We travel back to the 1980s, when the show, The Famous Computer Cafe, initially launched over the radio in southern California. With a focus on home computers, computer news, and more, the program had a fascinating roster of guests, including Timothy Leary, Donny Osmond, Bill Gates, and so many others. Although it was assumed that all the recordings of the show were lost; recently 53 episodes were found and digitized. Computer historian and archivist Kay Savetz spearheaded this project and joins us on Radio Survivor, alongside one of the creators and hosts of The Famous Computer Cafe, Ellen Fields.

Show Notes:

• Listen to The Famous Computer Cafe on Archive.org
• The Famous Computer Cafe ads and ephemera on Archive.org
• Interviews with The Famous Computer Cafe founders on ANTIC: The Atari 8-bit Podcast
• Digitizing “The Famous Computer Cafe” Radio Show (GoFundMe)
• The PBS television show The Computer Chronicles (Wikipedia)
• Episode of “The Famous Computer Cafe” that mentions computer ads (at about the 4 minute mark) in New York taxi cabs
• Timothy Leary episode of “The Famous Computer Cafe”
• COMDEX was a computer trade show in Las Vegas from 1979 to 2003 (Wikipedia)
• “Resurfacing Women’s Contributions in Podcasting History” (Radio Survivor #135)
• The Famous Computer Cafe collection at Stanford University Libraries

Show Credits:

• This episode was produced by Jennifer Waits
• Hosted by Jennifer Waits and Eric Klein
• Edited by Eric Klein

The post Podcast #342 – The Famous Computer Cafe appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Williams College student Josh Picoult arrived on campus with a fascination for both history and radio. Four years later, he’s about to graduate after completing his undergraduate thesis on the history of college radio station WCFM, where he’s also the general manager. On this edition of Radio Survivor, we are joined by Josh, who talks us through some of the big ideas from his thesis: Gas Pipes, Gigahertz, and Grunge: Broadcasting at Williams College, 1940-1998. Josh also shares details about the current state of radio on campus.

Show Notes:

• Williams College radio station WCFM 91.9 FM in Williamstown, Massachusetts
• Podcast #89 – How to Preserve Radio History (guest Laura Schnitker)
• Podcast #158 – Surveying Community Radio’s Deep Archives (guest Laura Schnitker)
• Jennifer’s radio station tours
• Radio Station Field Trip #100 – WPRB at Princeton University

Show Credits:

• This episode was produced by Jennifer Waits
• Hosted by Jennifer Waits, Eric Klein and Paul Riismandel
• Edited by Eric Klein

The post Podcast #340 – College Radio History at Williams College appeared first on Radio Survivor.

The Radio Survivor team returns for a new episode, during which Jennifer, Eric and Paul recap some of the latest radio news. Topics this week including LPFM, college radio history, radio documentaries, expanding and returning radio stations, and a slow radio broadcast for Earth Day.

Jennifer talks about her new gig working on a college radio history collection that is part of the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC) on the Internet Archive.

Additionally, we cover some updates to the radio landscape, including details about the most recent low-power FM licensing window, during which 388 groups (and counting) have been awarded construction permits for new LPFM stations. In San Francisco, streaming radio station BFF.fm is the recipient of one of these coveted spots on the dial.

Also coming to the San Francisco airwaves is Seattle-based non-commercial radio station KEXP, which acquired the former KREV full-power FM commercial frequency in a bankruptcy auction. Across the country in New York City, streaming community radio station East Village Radio is returning after it ceased operations nearly a decade ago.

A few radio stories are coming to the big screen. 35,000 Watts, a documentary about college radio, has made its debut and is initially hitting the college radio circuit. Jennifer will be in attendance at a 35,000 Watts screening and panel discussion at Pomona College on March 28th as part of a fundraising event for college radio station KSPC. Another radio film in the works, 40 Watts to Nowhere, recounts the story of pirate radio station KBLT, which ran out of founder Sue Carpenter’s home in Silver Lake near Los Angeles in the late 1990s.

Finally, we alert stations to an opportunity to participate in the annual Earth Day radio event: Wetland Project Slow Radio Broadcast on April 22, 2024. Stations can air all or part of the 24-hour broadcast featuring the sounds of nature, including birds, frogs, insects, and airplanes.

Show Notes:

• Podcast #335 – Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC)
• DLARC on the Internet Archive
• College Radio Collection on DLARC
• Website for the college radio documentary 35,000 Watts
• 35,000 Watts screening dates
• Pomona College radio station KSPC-FM website (and see Jennifer’s tour of KSPC)
• BFF.fm on LPFM (Bff.fm)
• Jennifer’s tour of BFF.fm
• KEXP Coming Soon to the Bay Area (KEXP)
• Jennifer’s tour of KEXP in Seattle
• East Village Radio website
• Here is Why NYC’s Iconic East Village Radio is Coming Back from the Dead after a Decade (NY Post)
• Jennifer’s 2008 tour of East Village Radio
• Granted LPFM Applications for 2023 Filing Window (REC Networks)
• 40 Watts from Nowhere Documentary Kickstarter
• 40 Watts from Nowhere: A Journey into Pirate Radio book by Sue Carpenter (Amazon)
• Podcast #330 – Wetland Project and Slow Radio
• Wetland Project website

Show Credits:

• This episode was produced by Jennifer Waits
• Hosted by Jennifer Waits, Eric Klein and Paul Riismandel
• Edited by Eric Klein

The post Podcast #337 – Catching up on Radio News including LPFM, a College Radio Archive, Documentaries, and More appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this edition of the show, we explore public radio history, specifically the origins of public radio in the United States, including the important role played by college and university-based stations. Josh Shepperd joins to talk about his new book, Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting, which examines the intersections between the media reform movement, public broadcasting, educational technology and communications policy and research. Josh is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder and is Director of the Radio Preservation Task Force at the Library of Congress.

Show Notes:

• Josh Shepperd’s website at University of Colorado Boulder
• Radio Preservation Task Force of the Library of Congress
• Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting (affiliate link on Amazon)
• Association of College and University Broadcasting Stations (ACUBS) evolved into the National Association of Educational Broadcasters (NAEB)
• Unlocking the Airwaves collection of NAEB materials
• Robert McChesney’s book: Telcommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935 (affiliate link on Amazon)
• What is Low Power FM? (page on Radio Survivor)
• Podcast #333 – Low Power FM for Dummies (LPFM window opens Dec. 6, 2023)
• Prometheus Radio Project
• Common Frequency

Show Credits:

• This episode was produced by Jennifer Waits
• Hosted by Jennifer Waits, Eric Klein and Paul Riismandel
• Edited by Eric Klein

The post Podcast #336 – Educational Radio and the Beginnings of Public Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this week’s show, we peek behind the scenes of The Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC). A project of the Internet Archive, the DLARC collection includes a range of amateur radio-related materials, including magazines, ham radio newsletters, podcasts and even discussion forums. Within the expansive library are items generally categorized as non-commercial radio, including pirate radio, shortwave, numbers stations, experimental radio, and “radio weirdness.” Additionally, every episode of the Radio Survivor Podcast was recently added to DLARC, which is how we learned about this archive. DLARC’s Curator Kay Savetz joins us on Radio Survivor to talk about not only the archive, but also how you can contribute.

Show Notes

• The Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC)
• Kay Savetz website
• Radio Survivor Podcast episodes archived on DLARC
• October 2022 announcement about launch of DLARC
• Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC)
• Internet Archive
• Podcast #178: Irish Pirate Radio Archive (with guests Brian Greene and John Walsh)
• Podcast #212: Border Radio in North America (with guest Kevin Curran)
• Podcast #260: Radio History on the Northern Border of Mexico (with guest Sonia Robles)
• Look out FCC Part 15 Devices: AM radio is gonna getcha! (learn about Matthew’s Part 15 spider)
• Radio4All
• The Shortwave Report
• Mediageek radio show

Show Credits:

• This episode was produced by Jennifer Waits
• Hosted by Jennifer Waits, Eric Klein, Matthew Lasar, and Paul Riismandel
• Edited by Eric Klein

The post Podcast #335 – Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications appeared first on Radio Survivor.

The Radio Survivors return with a new episode! For this edition, recorded in July, 2022, our guest is Lori Emerson, Founding Director of the Media Archaeology Lab (the MAL). She’s also an Associate Professor in the English Department and Director of the Intermedia Arts, Writing, and Performance Program at University of Colorado at Boulder.

Lori joins us to chat about her current research into “other networks” and her work at the Media Archaeology Lab, which she started in 2009. Full of media from the past (computers, phones, radios, recording devices, books and more), the MAL “is a place for cross-disciplinary, experimental research, teaching, and creative practice using one of the largest collections in the world of still functioning media.” In our discussion, we also explore technology history, talk about Lori’s recent broadcasting experiments, and learn about the ways that experimental poetry is connected with vintage computers.

Show Notes:

• Lori Emerson‘s website
• Other Networks exploration on Lori’s website
• Media Archaeology Lab website
• Lori Emerson’s Twitter
• Sarah Grant, “Plant Nodes” 
• Danja Vasiliev, “Netless“
• Emulated versions of bpNichol’s “First Screening” (1982-83, written in Apple Basic for Apple IIe)
• One Laptop Per Child Mesh Network Wiki
• libi striegl and Lori Emerson article “Anarchive as technique in the Media Archaeology Lab | building a one Laptop Per Child mesh network” (PDF download, requires Academia.edu registration)

Show Credits:

• This episode was produced by Jennifer Waits
• Hosted by Jennifer Waits and Paul Riismandel
• Edited by Eric Klein

The post Podcast #328: Media Archaeology and Other Networks appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this week’s show, we revisit a topic that is near and dear to us, the preservation of sound. This time around the emphasis is on podcasts. Our guest Jeremy Morris is the founder of PodcastRE (which is short for Podcast Research), a searchable, researchable archive of podcasting culture. Morris is Associate Professor, Media and Cultural Studies in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and that’s where PodcastRE was launched. We dig into the functionality of PodcastRE and talk about some of the reasons why scholars are interested in researching podcasts.

Show Notes:

• PodcastRE website
• Jeremy Morris
• Podcast #230: Library of Congress Launches Podcast Preservation Project
• Podcast #253: Sound Streams: Dissecting the History of Internet Radio (episode with Andrew Bottomley that we re-aired the week of August 24, 2021)
• Podcast #135: Resurfacing Women’s Contributions in Podcasting History (with Jennifer Hyland Wang)
• Podcast #289: Celebrating Women in Sound (with Jennifer Hyland Wang and Jennifer Stoever)
• Eric Hoyt directs the Media History Digital Library
• PodDB
• Preserve this Podcast
• A few of the podcasts mentioned in this episode
  • How to Be a Girl
  • Serial
  • This Week in Blackness on YouTube
  • 99% Invisible
  • 3620 Podcast from doctoral students of the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
  • Reasonably Sound
  • Archive 81

The post Podcast #313 – PodcastRE’s Archive of Podcasting Culture appeared first on Radio Survivor.

This week, we take a close look at the history of an influential Spanish language community radio station: KDNA. Located in Washington State, the station launched in 1979 and serves a rural community which includes farm workers and immigrants. Our guest, Monica De La Torre, is Assistant Professor at the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University and is the author of a forthcoming book about KDNA called Feminista Frequencies: Community Building through Radio in the Yakima Valley.

Show Notes:

• Monica De La Torre
• Feminista Frequencies: Community Building through Radio in the Yakima Valley
• Chicana Radio Activists and the Sounds of Chicana Feminisms on SoundingOut!
• Looking Back on the Lesser-known Histories of Chicano Public Radio on Current
• KDNA radio station
• Soul Rebel Radio on KPFK in Los Angeles
• Bilingual community radio station KBBF-FM in Santa Rosa, California
• KRAB Archive for Seattle community radio station KRAB-FM (1962-1984)
• Womxn Who Rock collective
• KRZA community radio station

Related Episodes:

• Podcast #260: Radio History on the Northern Border of Mexico with guest Sonia Robles (1930-1950)
• Podcast #184: Hidden Women’s Radio History in Uruguay with guest Christine Ehrick (Radio Femenina, founded in 1935)
• Podcast #134: The KRAB-FM Archives
• Podcast #72: Pete Tridish Celebrates an LPFM Success Story (KPCN-LP, run by Oregon’s farmworkers union)

The post Podcast #302 – Feminista Frequencies appeared first on Radio Survivor.

From 1961 to 1976 WRVR-FM broadcast a progressive slate of social justice and jazz programming from the Riverside Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Beginning in 2018 those archives are being digitized and transcribed by the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, and on June 17 they’re asking volunteers to help correct those transcriptions in a “Transcript-A-Thon” event.

We welcome guests Vincent Kelley, Archivist at The Riverside Church Archives, and Ryn Marchese, Engagement and Use Manager for the American Archives of Public Broadcasting, to dig into the history of WRVR and its deep archive of truly historical audio. IN 1964 it was the first radio station to win a Peabody for its entire programming, which included coverage of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama. Among the famous figures who appeared on air are Pete Seeger, Malcolm X, Bob Dylan, Indira Gandhi, Aldous Huxley and Margaret Mead, while Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his pivotal “Beyond Vietnam” speech at the Riverside Church over WRVR-FM on April 4, 1967.

Show Notes:

• The WRVR-FM (Riverside Radio) Collection at the American Archives of Public Broadcasting
• The Riverside Church in the City of New York
• Join the Transcript-a-thon on June 17 at 1:00pm EDT
• WRVR Fix-IT+ Transcript Editor
• Press release about us recovering the original recording of Beyond Vietnam
• From the archive:
  • The Homosexual: A New Minority
  • Changing Attitudes Towards Women
• Podcast #250 – Aimee Semple McPherson and the Early History of Radio Evangelists
• Podcast #186 – African-American Preachers on Wax

The post Podcast #301 – Digitizing & Transcribing the Archives of NYC Progressive Church Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Renowned radio scholar Michele Hilmes is Professor Emerita, Media and Cultural Studies in the Department of Communication Arts at University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been a long time proponent of the importance of studying radio and sound, which have often been neglected in the broader field of media studies. She joins us on the show to discuss radio studies, her call for new terminology surrounding audio works, and the growing interest in sound studies.

Show Notes:

• Michele Hilmes website at University of Wisconsin
• Michele Hilmes piece Soundwork: Something to Work With in Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture
• Radio Preservation Task Force
• Podcast #135: Resurfacing Women’s Contributions in Podcasting History
• Podcast #167: Alternative Histories of Podcasting
• The Music Theory of TikTok Sea Shanties – A YouTube essay by Adam Neely
• Podcast #141: How Radio Isn’t Done According to Negativland’s Don Joyce and the archives of Over The Edge
• Have You Heard George’s Podcast?
• Eric realized during the editing process that the best example of the experimental sound documentary format he was struggling to name is probably The Kitchen Sisters.

The post Podcast #297 – Radio Studies and Soundwork appeared first on Radio Survivor.

In honor of Women’s History Month, this week’s episode focuses on women in sound. Our guests, Jennifer Hyland Wang and Jenny Stoever, return to the show to discuss sound studies, the cultural politics of listening, the history of women’s voices on the airwaves and on podcasts, as well as broader issues of representation.

Jennifer Hyland Wang is an Adjunct Professor at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Jenny Stoever is Associate Professor of English at Binghamton University and Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog.

Show Notes:

• Sounding Out!
• The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening, by Jennifer Stoever
• Jennifer Hyland Wang piece “Producing a Radio Housewife: Clara, Lu ‘n’ Em, Gendered Labor, and the Early Days of Radio”
• Podcast #132: Sounding Out on the Cultural Politics of Sound & Listening
• Podcast #135: Resurfacing Women’s Contributions in Podcasting History
• Podcast #186: African-American Preachers on Wax
• Podcast #250: Aimee Semple McPherson and the Early History of Radio Evangelists
• The Read
• Locatora Radio
• Sounding Out! Podcast #63: The Sonic Landscapes of Unwelcome: Women of Color, Sonic Harassment, and Public Space
• Waiting to X-hale
• Unladylike
• Zigzag
• Why Aren’t There More Female Producers? – A Youtube essay by Benn Jordan about women in music production
• https://www.womeninsound.com/
• https://womensaudiomission.org/
• https://sammusmusic.com/
• The episode of the podcast in which a younger person tells the hosts about their thoughts on physical music – Podcast #179 – Don’t Throw Your CDs Away in 2019
• https://www.standforsonicdiversity.com/

The post Podcast #289 – Celebrating Women in Sound appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this week’s show we take a look at the ways that Native Americans used sound technology during radio’s earliest days and how that inspired and led to the flourishing Native media landscape, including tribal radio stations. Our guest, Josh Garrett-Davis, is Associate Curator at the Autry Museum and author of a recently completed dissertation: Resounding Voices: Native Americans and Sound Media, 1890-1970.

Show Notes:

• Josh Garrett-Davis website: http://www.joshgarrettdavis.com/
• Autry Museum of the American West website: https://theautry.org/
• Resounding Voices: Native Americans and Sound Media, 1890-1970: https://dataspace.princeton.edu/handle/88435/dsp018910jx50x
• The “Tribal Drum” of Radio: Gathering Together the Archive of American Indian Radio (piece on Sounding Out!) https://soundstudiesblog.com/2015/02/19/the-tribal-drum-of-radio-gathering-together-the-archive-of-american-indian-radio/
• KILI radio, the voice of the Lakota Nation: http://www.kiliradio.org/
• KINI radio: https://www.kiniradio.com/
• Radio Free Alcatraz: https://pacificaradioarchives.org/recording/bb545701-bb545740
• Native American Activism on the Airwaves with the “Seeing Red” Radio Archive: https://historyhub.history.gov/community/american-indian-records/blog/2020/08/10/native-american-activism-on-the-airwaves-with-the-seeing-red-radio-archive
• More details about the “Indians for Indians Hour”: https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/IndiansForIndians.pdf
• Michael Keith’s book, Signals in the Air: Native Broadcasting in America https://www.amazon.com/Signals-Air-Broadcasting-America-Society/dp/0275948765
• Podcast #221: The Intertwined History of the Radio and Recording Industries with guest Kyle Barnett: https://www.radiosurvivor.com/2019/11/26/podcast-221-the-intertwined-history-of-the-radio-and-recording-industries/
• Podcast #186: African-American Preachers on Wax with guest Lerone Martin https://www.radiosurvivor.com/2019/03/27/podcast-186-african-american-preachers-on-wax/
• Podcast #190: Radio Spectrum and Transmission Art with guest Amanda Dawn Christie https://www.radiosurvivor.com/2019/04/24/podcast-190-radio-spectrum-and-transmission-art/
• Podcast #122: The Popular Community Radio Movement in Argentina https://www.radiosurvivor.com/2017/12/26/podcast-122-popular-community-radio-movement-argentina/
• Native Voices over the Airwaves exhibition page at University Libraries at University of Oklahoma https://libraries.ou.edu/content/native-voices-over-airwaves-exhibition-recordings-available-nov-14
• Details about David Goren’s BBC documentary about community radio stations around the world, including one from the Navajo Nation: https://www.radiosurvivor.com/2021/02/15/listen-to-this-bbc-documentary-about-5-community-stations-around-the-world/
• Network Sovereignty: Building the Internet across Indian Country https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295741826/network-sovereignty/
• Podcast #103 – The Popular Community Radio Movement in Argentina – https://www.radiosurvivor.com/2017/08/09/podcast-103-popular-community-radio-movement-argentina/

The post Podcast #286 – Native American Voices on the Air in the Early Days of Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this week’s show we learn about SpokenWeb, a Canadian project focused on the preservation of literary sound recordings. Partly inspired by the energetic poetry scene of the 1960s, SpokenWeb works to preserve recordings of these live events and also describe and share this material. Our guest, Hannah McGregor, leads the SpokenWeb Podcast Task Force and hosts the SpokenWeb podcast. She shares not only the back story about SpokenWeb, but also the breadth of material featured on its monthly podcast.

Show Notes:

• SpokenWeb website
• SpokenWeb podcast
• SpokenWeb podcast ShortCuts: Short Stories about How Literature Sounds
• Podcast #275 – Making Scholarly Podcasts Count
• SpokenWeb Podcast – Drum Codes: The Language of Talking Drums
• SpokenWeb Podcast – How are We Listening Now? Signal, Noise, Silence
• Podcast #132 – Sounding Out on the Cultural Politics of Sound & Listening
• Podcast #283 – Project STAND is Archiving Student Activism
• Reviews in DH website
• PennSound website
• Jennifer’s original SpinningIndie blog
• Jennifer’s first scholarly journal article about college radio, ‘Does Indie Mean Independence?’ Freedom and Restraint in a Late 1990s U.S. College Radio Community, is in a July, 2008 edition of Radio Journal
• Eric Klein randomly mentioned an old friend who is responsible for his young fandom of Twin Peaks in 1990, Jessica Hoffmann.

The post Podcast #284 – SpokenWeb and Literary Sound appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On Radio Survivor we are interested in not only audio, but also its history as well as preservation efforts. Along those lines, we have done numerous episodes about archives. We additionally have a strong passion for student-produced media, like high school and college radio. On this episode, we discuss an interesting intersection of the two, as we focus on archives and student activism. Our guest, Lae’l Hughes-Watkins, is the founder of Project STAND (Student Activism Now Documented) and is also University Archivist at University of Maryland. She explains to us the importance of archiving student activism, past and present, as well as the complexities and ethical considerations when doing this work.

Show Notes:

• Project STAND website
• Project STAND podcast: A Blueprint
• WMUC Radio
• Saving College Radio: WMUC Past, Present and Future online exhibit
• Spinning Indie Field Trip 66: College Radio Station WMUC at University of Maryland
• Fay M. Jackson and the Color Line: The First African-American Foreign Correspondent for the Associated Negro Press

Photo of Foothill College Archives by Jennifer Waits

The post Podcast #283 – Project STAND is Archiving Student Activism appeared first on Radio Survivor.

For the first time in a while I needed to dip into my dwindling archive of cassette tape airchecks. A couple of tapes immediately caught my eye and spurred me to restart the digitizing project I’ve been working on and off for the last five years. They took me on a fun journey back in time.

A Micropower Radio Forum in 1998

The first is a recording from a “Micropower Radio Forum” in Berkeley, California, which brought together 1990s community radio activists in celebration of the publication of the book “Seizing the Airwaves,” edited by Free Radio Berkeley founder Stephen Dunifer and radical scholar Ron Sakolsky. Recorded in February 1998, I remembered that I actually sourced the audio from an online archive uploaded to the A-Infos Radio Project, one of the first open internet archives for progressive and radical radio programming.

I had recorded these MP3 audio files to cassette in order to play excerpts on my radio show, “Radio Free Conscience,” which aired biweekly on Community Radio WEFT in Champaign, IL from 1996 to 2002. You see, in 1998 we (like most community stations) didn’t have an audio-capable PC in our main studio, nor any digital playback facility. Therefore the simplest way to bring the audio in was on a cassette. (The station would embrace minidisc for digital recording and playback later that year.)

Upon finding this tape I immediately searched A-Infos and found its entry. Unfortunately many early uploads have become dissociated from their database entries, and a half-hour of searching the site and the internet didn’t turn up the original files. That’s why I decided I should go ahead and digitize the tape now.

I had to take some delight in the path this audio took in its journey back onto the internet. Since cassettes were still the dominant amateur recording technology in 1998, there’s a good chance that the original audio was recorded to tape, then digitized to MP3 for distribution on the internet. Then I downloaded it and recorded that audio to cassette. After being broadcast on FM radio – with no known aircheck – it sat undisturbed for nearly 13 years until I again digitized the audio. I have now uploaded it to the Internet Archive.

This program is significant because it captures a moment in time when unlicensed micropower radio stations were going on the air in communities around the US, as an act of civil disobedience against the FCC’s policy of not licensing low-powered stations. The pressure these illegal community stations put on the FCC would help spur the agency to create low-power FM in 2000.

In this particular program you can hear from a principal of San Francisco Liberation Radio, one of several Bay Area micropower stations in operation at the time. Though somewhat well known then, the memory seems somewhat faded now. You can also hear testimony from prominent activists about why the cause of accessible community radio was so trenchant at the end of the 20th century.

Tree Radio Berkeley

The other tape is also from 1998. It’s a 90-minute aircheck of Tree Radio Berkeley, which was an unlicensed low-power radio station that literally broadcast from a tree in a Berkeley, California park for 11 days in November 1998. In this recording you can hear the hosts taking questions from an elementary school field trip below, sending their questions first by yelling, and then later by what sounds like a walkie-talkie. What’s great about this is that you get to hear the organizers explain what they’re doing, and why.

The FCC, aided by federal marshals, had conducted a number of armed raids on unlicensed radio stations that year, which were fresh on the organizers’ minds.

The funny thing is that I can’t remember how I obtained the tape. The recording is very clear and high quality. It almost sounds like it was recorded in-studio rather than from a radio. The handwriting on the tape is not mine, either. But again, I can’t remember who might’ve passed it along to me.

Of course, I also uploaded the Tree Radio Berkeley aircheck to the Internet Archive.

Though unlicensed radio is still very alive, especially in places like Boston, South Florida and the New York Metro area, I think it’s important to remember that the civil disobedience of the unlicensed micropower radio movement in the 1990s helped to fuel what would turn out to be the greatest flowering of community radio in history in the 21st century. It’s a reminder that people and communities can organize for material change that can have lasting impact.

The post Preserving Pieces of Microradio History appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Poet Kenneth Goldsmith created UbuWeb in 1996 as an online repository for obscure avant-garde art that, by virtue of having little commercial potential, was hard to find. Audio was an early component of the archive, owing to Kenneth’s interest in sound poetry, an even more obscure art form.

Since then he’s served as the chief, and only, curator and proprietor of UbuWeb, which has become an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in underground and unpopular culture. Kenneth chronicled his efforts in the new book “Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb.” He joins this episode to recount some of these tales, telling us what inspired him to build UbuWeb in the first place, and why he maintains it using simple html code of the sort used in the early web, rather than updating to use the latest database and dynamic website platforms.

Because much of the work on UbuWeb is archived without explicit permission from the creators – living or dead – Kenneth explains why he views “cease and desist” orders as an invitation to dialog and how community radio station WFMU was one of his inspirations. We also get into the relationship between piracy and preservation, why he loves “the misuses of UbuWeb” and the value of “folk archiving” and “folk law.”

Show Notes:

• UbuWeb
• UbuWeb Sound
• Kenneth Goldsmith at the University of Pennsylvania Department of English
• Playlists and archives for Kenny G’s Hour of Pain on WFMU
• Duchamp Is My Lawyer at Columbia University Press
• Duchamp Is My Lawyer at Amazon (Radio Survivor will receive a small commission if you purchase from this link)
• What Is an Interlaced GIF?

The post Podcast #256 – The Robin Hood of the Avant-Garde appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this week’s episode we learn about a brand new project at the Library of Congress that is focused entirely on archiving podcasts. Ted Westervelt, Manager of the Podcast Preservation Project at Library of Congress, joins us to share early details from this new initiative. He explains that the hope is that a wide variety of all types of podcasts will be part of the collection, including the Radio Survivor Podcast.

Show Notes:

• Library of Congress
• Artist in the Archive: Be the Bit (Library of Congress)
• Podcast #167 – Alternative Histories of Podcasting
• Podcast #186 – African-American Preachers on Wax
• Podcast #221 – The Intertwined History of Radio and the Recording Industry
• Preserve this Podcast

The post Podcast #230 – The Library of Congress Launches Podcast Preservation Project appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Welcome to 2020! As Matthew Lasar noted this week, this year marks the 100th anniversary of some significant moments in radio history, including KDKA’s first broadcast. While other stations were on the air with regular broadcasts prior to 1920 (shout out to Doc Herrold’s early broadcasts to fellow radio amateurs); KDKA’s debut is a rallying point for history buffs and will certainly be recognized at the next Radio Preservation Task Force Conference at the Library of Congress in October, 2020.

As we celebrate 100+ years of radio, it’s encouraging that audio preservation has become an increasing priority in the past decade. While radio participants and collectors are some of the most important preservationists (how would we find those amazing boxes of tapes if they hadn’t been squirreled away in basements and closets?), the past decade has seen growing institutional interest.

In the United States, the Library of Congress National Recording Preservation Plan was created in 2012 and by 2014, the Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF) was developed out of that. In the ensuing years, the RPTF has brought together scholars, archivists, radio stations, collectors, and enthusiasts in order to develop projects to not only save endangered recordings, but also to increase access and use of these materials.

On Radio Survivor we’ve covered not only the Radio Preservation Task Force (of which I’m co-chair of the College, Community & Educational Radio Caucus); but also some more under, the radar archival and preservation projects that aren’t necessarily affiliated with libraries or educational institutions.

Thanks to technology and a DIY ethos, modern archives can even live in the cloud. Radio scholars and fans can surf the web to find recordings from every sort of radio imaginable, including college radio shows, famous rap battles, early episodes of the call-in talk show “Loveline,” and classic Dr. Demento shows. Thanks to the Internet Archive, one can also dig up obscurities that have been uploaded by radio aircheck collectors. That’s where I happened upon some 1970s gems from KFJC (where I volunteer).

On the Radio Survivor show we’ve highlighted quite a few archives and preservation projects, including American Archive of Public Broadcasting, the Hip-Hop Radio Archive, the Queer Radio History Project, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters archive at University of Maryland, the KRAB-FM Archives, and more. When learning about various projects, I’ve also been struck by the creative ways in which archivists are working to encourage radio preservation. A 2018 KEXP-hosted pop-up digitization event is a wonderful example of how archivists from several institutions shared resources and skills in order to help members of the general public digitize treasured tapes. And, as preservationists point out, time is of the essence since many radio recordings are housed on tapes that won’t survive for much longer.

Kudos to the radio stations, archives, libraries, and funders (including “Recordings at Risk” grants through the Council on Library and Information Resources) who have drawn attention to radio preservation in the past decade.

The post Preservation is One of the Most Important Radio Trends of the Decade appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Here at the close of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 we’re celebrating the 31st anniversary of the end of one of the most fascinating periods in radio broadcast history, when pirate radio ruled the Irish airwaves. We enjoyed this interview – recorded at the beginning of 2019 – and we think you will, too.

For about a decade, ending in 1988, pirate stations dominated the Irish radio bands, exploiting a loophole in the law that made punishments for unlicensed broadcasting on par with a speeding ticket. Now the sounds and artifacts of this cultural movement are being preserved online in the Irish Pirate Radio Archive.

Archive co-founders Brian Greene and John Walsh tell us about this rich history, in which some of the biggest stations broadcast with multi kilowatts of power, with listeners as far away as London and Wales. Stations ran the gamut, from these high-powered “super pirates” which often emulated American commercial radio to hobbyist broadcasters and community radio. Some of the Irish pirate radio stations were extremely political, focusing on the Irish language, or political prisoners. One station was a feminist pirate where only women’s voices were broadcast. While the scene came to an official end when the Irish government passed a new law with more severe penalties, these pirate stations helped to force open the country’s airwaves to non-governmental radio, which had a monopoly for more than fifty years.

Little known outside of Ireland, this hidden history is a must-listen for radio historians, enthusiasts and nerds of all stripes.

We went down several pirate radio wormholes that we couldn’t fit into this episode. Supporters of Radio Survivor can hear that extra material in Bonus Episode #178.5 right now on Patreon.

Not a patron? Sign up now for as little as a $1 a month and you can get access to this episode and even more great bonus content.

Show Notes:

• Irish Pirate Radio Archive
• Flirt FM
• Wireless on Flirt FM
• Wireless of Flirt FM #26: Highlights of the Pirate Radio Archive to date
• Radio.ie
• Radio Station Field Trip 18 – Flirt FM in Galway, Ireland
• “The 1988 closedown: How a legal loophole led to an explosion in Irish pirate radio“

The post Podcast #226 – Irish Pirate Radio Encore appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“Have you ever had to wait for a prescription at the pharmacy, and watched it being made? Gram by gram or decigram by decigram, the pharmacist weighs out all the substances and powders needed for the finished medicine on a scale with very delicate weights.”

So began Walter Benjamin’s October 31, 1931 Radio Berlin  broadcast, the subject of which was an earthquake, of all things. How, you might ask, did he get from his rather pedestrian question about powders and pills to the Great Lisbon Earthquake of November 1, 1775?

“I feel like a pharmacist when I tell you my stories in my radio broadcast,” Benjamin continued. “My weights are the minutes, and I have to weigh them with great precision, so many of these, so many of those, to get the balance right.”

You see, he explained, if he just described the earthquake one incident after the next, “I doubt you’ll find it very amusing.”

‘Amusing?’ I exclaimed to myself after reading those words. Who expected me to be amused by one of the worst temblors in history? But Benjamin was  explaining his sense of the nature of radio, a medium that he felt  did not have the time to narrate events like a history book. It had to get to the point. And the Lisbon Earthquake of 1771 had not one point, Benjamin thought, but four.

A representation of the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1775

First, he continued, we remember the quake not just for its size, but that it destroyed what was then one of the greatest cities in history. Portugal in the mid-18th century was one of the colonial powers. Not until the 1960s and 1970s would it finally lose its holdings in India and Africa. “The destruction of Lisbon at the time would be comparable to the destruction of Chicago or London today,” Benjamin noted.

Second, people experienced the catastrophe all over Europe and Africa. It was felt in Finland. It was felt in what is now Indonesia. “The strongest tremors ranged from the coast of Morocco on one side to the coasts of Andalusia and France on the other,” Benjamin disclosed. “The cities of Cadiz, Jerez, and Algeciras were almost completely destroyed.”

Third, eye witnesses from the time insisted that all kinds of strange natural phenomenon preceded the catastrophe: hurricanes, cloudbursts, floods, and “massive of worms emerging from the earth.”

Fourth, we have generations of observers chronicling and remembering the quake in pamphlets that they distributed as long as 150 years after the fact. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant collected accounts of the fateful day. An Englishman wrote a lengthy description of his flight from his Lisbon apartment to a cemetery that he thought might be safer:

“From the hill of the cemetery I was then witness to a horrific spectacle: on the ocean, as far as eye could see, countless ships surged with the waves, crashing into one another as if a massive storm were raging. All of a sudden the huge seaside pier sank, along with all the people who believed they would be safe there. The boats and vehicles so many people used to seek rescue fell into the sea.”

Benjamin served up all this information, I should add, for a children’s radio show. I guess he decided that the kiddies needed a good scare that Saturday morning. But what I find most intriguing is the author’s sense of radio time. “So much for that fate day, November 1, 1775,” Benjamin concluded. “The calamity it brought is one of the few that mankind still faces as helplessly now as one hundred seventy years ago. . . . My twenty minutes have come to an end. I hope that they did not pass too soon.”

For Walter Benjamin, chronological time and radio time were two different phenomena, and the later literally had no time for the former.

This the fourth installation of my Walter Benjamin radio diary.

The post Walter Benjamin diary: on earthquakes and radio time appeared first on Radio Survivor.

On this week’s episode, Karen Cariani, the David O. Ives Executive Director of the WGBH Media Library and Archives, joins us to talk about the work of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB).

A collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH, the AAPB not only archives public radio and television; but it also makes material searchable and accessible through its website.

Show Notes:

• American Archive of Public Broadcasting
• WGBH – What’s Happening Mr. Silver (two online, more are available on site at WGBH or the Library of Congress)
• AAPB Special Collections
• AAPB Scholar Exhibits
• FIX IT+, Transcribe to Digitize challenge
• AAPB blog
• Open Vault (WGBH Media Library and Archive website)

The post Podcast # 218: Archiving Public Media appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Rosa Parks interviewed on KPFA in 1958. A 1986 recording of Mr. Magic’s Rap Attack on WLBS in New York City. A clip of astronaut Jose Hernandez from the “Historias de Si Se Puede” series.

These are a few of the audio and radio archives recently shared by the Kitchen Sisters as part of their week-long #KeeperoftheDay series highlighting partners of the Radio Preservation Task Force. The week kicked off with a short piece from RPTF chair Josh Shepperd. You can hear Shepperd talk more about the task force on podcast #192, guesting with co-chair Neil Verma.

For those not in the know, the Kitchen Sisters have been carrying the torch for exploratory radio documentary since way before podcasting re-popularized the genre. They’ve also been strong advocates for archiving and preservation of sound history. Their podcast, “The Kitchen Sisters Present…,” highlights “[s]tories from the b-side of history. Lost recordings, hidden worlds, people possessed by a sound, a vision, a mission.” This includes artifacts like the ephemeral sounds of Burning Man and “Stubb’s Blues Cookbook Cassette.”

The Sisters also recently received a GRAMMY Preservation Grant to assist them in preserving and protecting their deep archive of interviews, stories and music.

If you wade into their deep pool of sounds you’ll inevitably take a full dive. The Kitchen Sisters must be on the radar of every radio lover.

The post Explore Fascinating Radio Archives with The Kitchen Sisters’ #KeeperoftheDay appeared first on Radio Survivor.