I know lots of people over in the UK who listen to the show on the net and not all of them are 'heads' - I play the show in the office/library - my colleagues who usually listen to Audioslave and U2 appreciate it and visitors to the library ask what's playing so regularly that maybe I should get a 'now playing' sign to put on the hatch!
-----Original Message----- From: Matt MacQueen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2005 2:14 AM To: 313 Cc: Tosh Cooey; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: (313) Radio Fries - Don't Tread On Me On Feb 7, 2005, at 7:35 AM, Tosh Cooey wrote: > >> downloaded matt mcqueen's latest radio show (a counter-argument to >> your >> claim that 'this' would never happen on american radio), a fabrice >> lig mix, >> an old mixmaster morris mix > > --> Matt's a great guy, but he's playing for a very very very small > niche in a very very very small niche market, not exactly mainstream. Somehow i missed this thread, sorry for the late reply Tosh. I appreciate the olive branch, but that attitude cracks me up. there was once a time in the US when people probably said House music was very very small niche when it was on the air here 15-20 years ago and guess what... it fired up a world phenomenon that is still a part of the dance music culture you celebrate daily. if you said that back then to the people Djing on WBMX or Hotmix 5 or whatever, yeah, they could have said "why bother?" -- at that time it was niche, they were playing weirdo italo disco that was already 5 years old to US radio audiences. they played disco after disco was "dead". but but they made a difference instead, they mixed it up and did their own music and called it house, those radio shows fundamentally shaped the future of electronic dance music forever. It was the same way with Mojo. A lot of what he played was pop, sure, but he mixed it with a lot of local detroit techno records that people then wanted to check out, get interested in, or at least listen to religiously on his his show. These were major market commercial stations! Now, what has happened in the last 10 years with Clear Channel and the homogenization of radio programming options absolutely sucks, sure, but has only made the independent stations that much more fired up to keep doing what they're doing. it hasn't devastated the airwaves... yet We're broadcasting in chicago on friday nights, prime time 9:30pm - 12:30 am... how you define a "very very small niche" but to me that's a HUUUGE opportunity to turn people on. We've had calls from as far as 50 miles north of the city who can pick us up on a clear night, and last I checked we were the 3rd or 4th largest city in the US. Think of how dense the population is in chicago. Having a broadcasting tower is a the great equalizer. It's time people took community radio seriously as an alternative to the ClearChannel near-monopoly of programming. Everyone in the US who just sits on the outside of radio and takes pot-shots, have you ever scanned your dial for community or university stations, many of whom still truly CARE about the formatting, are non-commerical or ethical in how they conduct business, present alternative viewpoints to the mainstream stations, and work true musical diversity into their programming time? Many major markets have these. There are some amazing radio programs in NYC too. Here in chicago you can hear polish folk music to punk to salsa programming to underground hip-hop, you can find it on the air here. When Bill VanLoo was going to school in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, way up in the remote parts of the snow-buried rural land, he was pumping out detroit techno week after week. In Chicago I can think of a few other stations besides WNUR in chicago who have awesome programming on other nights. Is it mainstream? Only if you hit people squarely in the ears who had NO IDEA there were still good radio programs in the US, people click around. I'm not out to change the world and have techno on every radio station, but I am trying to turn people on to quality electronic music, one listener at a time. And i'm not even getting into the webcasting and site downloads.. i check the logs and we've got people from 50+ countries regularly listening. Community radio in the US is powerful, were' on the ghetto end of the dial, but don't sit there across the world and give us a little pat on the head. :) peace -- MM http://sonicsunset.com ##################################################################################### Note: Any views or opinions are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Channel Four Television Corporation unless specifically stated. This email and any files transmitted are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If you have received this email in error, please notify [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thank You. #####################################################################################
