A Cutter’s Response

As a kid in Houston, like many of you I’m sure, I spent hours recording music off the radio. I would go up and down the dial, mostly between one of those Q stations that played the same Top 40 hits over and over and 101.1 KLOL. Sometimes I would switch over to AM because there was another Q station there.

I remember on what was I believe the ten year anniversary of the rock station 101.1 KLOL, they played back the entire first 24 hours of broadcast from 1970. The day started with the Who’s I’m Free.

Even in only ten years, the differences in KLOL’s production was striking. The early format was free-form. The dj layed back. Entire albums might get played and while the station was heavily rock; they also played jazz and blues and other formats if the dj liked it. There were no ridiculous Monster Truck Rally commercials. And no loud mouthed crass DJ shows. I remember thinking it was great –I wondered why there couldn’t be a (in my view) more sophisticated station like this. One for elitists like myself.

Then I rolled the dial to 91.7, a station I’m sure I’d rolled over many times before in my eternal search for new tunes. However back then 91.7 was only 600 WATTS, and though I lived only a few blocks away from Rice Campus where the station was broadcast, I rarely could get its signal. This time I did; good timing too because the dj lay into a deep playlist that went on for perhaps an hour and I still remember a lot of it to this day because I taped it and played it over and over again. Off the top of my head I remember:

1. Aztec Camera – Jump (the Van Halen song)
2. If I Didn’t Love You – Squeeze
3. Fire – Crazy World of Arthur Brown
4. Hard Rain – Bob Dylan

Excellent stuff that to me was a total mystery as to why it wasn’t played on “bigger” stations. From then on, when I rolled the dial I tried hard to pick up 91.7 and kept it there when I could get it.

Others here have eloquently described 91.7 KTRU as a window. I definitely agree. But back then, when the signal was weak, it felt like a shuttered window that I was peeking in to and perhaps wasn’t welcome. The talk between tracks was student oriented. This was part of campus life not city life.

Mind you, I was already quite familiar with Rice Campus. I lived just on the other side of the Rice Village. My first-cousins whose parents both attended Rice, lived even closer. I would ride bikes over to Rice all the time with one of my cousins. We would spend all day at the Rice Media Center playing Donkey Kong and eating Haribo Gummi Bears. We would figure out ways to climb on all the buildings; we were especially good at climbing the walls of the football stadium to sneak into games.

His older sister was attending Rice. She was pretty and young for a freshman –sixteen and very very smart. She took me around the campus and showed me the sorts of things only a student might know –like the farting wall outside one of the building where students some times stand waiting for the door to be unlocked. Somewhere in there I also learned the awesome informal frisbee golf course which I’ve played many times over the years.

So yes, I’m quite familiar with Rice but it’s still peeking in. It is of course a different experience to attend Rice University. Both my cousin who I played Donkey Kong with in the RMC and his older sister who showed me the farting wall as well as their younger brother all attended Rice and even though they grew up literally a block away, they all stayed on campus while students. A place like Rice is there to expand your mind yet there is a certain amount of shutting out involved too.

By the way, not one of my cousins ever showed any interest in 91.7 KTRU. None of them are in the slightest way musical either. There is a battle cry I’m hearing now about how important a station like 91.7 is to exposing people to the new, the unfamiliar etc. Yes, it did that for me but only because I was looking for it so I don’t put a lot of weight in that.

What I thought was nice about 91.7, most students and the administration might not find important –they might even find it problematic. Because it became a window two ways between the city and its rabble and my fellow elitists in their marbled towers. The shutting down of KTRU would sever the tie between the city’s more intellectual youth culture and Rice’s campus culture. I’m not sure who loses more. Many Rice students with a love of music flocked to KTRU and from there found there way into the city’s music life either by playing in bands or going to see them perform in city clubs. They themselves by affiliation with KTRU held a certain level of status within this music community. It empowered them to venture out beyond the hedges.

Elitists seekers such as myself will always seek so I’m not too concerned. Should I be? I’ve already said I don’t buy into this exposure thing. If I was to be concerned at all, it would be for the ones already seeking exposure. College campuses are getting ever more closed off from the cities that support them. Are the students getting ever more soft? We shall see. I must admit I do find it hard to imagine what gateway between these communities could now be introduced.

Could KTRU have been better and therefor in perhaps a less vulnerable position? What if they had a golden period perhaps with national influence? For instance, when the Jandek documentary came out I was disappointed to find that not one “expert” was Houston based, nobody from KTRU interviewed. And unfortunately no show from KTRU ever became a phenomenon. Just like music-writing in Houston, it’s not always about sucky bands (sometimes it’s about sucky writers and dj’s). Yes absolutely. Work harder folks.

Anyway as a musician, a seeker, a Rice campus wanderer and a cutter I’m a little sorry to see this link broken. As an elitist I say lift yourself up above the rabble and get on with it.