College Radio Day October 1st

College Radio Day will be celebrated this Tuesday October 1st on your radio dial!! College Radio Day was founded by former General Manager at WXAV  (St Xavier University) and current communications professor at William Paterson University, Rob Quicke.  Rob Quicke, along with current General Manager at WXAV, Peter Kreten, who assisted in developing the idea, started this event in December 2010. This day is about raising awareness about the beauty of college radio and that it still exists.  In the same spirit as Record Store Day, College Radio Day will have interviews with artists, bands in the studio, documentaries broadcasted and other events to mark the day. College Radio is a creative place for DJ's to program shows that are based on the compassion of loving music, there are no constraints from the advertisers who run commercial radio.  College Radio is home to musical formats that otherwise are not heard anywhere else like ska, jazz, international, blues, metal, folk, rap, alternative, indie, new wave, electronica, etc.  College Radio also supports local artists as well and this is probably the best place for any local band to have their music heard.  Though DJ's still follow the same commercial radio FCC rules, they are able create their own playlists without a commercial radio program director telling them to play a certain popular artist every hour.  

I have been a part of college radio for several years now. I have since graduated from St Xavier University but still run a radio show on Wednesday nights. It's the best unpaid job I've ever had. I've had the chance to interview artists like Henry Rollins, Sharin Foo of the Raveonettes, Summer Girlfriends, Ike Reilly, Scott Lucas of Local H and host several local bands live in the studio.  We had our first College Radio Day broadcast in October 2011, Friday night DJ, Tommy Bilas, and I had the opportunity to have Scott Lucas of Local H live in the studio with us that day. Scott arrived on his bicycle all the way from Wicker Park, we were impressed when he walked in not drenched in sweat, and he looked cool as a cucumber. We did receive a call from his manager early in the afternoon that since Scott was travelling by bicycle, he would need an acoustic guitar, and do we have one handy?  Hmm, handy, no, but did Peter Kreten, our general manager got his hands on one, so yes we have one!  Scott was great to interview and hung out with us for an hour. He answered all our questions, nothing was off the record with him, and he played 5 live songs for us as well. Tommy and I were so lucky to have him perform for us, kind of our own personal rock show, what an absolute dream for any music fans like us!! We had the 5 songs recorded as well, a great way to mark a wonderful interview and performance by Scott. 

For last year's College Radio Day, BC from The Jungle on Monday nights, had Chip Znuff live in the studio on this show and we got hear Chip share stories about travelling all over the world, writing music, and insight to the music industry.  I had local band, Summer Girlfriends, come down from the north side, to talk about their burgeoning music career and what it is like to be an all-female band.  We also had the DJ's (Wizards as they like to call themselves) from WZRD (Nothrneastern University) came to visit as well and tell us what it was like when their university shut them down and they could no longer broadcast their freeform radio shows. The DJs went to battle with the university and now are back on the air. This year, look for an array of interviews with all sorts of musicians including Moby.  

College Radio stations are usually left of the dial in the fuzzy zone however majority of these stations broadcast online as well. Here is a list of other worthy college radio stations worth listening to:

http://www.wxav.com/ 88.3FM - St Xavier University

http://www.wnur.org/ 89.3FM - Northwestern University

http://www.wonc.org/ 89.1FM - North Central College

http://www.wluw.org/ 88.7FM - Loyola University

http://www.wlra.com/ 88.1FM - Lewis University

http://www.883thedog.com/ 88.3FM - Western University

http://www.wrrg.org/ 88.9FM - Triton College

www.colum.edu/academics/radio/wcrx 88.1FM - Columbia College

http://www.wmxm.org/  88.9FM - Lake Forest College

http://www.wkkc.fm/  89.3FM - Kennedy King College

www.whpk.org 88.5FM – University Of Chicago

www.wzrdchicago.org 88.3FM – Northeastern Illinois University 

These are Illinois based universities, please list other college radio stations here as well in our comment section. 

Email musical comments and thoughts to radioruta@ameritech.net.

Don’t forget to tune into WXAV (88.3fm or @ www.wxav.com) every Wednesday night from 7pm to 9pm for Alternative Sounds For Your Head with host radioruta. Alternative, indie, new wave, punk, electronic music and more!!