Regarding Indie 103′s Demise
By McAllister - Thursday January 15th 2009 |
Tweet |
Note from ed: We’d asked veteran (and venerable) KXLU morning DJ McAllister to sound off on Indie 103′s apparent demise today. She responded with aplomb, fresh off her Thursday morning drive time shift no less. Without further ado…
Apparently Indie 103.1 is over. I have no idea if this rumor is true because I don’t have an iphone or twitter or a carrier pigeon that keeps me posted on these kinds of things, but for right now let’s consider it true. Losanjealous asked for my official response as a KXLU dj, so here it is:
meh.
I will set the record straight, I never hated Indie 103.1. But as someone who has been in independent radio for almost nine years now, it didn’t quite have the same cream-in-the-jeans effect on me that it had on a lot of people. It always seemed like the Diet Coke of independent music. It was almost there, but not quite. Just when they’d play a fantastic song, BAM they’d slap you in the face with Soundgarden. Soundgarden???? Really, that’s what we need? Meh. I get that, compared to a great majority of the big corporate radio stations, 103.1 must have sounded great to some people. But it was still Clear Channel (CC ad buys to begin; solely Entravision later, but sure – who’s arguing – ed) serving you up a trend and trying to suck out all the money it could at the same time. Morning shows hosted by a plethora of Warped Tour all stars? Meh. Volkswagen commercials cleverly disguised to sound almost like an Elliot Smith song? Meh. The one thing I can’t meh on the station was Henry Rollins, who still rambles on like a crazy old man, but has a music collection that is so ungodly good that I can’t even properly rip on him. Wait a minute, yes I can. He was the hockey coach in Jack Frost. Meh. Anyway, minus his talking, his show ruled. He can come deejay on my show anytime, providing he signs a waiver that he won’t speak. Everything else was the very definition of meh.
In all fairness, if some people who don’t yet realize the complete yumminess of the radio stations left-of-dial were able to open their ears to some good bands, then maybe the station did some good. But for all those people that tomorrow morning will bitch on their myspace or facebook pages about how LA radio now sucks without Indie 103, suck it up buttercup. LA radio is stacked with awesomeness, you just gotta dig a little. KXLU, dublab, KCRW, little radio whatever…. none of these stations are perfect but I think for the most part they are really trying to give you independent music, instead of teasing you with it in order to sell you more of the same ole same ole. So LA, my advice is take a xanax and chill out. Wake up tomorrow and go explore for a new station. Think of it like finding an authentic Richard Marx concert shirt at the Salvation Army as compared to buying a new, fake, distressed “Jesus is My Homeboy” t-shirt at Urban Outfitters. Yes, it takes more effort but in the end you will feel like less of a douchebag, and your shirt will be much sweeter.
haha… whoa. snap. except of course that KXLU and KCRW are only playing talk radio every day that i drive to and from work…
and a friend noted this:
“Also, I love that two of the four alternatives she offers are internet broadcasts. Apple and oranges.”
Really? Have you listened to what KCRW plays for music? For every interesting or good song they play 10 more that are custom made to make your 45 year old step-mom feel hip.
Overuse of the “word” meh? Meh.
Anyhow, she didn’t really “sound off on Indie 103′s apparent demise”, she basically just complained about why it sucked, why everyone who liked it is a douchebag, and why the station she works at is better.
As good as KXLU might be, it’s range is not very strong and there are many parts of Los Angeles that cannot pick it up at all, including most of the San Fernando Valley. Just because Indie 103.1 wasn’t as super underground cool as she would have liked it to be, it’s shutting down has still left a big hole on the dial in regards to decent musical programming, one that KXLU doesn’t come close to filling. I frankly don’t give a crap if it was owned by Clear Channel and trying to make a buck, what I cared about was that they played good music (most of the time). KCRW is great, but it’s different… like the previous commenter noted, it’s like comparing apples with oranges.
That’s just my opinion of course, being someone who’s lived in the L.A. area my whole life but who as if of yet has never lived anywhere that can actually get KXLU on the radio. Maybe it’s the best station on earth, but all I hear is static.
This is exactly the attitude Voltaire was referring to when he said “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” No, Indie wasn’t perfect, but it was a huge step forward for commercial radio on a national level and acting like its demise isn’t important is the same kind of short-sighted “Nirvana sold out after ‘Bleach’” navel gazing that keeps people that are trying to do progressive things with independent music marginalized. We have to remember that institutions are changed a brick at a time. We’re never going to wake up and discover an eclectic and original radio station that champions independent music in a market like Denver or Cleveland without stations like Indie paving the way. Unfortunately, McAllister’s inability to see anything of import in the rise and fall of Indie says more about her ability to bring any real critical thought to the table than it does about Indie’s importance to the radio industry.
I am definitely going to miss Indie103 in the car, no doubt about it (just as soon as my online streaming radio solder-it-yourself device inevitably shorts out, that is). But I thought this was a funny essay and, like it or not, spot-on. I said it. Something’ll step up now that indie has more or less paved the way between listenable music and unabashed commercialism, in a sense. Give it time.
In defense of the left side of the dial vs online stations, unmentioned above: KPFK and KPCC are both also still waiting for you to tune in, as they have for years. Also, Pomona’s student radio (KSPC) is truly stellar, if you are in the far SG Valley.
Indie is off the airwaves? Finally.
It was the Juicy Couture of radio.
Maybe if they took the “Indie” out of the title and replaced it with “Regular”.
Btw,
The valley is not LA.
Both stellar stations, but KPCC doesn’t play music. Sure, KPFK and KCRW and KXLU were always better alternatives than Indie (when they’re playing music programming, which they very frequently aren’t), but don’t forget those are listener-supported public stations. Indie’s failure to sustain itself trying to replicate that, if imperfectly, in a large scale commercial station is exactly the opposite of paving the way for somebody else to step up and fill their shoes. Instead, it’s a shot in the arm for the continued homogenization of commercial radio. Anybody who’s living in a smaller market and dreaming of the day that one of their local stations was inspired by Indie’s success to take the leap to less structured programming just took on in the undercarriage.
From a personal standpoint, I could give a rat’s ass. I never listened to Indie. But from an industry-level “”is it really important” standpoint, anybody who says it doesn’t is crazy.
“Btw,
The valley is not LA.”
By the way, yes it is.
ok Spence, touche. Maybe they didn’t pave the way, but I maintain that something’ll soon step up and give it a different albeit similar college try and, assuming they aren’t owned by Entravision, possibly actually succeed. Indie had a decent-length run, end of day.
These are the same people that in the early/mid 90′s gave LA “CD Alternative” and folded after about a 3 year as well.
Fuck those cooperate bastards they can all burn in hell!
They were not about the music, just exploiting trends and the garden state soundtrack.
What’s the big deal about hearing Soundgarden occasionally? The aghast way McAllister stated that, you’d think Indie played Fallout Boy or something. It’s not like KROQ died or something – now THAT would make me happy.
Also, half the population of LA lives in the Valley. It may not be cool enough for you – okay, it’s not cool enough for me either – but like it or not, that’s a fact.
Didn’t care much for this “essay” at all – McAllister just sounds bitter that KXLU has not been more successful, but how can it be when most of us can’t hear it clearly? Enjoyed the last two sentences, though.
Count me in with those who think McAllister doesn’t really get it right. Yes Indie had started getting off track over the last year or so (I assume due to change in management), but you have to admit it really stood out in LA’s inexcusable cesspool of radio stations.
Unfortunately, college stations are never going to be anything more than underground, so what is the argument there?
WELL KEB:
YOU USTA BE ABLE TO HEAR KXLU IN THE VALLY BUT THEN THE CHRISTIANS AT KTLW STOLE THAT SHIT!
get educated:
articles.latimes.com/2002/jul/12/entertainment/et-carney12
KXLU IS A SMALL STUDENT RUN OPERATION THAT DOES IT’S BEST TO STAY TRUE TO THE MUSIC AND THEIR LISTENERS!
ALWAYS PUTTING PROGRAMING BEFORE $.
Keeping themselves alive on a shoe string budget provided exclusively from listener donations. (NOT EVEN EXPECTING ANY UNDERWRITING LIKE KCRW and KPFK!)
The only thing Indie put before $ was the word’s “we need more.”
KXLU is a labor of love. To the music and the city.
And I know for a fact that McAllister has turned down many other more lucrative jobs to keep her show at KXLU where she has complete artist control of the airwaves. (something that can only be said about a handful of stations in the country let alone L.A.)
And if you listened to her show just once maybe you would understand that Soundgarden of 1990′s (the only thing indie would ever play) was totally the Fallout Boy of their time. Sure their first album on SST and their singles on Sup Pop were ok. But Indie never gave us Flower, Nazi Driver or HIV Baby, just trash like Black Hole Sun and Spoonman from their albums on A&M (A MAJOR LABEL!). Furthermore, Chris Cornell was totally the pretty boy of the grunge scene just Pete Wentz is the pretty boy of this emo pop shit. They both may have started as underground indie Grammy winning sensations but grew into full fledged pop stars no different than Briney or Puff.
(Have you heard AudioSlave? Please! They even broke up after hearing their first record, but got back together cause the $ was too good!)
Its not the band its the context, the era and the label!
INDIE usta stand for independent some thing A&M Entravision and Clear Channel sure as hell are not.
Now its something that can be bought and sold at urban outfitters and hot topic. (Or a new way to sell auto insurance to the “hip” 18-24 year old market on the radio.)
This person works at a *college* radio station? Holy cow. Her rambling, English-challenged screed makes evident only one thing: She would have given her right foot to be involved with Indie. While I acknowledge the excellent lineage of folks who have come through KXLU, I am glad the station’s signal does not reach my radios.
Kay:
Using that train of thought, it sounds like you would have given your right foot to have been asked to write a piece for losanjealous.
the “meh” is cute. but it stills sounds like someone is jealous of “the nation’s best radio station”. sorry, but kxlu is fine, kcrw is pretty fine too, but indie 103.1 (the pre-october ’08 indie) is dead. and that is very very very sad.
Maybe I could comment here on something that I think is equally sad. Morning Becomes Eclectic should die a quick death. When did this show become so bad so quickly. At the end of the day people want songs not white rich boy navel gazing. I seriously kept it on because I was so apalled by it ..like some kind of bad accident you couldn’t stop staring at.
How about we all shut the fuck up and just plug in our iPods? I like hearing Andrew Bird follow Inara George without Cal Worthington’s voice in between.
Oh, I (partially) jest.
reading this thread has been thoroughly entertaining…
a few things i’d like to comment on:
the valley is part of l.a. county, and is absolutely the the little feather in the cap of los angeles… And the signal used to be great there, as BP noted above, you guys should check out the link he posted about why the kxlu signal has dropped off in certain areas.. it’s been an ongoing struggle..
but i digress.. some bloggers seem to think mcallister is bitter the station she “works for” isnt as good or popular at Indie? First of all, she doesnt get paid to work at kxlu, she volunteers… and she does it because the music matters to her… and having a truly independent radio station in l.a. matters to her… The same way it matters to all the fans and supporters of kxlu… Additionally, she’s not complaining about why Indie 103 sucks… somebody asked her her opinion. And she’s giving it. And you chose to read it.. And comment on it, nonetheless… It’s not so much about bashing on Indy 103, it’s more about taking pride in the awesomeness that is kxlu… Indy 103, claiming to be “independent” just isn’t true… it never was… Kxlu is the only truly independent and commercial free radio station is los angeles… and that is something to be celebrated… And if the signal isnt totally clear all the time, how freakin’ rad is it, that you can listen to kxlu streaming online…
As far as listening to radio in the car… again, depending on how much the music matters to you, there are many ways you can seek out good radio… even if you can’t always pick up the station signal.. Someone above asked why we dont shut up and plug in our ipods… why not indeed?
There are kxlu shows that are available as podcasts… Such as Demolisten, She-Rocks, We Came From Beyond, and Part-time Punks… Just google kxlu podcast… They are also available as free downloads on I-tunes…Dublab and Little Radio also have podcasts available… So again, depending on how much the music matters to you… and if you really want to hear radio that is not commercially programmed… its out there… you just gotta dig for it a little… and what music lover doesn’t like to do a little digging…? So get on it, L.A.
I’d like to posit a few more:
Finding that shirt you wanted 6 months ago at 30% off…
Being cut off by a mini SUV…
iPhone vs. the Storm…
Kate Winslet winning double Golden Globes…
Manny being Manny…
Meh.
I have been a fan and supporter of KXLU for over a decade…I love McAllister’s show but I also LOVE Soundgarden, admittedly their really good material never got as much airplay as the shittier songs, but still, let’s not talk shit just to sound cool.
The bottom line on Indie is that yes, their name was a bit deceptive…there was nothing Indie about them. But it was good to have an alternative to KROQ (on the right side of the dial). Sadly as great as KXLU may be, the signal does not reach far enough!
They had a few great shows and its sad that they are gone now. I loved Rollins and Darren Revell’s “Big Sonic Heaven.” I will not miss the annoying commercials, of course. But LA did lose a pretty good alt. station.
A great example of middle-class solipsism. Big picture, people. BIG PICTURE.
Oh wow. All this blowup about indie vs. KXLU so I figured I check out KXLU online and see what it’s all about. Some guy with a cold was on, blowing his nose and breathing heavy into the mic trying to get through a playlist. Incredible radio! Meh. It’s not all about playing cool artists – Indie did it in a professional way.
[...] Los Anjealous has posted a pretty funny reaction from a DJ at the truly independent station, KXLU about 1031’s demise. Turns out fans of [...]
Has Spencer Cross even been to Cleveland or Denver? Those who are “never going to wake up and discover an eclectic and original radio station” there must be radio-impaired. WCSB is a solid free radio station that has survived for over 30 years in Cleveland. In fact, Cleveland is amazing for independent radio. It has harbored (count ‘em) FOUR solid college stations, and reflects the vibrant musical community that produced acts like Devo, the Dead Boys and Pere Ubu.
Dig this paean:
http://clevelandconfidential.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/life-after-top-40-cleveland-college-radio/
And Denver has 101.5fm, almost indistinguishable from Indie 103, as is KTCL at times. But it also had KGNU, KVDU and KRCC before them.
People need to get their provincial heads back into the ether. Cleveland, the Bay Area, Chicago, hell, even a Silicon Valley bedroom community like Santa Cruz, all present more convincing models of radio freedom than LA does, and none of them need a kettle of yupsters who pined over the breakup of Jane’s Addiction to show them a golden-brick road only Indie could “pave”. Apparently the gold is goosed. But there is prior art here, people.
Middlebrow blowhards that drop over-roasted Voltaire quotes and mutter about “critical thought” after a music rant are a small niche, and that niche isn’t large enough to sustain a commercial radio station that felt that playing “London Calling” five times in a single day was cutting some brilliant new trail through the bush. It was the Entourage psuedo-kink for another medium. Outside of the Rollins show, which was truly inspired at times, and the product a free radio enthusiast, Indie 103 was just the latest flavor of the corporate micro-genre called “Modern Rock Alternative.” You know Cleveland does that too; it’s called WBWC, it’s non-commercial, and their playlists at times are ‘cannily’ (cough) similar to Indie’s.
How old is this “McAllister,” 17?
“Meh” to you and your sophomoric attitude.
If anything, it’s self-righteous blowhards like her that make me hate college radio. I’d love to hear what she has to say a few years removed from her college bubble when she’s dealing with the real world–a world that could care less about her “edgy” tastes. Cuz believe you me, good taste does NOT pay the bills, baby…
Well, crap taste must not pay either, since Indie 103 couldn’t keep the lights on. All this bratwurst about “professional” “successful” “commercial” radio programming in some putative “real world” must be lost on the industry aspirants who were just cut loose. Or lost on a dry drunk Steve Jones whistling Guns n Roses pap into a mic for three minutes in between ads from Toyota dealerships.
Forget the faux-pro fetish. Just do it right: from the heart. Indie was the Tin Man in this tiny universe, but he lost his “own way” on the way to Hefner’s house and suddenly thought himself a piggybank.
And Jordan: McAllister has been doing her show for a decade, twice as long as Indie survived in this cutrate Gotham. She’s probably older than you, and yep, her taste is probably better too.
I’ve never nor do I intend to ever go to “Urban Outfitters” and I’m old enough to know that Richard Marx wasn’t cool in the 80′s – I guess it’s all lost on me since I don’t understand transplant hipster talk or why the “Valley” is up for debate – of course it’s LA, look on a map!
Now, finding a Billy Joel shirt at the Salvation Army, that’s a different story altogether.
I haven’t been to Cleveland, Maxwell, but I grew up in Denver and we’ll have to agree to disagree about the stations you’re citing. KTCL is a Clear Channel channel station that, like all Clear Channel stations, is programmed nationally. As far as I know, they don’t have a single show on the order of Rollins’s, or even Steve Jones’s. And like KXLU, KCRW and KPFK, KGNU, KVDU and KRCC are all listener-supported public stations that don’t play primarily music. The only thing that’s even close to a large scale commercial music station like Indie is 101.5, but citing it as “prior art” is pretty laughable given that they’ve been on the air for less than a year and are a direct response to what Indie was doing in LA. And, like Indie, Max Media is already threatening to axe them if their numbers don’t pick up.
As for Cleveland, Chicago, the Bay Area, etc., great. There are a handful of markets that do have widely available independent music programming, but I don’t think that reflects the nature of commercial radio in the bulk of the rest of the country. It doesn’t even reflect LA’s market. I appreciate, however, that you have a more optimistic view and that’s great. I hope I’m wrong.
But more importantly, I absolutely don’t mean to paint Indie as some kind of messianic agent of change. Obviously it exists because of progress made by earlier stations (like San Diego’s 94.9 whom Indie gleefully ripped off) and contemporary peers in other formats like KCRW. Instead, I’m responding to the idea that the loss of Indie in favor of yet another nationally deployed cookie-cutter station programmed by committee doesn’t matter at all. You and McAllister might not think so, but I don’t think the bulk of the music industry would agree with you.
Sounds like KXLU’s djs came to the defense of Mcallister….Pathetic.
i agree #33. pathetic! it’d be much nicer if the fans of mcallister would go away and then u can all get some delicious hate going for that 2-paragraph throwaway diatribe that fully has all you goofs up in a tizzy. OH JESUS DID SHE SAY RICHARD MARX? THATS BULLSHIT!
HEY BP..in response to this:
Keeping themselves alive on a shoe string budget provided exclusively from listener donations. (NOT EVEN EXPECTING ANY UNDERWRITING LIKE KCRW and KPFK!)
KPFK,like KXLU, are totally 100% listener supported. And also barely getting by on a shoe string budget. I can not say the same about KCRW, but please do not lump KPFK into that category, thanks.
Outside of perhaps 8 hrs total of specialty programming during the week, if you drew a Venn diagram between Indie’s playlists and those of KTCL, the overlap would probably be at least 85%. And it’s a bit peculiar to contrast them with a Clear Channel property, since Indie was one of 99 radio and TV stations owned by one of CC’s rivals: Entravision, a massive media conglomerate. They had dependencies, the programming was impacted by them, and it showed. The point of mentioning 101.5fm among the several I listed was to point out that Indie 103 represented an easily replicated formula with precedents as well as peers, old and new.
I tried to like Indie. It’s in my presets, and I scanned through it on most every commute. But it was repetitive, seemed predictable and often tediously self-petting. Very much like a late 90s media start-up. And it appears that that’s precisely what it was.
As far as what the “music industry” thinks, I could give a shit. I point out that other smaller metro areas provide better independent broadcast media models simply to show that other sustainable models exist, and have for a long time: university and community supported models that integrate actual, well, community members, and not just the gentle gurus of a dying rocker elite.
This Indie vs KROQ business is just another Wild Oats vs Whole Foods affair. Why mourn the death of corporate small fish when mom & pops are still trying to survive, and new formats like internet radio are the real frontier, and will likely be available through embedded receivers providing live streams in most vehicles within a couple years?
I can’t speak for Voltaire, Richard Marx, Denver or “prior art,” but I do know that I was listening to Indie from the very start, and I’m going to miss it. It wasn’t perfect, but nothing is. We all know that in corporate radio’s lockstep march toward complete irrelevance, the listernship of people who actually give a damn about music is neither required nor desired. But Indie did its best to give those people what they wanted, and if nothing else, they gave lots of folks in LA a break from “Love in an Elevator” and “Give it Away.”
McAllister sells her abortions every year during KXLU’s fundraiser.
Who out there can say they’re THAT DEDICATED to something they love?
Cut the girl some slack, she’s lost a lot of blood.
What’s the real distinction between “Love in an Elevator” and the Arctic Monkey’s “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” which I heard likely ten times over one week on 103? These are minute genre distinctions…just different generations of A&R rock, one a Columbia artist, the other on Warner Bros. Indie thrived on emerging mainstream big-label artists, and the most familiar and palatable standards of the major-label owned back catalogs of artists like the Ramones and the Clash.
The idea that they had loosened the boots of the corporate lockstep is quaint. They were simply monetizing the RIAA long tail. It just happens that Kanye West’s autotuner and naive retread of Neil Young’s “Trans” is a more lucrative milking of a historical niche than ten thousand squeezes of the Ramones’ “Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio” grapefruit.
i remember hearing that arctic monkeys song every morning for months on KCRW.
No doubt: cf, Nic Harcourt…he of the burnished digital beats and adult zombie disco. But the credits are rolling on the latest Alprazolam co-branding scheme.
In LA, I’m hard to please. KCRW and Indie 103 swapped sins of omission regularly. I don’t imagine Jason Bentley an improvement, though he did play some Blind Faith the other day.
maxwell’s making me mad hungry, first it was bratwurst and a kettle of something ‘r other, small fish, oats, whole foods, now squeezed grapefruit…it’s all food and radio, that one
Maybe there isn’t all that much of a distinction, but I’ll take spins 1-10 of Arctic Monkeys over spins 969486867-969486877 of Aerosmith. If you’re going to overplay something, at least overplay something that isn’t so tired it makes me want to shoot myself.
I miss indie, stop hating you kxlu hotos
[...] a week-or-so of sheer death we’ve had. Scenestar turned out the lights. Indie103 perished. KXLU said meh. Commenters discussed the response. We attended a touching, albeit unnecessarily profane, service [...]
I guess we finally found out why Maxwell went all gangsta with those 5,000 word responses: he wanted to defend Aerosmith and hear a little Blind Faith. Can someone steer him to Mark and Brian or whatever?
Take a red, Max….
KXLU? I thought all they played was static.
Well, Mr Tyler, you’ve made a beautiful daughter, though I’ve never much cared for Boston paleface blues, particularly from artists that share a wardrobe with Stevie Nicks. Though “Toys in the Attic” inspired some decent mid-80s American indie.
Though if Mark and Brian can mix up some Andalou pop and Brazilian MPB with some mid-70s Scorpions, I’m on the spot.
Indie thrived on emerging mainstream big-label artists, and the most familiar and palatable standards of the major-label owned back catalogs of artists like the Ramones and the Clash.
The point you’ve apparently missed from the start is that some of us actually enjoyed listening to the Ramones and the Clash… along with all the other “emerging mainstream big-label artists” played on Indie that you think are crap.
As your original post seems to try really hard to get across, the programming on KXLU is very different from the programming on Indie… so why are you even comparing them? The people who liked Indie aren’t going to suddenly start listening to KXLU as an alternative, as if we haven’t known it’s been there all this time. I don’t listen to KXLU because most of the time the signal does not reach me (even in Los Angeles city proper) and more importantly, KXLU does not play music that I want to hear. Some of us genuinely enjoyed the “crap” that Indie played, regardless of how uncool that makes us in the eyes of L.A.’s hipster elite. I still wish that you would have actually addressed the topic that was presented to you on: ‘Regarding Indie 103′s Demise’. Instead what we got should have been titled ‘The Gloating of a KXLU DJ’.
Losing a radio station like Indie in a city like Los Angeles means a lot of things and has far reaching consequences but in my opinion you haven’t really touched on any of them in favor of self-promotion. What should have been an Indie 103.1 obituary is instead a KXLU advertisement.
Sure, 103.1 was useless most of the time, and that PSA about “Puffy” and “”"grunge”"” is awful, awful, but what’s wrong with Steve Jones? He’s like a kinder, more self-effacing Shatner, or a daffier, more self-aware Rod Stewart. Plus he plays all that Roxy Music.