Get your ears ready for the sweet sound of local, independent and unsigned musicians, because October 11th marks the 2nd annual College Radio Day- a team-up of over 300 college radio stations across the nation, as well as Canada and Jamaica too!
Rob Quicke and Peter Kreten, both general managers of college radio stations, founded College Radio Day in 2010, its aim being to harness the power of collective college radio stations and use it to raise awareness and garner more support for college stations nationwide. College Radio Day aspires to celebrate the beautiful freedom that is un-commercialized and local-flavored college radio. By joining forces of over 300 college stations, the event encourages people who don’t usually tune into college stations to do so, and build a bigger support base for the unique medium. College Radio Day is a non-profit organization, run by volunteers passionate for radio, although organizers of the event hope it can be used as a fundraising tool for participating stations.
If you’ve ever tuned into a college radio station, you may have found that their material deviates powerfully from anything Top 40 related. College radio seems to be the only medium fearless enough to play material from local, unsigned musicians just trying to make it. Many bands that are popular now owe their success to their beginnings on college radio stations. College radio isn’t out to sell you anything, and music isn’t picked according to what is mainstream and profitably feasible; it’s a medium organized by people passionate about digging for great music- forget everything that’s on the surface. Each college radio station is different, playing their own unique blend of their area’s local, independent, and unsigned artists. By joining forces for College Radio Day, these small, local names can hit the ears of people across the nation and even in other countries, and what could be cooler than that?
So, whether or not your school is participating in College Radio Day, it is surely an event to check out. Tune in today to discover new tunes, hear exclusive interviews and see college radio garner more support than ever!
In celebration of College Radio Day, rock out to a playlist of tracks currently popular on college radio charts. Enjoy!
Lily Angelle is a Radio-Television-Film major at The University of Texas in Austin, TX. She hopes to one day be a cinematographer or screenwriter. In her spare time she enjoys going to concerts, and often writes music reviews for the blog “30 Days Out.” Lily’s favorite bands are Weezer, The Beatles, and The Velvet Underground. You can often find her studying on campus in the Cactus Cafe, or around Austin at Home Slice, her favorite pizza place.