Renee Thirkill, co-host of "Local Imposters," selects a CD from KRCL's collection of local music. Thirkill chooses her own playlist, a luxury not provided to most commercial DJs.

t’s not easy to be a cheapskate music fan in this day and age. There are CDs to buy, shows and club memberships to pay for and downloading MP3s isn’t technically free and/or legal. Radio, while being incredibly old-fashioned, is still the best way to sample music. But don’t think it’s any easier for bands to get that music out to you. The recording, publicity and agent costs required for airplay on commercial radio stations are almost insurmountable, especially for bands that are just starting out.

So the source for great local music shared with minimal monetary transactions looks to be Radio Free Utah—KRCL 90.9 FM. Other stations, notably KXRK 96.3 (better known as X96) and KCPX 105.7 have started up modest local music programs as well, but for more than 20 years, KRCL’s priority has been to play great music, not to make a profit.

It’s a Wednesday night in a small, unimposing building on the north end of Salt Lake City. There is a frantic energy in the KRCL studios. For the first time in recent memory, a band is playing live during the semiannual pledge drive. As the musicians tune up, the dull roar from their amplifiers reverberates through a studio intended for acoustic performances.

Dan Thomas, drummer for Tolchock Trio, is nervous about performing live over the radio for the first time, and Renee Thirkill and Dawn Steadman are anxious to raise $1,000 from call-in donations during their two-hour show, “Local Impostors.” This happens to be the second Wednesday of the month, when “Wednesday Night Live,” a show featuring a local band live in the studio, is sandwiched into the program.

The main difference between KRCL’s programming and the major stations in town is that there is no programming. DJs volunteer their time for the opportunity to play whatever music they want, leaving the airtime wide open for local bands.

The very essence of independent music is its inability to be categorized. The members of Tolchock Trio sport floppy hair and clothing from the Deseret Industries thrift store, due both to fashion and income restraints. Their music is intense, yet mellow, with a pounding bass line. If slotted into a format, they would probably be compared to the White Stripes or The Strokes. For now, they mainly work and attend the University of Utah, but ultimately dream of quitting their day jobs, touring and making records for a living.

Steadman, co-host of “Local Impostors,” remembers a major surge in Salt Lake City’s garage bands during the early 1990s that has continued to escalate. She says that now there are tons of bands in Utah that she hasn’t even had a chance to hear yet.

For their show, Steadman and Thirkill welcome mailed-in CDs, but prefer to go to shows in person and ask bands for permission to play their material. “No one has ever said no,” Thirkill says proudly.

While live performances may arguably be the best way to hear local music, that’s not always an option. The relatively young age of many music fans is one reason why it is important for local bands to get airplay on the radio. Almost all of the live venues devoted to local bands are private clubs for members, excluding anyone under the age of 21. It’s common for high school and college-age students to sneak into clubs not for the alcohol but for the music.

Other people may not enjoy the atmosphere that bars provide. For some, the smoke, deafening speakers and constant barrage of pickup lines may be part of the appeal of going to live shows. But others would rather stay home, especially when they have no idea what the bands are like.

“People aren’t likely to pay $5 [to hear a band] when they don’t know what they sound like,” Thirkill said. “It’s sad that people don’t know about the music happening in their own community.”

The listeners calling in to pledge are showing an appreciation for community. One donor had waited all week to pledge specifically for the local music show.

The Wolfs perform on "Wednesday Night Live," the series of live performances by local bands played during KRCL's "Local Imposters" show.

One caller pledged to show his support for The Rodeo Boys, a Salt Lake City band known for its irreverent lyrics. Another caller donated with the stipulation that they never play “that Barbie Doll song” ever again. Steadman and Thirkill replied that they kind of like that song, in small doses. Janice Boes, the pitch coordinator in charge of keeping track of donations, suggested that if anyone listening really likes that song and wants it to keep being played, they should call up and pledge even more.

Unfortunately, DJs on corporate stations can rarely take listener advice on what to play, whether they’d like to or not. Programming directors have to tightly orchestrate a balance of music and advertising in advance. A mainstream DJ usually only plays what he or she wants if a scheduling fluke leaves a few extra minutes in a programming block.

Thanks to Federal Communication Commission’s relaxing of regulations, a single individual or company can own an unlimited number of radio stations. So the music you hear on the radio in Salt Lake City could have been programmed by someone sitting in an office in Ohio.

National takeovers and media conglomerations are resulting in bland, overplayed music from one end of the radio dial to the other. There seems to be some backlash, with stations wanting to be seen as independent and local, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll play anything that isn’t wrapped up in a neat, shiny package.

The truth is that an entire industry exists to promote bands and get them radio play. Multi-Channel Music Promotion was created to give a hand to fledgling indie bands. For an undisclosed fee, they will create a promotion packet for a band and aggressively push for the airplay of its CD. But, as with all good things, there’s a catch. You must first have recorded a CD and then have a ready supply to donate to the cause. Just recording the album can cost anywhere from $300 to thousands of dollars. Bands playing on “Wednesday Night Live” have the advantage of being able to keep the recording of their performance for free. But even with a CD, airplay on a commercial station is far from guaranteed.

An article by Bryan Farrish posted on www.bandradio.com reports that around one in 300 songs shopped to a commercial regular-rotation station get played. “Endless phone calls, faxes, trade ads, personal meetings, consultant recommendations, call-out research and other things went into getting the station to add the record,” Farrish said.

Ryan Workman, the founder of local record label Pseudo Recordings, agrees that publicity is the hardest part. “Local stations should be more welcoming, especially here, with so many great bands,” he said.

Not that KXRK and KCPX aren’t trying. KXRK’s program “Live and Local” started up last summer. The striking thing about this show is the sheer variety of music being played. The show’s Web site lists 381 bands in its current collection, ranging from “freakbeat” to “ethereal blues rock” to “quirky punk pop on an indie stick.” They give the impression that they play at least one song from every CD they receive. Listen closely, and you may hear your favorite band on Sunday evenings.

The members of Tolchock Trio don’t think that this lack of discrimination is necessarily a good thing—it merely proves that corporate radio stations don’t have a real connection to the local music scene. “All you ever hear are these weird metal bands we’ve never seen live,” said guitarist Ryan Fedor. “They must record in a basement somewhere.”

U student Jim Faulkner has been listening to KXRK a lot lately, ever since the CD player in his car broke. He occasionally hears Form of Rocket on “Live and Local,” but wishes the station played them more often. The “local” band that he hears the most often is The Used. The native Oremites have recently achieved national acclaim, with some credit going to exposure at KXRK’s Big Ass Show.

KCPX also embraces local music. Its show, “Home Grown,” which dates back to May 2002, also plays solid local music on Sunday evenings. While its claim to be Utah’s only show dedicated to local music may be a bit outdated, it is a good venue for local bands. KCPX is currently co-sponsoring the Best Band in Utah contest, which awards the winner a month of airplay on the station, among other promotions.

But even with expensive promotion, a solid single and a whole hell of a lot of luck, the average local Salt Lake City band is not going to be played on a commercial radio station simply because it does not fit in the format. Having a strong, easily defined format is important for shows to earn advertising revenue.

Simmons Media Group, which owns KXRK and 27 other radio stations in Utah, Idaho, New Mexico and Texas, is in the business to make money. The group’s Web site boasts that “each radio station is designed to develop a distinct brand identity and is the product of extensive research and programming strategy that will generate strong audience appeal and revenue opportunity.” Being funded by corporate sponsors doesn’t leave much room for experimentation. Advertisers count on predictable ratings—it’s not wise for stations to just play whatever they feel like playing.

That is where KRCL comes in. The station’s total operation budget of $600,000 a year is raised through radiothons, grants, underwriting and fund-raisers. Once the money has been donated, KRCL’s obligation is not to achieve certain ratings, but rather to play interesting music that appeals to the community.

This independence from ratings frees DJs to take a chance on local bands that may not fit into a certain genre. Many of KRCL’s shows, ranging in time slots from mid-morning to drive-time to dead-of-the-night, blend local bands into their regular play lists. Thirkill prefers to toss in a local song every now and then, while another show, “Night Flesh,” might play local music for two of its three total hours.

One thing to keep in mind: While bands don’t have to pay promotional costs to gain airtime on KRCL, and you can listen to the station for free, you may feel obliged to donate once or twice a year. According to Boes, listener donations make up a large chunk of the station’s running costs, so repeatedly missing goals during pledge drives could be a problem.

After two hours of fund-raising, “Local Impostors” is $100 short of its goal. Thirkill justifies the disappointment by pointing out that in earlier pledge drives, her show has almost always performed better than expected. As for Tolchock Trio, its uncertain future is beginning to look brighter. “Local bands will only get played if they already fit in the station’s playlist. You’d get played if you sound like Sum 41 or something,” Fedor commented. “But now it’s popular to sound like the White Stripes, so there is hope for us!”
sarah@red-mag.com