OPEN CALL: Radio Content in the Digital Age

The Cyprus University of Technology and the ECREA Radio Research Section invite the submission of abstracts for their forthcoming conference, "Radio Content in the Digital Age" in Limassol, Cyprus, October 14-16. Over the past decade, developments in technology have dramatically broadened the range of options for programming audio. The revolution began in the mid-1990s with a newfound ability to listen to audio being streamed over the Internet. Since then, digital radio has continued to expand with the advent of podcasting, offering radio programming on demand, and the rollout of different digital transmission systems, which provide superior sound quality and additional stations on and outside the traditional FM and AM wavebands. What are the main characteristics of today's radio content? How does radio programming differ around Europe and in other countries? How is radio content, both programming and genre, changing through new and emerging technology? Deadlines:
Abstract submissions: 31 March 2009
Final answers: 15 May 2009
To submit papers: http://sections.ecrea.eu/RR/index.html
Contact person: Angeliki Gazi, Vice Chair Radio Research Section, ECREA, angeliki.gazi@cut.ac.cy

Low power FM radio to the rescue

By Gabriel Voiles from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting:

Lamenting the fact that "commercial radio stations everywhere have been swallowed up by a handful of giant corporations, playlists have shrunk and local and independent acts have been drowned out," Free Press activist Timothy Karr (MediaCitizen, 2/26/09) also lets us know that

the good news is that your rescue is at hand. On Tuesday, Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.) introduced a bipartisan bill (the Local Community Radio Act of 2009) that would pry open our radio airwaves for thousands of new stations, bringing independent acts...to the audiences they deserve....

The Local Community Radio Act would unleash the potential of new music for millions of listeners across the country. The bill tasks Washington with licensing thousands of Low Power FM radio stations....

There are about 800 low-power stations already on the air. They're run out of college campuses, garages, backyard shacks and local churches, and aimed specifically at listeners in their surrounding neighborhood.

Beyond saving listeners from corporate stations' "mind-numbing concoction of saccharine and aspartame," some LPFM broadcasters "are providing local news and information that in more extreme cases has kept people alive." Use the Free Press action page to demand your congressmember "help restore much needed diversity to our airwaves, bringing forth new voices and viewpoints that are often overlooked by large commercial broadcasters."

RFA on North Koreans listening to RFA

From Kim Andrew Elliott:

Radio Free Asia vice president Dan Southerland interviews Russian historian Andrei Lankov, an expert on North Korea and RFA commentator: "Q: It seems to me there is still a role for radio. Defectors I have spoken with recently say that people in the elite are listening to Radio Free Asia. A: Radio is widely used, and it is very important that short-wave radios with free [instead of fixed] tuning are being smuggled. Radios are used largely by the elite—not by people who want fresh entertainment, but by people who want information about what’s going on outside of the country. So most listeners are intellectuals or officials or people who are serious about getting out of the country. Five or six stations broadcast into North Korea right now, and these stations are mostly listened to by these people. They are clearly a minority, but politically they are very significant … A person who has been making a bit of money by selling pancakes on the market may buy a DVD player and watch romances. But radio is for, say, a secret police captain who knows that the system is in trouble and wants to figure out what’s going on and how to save his skin. Radio broadcasting provides him with the intelligence he needs to do this. Q: We had some independent research last year showing that some of these border traders, some of these smugglers and so forth—they call themselves 'businesspeople' — are also listening to radio. It’s quite a significant percentage in a rather limited survey. A: If you look at people who are in China, you will see that radio listeners are overrepresented among this group when compared to the general population. Because if you go to China, you have to listen. Most of these people want to know the current trends." Radio Free Asia, 23 February 2009.

Internet car radio

From MIT Technology Review:

Internet radio lets listeners find or create stations that play just the music they like. A dashboard stereo from miRoamer and Blaupunkt brings that kind of control into the car. The stereo connects wirelessly, via Bluetooth, to the driver's phone, which streams music over the cell network. Users can preprogram their favorite stations and create song playlists online. The system has a built-in microphone, so that users can make and receive phone calls by pressing a button on the radio. Cost=$300-400.

New LPFM legislation to be introduced

From Future of Music blog:

It was only a matter of time before the new Congress saw the re-introduction of a pro-Low Power FM bill. If passed, this legislation would create opportunities for hundreds more community radio stations in cities, towns and suburbs across the United States. The House of Representative's new Local Community Radio Act represents a strong step forward towards this goal.

FMC has long advocated for LPFM (and non-commercial, community radio in general) as an alternative to the homogenized playlists often heard on hyper-consolidated corporate radio. LPFM in more areas would be a tremendous boon to local and independent artists who typically find themselves shut out from area commercial stations. We figure that if more people had the chance to hear the talent in their own backyards, it might even have a positive effect on local economies.

But LPFM isn't just good for musicians — new low-power licenses would make radio station ownership possible for schools, churches, labor unions, local governments, emergency providers and other nonprofit groups, who could use the public airwaves to directly communicate with their local community.

The bipartisan Local Community Radio Act will be sponsored by Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.). The last time LPFM legislation was introduced, it won nearly 100 co-sponsors in the House. The Senate version of the bill, sponsored by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and co-sponsored by then-Senator Barack Obama, unanimously passed out of the Commerce Committee. The Senate is expected to reintroduce a new version of the bill in the near future.

Video from John Doe Books and Records in Hudson, New York

For the next few weeks, Dan Seward will do his weekly "Battlefield Earth" show from John Doe Books and Records in Hudson, NY live via video. Tune in today as Seward (from Bunnybrains) hosts plays records and chats from his store on Warren St. between 3rd and 4th Sts.

ArcAttack Tesla coil concert

ArcAttack is a music group from Austin, Texas who use electrical arcs generated by Tesla coils to create their music.

Another window for non-profit groups to apply for non-commercial, educational, full-power FM stations

Folks at the Prometheus Radio Project are reporting that the Federal Communications Commission will open another rare opportunity for non-profit organizations to apply for radio licenses. free103point9 won such a license (on 90.7-FM in Greene and Columbia Counties in New York) during the FCC's October 2007 Full Power Non-Commercial Educational (NCE) filing window for frequencies in the non-commercial band of the FM dial (88-92 FM). "Before that NCE filing window opened, the FCC decided to hold back approximately 65 spots on the dial for locations around the country," a Prometheus says. "These frequencies, called Non-reserved NCE Allotments, are located in the 'Commercial Band' of the FM dial – between 92.1MHz and 107.9MHz – and are set aside for NCE use." The FCC has not announced when exactly the window for applications will be, but it will probably be later in 2009. Watch the Radio For People web site for more information about how to bring community radio to your area.

Video streams from The Sanctuary For Independent Media

Last Saturday night free103point9 successfully launched the first of many video streams from The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, New York. The fabulous camera crew at The Sanctuary captured NYC free jazz drummer William Hooker playing along with Oscar Micheaux's 1920 silent film "The Symbol of the Unconquered." Tune in to www.free103point9.org this Saturday night, February 21, at 8 p.m. for poet Amiri Baraka and saxophonist Rob Brown performing.

Con Ed Musicians' Residency: Queens Composition Program

This pilot residency will provide three individual composers with daytime, weekday use of suitable composition and rehearsal space in Flushing Town Hall (FTH), in Flushing, Queens, for a three-month period.FTH is a remarkable early 20th-century building owned by the City of New York that houses the Flushing Council on the Arts, the host of the program. Future residencies will expand to include performers and will be housed in other facilities, boroughs, and disciplines. Each resident will receive a total stipend of $450, and will have free access to a designated space in which to compose and rehearse, including a performance-quality piano and storage space for equipment. Residents will be responsible for any additional technical resources needed. A public program component of the residency, which may take the form of a workshop, master class, free public performance or other community-based activity, must be mutually agreed upon with, and presented by, FTH. The resident will be responsible for providing performers, if required. There is no additional stipend for accompanying performers. The Con Ed Musicians' Residency had its genesis in NYC Performing Arts Spaces' 2008 study "Where Can We Work?"­­, an examination of how access to workspace in New York City impacts musicians' ability to compose, rehearse and perform. Funding for this pilot program comes from Con Edison, The Amphion Foundation, and the Reed Foundation. NYC Performing Arts Spaces has developed and is administering the program. Applicants must be at least 18 years old and a resident of the Borough of Queens, New York City, as of the application deadline. Verification of residency is required. Members of Fractured Atlas may apply, but Fractured Atlas membership is not required. Composers working in any genre, including but not limited to: classical, jazz, blues, rock, hip-hop, opera, musical theater/Broadway, experimental/new music/electronic, world music, sacred, and works across genres. The pilot round of residencies is restricted to emerging, individual composers. Applicants must submit four (4) items: a completed application form, a résumé, and two compact discs bearing work samples. All these items must be received by 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, February 20, 2009. They must be sent in two transmissions in the manner described below. Go to www.nycPASpaces.org/show/resources/musicians_residency.html to download the application form. Complete it on screen using a recent version of Adobe Reader software and save the PDF file with your information in it.

Max Headroom pirate TV incident

This is the original upload, now with improved sound quality. During a broadcast of the Dr. Who episode "Horror of Fang Rock" on WTTW Chicago Channel 11, on Sunday November 22, 1987, at around 11:15 p.m., a video "pirate" wearing a Max Headroom mask broke into the signal and transmitted one of the weirdest, unauthorized things ever to hit the Chicago airwaves. Earlier in the evening on the same day, during the Nine O'Clock News on Channel 9 (yes, a completely different channel) the Max Headroom Pirate also broke in, although it was for a much shorter time and there was no audio.

Radio 10 saga in Brooklyn

From a tip from reader Sammy, check out this story from the Dec. 2008 issue of Community Magazine, a monthly for the Sephardic Jewish community of Brooklyn, about a Brooklyn Hasidic pirate radio station. The Federal Communications Commission does not list "Radio 10" with the 95.1 frequency in Brooklyn (the FCC lists a "new" application from Kingsborough Community College, which moved from 90.9 to 90.3-FM in 2006). In fact, it is a known pirate frequency. One Brooklyn reggae station, Big 95.1, claims to use the frequency in Brooklyn on its not-updated-lately myspace page. Another Bronx station, Hype Radio 95.1, has a current myspace page.

So there's also another Hasidic pirate in southern Brooklyn (Crown Heights and Williamsburg have had others). What's more interesting about this story (download the pdf here, pg. 98 of the magazine and 150 of the pdf) is the soap opera intrigue of a former employee absconding with equipment to start another station.

"Mrs. [Avigail] Lazarovitch [co-owner of the allegedly non-profit station] told Community after consulting with the station's Rabbinic advisor, and contacting the culprit, the family filed criminal charges with police detectives from the 70th Precinct," for the Oct. 16, 2008 robbery.

"Fearing arrest, she said, the employee appealed to a local Bet Din (Rabbinical court), claiming the Radio 10 owed him salary payments, and that the filing of criminal charges violated the halachic prohibition of mesirah (handling an innocent Jew over to the authorities). The Lazarovitchs categorically denied that the station owed any such money. The Bet Din proposed to hear the case on condition that the stolen goods were immediately returned. The employee indeed returned the equipment, whereupon Radio 10 consented to drop the criminal charges and remand the case to the Bet Din's authority.

But three hours after the first Bet Din session the equipment was stolen again and a Russian company began broadcasting on 95.1-FM the following day. The matter, according to the story, is still before the Bet Din.

The story also gives some, alleged, background for Radio 10:

The station began nine years ago under the name "Torah World Radio" and offered programming for Russian Jewish immigrants. Two years ago, it changed its format and began directing its broadcasts toward the area's observant English and Hebrew-speaking Sephardic communities. They have since gained a huge following and are known to feature popular rabbinic figures such as Rabbi Amnon Yizhak, Rabbi Eli Mansour, and Rabbi Maimon Elbaz, among many others.

LPFM Now

Prometheus Radio Group is campaigning for this new Congress to pass Low-Power FM legislation. Download the postcards here, and distribute.

Prometheus intern position available

Prometheus Radio Project has exciting six month paid internships where people come from all over the country and sometimes world to work with us doing a mixture of research, advocacy, activism, and providing of direct services to organizations across the country that want to start or already operate community radio stations. Interns will be involved in projects that include advocating for LPFM in Congress, building radio stations, studying FCC regulations, and working with diverse community groups. Prometheus is a great place to gain skills in political organizing, media research, fundraising, development and technical radio work. Interns participate in the collective decision-making process of the organization and play an important role in organizing community events. We can also assist people in finding housing for this 6 month period. Read the entire intern description here. The deadline to apply is February 15.

Music as torture/Music as weapon

By Suzanne G. Cusick in Revista Transcultural de Música/Transcultural Music Review
#10 (2006) ISSN:1697-0101

Abstract:

One of the most startling aspects of musical culture in the post-Cold War United States is the systematic use of music as a weapon of war. First coming to mainstream attention in 1989, when US troops blared loud music in an effort to induce Panamanian president Manuel Norriega’s surrender, the use of “acoustic bombardment” has become standard practice on the battlefields of Iraq, and specifically musical bombardment has joined sensory deprivation and sexual humiliation as among the non-lethal means by which prisoners from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo may be coerced to yield their secrets without violating US law.

The very idea that music could be an instrument of torture confronts us with a novel—and disturbing—perspecti ve on contemporary musicality in the United States. What is it that we in the United States might know about ourselves by contemplating this perspective? What does our government’s use of music in the “war on terror” tell us (and our antagonists) about ourselves?

This paper is a first attempt to understand the military and cultural logics on which the contemporary use of music as a weapon in torture and war is based. After briefly tracing the development of acoustic weapons in the late 20th century, and their deployment at the second battle of Falluja in November, 2004, I summarize what can be known about the theory and practice of using music to torture detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. I contemplate some aspects of late 20th-century musical culture in the civilian US that resonate with the US security community’s conception of music as a weapon, and survey the way musical torture is discussed in the virtual world known as the blogosphere. Finally, I sketch some questions for further research and analysis.

Read full version of paper here.

Max Neuhaus (1939-2009)

Max Neuhaus passed this week. He was known for many radio art works.

From Rhizome:

This week marked the passing of a true visionary of contemporary art, Max Neuhaus. Originally an accomplished solo percussionist who toured with Boulez and Stockhausen, in the late 1960's Neuhaus moved his practice out of the concert hall and into the public sphere, setting up numerous sound-based installations in and around New York City.

From his Wikipedia page:

In the first "Public Supply" in 1966, he combined a radio station with the telephone network and created a two-way public aural space twenty miles in diameter encompassing New York City, where any inhabitant could join a live dialogue with sound by making a phone call. Later, in 1977 with "Radio Net," he formed a nationwide network with 190 radio stations. The current project, "Auracle," constructs a twenty-four hour a day global entity for live interaction with sound over the Internet.

His work directly influenced many later artists, such as 31 Down and their "Canal Street Station."

Pirate radio project joins graffiti artists with cell phones

From Make Magazine:

The "Future Pirate Radio" project is a combination of a cell phone application that reads QR Codes and printable stencils for graffiti artists to put up the codes on local walls. When photographed, the codes produce radio broadcasts streamed live over the Internet. Although it seems like a hard way to find a radio broadcast (searching the streets) we will most likely see more of these types of apps surface through our mobile devices.

OPEN CALL: The End of Television (postponed)

After many weeks of bandying the shuttlecock of decision back and forth, Congress has passed the DTV delay bill, moving the analog-to-digital TV switchover back four months until June 12. Therefore "The End of Television" broadcast festival is also delayed until June 12. The festival will continue to accept submissions and the submission deadline is pushed back until May 20, 2009. Stayed tuned for details concerning the broadcast event on June 12 in Pittsburgh, which is now going to be bigger and better than ever. Follow the progress at theendoftelevision.blogspot.com.

McCain now against rural broadband access

Sen. John McCain (R- AZ) campaigned for president last fall, in part, on a platform of more rural broadband access. In 2005, he co-sponsored legislation "to bring broadband into rural areas." Now that President Obama wants to fund more rural broadband access in the stimulus bill, McCain is now against it.

Lines of Sight #7: Radio Incarné with Yasunao Tone and Tetsuo Kogawa

This is a collaboration for "Lines of Sight" by philosopher and pioneer of mini-FM radio, Tetsuo Kogawa, and sound artist Yasunao Tone, based on an e-mail exchange about radio art. In "Lines of Sight," the artists Barbara Held and Pilar Subirá offer a very personal program to explore the extraordinary range of musical registers present on the world scene, following paths as diverse as musical notation and non-linear composition, and introducing artists who explore ideas of broadcasting as a means of creative expression for Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona. Click here to listen.

OPEN CALL: At the Arts Center of the Capital Region

Visual Arts Call for Entries: The Arts Center of the Capital Region is pleased to announce a Call for Entries. Visual artists in all media are invited to submit proposals for consideration. Submissions can be of any media, and will be viewed anonymously by a panel of professional artists and curators. The Arts Center of the Capital Region is also calling for curatorial proposals from experienced curators. Download the Call for Entries brochure at http://www.artscenteronline.org/optional_ section2/index.cfm
The Arts Center of the Capital Region, 265 River St., Troy, NY 12180

How to make a radio station

From Free Radio Berkeley via Mediageek:

The venerable Free Radio Berkeley has a (relatively) new video demonstrating all the parts in the air chain of a micropower unlicensed radio station, fresh from their Oakland, CA shop:

How To Make a Radio Station from Free Radio on Vimeo.