From: glad@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Clayton Glad)
Subject: Re: Alternative radio stations
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 15:40:34 GMT

mbutler@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (M. COOPER / B. McQUAID) writes:

>	Why do I need broadcasting experience to suggest that
>alternative/underground radio stick to airing more obscure music?

This is just a non-sequitur, Milo.  I've never said *anything* about
your experience or lack of it in radio.  You've been making claims about
the history and current state of radio formats and programming based on
having listened to very few stations over a very short period of time.
I've said only that you do this at peril of sounding like a fool.

>Are you saying that the process which worked historically should
>work today, regardless of the growth of pop music?  But you would
>then be ignoring history, as you claim I am.

This is the second time in a week you've made passing reference to the
"growth of pop music" as if it were already established as fact.  But,
again, you can't have it both ways.  Either you argue from your objective,
ahistoric mountaintop, in which case you ought not to make reference to
history, invented or actual, or else make good on these ideas you have
about what the history or "growth" of music and broadcasting is.  

>	I think your "experience" line is useless because the pro-
>liferation of pop has outlived it.

See?  There's another one.  What "proliferation" of pop?  Wouldn't you
have to know something about the history of popular music in order to
base an argument on this "proliferation"?

>Here you come with the inevitable argument that you've been "in the 
>business" longer than I; suddenly Eli jumps onto your bandwagon and 
>your favorite word is "blather."  

"Blather" is good, and has come in handy in this thread, but it's hardly
my favorite.  And the argument that you haven't been in the business
long enough isn't mine.  My argument is that your claims far exceed in
reach what your listening experience can grasp.

>I never claimed that I've listened to truly alternative
>radio; I claimed that I'm tired of the lack of it with relation to
>pop, and I blame pop's intrusion into what some people like to think
>is an underground radio station. 

Do you mean that you're tired of the lack of truly alternative radio
within your remarkably limited listening experience?  Yawn.  I would
never even have read to the end a post about the pathetic state of 
radio in San Diego over the past 5 years.  You've been claiming a lot
more, though.  You've told us just what does and does not count as
"alternative" radio, you've told us what kinds of radio formats have
and have not existed (even in the face of disconfirming personal
experience), you've told us just what "alternative" programmers ought 
and ought not to do.  And you've done all of that not only based on
fantastically limited knowledge and experience, but all the while
insisting that such knowledge and experience were not necessary to
understand the situation.

In short, you've revealed your ignorance at every turn.  You've got
some immutable ideas about radio and music, formed without listening
to much of either and untouched by the facts of the matter.  Why should
we - why should *anyone* - take seriously anything you have to say on
this issue?

Milo:

>	Well, I didn't use the word "genre," but here I must bow to
>your remark that absolutely formatless stations truly exist in the
>present, simply because I haven't heard any.  Please _do_ provide
>examples, so that I may hear them (if possible) and judge for
>myself.

Ray Shea and Greg Taylor have already posted playlists which evidence
free-form programming.  Henry Kaiser programs a show on KPFA which is 
as all over the map as anything I've ever heard.  Eli's offered to send 
you tapes ...

You know, Milo, if you had approached this discussion with even a modicum
of humility and some understanding of how terribly limited your own
experience has been you might have made some friends *and* learned something.

Me:

>-" That such programming is largely a thing of the past is *exactly* the
>-" point I've been making.  Only I attribute the disappearance of such
>-" programming more to the homogenization of "alternative" radio than to
>-" what you seem to believe is pop's ascendency to a monolithic genre.  
>-" I'd love to debate this with you but I don't see how that would be 
>-" possible without considerable reference to this histories of music and
>-" radio.

Milo:

>	So, do you believe that pop and falsely-labelled "alterna-
>tive" music are two separate objects?

I think that pop and "alternative" overlap in significant portions.  What's
that got to do with anything?  Again, you seem to have this belief that
the pop music industry has destroyed progressive radio programming, but
still haven't offerred any evidence.  

Me:

>-" Wait.  I thought it was *impossible* for a station not to have a format.
>-" 

>	It isn't, according to you, and I'm tentatively taking your
>word for it.

Gosh, you're really taking my word for it *just because I've heard such
stations?*  Maybe we are getting somewhere.

>	I've heard nothing that adheres to my idea of an alternative
>radio station.  Knowing what I submit, why do you need an example?
>Must I, like you, limit myself to referentialism?

If you're going to continue to make claims about what programmers ought
and ought not to do based on the current state and history of radio, yes,
you damn well better make reference to some real stations.  And if the
sample you base your views on is going to continue to be as small and
skewed as the San Diego market, you ought to be aware of the limited
usefulness of your conclusions.

-- Clay