technique*, Wed. & Thurs. 3-6pm

WKCR’s first interdepartmental show (in the New Music and Classical departments) dedicated to contemporary classical music. You’ll hear everything from 12-tone and minimalist compositions to film and video game scores, and all things in between.

* Indicates show was created after January 2022

Similar to cereal music, most of afternoon classical has no restrictions on what type of classical music to play. The last hour of the show, however, is dedicated fully to the music of JS Bach.

Saturday Night at the Opera, Sat. 9pm-12:30am.

One of NYC’s longest running opera shows, Saturday Night at the Opera is a 3.5 hour show that allows operas to be played in their entirety, with room for commentary, descriptions, and some history.

NEW MUSIC

Afternoon New Music, Mon. & Tues. 3-6pm

Our daytime new music program features a wide variety of music that challenges boundaries and subverts categorizations. Shows include everything from seminal new music compositions to the most challenging of obscure deep cuts and new releases.

Transfigured Night, Tues./Thurs./Sat. 1-5am

Our overnight explorations into the world of new music, Transfigured Night rewards our late night listeners with a wide range of sounds and experimental music.

Workaround*, Fri. 9-10pm

WKCR presents Live DJ sets from Columbia students and local artists.

Live Constructions, Sun. 10-11pm

This weekly program features a live in-studio performance or a performance pre-recorded specially for the show.

AMERICAN

Honky Tonkin’, Tues. 10-11pm

One of WKCR’s longest-running American music programs, Honky Tonkin’ lands in the harder side of Country music. Emphasizing the greatest voices in the genre, Honky Tonkin’ is a country music dance party every Tuesday night.

Tuesday’s Just as Bad, Tues. 11pm - Wed. 1am Tuesday’s Just as bad explores the world of blues prior to World War II. Shows weave their way through the first decades of recorded music history and turn to the postwar years in the final half hour.

LISTINGS FOR LISTENERS

Night Train, Wed. 1-5am

All aboard! One of our two overnight programs in the American department, Night Train rolls through the post-war R&B and soul tradition, from the genre’s emergence in the 1940’s and 50’s through the funk revolution in the 1970’s. Shows often feature extended live recordings and concerts.

Offbeat, Fri. 1-5am

Offbeat is committed to broadcasting undiscovered new hip hop music. Shows typically focus on exposing underplayed or up-and-coming new artists, including experimental instrumental artists not typically played on mainstream hip hop radio.

Across 110th Street, Sat. 12-2pm

Kicking off our Saturday afternoon American music run, Across 110th Street airs soul, funk, and dance music from the 1960’s through the 1980’s and 90’s.

Something Inside of Me, Sat. 2-4pm

Something Inside of Me is WKCR’s Saturday afternoon blues show, focusing mostly on the electric and post-war styles.

Hobo’s Lullaby, Sat. 4-6pm

Rooted in the folk revival of the 1950s and 60s, Hobo’s Lullaby airs American folk and traditional music styles from the early 20th century through the present day. From old staples like Leadbelly, Elizabeth Cotton, and Woody Guthrie to contemporary stalwarts like the Carolina Chocolate Drops and lesser known artists, domestic traditions are alive and well on Hobo’s Lullaby.

Notes from the Underground, Sun. 12:30-2am

Notes from the Underground showcases contemporary hip hop and rap music with an emphasis on emerging and experimental artists. The program also hosts local and visiting artists for interviews, freestyles, and guestcuration.

Amazing Grace, Sun. 8-10am

Greeting listeners on Sunday morning, Amazing Grace shares with listeners the world of the African-American gospel tradition.

The Moonshine Show, Sun. 10am-12pm

On the air for nearly 60 years, The Moonshine Show showcases the American Bluegrass tradition, from the earliest roots in vernacular string-band music, through

* indicates show was created after January 2022

the genre’s pioneers in the 1940s and 50s and advancements in the 60s and 70s, through the leading innovators and stars of today.

The Tennessee Border Show, Sun. 12-2pm One third of WKCR’s country music programming, along with Honky Tonkin’ and the Bluegrass Moonshine Show, Tennessee Border highlights the singer-songwriter tradition, from Hank Williams and Townes Van Zandt to Lucinda Williams.

LATIN

Caribe Latino, Mon. 10pm-12am Caribe Latino is a music program that features the diverse, upbeat music from numerous Latin communities in the Caribbean. Popular Latin rhythms such as Salsa, Merengue, Bachata and Latin Jazz take center stage throughout the program.

Urbano Latinx, Tues. 12-1am A weekly Latin show airing contemporary sounds from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the diaspora, Urbano Latinx features mixes of salsa, merengue, Latin punk rock, and more.

Sin Fronteras*, Wed. 12-3pm Falling in the space of Out to Lunch on Wednesday afternoons, Sin Fronteras explores the tremendous Latin Jazz tradition.

Nueva Canción, Wed. 10-11pm Nueva Canción is an exploration of protest music created throughout Latin America during the 60s and 70s and its numerous other manifestations throughout other countries and time periods.

Som do Brasil, Wed. 11pm - Thurs. 1am From samba and bossa nova to MPB, hear the numerous and enchanting sounds and rhythms of Brazil.

Sonidos Colombianos, Fri. 10-11pm

Sonidos Colombianos presents music from one of the most culturally diverse countries of Latin America: Colombia! Our bilingual musical tour is guaranteed to include not only cumbia, but also the guitar-based bambuco from the Andean region, the harp llanero music from the Eastern Plains, the marimba-infused currulao from the Pacific Region, and the accordiondriven vallenato of the North Atlantic Coast.

LISTINGS FOR LISTENERS

The Mambo Machine, Fri. 11pm - Sat. 2am

The Mambo Machine is the longest running salsa show in New York City. The program presently plays a wide spectrum of Afro-Latin rhythms, combining new and old into an exciting, danceable mix.

El Sonido de la Calle*, Sun. 2-4am

A companion show to Saturday night’s American Notes from Underground, El Sonido de la Calle highlights the diverse world of contemporary Spanish-language hiphop and dance music.

IN ALL LANGUAGES

Seachran: The Celtic Show, Mon. 12-1am

Seachran features music from across the island of Ireland throughout the era of recorded music, particularly focusing on traditional folk and vernacular music forms.

Coordinated Universal Time, Mon. 1-3am

Coordinated Universal Time brings our listeners the latest cut of music from anywhere in the world, especially highlighting music that does not get attention in America. Our programming tries to bring the hottest and the most recent tunes to WKCR’s airwaves.

The African Show, Thurs. 10pm-12am

The longest running African music radio show in the United States, the African Show brings you a variety of music from the entire continent of Africa.

Middle Eastern Influences, Fri. 12-1am

During the hour-long show, Middle Eastern Influences features a wide range of beautiful tracks from regions of the Middle East, North Africa, and even, at times, South Asia.

Sounds of Asia, Sat. 6-8am

Rechristened from Sounds of China, Sounds of Asia explores the recorded musical traditions and innovations of Asia and the Pacific islands.

Eastern Standard Time, Sat. 8am-12pm

One of New York’s most popular Reggae programs, Eastern Standard Time takes listeners through Saturday morning from 8 am to noon with the hypnotic sounds of Reggae and Jamaican dance music.

* indicates show was created after January 2022

Field Trip, Sun. 6-8am

Field Trip focuses on the music and practice of field recordings: music recorded outside of a studio. Tune in and you may catch field recordings that were recorded fifty years ago, others that were experimented with by your favorite Afternoon New Music artist, or even those documented in New York City by WKCR itself.

Raag Aur Taal, Sun. 7-9pm Raag Aur Taal explores the sounds and rich cultural heritage of South Asia. The term “Raag Aur Taal” roughly translates to “melody and rhythm,” indicating the classical nature of this program.

Back in the USSR, Sun. 11pm-12am Back in the USSR features music from across the former Soviet Union and soviet states across Eastern Europe and East and Central Asia, from the mid-20th century through the present.

NEWS & ARTS

Monday Morningside*, Mon. 8:30-9:30am Monday Morningside is WKCR’s morning news broadcast to kick off the week, featuring news segments on events around Morningside Heights and upper Manhattan. If you’re not an early bird, all episodes are available as podcasts on Spotify!

PopTalk*, Mon. 9-10pm PopTalk examines current developments in pop music and the latest top-flight releases.

SoundStage*, Sun. 9-10pm SoundStage features audio dramas and radio plays from the WKCR archives as well as new compositions by students and contemporary writers. Some shows also feature interviews with dramatists and directors.

SUNDAY PROFILES

Sunday Profile, Sun. 2-7pm* With the return of the five-hour profiles slot, programmers will showcase longform profiles as they have done for decades. While the primary focus remains on jazz music, we also feature other styles and traditions from across WKCR’s different programming departments.

SUPPORT WKCR

TOP 5 REASONS TO DONATE TO WKCR

1. You’d be helping a student-run, listener-funded, and volunteer-based radio station continue to bring you the absolute best in what radio has to offer. Music, arts, news, and sports— we’ve got the works!

2. You wouldn’t be a free-rider anymore.

3. WKCR donations are tax-deductible (so make sure you donate before tax season). For more info on that, or anything else business-related, email business@wkcr.org

4. Being “the Original FM,” our equipment is getting a bit old. For example, Buzz, the hamster that runs the wheel that powers the station, is getting a little worn-out and arthritic. We need a new hamster. Sorry, Buzz, but it’s gotta be done!

5. Isn’t OnAir cool? Without proper funding, projects like this can’t come to fruition and, if they do, don’t make it very long. Donate to allow the little OnAir minions to stay in the job (we are all OnAir minions).

HOW TO DONATE TO WKCR IN 4 STEPS

BY MAIL

Step 1: Locate your nearest checkbook

Step 2: Indicate “WKCR” as payee and fill out as usual

Step 3: Mail cheque to CU Gift Systems, 622 West 113th Street, MC 4524, New York, NY 10025

Step 4: ...and VOILÀ! Just like that, you have become a WKCR supporter!

WKCR also accepts checks to our direct address. Just Follow the same steps listed above but mail the check to:

2920 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

ONLINE

Step 1: head to www.wkcr.org

Step 2: Click the yellow “DONATE TO WKCR” banner at the top of the page

Step 3: Fill out the form in the giving portal and enter your information...

Step 4: ...and VOILÀ! Just like that, you have become a WKCR supporter!

Did you know you can make recurring donations to WKCR when you donate online?

Just indicate your frequency preferences on the giving portal when prompted!

Special thanks to Ale Díaz-Pizarro, August Phillips, Benny Magid, Bryan Zhang, Jacob Grayzel, Josh Kapilian, Leni Bryan, Madelyn Elizondo, Maria Shaughnessy, Red Stein, Sam Seliger, Sarah Barlyn, Schuyler RabbinBirnbaum, Tanvi Krishnamurthy, & Ted Schmiedeler.