funferal's blog
WRFU tower benefit Saturday, May 16
MAY 16, 2009 - CHAMPAIGN, IL - A benefit to raise funds for WRFU's new permanent tower will take place on Saturday, May 16 from 5:30pm to 1am in Mike n' Molly's beergarden downtown Champaign on 105 N. Market Street.
More than 18 local musicians, poets, spoken word artists, and bands will perform short sets at the benefit, many of which will include personal tributes to community radio. Ray Morales of WRFU's The Show presides as MC for the night. Admission is four dollars at the door, with all proceeds benefiting WRFU.
********STARRING********
(in last-to-first order)
*The Duke of Uke and his Novelty Orchestra
*John Hoeffleur
*Usopp the Liar
*Jack Pine Savage
*Crystalline Scoggins & William Gillespie
*Swedish Lawn Games
*Clarabelle Bean
*Dottie and the 'Rail
*Aaron Ammons
*Eleni Moraites
*Cody Sokolski
*William Gillespie & Crystalline Scoggins
*Elizabeth Simpson
*Andy Moreillon
*Peninsula
*Tree Thump
*Aaron Ammons
*Sandunga*
WRFU tower benefit Saturday, May 16 at Mike n' Molly's: Keeping our airwaves tuned to local!
For more information, visit www.myspace.com/whatmattersbenefit
Urbana City Council supports expansion of LPFM
On Monday 16th March, Urbana City Council became the first city in 2009 to pass a resolution in support of the LPFM service. The motion, proposed by Councilman Gehrig and passed unanimously, states that "all other Americans deserve the chance to benefit from the same LPFM service which benefits Urbana" and notes that WRFU "provides opportunities for myriad community members and groups to produce content and reach audiences."
The motion, part of a national campaign coordinated by the Prometheus Radio Project, is available in full here.
Homelessness marathon on WRFU-LP
WRFU will be airing much of the 12th annual Homelessness Marathon this
Monday night into Tuesday morning (23-24th February). This will mark
the first time the Marathon will be aired on WRFU. The event will also
air on WEFT FM of Champaign, IL, which has aired the marathon since
its inception.
The Homelessness Marathon is an annual 14-hour radio broadcast
featuring the voices and stories of homeless people from around the
United States The Homelessness Marathon features live call-ins all
night long via a national toll-free number.
The broadcast will start at 6 p.m., central time, on Monday, February
23rd and end at 8 a.m., central time, on Tuesday, February 24, 2009.
WRFU has some live local programming during the evening, so we will
not be airing the entire marathon. Our volunteers on these shows are
being encouraged to drop into the marathon at least occasionally
during their shows - the marathon will be running continuously on our
in-studio Automation feed through the evening.
According to the organizers:
"The 12th Annual Homelessness Marathon will originate from Pass
Christian, Mississippi. Pass Christian is next door to Waveland, MS,
which the Army Corps of Engineers officially designates as the
"Ground Zero," where Hurricane Katrinacame ashore. We call it the
Public Affairs programming - new content
Those of you listening may have noticed some new public affairs content on WRFU. We've added some shows, like War News Radio, to our automation system. Our automation plays when there are no scheduled shows, or when scheduled shows don't happen. Most of the time we fill this time with content from our local music library, but from 4-8pm we're now concentrating on providing public affairs content on the automation system.
This won't affect any scheduled shows during these periods, but when there's no live/local content you'll hear shows like War News Radio, the Progressive's daily and weekly news analysis, and the prison radio commentaries of Mumia Abu-Jamal. You'll also hear reruns of popular local shows like Media Geek (originally broadcast on WEFT-FM 90.1 on Friday afternoons) and Media Matters (originating from WILL-AM on Sunday afternoons).
I'm working on generating podcast feeds of the various content we provide, so you could, for instance, subscribe to our Monday afternoon shows, or our media analysis-related content. It's not top of our list of things to do, so could take a while, but do check back....
WRFU at the Farmers' Market
WRFU had a stand at the Market at the Square today, and we got the chance to talk to a range of community members about the station and the IMC more generally. I generated a short video of the sights and sounds at the market. Things are still warming up - there's much more vegetables to come - but as always it was a fun, lively, atmosphere.
