KEXP’s Fundraising Drive 2013 (left) https://www.instagram.com/kexp/
KEXP’s massive music library 2011 (right)
Verging on a passion, sometimes obsession with music, I have immersed myself in the radio world. At a young age, I fell in love with volunteering. I started volunteering at KEXP, an independent radio station in Seattle (as a senior in high school working on my senior project entitled: “What It’s Like to Work at a Radio Station”).
Print I made in Printmaking class at Everett Community College.
Now about five years since graduation from Cascade High School, working several part-time jobs, and schooling part-time for years, I now work as a student staff member at KAOS Community Radio, a community/college station in Olympia. The music is the primary reason I work in radio. There’s also the hardworking staff and volunteers that dedicate hours to production and other daily operations.
If you’re interesting in reading more, here’s an essay I wrote called “Passion for Community Radio,”
“KAOS Community Radio began transmitting airwaves to listeners around Olympia in 1973. Located at The Evergreen State College, a college with a nationally recognized unique approach to education: with student-centered, interdisciplinary, collaborative learning. KAOS offers a collaborative, free-form approach to radio: with its community involvement and ever diverse selection. KAOS uses a varied content in order to pinpoint a diverse audience, with a vast spectrum of music, all kinds of different news stories, comedy acts, public affairs, call-in discussion, and more. At 1100 wattage spanning through the South Sound region, it offers news stories relative to legislation, involvement, events, and other happenings around the Olympia area and expanding out across the globe. Unlike other radio station and streaming services, KAOS offers free-form radio, meaning the DJs decide what goes on air, not corporate opinion. KAOS’ DJs are community members or student staff who carefully select what goes on air.
KAOS collaborates within its community, by using underwriting to spotlight local business, offering membership perks, like discounts to local businesses and events, and letting its listeners know about local artists, activists, and more. KAOS is free-form radio, with a few binds: DJs must play 80% independent music, and 30% local music. KAOS music spans over a wide array of genres, including folk, country, blues, reggae, world, latin, “loud,” punk rock, rock, psychedelic rock, hip hop, jazz, childrens, and more. You can hear flavors from all over the globe, and 30% of it is local, too! Local bands from all around the Puget Sound are heard on KAOS, like The Microphones, Sleater-Kinney, Beat Happening, Earth, Milk Music, Full Moon Radio, Girl Trouble, Blue Scholars, The Physics, Chastity Belt, King Dude, Aqueduct, and more. KAOS’ DJs take independent music to heart. Local labels are widely represented on KAOS, including regional labels like Sub Pop, Hardly Art, Kill Rock Stars, Suicide Squeeze, K Records, Knw-Yr-Own, Medical Records, Porchlight, to name a few. KAOS is a great outlet for other independent labels across the nation and all across the globe, too.
KAOS Community radio is staying alive in this digital age because its content is so prevalent and meaningful. Its DJs serves the community with passion, drive, and a willingness to collaborate. KAOS targets a diverse culture of listeners, allowing its listeners to understand the culture’s art, music, and stories better (twenty four hours a day!)
In 2015, we are on the verge of becoming robotic. Tuning into KAOS and other community radio stations allows us to look up from our smart phones and pay attention to the culture around us. In this technological age, community radio’s signal is still something we grasp and hang tightly to. It is our best outlet for local understanding and human connection.”
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