PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

WYEP article wrap up
by Chris Holm Thursday, Jul. 28, 2005 at 12:57 PM
chris@cardinalpoints.net (email address validated)

WYEP's Mike Sauter has no comment as of yet to the crucial points of misconduct.

Follow up to the previous articles.


http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2003/05/6612.php

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/8827.php

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/9049.php

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2004/11/16339.php

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2004/11/16659.php

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2004/12/16742.php

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2005/05/18344_comment.php#18651

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/19285.php

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It's been over a month, and though Mike Sauter finds me a “Card” for assuming he was refusing to answer the questions about payola, he has not responded as he said he would. After a month, I'd say it's fair to say he isn't planning on it either.

This is not the first instance of this type of behavior with WYEP. I have received emails from others claiming a similar M.O. With the station, namely insulting rude treatment of anyone who doesn't tell them only how great their programming is, or who has any constructive criticism, or even questions their programming decisions.

A public institution not answering such questions is unethical enough, but to insult and attempt to discredit me or others and then not answer shows a clear abuse of position. I'm sure that Mike is a spokesperson as well. He wouldn't be allowed to talk otherwise. Remember Rosemary forbid talking on this issue years ago, and I'm sure the staff and volunteers are all aware of what's transpiring.

But who would fire them, themselves? They sit unaccountable to the public they claim to serve and are in charge of millions of tax-free dollars and are misleading the public.

To be fair, they have cut down on the Michele Clark (see previous articles) play lists, but are still playing the Clark stuff of the past 3 years before they were outed, and may jump back on it after the building is finished, or perhaps are getting their play lists from another indie. They are numerous.

Also if you've been following the story, the soap opera up to date, is that Richard Thompson appears to have left Spin Art, Spin Art now appears again on Clark's hit page, and WYEP is playing Thompson's new CD which isn't listed on Clark's site. http://www.micheleclarkpromotion.com/aaastation.html

Thompson is now getting played by WYEP, and I must add that I haven't heard a Clear Channel ad in ages, but the sponsors link is longer on the front page, so who knows, and again, since there's no discussion on the matter, and since WYEP just does what it wants, when it wants, this may be temporary and could reappear after the funds are in place.

But the ills of indie promotion/ corporate radio control are numerous and long lasting. They effect musicians, listeners, and create a general dumbing down and lowest common denominator affect that favors the familiar sounding mainstream, and excludes those wanting to hear or play challenging adventurous progressive music. It also indirectly creates a mindless group think environment that politicians and corporate advertisers love in a society.

Salon has addressed this several times, once 6 years ago and again with this year's follow up to the previous payola stories, and discusses the complexity of the situation in depth.
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Let's see if they'll play this

Randy Newman, Paul McCartney and Counting Crows were stars at this year's Gavin convention in Boulder, Colo. That's OK for a conference, but bad news for fans of good radio.
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By Dave Cullen
August 24, 1999 | BOULDER, Colo. -- Pleasant music, pleasant town. There's a reason trade magazine Gavin conducts its adult album alternative (Triple A) radio station summit in Boulder every year. The idyllic, peaceful and almost entirely white community nestled into the front range of the Rockies personifies the very flavor this struggling format tries to capture. "Familiar" was the term bandied about most frequently and enthusiastically at the conference last weekend -- fittingly, since the top two spots on Gavin's current Triple A chart belong to Santana and the Pretenders.
The rate-the-record session closing out the conference produced the first real controversy of the conference, as well as the greatest insight into the identity politics ruling contemporary American radio. A dozen upcoming releases were rated, based on two-minute snippets, spun without artist-identification. The industry audience voted on hand-held electronic devices, rating each cut on a four-point scale from "No Chance" to "Chart Topping/Heavy Rotation." The audience panned a clunky rockabilly retread and then howled when it was identified as a Paul McCartney song. Even though it earned the second-worst rating of the entire session, several panelists admitted that they'd be spinning it on the air very soon.
"I was going to rate it a two [light rotation], but when I realized it was McCartney, I gave it a [maximum] four," said Jason Parker, program director at Seattle's KMTT. "You've got to put it on." That position provoked a flurry of debate. Which new artists would be forced off to accommodate the hoarse has-been? "If the song sucks, the song sucks," said one disgusted audience member. "It's a familiar voice; you want to give listeners something familiar," another panelist responded.

http://archive.salon.com/ent/log/1999/08/24/boulder/

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“The bad news for musicians and radio fans, though, is that even in the wake of the indies' demise -- a remarkable industry milestone considering how far back the look-the-other-way practice dates, and how many times labels and artists vowed, unsuccessfully, to do away with the system -- tight radio playlists are unlikely to improve anytime soon. While indie promoters are often seen as dubious, they did have a knack for getting new acts their break on FM radio. That's why some industry insiders worry that station programmers may soon become even less adventurous in choosing which songs get tapped for rotation on FM stations' heavily guarded playlists

"A lot of great songs never saw the light of day at radio because there was no money behind them," concedes one label source. The examples are almost endless. Pick a favorite band or deserving song that's never been embraced on the FM dial; odds are there was no "push" -- no radio promotion money -- behind it at radio.

The fear is that without indies, radio programmers, paid first and foremost to secure high ratings for stations that in some markets now carry price tags in excess of $100 million, will rely more and more on proven hit singles as well as older, already-familiar songs, leaving less airtime for new acts. "Radio stations don't get ratings through playing a lot of new music, they get ratings through repetition and familiarity," says one indie veteran. "You think Infinity [in the wake of its indie ban] will all of a sudden say, 'Hey, let's play lots of new music!'? It doesn't work that way. I think the playlists will get tighter."

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/05/payola/index_np.html
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But familiar is the word, though don't think the loss of indies will mean they don't hold a great degree of blame.

The fact that the AAAs are not mentioned in the previous article aside,

Here's the rub.

Labels paying big money to get their music on the air are not going to choose risky pioneering sounds. When a million is spent on promotion it better pay off, and that's not something they're going to take chances on. So, they pick something tested and tried and familiar. Just look at the big radio stations, you can either sing along to something that's been aired once a week since it originally aired, or that sounds like something that has been played once a week since it was first aired.

In contrast, a&r guys (talent scouts) used to look for the next new sound. Today, they must be looking for the same old provincial sound.

Personally, I don't think there's anyone left in the music business who understands anything but business, but the paradox is that every sound was new once. Every great artist had their own new sound, and your typical B.A. will just never grasp the arts. Now music companies are owned by huge conglomerates, and anyone right-brained with a sense of artistic taste is generally not your up at 5 work 16 hours a day type, rather up at noon, work for 4 hours a day, rough around the edges "Johhny Fever" types, which doesn't look so good to the chairman of the company that owns the company of the company that owns your company.

This has given us the current environment we're in. Clear Channel is either oldies, really oldies, or what it calls new music which is a stalled format of “edge music which was cutting edge in 1990, or rap /urban that shares the same distinction, that being familiar sound a like format of the stuff we've already heard for the past 15 years.

Then there's WYEP which has painted itself into a AAA corner which is essentially alternative light. The “edge” stations took the more testosterone, distortion laden sounds of the early 90's and AAA took the soap opera Dawson's creek artists Jayhawks, Shawn Colvin, Pete Yorn, Wild Colonials, Paula Cole,

http://www.dawsonscreek-st.com/

These breathy one dimensional singer songwriters sans any musical virtuosity, are just an old wave of easy listening teen age soap opera rock. In 1992 it was a refreshing change to Winger and Warrant, but 13 years later it's twice as bad as hearing Free Bird for the billionth time.

It would seem anything other than the old provincial artists that WYEP showcases can be found on some awful teenage soap drama. My favorite description of which, goes to Mad TV's spoof of “pretty white kids with problems”

other examples...

Felicity; Ryan Adams, Natalie Merchant , Shawn Colvin, Shelby Lynne,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000065CVV/ref=pd_sim_music_1/104-3455622-2949528?v=glance&s=music

Roswell ; Zero 7, Sarah McLachlan, Coldplay, Sheryl Crow
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005YU87/ref=pd_sim_music_1/104-3455622-2949528?v=glance&s=music

Buffy The Vampire Slayer; The Dandy Warhols, Aimee Mann, Alison Krauss
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000CABLJ/ref=pd_sim_music_5/104-3455622-2949528?v=glance&s=music

Charmed; Ziggy Marley, Flaming Lips
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000BZK1N/ref=pd_sim_music_5/104-3455622-2949528?v=glance&s=music

Music from The O.C; Joseph Arthur, Turin Brakes, The Dandy Warhols, Alexi Murdoch , Finley Quaye & William Orbit
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001DMWHA/ref=pd_ser_asin_1/104-3455622-2949528?v=glance&s=music

Music From the O.C. ; Eels, Super Furry Animals, Interpol, The Thrills
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00063MCSE/ref=pd_ser_asin_2/104-3455622-2949528?v=glance&s=music

Music From the O.C. ; Ron Sexsmith
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00063MCT8/ref=pd_ser_asin_3/104-3455622-2949528?v=glance&s=music

Music From The O.C; Beck
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007QMS20/ref=pd_ser_asin_4/104-3455622-2949528?v=glance&s=music


If WYEP's jocks are picking songs based on the merit Sauter describes, then they need to hang out more in record stores and clubs than in front of the TV.


Although these sounds are now 15 years old the current line up is either the same or artists that make sound alike style over substance, unadventurous music.

Also from talking to many ex-DJs, the word is that when stations went to a “shut up and play what we tell you” posture, many of the really good ears, and ethical human beings left. The ones that hung on or jumped on weren't know for caring about the music, rather the perks of the fame circle.

Now any nit wit wannabe musician can turn on the radio, and go “hmmmm what's popular? I'm good looking, I can make something that sounds like that and make a few bucks.” But the reason we have good music albeit though overplayed in many instances, is that someone with taste and intuition picked something new adventurous and offensive to piss off their parents and because they were bored of the same old same old. Elvis and the Beatles both were offensive to the mainstream when they debuted, but the current playlist at WYEP would put my grandmother to sleep, or at least give her something soothing to bake cookies to.

But real artists have something new to offer the world, or at least some great feat of talent derived from years of practice and hard work. They push the envelope. They don't merely paint by number. If stations like WYEP took the posture it does now 25 years ago, no one would have ever heard of the U2s or REMs, and the new artists making their own artistic individualistic sounds of the past 10 years have faded into obscurity under a station that operates as a 501C3 that boasts it's altruism, and how much it's fostering an increasingly more vibrant, artistic, diverse and caring community. “ It would be apparent that they are ever increasingly failing at their mission statement which they've admitted to in the Post Gazzette article, yet although failing at their goal, funnily enough, their capital seems to be on the rise .

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04235/365080.stm


Although WYEP has devolved into alternative-lite, Mike Sauter offers his criticism of the alternative genre, and possibly of AAA unless parable wasn't a typo for parallel.

“Frankly, a good argument can be made that the format started on a serious downward spiral the day a particular West Coast station decided that Metallica was "alternative" and other stations started copying such logic.

The "Tale of Alternative" holds a number of very interesting parables for the AAA format.”
http://www.triplearadio.com/programming/

But Public radio gets it's 501C3 status for being an educational institution and public radio has always been seen and self proclaims it's cultural enrichment.

“WYEP, Pittsburgh is an independent and innovative, listener-supported public media organization. We give voice to quality music and provocative ideas, fostering an increasingly more vibrant, artistic, diverse and caring community. “

If the station isn't sustainable without including even 5% of it's rotation to new adventurous sounds that don't include provincial alterno-lite or the same repertoire of the past 25 years of blues, folk, art rock and the very limited world genre consisting of Latin African Reggae and Celtic, which like the local band segment, don't mysteriously even get listed on wyep's online play lists, then it's time to go commercial. Using a public institution for private use is also an illegal act.

The other problem which belongs more to Pittsburgh itself, is if there's not enough support for anything but tv theme songs, and even if WYEP set aside a mere 5% of it's rotation to progressive challenging sounds, would anyone with any taste listen to 95% tv theme songs to hear 5% quality when they could buy an mp3 player for $150 that won't repeat a song in 4 weeks of 24/7 play?

I certainly wouldn't

So who are the casualties?

Deserving innovative artists and artists that have paid their dues but don't dumb their sound down to fit well traveled formats.

WYEP members who've donated 100's to 1000's of dollars per person only to be lied to about why the station has degraded into a near pop station, only to be abused by their staff for criticizing the station's judgments, and having nothing to do but watch the current dolts steal the station and push their own agendas onto a public institution.

The intelligence of Pittsburgh. When a great number of people can be duped into actually paying a non-profit institution to subsidize corporate interests and multi-millionaire rock star's retirement funds.

The culture of Pittsburgh

Artists that got fleeced by indies for many years.

The fact that new progressive creative thought may not see the light of day anytime in the near to even distant future.


I heard months ago, radio, tv, can't remember, someone saying that Pravda before the wall came down was less detrimental to society than our current media, for that fact that everyone knew it was propaganda bullshit. The key problem in our media today being how many are still easily duped by those trying to make either money, power, and political friends is still enormous in this country.


So good luck Pittsburgh. I'm sure WYEP is done talking and anything I say now would be repetitious save a future relative article on Salon or any other publication regarding payola , or an insider coming through with some damning leak. I'll be moving soon, another concept Pittsburgh will never seem to grasp, how to attract new people into the area and getting them to stay, like the economically booming cities around the country have.