#kzme

I figured Dar Williams' "Are You Out There?" would be a fitting goodbye to KZME. 

Tune in tonight for the final live broadcasts on KZME: Deborah at 5pm, and a farewell starting at 7pm.

Here's the album version of the above.1  I've transcribed the lyrics by hand; I guess I did it 'cause.

Perhaps I am a miscreation, no one knows the truth, there is no future here

And you're the DJ speaks to my insomnia, and laughs at all I had to fear, laughs at all I had to fear

You always play the madmen poets, vinyl vision, grungy bands, you never know who's still awake, you never know who understands

and are you out there, can you hear this? Jimmy Olson, Johnny Memphis, I was out here listening all the time.

And though the static walls surround me, you were out there and you found me, I was out here listening all the time...

Last night we drank in parking lots, and why do we drink, I guess we do it 'cause

And when I turned your station on, you sounded more familiar than the party was you were more familiar than the party

It's the first time I stayed up all night, it's getting light, I hear the birds I'm driving home on empty streets, I think I put my shirt on backwards

are you out there, can you hear this? Jimmy Olson, Johnny Memphis, I was out here listening all the time.

And though the static walls surround me, you were out there and you found me, I was out here listening all the time...

And what's the future, who will choose it, politics of love and music, underdogs with turntables, indie versus major labels, there's so much to see through, like our parents do more drugs than we do...

Corporate parents, corporate town I know every TV set that has 'em lit they preach that I should save the world, they pray that I won't do a better job of it, pray that I won't do a better job...

So tonight I turned your station on, just so I'd be understood, instead another voice said I was just too late and just no good...

Calling Olson, Calling Memphis, I am calling, can you hear this? I was out here listening all the time and I will write this down and then I will not be alone again yeah I was out here listening oh yeah I was here listening oh yeah I am out here listening all the time...

Anaïs Mitchell, "Young Man in America," live on WNRN public radio.

Here's the album version.

This will be one of the last songs KZME and Hello Cruel World host John B. Jones woke me up to on 107.1FM in Portland. JBJ said on last week's "Best of the KZME Years (#342!)" that it was his favorite from those years. I can see why.

Thank $creator I didn't end up one of these young men, at least not in whole if in part; I've known too many, and too many of them are gone, and too many of them are still here.

KZME has a huge library of in-studio recordings from Pacific Northwest artists. They've collected this priceless collection of history from years of offering up their transmitter to local and regional bands. With KZME going off the air, what will happen to this library of live in-studio performances available nowhere else?

I propose collecting it all as digital recordings, making a torrent of it, and putting it up for fans to download.

Using BitTorrent minimizes or avoids hosting costs, because the downloaders share with each other; and importantly, BitTorrent isn't just for "piracy." Depending on who has rights to the recordings, this is perfectly legal if they allow it. I can't recall when I last downloaded a Linux install CD any other way, for example.

I suggest a Creative Commons license as one way for KZME to go out with a final huge gift not only to Portland but to the world as one of their final acts.

I know there's more complexity here than meets the eye, especially regarding covers, ASCAP, etc etc. But I have the technical know-how to do this, and if it does happen, I'll see that the torrent is "seeded" (downloadable) until I'm dead.

Portland Radio Project, XRAY and OPB Music battle it out for the translator which pumps the signals, and some of KZME's programming. When will this happen? Watch this space.

Yeah, I'm leaving Jefferson Smith's face on the link as the randomly-chosen picture from the article.

The word was on the street. KZME, Portland’s all-local music station was closing its doors. The answer is yes and no. Rob Brading, CEO of MetroEast Community Media, which owns KZME, said in an interview today, “What we know as KZME is going to go off the air.” When? Not sure. Why?

“We said we have an asset in our translator. Clearly Portland Radio Project has some considerable assets and XRAY has some considerable assets and if we’re all in this little tiny niche trying to make it on our own, that’s not going to work. That doesn’t make any sense. So let’s see what we can find out about collaborative opportunities. That’s where we are.

“What KZME has tried to do is not going to go off the air. What the folks at XRAY, what the folks at Portland Radio Project are trying to is not exactly the format and the content that we have tried to present at KZME, but there’s a lot of overlap. We don’t have our feet in concrete on what this ought to look like and for it to work we just think that there’s got to be collaboration and a partnership rather than competing interests.

Yeah Rob, I'm sorry, but what KZME has done, not just tried to do, is going to go off the air. Nobody else will - or can - duplicate the KZME format. And I'm not holding my breath for the same density of in-studio guests with the same intimacy of the interviews, either. Some of that will come back around. The same amount, quality, and attention to very small local bands? Like I said, not holding my breath.

We’re not going to shut the translator down, that’s the whole point to not shut it down, but continue to use it, but to do that in collaboration with XRAY and Portland Radio Project. We’ve had conversations with OPB Music as well.”

Portland Radio Project founder Rebecca Webb said today, “KZME has a 48 watt tower in the West Hills that they’re going to be letting go of and we’re going to argue that we should be the rightful inheritors of that signal. The reason is, of the other contenders, OPB already has a large and well-deserved place on the FM dial and XRAY has a low-power FM and they are politically specific, they represent a specific political point of view. We are apolitical and we feel we represent the whole community.”

Jefferson Smith, a founder of XRAY, who likes to call himself a “Low-Power Executive,” said today: “We want to help build a new golden age of community radio and radio in general in Portland. Our interest is to enable as much of the KZME mission and broadcasting asset as possible.”

I'm well aware that there's far more depth to the issue, but it's hard not to take it at first glance like PRP and XRAY - especially with the latter's sudden funding boost from "progressives" who wanted left-Rush-Limbaugh programming1 back on the air after Bain-Capital-owned Clear Channel axed it from KPOJ - are muscling in on what was, as Brading says, a very limited funding base.

Some people are probably just going to see it like that without assuming there's more depth. No matter how they see it, anybody who cares about KZME's format is going to be very upset.

Did KZME have the polished delivery of Entercom-owned commercial station KNRK (94.7)? No. Did it feel like cable access radio? No, not most of the time. The in-studio interviews and performances were well-engineered, and were conducted by DJs who were really into the bands they featured.

There are a lot of amazing announcers who clearly put their heart and soul into programming their slots on KZME. I had mornings where, before I was out of bed, I'd find myself holding the phone up in the air three times to identify a song for me. For the first time since 2004, my primary avenue of music discovery had shifted back to terrestrial radio because of KZME. For somebody as teched-out as me, that's a goddamn miracle.

KZME cannot be replaced. I do hope PRP and XRAY will tread very carefully around the grave of something great.

Since KXRY already has a transmitter (8 watts or not), I guess by default I have to support PRP getting control of the translator, if only for maximum diversity on the dial. The idea of OPB getting another signal here is nauseating. Not because OPB is bad, but because they don't need it, and giving it to them would be a major disservice to other much smaller community groups.

If nothing else, unless it has a 100% Oregon and Portland-metro focus, KEEP THE FUCKING POLITICAL SPEW OFF THE TRANSLATOR. What an utter waste of a precious resource that would be.

Portland / UK "dual native" Kelsey Lindstrom strikes an epic note here. You can practically smell the fog.