“You bring people together and something will always happen. . . . The how is pretty easy, but the why is more important to me.”
Tag: radio
Posted inMusic
Zeena Parkins and Jeff Kolar merge electronic sounds with nature on Scale
The new Scale is billed to composer and improvising harpist Zeena Parkins and Chicago sound artist and radio producer Jeff Kolar, but its story involves a larger group of collaborators. In 2017, University of Illinois professor Jennifer Monson (who’s also a choreographer and dancer) commissioned Parkins and Kolar to work with her, dancer Mauriah Kraker, […]
Posted inMusic
Remembering Triad Radio, where the usual was unusual
Triad Radio, Chicago’s pioneering experiment in commercial free-form radio, left the airwaves in 1977. Now longtime program director Saul Smaizys is moving its archives online.
Posted inArts & Culture
An ear to the ground at the Third Coast International Audio Festival
A trip to “the Sundance of radio” in the golden age of podcasting
Posted inMusic
The Blue Ribbon Glee Club turns ten with a reunion party for fans, friends, and alums
The Blue Ribbon Glee Club turns ten with a reunion party, old-school beat party Boombastic comes back to Wicker Park, and more.
Posted inBest of Chicago
Chicago radio thrives at the left of the dial
Corporate consolidation has flattened out Chicago’s big commercial radio outlets, but low-power and college stations still have plenty of personality.
Posted inBlogs
Mike Love and the Dizz on the rise and fall of WGCI’s Bad Boy Radio and the birth of the Birthday Line
Mike Love and the Dizz launched Bad Boy Radio on WGCI in 1997, and their show’s decade-long run created cultural touchstones that still bring black Chicagoans together.
Posted inMusic
Why little rappers still believe in big radio
Little rappers still believe in big radio thanks to DJs like Nehpets at Power 92.
Posted inBlogs
Saying good-bye to Herb Kent, radio’s greatest of all time
Herb Kent helped shaped Chicago’s musical tastes for more than 70 years, and his on-air persona was history’s purest example of radio magic.
Posted inMusic
Eternals drummer Areif Sless-Kitain on Hieroglyphic Being’s futuristic house
Current musical obsessions of Eternals drummer Areif Sless-Kitain, his I Kong Kult bandmate Fred Wells, and Reader critic Peter Margasak
Posted inBlogs
The Filmless Festival is back and bigger than ever
Third Coast Audio Festival hosts the three-day event celebrating radio broadcasting and podcasting.
Posted inBlogs
Pop-Up Magazine, a multimedia storytelling show, makes its Chicago debut
Calling all writers, artists, broadcasters, filmmakers, and anyone else who loves a good conversation.
Posted inMusic
Patrick Haggerty carries on the spirit of Lavender Country
Forty years later, the man behind the first gay country record teams up with a former Chicagoan to reach out to another marginalized population.
Posted inBlogs
Sweet soul: The generosity and tragedy of soul historian Bob Abrahamian
A personal farewell to Chicago soul historian and WHPK deejay Bob Abrahamian, who died at age 35 last week
Posted inArts & Culture
V-Day Issue: A power couple like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, but better
V-Day Issue: Lynn Rondeau and Katy Bird are the type of people who’ll parallel park your car for you.