Page 28 - the NOISE APril 2013

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Radio Free Flagstaff is Looking for a Studio by John Abrahamsen
The moment we finished our March fundraiser, Radio Free Flagstaff be- gan its search for a low-power FM fre- quency. Well, sort of — according to our engineer, the frequencies available to us will depend on where we put our antenna, so first we need to find a place in Flagstaff where a low-power FM an- tenna can reach the most listeners. We have several locations in mind — as of this writing, we are working out the details. Hopefully, by the time you read this, the issue will have been settled and the search will be over. The wheels are in motion.
Putting up an antenna is more com- plicated than it sounds — our antenna and our projected live studio need to be in the same location, which limits our options. So we’re not really looking for the best place to put up an antenna — we’re looking for the best place for an antenna where we can also set up a live studio, and on our very limited budget.
The silver lining in this predicament is that Radio Free Flagstaff was plan- ning to look for a studio anyway, so our volunteer hosts can do live radio shows, but also to satisfy the point system the FCC has for granting FM licenses to non-profit community-access radio stations — applicants with a live studio have the best chance of getting ap- proved. So now, the studio phase of our development plan has been moved up to the front burner, thanks to a chain reaction brought on by our frequency search.
So far, we have three possible studio locations in mind, but nothing is carved in stone. If you know of a good location in Flagstaff where we can set up an an- tenna and a cheap studio, email us at radiofreeflagstaff@gmail.com ,and check these pages next month for more news on Radio Free Flagstaff.
liners are going to disown us but to hell with them, let’s see if they can come up with five mil for the revolution. Karl Marx is spinning in his grave right now ...
All we have to do is write the catchiest crassest most stick-in-your-head ditty we can muster, which shouldn’t be that hard. Pop music is afloat in an ocean of crass (not Crass). Let’s see, what’s a good formula for a hit song ...
General subject matter: empowerment of the downtrodden. You can beat me but you can’t kill me, you can break my spine, but you can’t change the way I feel? Check.
Specific subject matter: alcohol, so all the pub-goers can bellow and slosh their pint mugs around to it? Check.
Football-chant chorus sung by men? Check. Always good to have the soccer hoo- ligans on your side.
Sweet melodic part sung by a woman? Check. Same with the ladies.
Modern dance beat primed for remixes? Check. The ravers too.
How about a trumpet solo? Sure, who doesn’t like a trumpet solo? Check.
Something for the auld folks, like a few lines of “Danny Boy” (the drinkers will like that part too, damn this is easy). Now it’s grounded in history and we can say it’s all part of the great tapestry of popular music blah blah blah? Check.
A healthy dose of irony, like a song about the stupidity of alcohol that will be em- braced by drunks everywhere? Check.
Somehow, make all of this so simple and direct that five-year-olds will walk around singing it? Check.
Art for art’s sake: give it a title that’s no- where to be found in the song lyrics? Check. Think we can get this load of bollocks in
the top ten? Why not, look at what’s there now.
Our band will be a novelty in America (“Ooh, they’re ANARCHISTS!”), a one-hit wonder, a trivia question, but who cares. They’re done with revolution over there, and our hands are full with England and its me- dieval mindset, anyway. We’ll get away with as much as we can until they wise up. Then they’ll bury us and it will be back to business as usual. We already know how it will sound:
Lions in the Street; Swamp Dogg
“Well gosh, it’s been fun you guys! Thanks for the hit, everybody’s sick of it already be- cause we played it on the radio 15 times a day for the past year. Our most widely circu- lated and influential popular music maga- zine just named it one of the 20 Most Annoy- ing Songs Ever Written, that’s quite a prestige. So, stealing CDs from Wal-Mart, huh? Pretty funny there, suppose you and your anarchist pals got a chuckle or three out of that. Well, guess what?
“We’re REAL good friends with Wal-Mart. And we’re not laughing. Anyway, thanks for all the money! Hope y’all enjoyed your time here in the US, now back to England with you, ta ta! Lots of luck with your revolution and the whole human rights thing. We got a 17-year-old singer with huge boobs we have to over-promote now; her lyrics are nice and safe. Oh, you can go ahead and keep making records but none of them will ever see a US release, so you really shouldn’t bother. Don’t worry, your status as a footnote in music his- tory is assured; we’ll make sure the American public either can’t stand you or thinks you’re a joke, if they can remember who you are in 6 months. It doesn’t really matter, it’s just a pop song. Right?”
Right.
Yet the world of pop can be strange indeed. For every fluke #1 spat out by a group of dirt- poor high school zitpickers from East Jesus, Oklahoma, there’s dozens of tunes out there written by committee, by songwriters with a keen ear on popular music and its trends, pooling their knowledge and attempting to create that most elusive and unpredictable of entities: the hit single.
Inthe1960s,theBrillBuilding(inNewYork City) and Motown Records (in Detroit) did it. Their staffers studied the hit parade like stockbrokers and tried to predict what would sell and what wouldn’t. It was their job, same as any other Joe 9-to-5. They went to work, punched in, tinkered with a few melodies on the piano, had a coffee break, scribbled out some lyrics, took a long lunch with a couple martinis to get the creativity flowing, and maybe cranked out a little masterpiece by quitting time. Then they punched out and went home. And came back the next day to do the same thing.
28 • APRIL 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us