BlogWood: MT Archives

Driving Home with Wood in the Afternoon!

Update: I mentioned this article about a living wage in Hillsborough County on the air. The article mentions HOPE, a good organization.

I also mentioned Scott Harell's Weekly Planet Freeway Blogging article.

Thanks to everyone who listend and/or called in and/or blogged along right here.
end of update
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I am guest-hosting on Sonic Detour today.

Drive Home with Sonic Detour, on 70,000 Watt Community Radio WMNF 88.5 fm, Tampa, and streaming at wmnf.org. 4 to 6 pm (eastern) Today!

Studio line: 813-239- WMNF WOOD
Studio email: dj@wmnf.org

Today on Sonic Detour

Blogging on the radio: comments and insights rants on news and events, mixed with a good freeform music mix, with tons of new releases, and lots of political and social commentary.

I may read highlights from this week’s BlogWood entries, and perhaps some posts from other blogs as well. You never know - it’s live radio. Stay tuned.

One likely topic is the FCC and its recent crackdown on what it and the Christian Right consider indecent broadcasts. In honor of the FCC, here’s a popular bonus for BlogWood readers that I also posted last week: I wont be playing this song, due to the fact that I’m scared of the FCC. I’m talking “dirty” words here. Fuck shit piss etc. The FCC relaxes the rules between 10pm and 6am, and my regular show obviously falls into that window, but I’m still scared of that control freak and right wing tool Michael Powell. The FCC could effectively bankrupt a station like WMNF with one hefty fine.

So this song is too much, in my opinion, even though I play plenty of shit with bad fucking language in it all the time.

Fuck the FCC. Oh, and downlod this song! (Right click and “save target as...” to save it forever on your own computer!)

Speaking of the FCC, one artist who recently won a battle with the FCC is Sarah Jones. KBOO, a community radio station in Portland was fined $7,000 for playing her song “Your Revolution”. She fought the FCC and won. But this is still a chilling tale. It took her 2 years and many battles to get the FCC to back down and admit that it erred when it declared her music off-limits to broadcasters.

With little fanfare, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) late last week let it be known that it should not have held the hip-hop artist's career hostage for nearly two years. It now has decided that her music is not indecent and not patently offensive. After branding her work too controversial for many broadcasters to air, the commission rescinded a $7,000 fine it had slapped on a Portland, Ore., public radio station 21 months ago for playing her song Your Revolution on the air.

The fine was silly in the first place, and it took the commission an outrageously long time to come to its senses. But in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, it has to be said: In the end, the FCC got it right. With luck, Sarah Jones' victory will turn out to be a First Amendment turning point.

It was May 14, 2001 when the FCC first notified KBOO in Portland that it intended to fine the station for playing Your Revolution on the air more than 18 months earlier. The song, the FCC said then, contained "patently offensive sexual references" that violated the commission's rules against airing indecent material. The radio station responded that the song was not, in fact, indecent, and there the matter sat until last Thursday. The FCC is supposed to act within 60 days, but until last week it never issued a final determination, despite continuing appeals to federal courts filed on Jones' behalf by People for the American Way.

Because courts are reluctant to challenge the FCC's unparalleled authority over broadcast licenses and performers don't have much power to intervene, the commission has the astonishing ability to chill the expression of almost any vocal artist by fiat.

That is what it did with Jones. But this time, the commission picked the wrong target: a talented woman whose message actually goes against the sexually abusive content of many of the songs of the male rappers of her generation. While all this was pending, many stations were reluctant to play Jones' song, according to her lawyers, with one San Francisco program director quoted as saying Your Revolution is "a song that's been busted by the FCC." The experimental show on KBOO that played her song in the first place was temporarily canceled.

In short, because of the FCC's action, American radio stations put Sarah Jones' music on the "do-not-play" list for nearly two years — the equivalent of a lifetime in the world of music.

Jones carried on in other venues, to be sure. Her one-woman shows, "Waking the American Dream" and "Women Can't Wait" earned her critical success, good audiences and even a cover story in Ms. Magazine. And, ironically, she has performed Your Revolution before high school audiences across the country. Girls in the audience, by one account, are "spellbound." That's because high school girls understand Jones' song in a way that ham-handed government censors never will. The FCC said her song was intended to "pander and shock," but in reality it is aimed pointedly at misogynist rappers who, in their words and music, treat women as throwaway sex objects. They are the shock panderers, not Jones.

Your Revolution is not subtle. It borrows — and deflates — the pumped-up sexual vocabulary of male hip-hoppers who equate sexual conquest with power and even revolution. In one of the more printable verses, she asserts:

The real revolution

Ain't about booty size

The Versaces you buys

Or the Lexus you drives

Jones adds, speaking directly to the rappers: "Your revolution will not be you/ sending me for no drip drip VD shot."

That powerful image is followed by even more vivid ones, many mirroring and spoofing the lyrics of male hip-hoppers who have escaped the notice of the FCC. The lyrics decry unwanted pregnancies and the abuse of women, and even advocate abstinence and viewing sexual intimacy as an expression of love and commitment.

But always, Jones returns to her refrain, which echoes Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: "Your revolution will not happen between these thighs."

I’ll play Sarah Jones’ “Your Revolution” between 5 and 6.

FREE MP3s

There are tons of good, free, legal MP3s, many of which the FCC would frown at, at protest records and even more good stuff at Music For America. Help yourself, and tell them that BlogWood sent you!

Trailers

Lots of requests for this link to the “Fahrenheit 9/11" trailer.

Another good movie, delayed for a week, but coming out soon: ”The Hunting of the President” It’s about the vicious right wing attacks on President Clinton.

Playlists

Each week, I bring my planned songs in on CD. I usually end up playing most or all of them in the planned order. But sometimes things go askew. Sorry - no guarantees or refunds.

First segment (4 - 4:30) planned playlist

Second segment (4:30 - 5) planned playlist

Third segment (5 - 6) planned playlist

Live Playlist

WMNF Community Radio

WMNF is a non-commercial community radio station that celebrates local cultural diversity and is committed to equality, peace and social and economic justice. WMNF provides broadcasts and creates other forums to serve the community by the exposure and sharing of these values.