 
 
April 7th, 2008 5:33 pm | by JAY HORTON Music | Posted In: Columns, Columns, Columns

Painfully True To The Music: Three Suggestions for KBOO

     
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kbooThe venerable community-supported progressive radio station, KBOO, has always seemed somewhat mysterious. Who exactly is this community of which they speak? I've never known anyone to listen to KBOO unless they themselves or immediate family were going to be on the air, but somehow the station still maintains a six-figure annual budget. Does Paul Allen host The Old Mole Variety Hour?

In any event, struggling to maintain their peculiar relevance in an age where target demographics no longer actually own radios and every musical genre has been overpromoted, the (sigh) "radioactivists" are asking you, the people, for suggestions via a listener survey. We've submitted a few modest proposals:

1. KBOO Morning ZOO.
Not, perhaps, actually drivetime shock jocks—there'd be no shock nor jocks and the audience wouldn't be expected to own cars or, y'know, work—but something to raise a few bemused smiles down at the co-op. Have hosts call New Seasons, ask if they have Prince Albert in a can, and, if the clerk says yes, lecture for twenty minutes about carbon footprints and dolphin extinction. Also, perhaps, a form of Loveline where the transgendered could call in to ramble about sexual identity as Japanese noise artists offer un-translated advice.

2. Heightened Visibility.
They've a studio in the heart of LoBu nightclubbing, but the only ones to ever notice it are suburbanites wondering why the shabby warehouse couldn't be renovated for condos or a parking garage. Why not continually rent out a room at The Jupiter Hotel and—hosts scowling through drawn shades at the Doug Fir celebrants—broadcast live? It'd be like the anti-TRL!

3. Cutting-edge Advertising.
While official histories report KBOO's call letters derive from signing papers on Halloween, those dry satirists at Wikipedia insist it was named after a particularly popular strain of marijuana called "The Berkeley Boo." Whether or not this has any truth, it's surely the most interesting thing we've ever heard about KBOO and demands further exploitation. Surely some intern with a press tab could mix up some E with Hypnopomp printed on the side. Branding, people!

But, obviously, they'll need far more help should the station survive into the digital century. Imagine, years hence, stuck in a rental car absent Sirius, the farthest side of The Dalles, you pour coffee inside the CD player and, desperate for poetry slams, scan the dial searching out The Talking Earth…ONLY TO DISCOVER KBOO HAS VANISHED!

You'd need to waste 10-20 minutes searching out a WiFi hub. Do you want to take that chance?

The KBOO survey can be found here. Thanks to Oregonlive for the tip.

Links:
KBOO!

Image: KBOO's logo!
 
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