Page 24 - the NOISE November 2013

KWHY IS DEAD, LONG LIVE KWHY
It’s amazing we got away with this sh*t as long as we did.
On Saturday, September 21, 2013, a Flagstaff property own- er received a letter from the Federal Communications Commis- sion stating that a pirate radio station utilizing the unlicensed frequency 106.9 MHz was traced to an address rented out by him and that legal action would be taken should further transmissions emanate from the premises, blah blah blah. The phrase “criminal sanctions including imprisonment” was used.
So that’s all, folks. We’re done.
I keep turning on the radio in the hopes that KWHY will somehow magically be back on. All I hear is static and country music in the distance. Dammit, I just made two new station IDs.
KWHY began broadcasting intermittently around 2009. WhenIcameaboardinJune2012,thetransmitterstillgotshut off every night and apparently Stevie Wonder had set up the place.
Shortly afterward, the iTunes shuffle became KWHY’s new backbone and the transmitter stayed on. The equipment was semi-stabilized. A terabyte hard drive was added and the DJs started filling it up. We ran a commercial-free radio station 24/7 for a whole year and guess what? It was easy and fun.
A shout out to my partners in crime: DJ Deejus Christ, DJ Jacob Jingleheimer, DJ Heckno, DJ Platypus Figjam (and the Church Of The SubGenius), DJ Egon, DJ Dee Nider, DJ F5, DJ Breakfast Cornelius, and all the others.
A louder shout out to our Big Mammy who one day thought, “Let’s start a radio station.” Then went ahead and put the stuff
together and did it. Thanks, Mom.
A special KWHY high five to DJ Jacob Jingleheimer, who was
there from the beginning. This man showed up at 7 pm nearly every Friday night for FOUR FREAKIN’YEARS with several crates of albums and a 24-pack of Milwaukee’s Best Ice and kept the jams jammin’ until the brew or the tunes ran out, usually around 4 am. Rock on, bro.
And a standing ovation for the men and women and cats and dogs living in the residence that hosted our little studio. Thank you for putting KWHY’s antenna on your roof. Thank you for letting us schlep our records, tapes, CDs, beer, food, dope, friends, pets, backpacks, laptops, bicycles, skateboards, muddy feet, and smelly asses in and out of your home.
Thank you for occasionally feeding us. Thank you for paying the gas and electricity and rent every month. Thank you for al- lowing us to trash your house and pee in your yard and clog up your john and sleep on your nasty couches. Seriously, that loveseat in the back is so deeply permeated with DJ Jacob Jin- gleheimer’s man musk that y’all should just take the wretched thing outside and sacrifice it to Yig. Or give it a proper burial.
Thank you for picking up and throwing away the mountains of bottles, cans, Jack In The Box wrappers, Doritos bags, ciga- rette butts and other crap we thoughtlessly left behind. Thank you for facing possible eviction when the Feds eventually
caught on, like we all knew they would someday. Thank you for dealing with our irritating obnoxious music and personalities.
Thank you, a million times, thank you.
Any student of behavioral psychology would have a field day with KWHY’s DJ log book. Holy sheepsh*t, what a bunch of drug damaged sociopaths we are. It looks like the script for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Part II.
Remember when Dia’s trailer caught on fire in the backyard? That was f*cked up.
When I first brought DJ F5 (who actually works at a real radio station) around to see KWHY, the back room distinctly reeked of rotten garbage. Kudos to him for still wanting to do a show.
I played “F*ck The FCC” by Steve Earle at least once every couple of months on the air, just as a reminder.
One can hardly describe the feeling of waking up in the morning, turning on the radio, and hearing Hawkwind or Hüsker Dü or Mission Of Burma or Dog Faced Hermans or Ar- ticles Of Faith come blaring out and thinking, “It’s going to be a great day.”
On New Years Eve 2012, a friend and I went to the studio be- cause we knew it would be deserted (the toilet was broken and the party got moved). We killed a bottle of Wild Turkey, spun records and babbled into the mic until we were too drunk to operate the equipment. This is how I rang in 2013. Wonder if anyone was listening.
None of us DJs knew our last show would be our last show, so here are a few of my cohorts to say goodbye:
Wait, we had a totally cool pirate radio station in Flagstaff? Yeah, I thought you’d say that. It’s kinda hard to get the word out when you’re in the illegal arts.
DJ Heckno here. I put on “It Dares You to Love It” 3ish to 7ish on Fridays for over two years. KWHY meant a lot to me and I miss it a whole lot. See, I’ve always had a freak streak a mile wide. I’m proud to be a weirdo, but it means I fit in approximately nowhere. I fit in at KWHY. I suppose it helped that I was usually alone, but I don’t really mean the physical place that was the station, I mean the airwaves, the broadcast that accepted everything I had to give it. KWHY was the closest environment to total freedom I’ve ever had and I treasured it. I loved doing my show. It was my chief cre- ative outlet and my absolute favorite thing to do.
KWHY also helped me stabilize a bit. I structured my weekly life around making that show and putting it on got me out of the house and helped me make friends. I want to thank chiefly Jacob
Jingleheimer for inviting me to DJ and for being my best friend for the past two years. We had a good run, even if it was only for our- selves. I frequently felt I was doing it only for myself and though I have some evidence of listenership, I always just decided that if I was having a good time it was good enough for me.
Thanks to anyone who shared that with me; I hope you loved it. Thanks to Taylor, Rich, Hot Donna, Dane, Chase, Kevin, Rad Chad, and JJ for listening and for letting me know you were out there. YoumademefeellikeIwasn’tjustdoingitformyself.Thankstoall
24 • NOVEMBER 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us