KWVA provides diversity
and variety for listeners
■ Now in its seventh year,
the campus radio station
continues to present an
eclectic collection of music
By Rory Carroll
Oregon Daily Emerald
Seven years ago this May, Uni
versity radio station KWVA finally
took to the air with the apt choice
of “Hey Mr. DJ” by They Might Be
Giants.
After three years of fighting red
tape, KWVA [88.1 F.M.] finally re
ceived its permit to broadcast
from the Federal Communica
tions Commission. Its first broad
cast came at 1:32 p.m. on Thurs
day, May 27, 1993, three years
after students voted to use fees to
support a college radio station.
At that time, KWVA only had a
staff of about 20 people and was
not yet running 24 hours a day.
KWVA has seen many adjust
ments in the last seven years, but
General Manager Kelly Lea said
the station’s dedication to diversi
ty is unaltered.
“I can’t think of any factions of
the student populace that aren’t in
some way represented here,” Lea
said.
Lea points to the over 100 vol
unteers and their wide variety of
musical tastes as being KWVA’s
main resource.
“They cover pretty much every
genre you could want,” Lea said.
“It’s definitely not the same thing
every day.”
Since its infancy, KWVA has
been greeted with mixed reviews.
While some students praised the
station’s diversity, others com
plained, saying that they rarely
recognized a single song and did
n’t appreciate the overall musical
selection.
"There is always going to be
people that don’t like what’s dif
ferent,” Lea said.
“I can’t tell you that I don’t hear
music here that scares me occa
sionally,” she said. “But I also hear
a lot of music that I really like that I
haven’t heard before,” Lea said.
“ It’s kind of luck of the draw. ”
Junior Lydia Nelmes likes that
KWVA is student run and thinks
that KWVA is an acquired taste.
She said that although the pro
graming seemed random to her at
first, she has recently been giving
the station more of a chance and
in turn has begun to like it more.
“You need to listen to it more
than just turning it on,” Nelmes
said.
KWVA will be celebrating its
birthday with a concert at the
WOW Hall on Monday with The
Dub Narcotic Sound System. Dub
Narcotic front man Calvin John
son, also the founder of indie label
K Records, is no stranger to cam
pus airwaves himself. Johnson
worked for 15 years at Evergreen
College station KAOS in Olympia,
Wash. He was a DJ and still drops
in occasionally to lend a hand.
Johnson said that non-commer
cial radio is significant because it
provides a voice for the disenfran
chised. He said he believes that
the mainstream media is becom
ing more and more homogenized.
“The fact that fewer and fewer
people are controlling the voices
of mainstream media means that
alternative perspectives aren’t be
ing heard,” Johnson said. “The
most exciting thing that non-com
mercial radio is doing is public af
fairs and news broadcasting. ”
Johnson said that alternative
news sources are important be
cause the mainstream media are not
always an objective news source.
Lea says that KWVA’s alterna
tive news program, has-a loyal fol
lowing and that the station re
ceives a flood of phone calls if for
some reason the show doesn’t air.
“So much of the news you hear
on the commercial stations or
even on your nightly news is so
questionable. You really have to
wonder what it is they’re not
telling you and how accurate what
Ryan Starkweather Emerald
KWVA DJ Eugene Chism does ‘Phat Tracks’ a hip hop show on Friday evenings.
they are telling you is. ”
Lea said that the show is getting
away from that because it is a
sphere where you don’t have to
please everybody all the time.
“There are all kinds of music
out there, but you’re not hearing it
on mainstream media. That’s why
non-commercial radio is provid
ing such an important outlet for
people to hear and to be heard,”
Johnson said.
Although Lea’s job as general
manager may seem thankless, she
says that there are payoffs.
“When a person calls up to say,
‘I’ve never heard this band before,
they’re great,’ — that’s very re
warding.”
The Internal External and the
Sub-Debs will open the WOW
Hall show, which starts at 8 p.m.
Lesbopalooza: concert gives Eugene a real alternative
■The Murmursand Alix Dobkin are
featured at the Queer Pride event
By Joe Walsh
Oregon Daily Emerald
A month of Queer Pride festivities will
conclude Saturday with Lesbopalooza, a
music festival featuring several lesbian
artists from around the country.
The University’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgender Alliance organized the festival,
which will be the first of its kind in the
Northwest, according to LGBTA co-director
Gabrielle Hendel.
By sponsoring Lesbopalooza, the LGBTA
hopes to present the University as an envi
ronment that promotes diversity. It also
hopes to place Eugene and the Northwest’s
alternative music scene in the national spot
light, Hendel said.
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“I m hoping that it will make Eugene a
hotbed for alternative and progressive mu
sic,” Hendel said. “It kind of shows that Eu
gene and the Northwest are capable of
pulling together a show with so many dif
ferent people who have really influenced
the course of the queer rights movement.”
Among the performers will be Alix
Dobkin, The Murmurs, Sarah Dougher,
Madigan Shive, The Deb Cleveland Band,
Tracy + the Plastics, The Culottes and
Stephan. With its broad assortment of
artists, Lesbopalooza offers a variety of mu
sic from a cross-section of generations and
genres.
Dobkin, one of the festival’s main draws,
is known as the first openly lesbian musi
cian. She came out in 1972 and has since
been such a mainstay in lesbian culture that
she has taken on the title “head lesbian.”
No stranger to all-lesbian music affairs,
the San Francisco resident helped found the
Michigan Women’s Music Festival and has
performed in several Lesbopaloozas, in
cluding the first one in New York in 1994.
“I love Lesbopalooza,” Dobkin said. “It’s a
great celebration of femaleness and a great
cultural celebration. It’s a pure, refined
woman energy. It’s not your typical, run-of
the-mill, corporate mainstream pap.”
Senior linguistics major Hawley Math
ieson who will attend Saturday’s show,
agrees.
“I’m really excited about the show,”
Mathieson said. “I think it’s an awesome op
portunity to be able to attend an event with
all these women-focused bands.”
The Murmurs, considered a co-headliner
on the Lesbopalooza ticket, is a well-known
duo, especially among the lesbian commu
nity. For one, The Murmurs are signed with
a major record company in MCA.
For another, one of the members is the
girlfriend of alternative/pop megastar k.d.
lang, bringing added attention to the group.
With their catchy, pop-influenced sound,
The Murmurs appeal to a younger crowd,
while Dobkin appeals to the older women
in the lesbian community, Hendel said.
Lesbopalooza’s range of music, which
will include electronica, punk, indie, folk,
funk, blues and queer-core, should further
broaden the audience.
“Hopefully we’ll be getting a huge variety
from all across our community,” Hendel
said. “I think that living in a lesbian or queer
community, you kind of search out music
that you can relate to and that has a message
that you identify with. But also, it’s just good
music, and I know a lot of people who aren’t
queer who are going to it just to hear some
good music.”
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