Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU (05/30/90)
Really-From: katefans@world.std.com (Chris'n'Vickie of Kansas City)
Vickie here.
Re: "Suspended In Gaffa" radio show (Vickie's playlists)
Chris and I are moving to Chicago in late June so the show will be
ending. The last show will air June 18, 1990.
My first show aired March 13, 1988.
It's been an amazing 2+ years. The show came to mean more to me than
I ever could have imagined possible. I put more sweat, love, time,
effort and money into it than anything else I'll probably ever do in
my life.
When I started out, I had around 20 CDs, 100 records and a handful of
cassettes by female artists.
I now have over 250 CDs, approx. 800 albums and a couple hundred cassettes
by female artists. Of course, quite of few of those are nearly useless.
Time after time I ended up buying things that were awful, or only had one
or two good songs on them. I came more and more to appreciate artists who
cared about quality and innovation, artists who were unwilling to release
albums with a lot of filler. I came to appreciate artists who had the
imagination to write lyrics that were meaningful, interesting and different
from the same old sappy love/lack of love songs that comprise 99% of the
lyrics that you hear on the radio. I have a lot of respect for women who
write their own music, but that respect is dimmed when they take no time
at all on their lyrics, when their lyrics are interchangable with nearly
everyone else's.
From the beginning I had my "rules of airplay":
1) I would NEVER play anything I didn't like.
a) Some things I liked better than others, sure.
b) My tastes in music are wide and eclectic so it never was a problem
2) I would usually only play songs with female vocals.
a) duets were OK
b) "male" bands with female vocals were OK
c) songs written by men, sung by women were OK
d) instrumentals, as long as there was at least one female player, were OK
3) The MUSIC, always and above anything else, had to be good.
As Peter Gabriel once said, "There have been many great songs that had
truly appalling lyrics, but there have been no great songs with truly
appalling music". That's my philosophy. No matter how great the lyrics
of a song, if the music sucked, I wouldn't play it. The music has to
stand up on its own, as if there were no lyrics at all. I designed my
shows to be taped and listened to over and over and over again. Bad music
can't be listened to repeatedly. I consider a show a failure if I listen
back to it and I want to fast forward through any songs. I strive to
avoid that kind of thing.
4) Once the music's good enough, then I looked for decent lyrics. Stories,
topics, human observations. Love/lack of love songs were right out unless:
a) the song was truly incredible
b) the viewpoint was unusual, interesting, different
c) the song was sung in a foreign language
5) I would focus as much as possible on alternative/progressive music
(Alternative=different from things usually heard on normal radio)
(Progressive=music that went beyond the boundaries of "easy")
but would throw in music from other genres and eras.
6) Have fun, educate my listeners and strive to keep the show as high quality
as possible.
I don't consider myself sexist or feminist. I decided at the beginning to
focus on female artists becasue I happen to prefer female vocalists. There
are quite a few male bands and artists I love, but a show like mine balanced
the scales of sexism on radio. Listen to any rock, alternative, classical,
"classic" rock, and jazz station. Very few women are represented. Count the
number of songs by men. Count the number of songs by women. The ratio is
on average 10 to 1. Sometimes it's worse, sometimes better (not often though)
Classical is the worst, there are plenty of female players but hardly any
female composers or conductors. They exist, but don't get attention.
Country music seems to have the best male/female ratio.
Alternative is fairly dismal. There are far too many "boyz with guitarz"
bands and a large number of them are just mediocre. I have nothing against
boyz with guitarz except that there are a ton of excellent female artists
who get ignored while these mediocre boyz get all the airplay time.
It's depressing to watch MTV's 120 Minutes because of this. In the average
2-hour show there are rarely more than 1 or 2 videos by female groups and
hardly ever do they show solo female artists, other than Sinead O'Connor and
Kate Bush, and even they're not treated with the respect they deserve.
Again, all I ever tried to do was balance the scales a little.
It's been fun and it's been important and it's been interesting.
I don't know if Suspended In Gaffa will ever be on the air again. I
will try to get it going again somehow.
Lots of people said they didn't understand why I posted my playlists when
no one could hear the show. "Recognition Factor" is the answer.
1) If you saw artists and songs on the lists that you recognized and liked,
you would be more likely to trust my taste in the things you'd never
heard or heard of.
2) If you saw a name on my list, you might get a spark of recognition if
you saw the name elsewhere.
3) If I played something you hadn't thought about in a long time, seeing
it on the list might spark you to dig it out and listen to it again.
4) If I played something you liked but thought no one else had ever heard
of, you'd know that someone, somewhere appreciated it too.
5) The show is unique, I'm proud of it and someday maybe, just maybe, it
might get resurrected and possibly even syndicated. Wouldn't it be great
to have a built-in audience to begin with?
6) Some artists need exposure in whatever way possible. This is a great
forum to at least get their name in "print".
Thanks to those who have taken the time to read my playlists. Thanks to
those who have actually gone out and bought things on my recommendation.
Hope you liked them.
I still have a few weeks to go before the show ends so I'll be posting those
playlists in rec.music.misc.
It's been fun!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= Vickie of Chris'n'Vickie of Kansas City katefans@world.std.com =
= "Suspended in Gaffa" KKFI 90.1fm =
= Saturdays 10:00pm-12:00am =
= Kansas City's Alternative alternative to boyz with guitarz =
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU (05/30/90)
Really-From: Jeffrey C. Burka <jburka@silver.ucs.indiana.edu> Vickie: In article <9005300543.AA28426@world.std.com> you write: > >Lots of people said they didn't understand why I posted my playlists when >no one could hear the show. "Recognition Factor" is the answer. >1) If you saw artists and songs on the lists that you recognized and liked, > you would be more likely to trust my taste in the things you'd never > heard or heard of. >2) If you saw a name on my list, you might get a spark of recognition if > you saw the name elsewhere. >Thanks to those who have taken the time to read my playlists. Thanks to >those who have actually gone out and bought things on my recommendation. >Hope you liked them. THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU. I'm gonna miss the weekly postings of the play lists. To say nothing of your insightful comments into KaTe and the meanings of her songs! I also have you and "Suspended in Gaffa" to thank for Jane Siberry. I kept hearing her name on .gaffa, but had never heard Jane. Then I saw a video from BbtB on VH1 and thought "Oh. Interesting." Then I read one of your playslists on which you'd played something from "No Borders Here." A few days later, I was in a record store exchanging some CDs I'd gotten for my birthday. Since I wasn't paying for the discs I wanted something I might not ordinarily buy without hearing first. I went to the Jane section and found 3 or 4 albums. I recognized the name "No Borders Here" and on your 'suggestion', I picked that one. THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU Hope things work out in Chicago for you and Chris. Jeff -- |Jeffrey C. Burka | "On the outskirts of nowhere | |jburka@silver.ucs.indiana.edu | on the ringroad to somewhere, | |jburka@amber.ucs.indiana.edu | on the verge of indecision..." --Fish |