Vote here.
Cheers,
Kat
Posts archived in WIUX
Heyo, Live Buzzers. WIUX, IU’s premier student radio station has cracked the top 50 for consideration for mTVu’s College Radio Woodie Award. Voting for the top 25 ends this Tuesday. Luckily it appears that you can vote as many times as you want (or at least as many as you can click.)
WIUX is up for an MTVU Woodie Award under “Best College Radio.”
Vote for them NOW!
And if you’re interested in becoming a DJ this semester, you can fill out an application until 11:59 Sunday on their site.
Live Buzz will be hosting a series this summer highlighting a killer WIUX DJ we think you should tune in to.
This week: Jessie Davis!
WIUX Show Name and Time:
peterbjornandjessie Tues 2-4
Describe your show- is there a genre or theme you stick to?
New Music Tuesday kind of stuff. I really like to bring new music to life with my show but also snag in a few old favorites of mine. I have been really enjoying the new Dirty Projectors album
How long have you been at the station, and what made you interested in it?
I’ve been at the station for about 2 years now. I have always been into the indie rock genre and my friend DJ’ed for the station. So we had a show together for my first go at it. The rest, it be history.
Year in School/Major
Approaching my 5th year/ CMCL
Hometown
Indy
FAVORITES…
What were your earliest memories of listening to the radio? Did you have a favorite station growing up?
Growing up I was more of a pop diva but as I began to appreciate music I strayed away from listening to top Billboard hits. Besides listening to WIUX, I really enjoy listening to Last.fm’s radio.
What are your most memorable memories of Bloomington and music?
My most memorable music experience at Bloomington was when I was getting off of work and heard music from the Lotus festival. People were standing outside of the tent venue as Funkadesi was performing and engaging the crowd like none other! They brought the idea of world music to the forefront with that performance, and a group of straggling on-lookers together to enjoy their talents.
What are your ultimate summer jams?
The Doors’ greatest hits, Ratatat, Ra Ra Riot and Dirty Projectors.
Favorite ice cream on a summer day? Anything blizzard, anything peanut butter.
ETC.
If you could interview one artist- living or dead- on your show, who would it be and why?
Thom Yorke. Because it would be the hardest interview to host with a man so obscure and so full of talent at the same time. I wonder what our dialogue would consist of and I’m a big sucker for Radiohead, I would probably perspire to death before the interview even started!
What do you see for the future of radio? How do you think it will change over the years? Internet Radio. I think we’ve only begun to see its influence and its capability of reaching the masses.
Celebrity Crush
Jim Morrison
Past WIUX profiles: Sean Kase
Ah, my sweet, beautiful Live Buzz. At last I (almost) return!
It’s been so long since I’ve written here that I almost forget what to do, what to say, how to act, etc. I’m getting flustered.
But really, it’s been far too long. As some…well, no, maybe none of you know, I’ve been abroad in jolly ol’ London since the day after Finals Week (how’s that for a break, eh?), but I’m finally heading home in less than two days. While I yearn for the sweet summer in Bloomington and my hometown, Akron, OH, I’m going to miss this place dearly.
The story of how I fell in love with indie-rock and snagged an interview with Sonic Youth
Music: it’s the one thing in life with which I am completely and irrevocably obsessed. Ever since I heard the first line of “Don’t Know When But A Day Is Gonna Come” by Bright Eyes in the 8th grade, I have had an insatiable need to see, hear, and discover new music. This obsession only escalated when I heard Elliott Smith, Built to Spill and Joy Division. When I listened to their songs, something inside me was transformed.
Obsession can be hard to define. It’s difficult to understand when you’ve gone too far; when you’ve hit that point of obsession. For me, flying to New York City to see Bright Eyes when I was only 14 years old wasn’t too far. It was logical. If Conor Oberst wasn’t coming to the Midwest in the fall, then I would go to the East Coast. Of course, over the period of the next two years he would come to Chicago and Bloomington, and I saw him both times. When I was 14 and obsessed, the realization that he would eventually come to my part of the country was irrelevant. My desire to see him was so great that I simply couldn’t wait a few months. I had to go at that very moment and when my plane landed in the JFK terminal, I finally realized the extent of my obsession. The trip of course, was more than worth it.
Since those earlier years in junior high and high school, my obsession has only become more fervent. When I enrolled at IU, I realized that I could actually volunteer at WIUX, IU’s student-run radio station, and write about bands and review albums for the newspaper. Ultimately, I could meet people who shared their music and were even more obsessed with it than me. I swapped music collections with people who had bookshelves jammed tight with vinyl and CDs stacked as high as skyscrapers. It gave me such an intense feeling of happiness that I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Eventually I interviewed a couple of small, indie bands, like Beach House and Bishop Allen. In the spring, I interned at the Bloomington record label, Secretly Canadian and went to as many concerts as was realistic. The need to get my foot in the door and to hold onto any part of the music that I could was even greater than before. Simply reading about these bands that I loved in Spin or Under the Radar magazines wasn’t enough. I wanted to meet these people, ask them questions, and figure out why I had such powerful feelings when I listened to their music. Why was it that they had seemed like such close friends when I went through depression and the death of a close family member? How could these people that I didn’t even know, touch me so deeply that it felt like I was born inside their music?
When I received an email this morning that said I was going to interview Sonic Youth at the Vic Theater in Chicago, I could barely move. It was just a few weeks ago that I sent an email with my name, call letters of the radio station at which I worked, and my position there. I needed a drink of water, but my whole body was shaking too hard for me to stand. I wanted to scream or cry, but instead I made a couple of phone calls to share my exciting news. I was both terrified and excited. I didn’t know what I was going to ask them or how I would even manage to not be too nervous to properly conduct the interview. After realizing that I would be nervous regardless, I drove to the post office to try and snap back to reality, but a mundane task like slapping a stamp onto an envelope made everything seem less real.
Interviewing any band is exciting for me, but the members of Sonic Youth are legends. Forming back in 1981 before I was even born, Sonic Youth is known for its avant-garde experimental rock sound scapes and its ability to help other indie bands make it music industry. Hundreds of musicians have since tried to recapture their sound and have found inspiration in them; Nirvana and Blonde Redhead being only a couple among many.
While at this point I’m not sure what I’m going to ask them or where I’m going to be staying that night in Chicago, I’m just going to have to try to get back to reality and remember that obsessions aren’t always a bad thing. If it weren’t for my obsession and deep desire to be involved with music, I wouldn’t be writing this right now.
Make sure to check back on Tuesday June 30th for my interview with Sonic Youth.
xoxo,
Katie