College Radio Day - 10/11/11

Hey all. I recently participated in College Radio Day with my fellow DJs at WCBN, and it was a pretty interesting experience. I signed up to DJ in the Diag for a half-hour slot, but it turned out that there was a lot more complication with getting the equipment set up, and then getting the internet to be fast enough to stream.

Meanwhile that was happening, I figured that if I couldn't DJ then I would hand out fliers. It's funny how sometimes it's easy to push a piece of paper in someone's face, and how sometimes you couldn't pay them to take it. The night before the big day I made the flier you see at the top while I was working. What do you think? Is it a keeper? After the reactions I got from a few friends, I thought to myself that maybe after my midterms are done (or to distract me from my midterms) I should redesign my blog with a classier, more minimalist style, á la Marlene Dietrich. Es ist eine gut Idee?

Anyway, so when I finally did start DJing, it turned out to be much more complicated than I thought, because the set up was far from what I am used to in the station, and I had to kind of figure things out as I went along. I knew that I wanted to layer sounds, but I had to play around with the settings to make that a reality. Picking from a more limited collection of music was interesting as well. I'm really glad that I did it, and I think that WCBN really made an impact in the Diag that day, despite EVERY student organization in the universe picking that same day to promote their thing as well.

Something you might be wondering though: what is college radio day? I recently posted on the WCBN blog about it, so you should read that article, but in a nutshell, College Radio Day exists to save creative, non-restrictive college radio. It brings awareness to the talent and hard work that goes into college radio stations, and appreciates the diversity that they bring to communities that might only have Top 40 or public radio.

One way that the WCBN crew did this is through our e-mail list, which is our main form of communication. Eleanor asked, "What's your favorite college radio station that's not WCBN?" And everyone went nuts. It's one of the longest threads I've seen in awhile, and everyone had an opinion. Here are a few that they mentioned which I've confirmed have streaming iTunes links:

• WFMU 91.1 Jersey City, NJ (technically not college radio anymore)
• WNUR 89.3 Chicago, IL
• WNCW 88.7 Spindale, NC
• KZUU 90.7 Pullman, WA
• WZBC 90.3 Boston, MA
• CJAM 99.1 Windsor, CA
• WHPK 88.5 Chicago, IL
• WRSU 88.7 New Brunswick, NJ
• WMBR 88.1 Cambridge, MA
• WMUA 91.1 Amherst, MA
• WREK 91.1 Atlanta, GA

No go support college radio and listen! And seriously let me know if you'd like to see a new blog design, if my blog is hard to read, if there's anything I can do better. I want to know!