Last night some of my writer and poet friends and I did a radio performance of our "show" called Love Outlives Us. The performance was originally done at Three Friends Coffeehouse in SE Portland last February.
Doing live radio, especially at a listener sponsored station like KBOO, is always an adventure. After some initial guitar amp problems, we settled into two side by side studios and using headsets began the 50 min. program on time. Having to pass around one pair of earphones between three of us was less than desirable, but harkened back to something out of the early days of radio. Seems like all the nervousness and anxiety vanished because we were having fun juggling the headset, moving about the small studio, trying not to rustle our pages, cough, or get caught saying something unwanted into a live mic.
It looks like we'll get a good recording of all our efforts.
Hard to tell how many people listen to a small station on 10 p.m. on a Monday night. But since there are sister stations in Hood River and Corvallis, Oregon, we may have reached a few hundred or a few thousand people. Three listeners called during the show, but our engineer, Patrick, was never able to respond to their calls because he was so busy keeping the right mic live, and adjusting volume and recording levels.
I truly hope radio becomes immune to all the technology changes going on in this culture right now. Somehow, even with advances in recording and sound quality, and availability, the core structure and utility remain the same.
I wonder how many people stuck working in bars, cafes, and other businesses listen to a station like KBOO? I'm sure there are students in residence halls and apartments that listen to radio on a Monday night.
No way to know, but I do know that they got a most original and entertaining dose of spoken word.
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