As recently as last month I was complaining about what Indie 103.1 had become. It only hit me yesterday how vital the station was, even in its lesser forms. I'd written "For my money, the Indie 103.1 experiment ended when Dicky Barrett was booted and The Mighty Morning Show was canceled". I now understand that to be untrue. The Indie 103.1 experiment had tendrils throughout Los Angeles and they no longer support various aspects of life.
Apparently, if the official site is to be believed, the internet-only Indie 103.1 will be keeping DJs. (Notably absent: Jonsey's Jukebox and music director Mark Sovel)
So, Indie 103.1 is gone. (Or can it be saved?)
Now what?
Reactions from the Staff
Here's all the info I can gather from ex-Indie 103.1 radio staffers:
- Mark Sovel / "Mr. Shovel" (music director, "Check One... Two") - Shovel gave an interview to The Daily Swarm and went on Buzz Bands Radio Show (podcast here) to discuss the fallout. Those two things will provide you with the best insight in to what happened.
- Steve Jones ("Jonesey's Jukebox") - His myspace reads: "I WILL ENTER A NEW GALAXY". His publicist has released a statement indicating that he's looking to relocate "Jonesey's Jukebox" somewhere else.
- Joe Escalante ("Barely Legal," formerly "The Last of the Famous International Morning Shows") - Joe is continuing with the internet-only Indie 103.1. The Barely Legal blog reads: "Indie has been amazing about putting shows like Barely Legal and Jonesy's Jukebox on the air, so I'm going to stick around and help them all I can through this transition. "
- Henry Rollins ("Harmony in My Head") - Rollins responded on his website. Not surprisingly, he has decided to consider the station's demise as a liberation of sorts. He and Engineer X will continue to make "Harmony in My Head" and stream it on the internet, apparently on the new streaming Indie 103.1. And now they can swear a lot.
- Joe Sib ("Complete Control") - Sib is staying with the streaming format. From a myspace blog: "I would like to thank everyone at Indie 103.1 for letting me put punk rock on radio for as long as I did, and I would also like to thank all of the punks out there for listening to Complete Control and making it the great show that it is. Listen for me on Indie1031.com".
- Chris Moris (formerly "Watutsi Rodeo") - Morris was fired about a month ago. He wrote about the station's demise in LA Citybeat. His new show, "Hillbilly Deluxe," debuts on Scion Radio 117 next month.
- Kevin Begley ("Jonesey's Jukebox," other DJ duties) - His blog now has this message: "I now live in Los Angeles. I used to work for INDIE 1031. on Jonesy's Jukebox and on the weekends until we recently became victim to "The Man" and this terrible sucky economy. S happens. If you know anyone who wants to hire an awesome radio DJ let me know. I love sneakers, sunglasses, and hoodies. I also love ipods, radio, and the internets."
The Club Nights and Concert PromotionsIndie 103.1 Presents Check One... Twosdays did a great service to the Los Angeles indie rock scene. The radio promotion helped get non-scenesters interested in local acts. When the night was at The Viper Room, it afforded Echo Park / Silverlake bands to play a "good" show out on the west side. The shows had a special quality to them and elevated local bands above the "just another local band" label".
The "Also I Like to Rock" summer concert series at The Hammer Museum was another boon to the scene. It drafted local acts, often pairing them with touring "it" bands, for free shows at The Hammer Museum in Westwood. It gave college students a sampling of LA's indie rock offerings and also elevated local bands to a higher stature.
And of course there was the litany of touring acts whose shows Indie 103.1 supported. This helped create for the Los Angeles population a sense of continuity for what "indie rock" is "supposed" to sound like, with Indie's branding subtly giving listeners cues as to what music should be validated.
Naturally the touring act sponsorships and (presumably) The Hammer Museum shows are gone. Interestingly enough, on Friday Mark Sovel ("Mr. Shovel") said on the Buzz Bands Radio Show (podcast here) that the Check One...Twosdays nights at The Echoplex would continue, and that "those shows would happen" without the station's support.
Check One... TwoMr. Shovel's
"Check One... Two" show on Indie 103.1 played two hours of local music every Sunday from 6pm to 8pm. As opposed to the "Locals Only" show on KROQ, which is exceptionally (and noteably) "produced", "Check One... Two" offered a more raw glimpse into the world of Los Angeles indie rock. It had an enormous role in helping to launch or elevate the careers of numerous Los Angeles indie rock acts, including Silversun Pickups, Earlimart, Autolux, Sea Wolf, Division Day, Darker My Love, and The Airborne Toxic Event. (Of course, a good manager / publicist helps.) Arguably acts such as The Happy Hollows, The Deadly Syndrome, and Afternoons have had their profiles boosted by the show, if to a lesser degree, as well.
With the loss of Mr. Shovel's "Check One... Two" we now have a much smaller launch pad for local bands to reach the ears of music fans who don't keep a cot at Spaceland.
For example, The Henry Clay People are going on their first six-week nation-wide tour next month. It is conceivable that they could have gained more traction on Indie 103.1. Could they be put on the KROQ rotation? It's not entirely out of the possibility, but it will be a greater challenge without a doubt.
Broader Cultural ImpactRegardless of what the
PPM might have said, there was such a thing as a "typical Indie listener". Maybe they weren't taking dress and trend cues directly from the station, but the station certain served as an adhesive for a particular kind of teen-to-thirty-something urbanite identity.
The Indie 103.1 rock listener, in a broad sense, had a different style and sensibility than a KROQ listener. And despite KROQ's monopoly on Coachella, the "Coachella crowd" was the "Indie 103.1 crowd" by and large.
Indie 103.1 was still a broadcasting device for hipster events. It still helped get the word out, from neighborhood festivals to art shows to concerts. It created a sense of belonging for the kind of person who seeks-out music from the internet and alternative sources. The station wasn't only about discovering the cutting edge, but grouping it together.
Where will "normals" hear MGMT now?As I've already mentioned, Indie 103.1 offered a broad cultural continuity for urbanite hipsters, people who weren't interested in mainstream rock formats. But Indie also helped turn indie rock into a traditional rock format
, which could be seen every time KROQ poached an artist. Most notably perhaps was when KROQ went-after and cornered the market on Muse.
Without Indie 103.1 to bring indie rock (and, yes, electro rock) to the masses, who will? There is a vacuum for this. People want it. Will KCRW or another station launch an "indie rock format" show? Would a station dedicate two hours to the Indie faithful sect? Would another station change to an indie rock format full time? Well...
Can Indie 103.1 Come Back?For starters, Entravision still owns the station. As I understand it, Indie 103.1 lasted on that frequency longer than any other format in the station's history. It's conceivable (if unlikely) that Entravision could change their minds and return to the Indie format. And since many of the stations' DJs seem to be staying on the stream, a large chunk what made-up Indie 103.1 will be there.
I don't perceive that as a very real possibility, but people are trying. Shovel has suggested people email Entravision employees Walter Ulloa (
wulloa@entravision.com), the
CEO, and Jeffrey Liberman (
jliberman@entravision.com), president of the radio division.
Also to that end, there is the
Bring Indie 103.1 Back! myspace page. Esli Sugich of the band
Ballerina Black has booked
The Scene on February 21st for a "Bring Indie 103.1 Back" protest show. Also on the bill are
The Lost Libraries,
Go West Young Man, and
The Gramercy Riffs.
Sugich is also trying to book another show, so if you are in a band and would like to play, please contact him.
Mr. Shovel has alluded to a "movement" of some kind to rebuild Indie 103.1 on a different frequency. I don't have any clue what that means. I could speculate that it means a few ex-station employees or maybe someone with some money to burn. Personally, I can see this happening. Somebody could try to re-hire much of the staff, launch a new station, and recapture Indie's audience. There is a demand vacuum for someone to fill. But could the "staying" DJs be lured away? Surely, but legally?
And yes, a new station would still be saddled with the same revenue problems, but Scott McDonald at
Surfing on Steam has
an inspired idea: move to a subscriber-based format like KCRW. He suggests having fundraising drives like KCRW and letting subscribers in to the Indie shows for free, etc.
If someone wants to bring Indie 103.1 back as a radio broadcast, in any form, they should act quickly. No doubt Steve Jones is in demand and looking to land $omewhere. Other ex-staffers will want to move forward with their lives. I encourage all CGT readers to express their views swifty and in a voluminous manner.
w00t! Spaceland on 01-26-09
Marvelous Toy really elevated their game last Monday night. I still get the sense that this band is finding their identity and I'm not always sure what it is they're going for, but they have a flair for the bombastic and Jordan Hudock writes some good songs.
Assisted with a bevy of guest musicians that joined and left the stage throughout the set, Rocco DeLuca journey through a wide range of rock genres. He kicked-off the set with a couple of searing blues-rock jams, I mean, real Robert Plant-type stuff. Real-deal music hundreds of miles in the thermosphere above some nerdy indie kids jerking off in a garage. I was decimated. Grinning ear to ear. Typing exclamation points into my iPhone.
