This sounds great.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/nyregion/10billie.html
"Mr. Schaap said he believes the station is playing all of the known Holiday recordings, from her first (on Nov 27 , 1933) to her last (April 26, 1959).
"Many of the recordings belong to the station, which has some 25,000 jazz records, and to Mr. Schaap, who has about 20,000, as well as those of other WKCR D.J.'s Some were borrowed from the Institute of Jazz Studies. Others were recently bought on Internet.
"The station D.J.'s labored to search out every live and studio recording, not to mention outtakes and obscure interviews, radio performances and audio tracks of her television appearances.
"WKCR regularly plays multiday marathons dedicated to a single jazz artists, including 11 days of John Coltrane a year ago. But this is the longest marathon in the station's 63-year history. There are no commercials, but the D.J.'s have been begging listeners to call in with donations to alleviate the debt of the station, which is partly funded by the university."
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Sunday, 10 April 2005 23:36 (twenty years ago)
this would be awesome if you didnt have phill schaap saying the same 5 things (including the very annoying "othewrwise the station will be switched over to sports radio and college rock, whatever that is") on repeat for 35 minutes while begging for cash before finally going back to the music.
the coltrane thing last year was truely amazing.
― b b, Monday, 11 April 2005 17:51 (twenty years ago)
Since when did WKCR start begging for cash? Do they actually have pledge drives now?
Why doesn't Columbia take a tiny little sliver off their HUGE endowment and fund their own g-dam radio station like every other university does? What a joke.
― Keith C (kcraw916), Monday, 11 April 2005 18:23 (twenty years ago)
kcr has had pledge drives this year only, for the first time in the past 5 yrs. this is because after 9/11 their transmitter was knocked down & since then they have accumulated a lot of debt trying to get everything working again.
columbia partially funds the radio station but won't do so totally because kcr refuses to give up their autonomy & become "columbia radio" ie. get rid of all the dj's no longer enrolled, broadcast all columbia sports games, cover columbia news events in depth, air columbia lectures, etc etc. columbia also has a bit of beef with the station from back during the vietnam protests when kcr was the only media outlet allowed into the building that students took over, publicizing their cause across the country/world/etc. wbar at barnard is more the typical college radio station and is completely funded by the college -- its broadcast range is much lower & its audience much smaller.
also: the begging for money is not occuring during the discography portions of the programming (i.e. now) or overnight, & should hopefully finish by this thurs as they only have about $25,000 left to raise.
― j c (j c), Monday, 11 April 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)