Amplify Your Airwaves

I'm starting a new feature here. With each entry, you can click on the song to download it. Convenient! Now you don't have to hum along to get the real feeling.

Killing Joke - The Death and Resurrection Show

It's somewhat hard to believe that I would come across a song like this, never mind enjoy it and play it regularly. Most people assume I stay away from the heavy stuff; things with loud guitars and massive drums. But everyone has an angry music phase, and I'm no exception.

I didn't know much about the realms of independent music when I started as a DJ on the college radio station, WUVT. Sure, I thought I did - and I probably knew more than most people. But I had never heard of many bands that are staples of my ears these days: Belle & Sebastian or The Dismemberment Plan come to mind. I didn't know about independent record labels like Touch & Go, Quarterstick, The Militia Group, Ipecac, or any number of other ones that couldn't be found at the local Wal-Mart. So joining up with WUVT gave me a chance to explore things I'd never heard of, or even never though to look for before.

My first show on the station was on our AM sister station, sort of a training grounds before people moved up to FM. I got there early that day, and I wandered around the station a bit to acquaint myself with the new surroundings. I gazed through thousands upon thousands of albums, looking for anything that sounded familiar. While flipping through albums in our newly added shelf (which we call rotation), I happened across this album that said it guested Dave Grohl on drums. I thought "why not? I like the Foo Fighters. This couldn't be much different, right?"

Yeah. Right.

I started off the show safely, with a Verve Pipe track. Nervously, I took the microphone from time to time to tell everyone what it was they'd just heard (if anyone was even listening). About 20 minutes into the show, I remembered that album, what was it again? Killing Joke. Ha, that sounds intense. Well, I'd never really considered Dave Grohl's affinity for the harder stuff before. I popped it into CD2, cued the track up, and faded in. Within the first few seconds of "Ja-jug ja-jug-jug" crunchy guitars, I knew I was finding something new for myself. This was what I came to this station for! This is what independent music was all about! Something I hadn't heard before. Something... edgy.

From there on out, I was always in that rotation section, looking for what was new and would turn my ears just the right way. I found a lot of good music on that shelf - Laguardia, Apollo Sunshine, Wesafari, Danielson, Anathallo, Sufjan Stevens... honestly the list could go on and on. Very few things ever packed quite the same punch as that one Killing Joke track that I stumbled upon one day.

And it would come back around again, from time to time. Several years later, just a few weeks ago now, I was hanging out with the WUVT staff (of which I'm now a part) in our office, and we decided that it was time to forcefully remove a piece of furniture from the studio. There was a couch there, one that had been there since long before any of us had started, and its time had definitely come. Who knew what kinds of things had happened on that couch, or the things that could be growing inside it. It needed to go. And it just so happened, as we grabbed saws and started kicking at armrests, that the song came over the airwaves. I had pre-recorded a show with the station's music director, and we had tossed The Death and Resurrection Show in the middle somewhere, just to turn it up a notch. And it couldn't have come up at a more fitting time, as we destroyed that decrepid old rack.

Removing it was also just another step in the rebirth of WUVT, something that's been going on all year. The station had stagnated some in previous years, and this year's staff was finally getting things done. We were scheduling regular concerts, gaining visibility in the community, there was a new promotions campaign... and then, over winter break, the station was struck with a major setback. Our transmitter started having problems, major problems, and our reach was crippled. Barely able to broadcast outside the town, we were unsure what to do. But something interesting happened - our staff worked twice, three times as hard as they had before (which was already a monumental effort) to get the word out about our situation.

And amazingly, people listened.

Something we hadn't really counted on was how well our cries would be heard by alumni, connections, friends of friends, and others. Our station's online stream was still getting the signal out. And it still is. As it stands now, we've made extraordinary progress in just a few short weeks. The road from here isn't going to get any easier, and we've still got a heck of way to go in rebuilding the station and our transmitter. But there's something about WUVT that just can't be held down, it seems - something edgy, something in the way the staff is always looking to try something new to get noticed. It's what independent radio is all about.

Talk about your resurrections.

Plug in, and turn it up...



For information about how you can help WUVT get back on the air and back to full power, PLEASE visit our website at www.wuvt.vt.edu. Thank you for your support!