by Michael Westerfield

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks . . . The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.
-- Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"

In 1949, pioneer Lew HilI's KPFA (Pacifica) in Berkeley, California became the first community radio station. It was a radical concept, politically, culturally and otherwise: Obtain financial support by voluntary subscription from listeners in the community; eschew institutional and government subsidy as well as commercial advertising; provide a medium and voice to the disenfranchised and voiceless. Programming would be creative, spontaneous and passionate. Hill believed radio "needed to be in the hands of artists, philosophers, and activists" who could practice it "as an art form." He likewise asserted that enlightened broadcasting was not compatible with commercial radio, and developed the listener-supported model that ultimately led to five stations under the Pacifica Foundation umbrella, including WBAI in New York City, as well as many more stations across the country. He took his own life in 1957, at the age of 38, before he could see the full fruit of his vision and labor.

It was a volunteer at KPFA in 1958 - just a year after Hill's death - who subsequently became the "Johnny Appleseed" of the community radio concept, converting it to an important movement. The volunteer was Lorenzo Wilson Milam, who between 1962 and 1977 had a hand in establishing approximately 40 community radio stations from coast to coast. His tongue-in-cheek guide, Sex and Broadcasting: A Handbook on Building a Radio Station for the Community, combines his considerable wit with the practical information required to get on the air.

Back in 1973, I was lucky enough to do at least one three-hour show each week as a volunteer for Lorenzo's KTAO, in Los Gatos, CA. Our affiliate in San Francisco, KPOO (Poor People's Radio) often carried our music broadcasts, so we reached much of the Bay Area between San Jose and Marin County.

As a 24-year-old native New Yorker, I had finally traced Kerouac's steps across the country after months of living the European version of On The Road. I bumped into KTAO while station surfing, finding it down in that lower-nether region of the bandwidth dial but loud, strong and clear - and like nothing I had ever heard before. I knew nothing at the time about Lew Hill, Lorenzo Milam and his status as something of a counterculture icon, or any details of the community radio movement. The incredible eclecticism of what I heard is what did it for me. There were Delta blues shows, old-time mountain music and bluegrass, and what today is called "world." There was obscure jazz and lots of fine, rarely-if-ever-radio-played Medieval and Renaissance music (I learned later that such traditional classical radio station chestnuts as Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" were literally quarantined, tossed out, given away, broken, launched as Frisbees, or otherwise removed by Lorenzo when he came across them). Often the diverse fare was all mixed together. Hearing Balinese Gamelan Gong for the first time was, for me, by itself a revelation.

One morning, I was listening at home when the KTAO broadcaster made an announcement soliciting volunteers. She was still making her pitch as I turned on the car radio, already beelining to Los Gatos from Cupertino. I arrived at the studio around 11 AM, and was soon interviewing with Lorenzo. "Glad you're here, we need someone to fill in between 12 and 1, we'll try you out now." The would-be hotshot - me - went into real-time cold shock. I had but an hour to learn how to do the mechanics of broadcasting (switches, controls, mike, two turntables, et al - kind of intimidating at first look) and pick out the music I wanted to play. There were 7,000 albums to sort through, and finding things that were in any sense familiar was not a simple task.

I recall selecting some John Fahey and New Lost City Ramblers, but not much else. I said very little, just trying to play the music and avoid major gaffes technically and otherwise. When the time was up, Lorenzo was not impressed. "I'm really looking for someone who can play the ethnic (i.e., world) music, particularly South American. There are enough people doing the other; let me have that John Fahey, by the way (The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death, as I recall), I'm retiring it." That took me aback; despite playing something I thought was interesting and relatively obscure, somehow, in this Brave New World, it was old hat. I felt opportunity slipping away, and I really wanted to do this gig - that there was no pay at stake felt completely irrelevant. "Look," I said. "This wasn't exactly very fair - you really put me on the spot. Give me some time to prepare a real show, give me a real chance." To my relief, he told me he had a slot open that coming Sunday between 2 and 5, and that I should come back then.

I used the reprieve to prepare what I hoped would be one hell of a program, using the resources and record collection of the San Jose Public Library as well as KTAO's large stash. I interweaved field recordings of the Jivaro - a headhunting tribe in northern Ecuador - with modern South American popular music and even some hybrid jazz, as well as readings from the work of a California poet named Richard Grossinger sprinkled in the mix. Lorenzo loved it, and offered me a regular spot.

Thus was born Sisyphus Tracks, in spirit if not yet in name. In my six months at the station, Lorenzo remained a bit larger than life, both resident dynamo and hovering guiding force. He wrote what I believe are without doubt the most brilliant, perversely hip and ironically funny program guides in the history of radio (for some examples, see KTAO - A Lorenzo Milam Experiment). I rarely saw him after getting started; once you gained his trust, he pretty much left you alone to do your thing while he did his. Being dull was the one no-no I recall at KTAO, and Lorenzo was easy to bore. Thus - the more creative you were, the more risks you took, the more you challenged yourself and the audience, the better he liked it. I don't recall him ever being pedantic, but he was a marvelous teacher - in the manner of the Tao, for which the station was named. Even when he wasn't in the studio, you imagined he was listening somewhere; whether he was or not, that concept kept me on my toes and pushing the envelope.

In late 1973, I left California for Santa Fe, NM and an ill-fated dream of starting a music-oriented cafe there with a close friend. I moved on to other things, but I consider my brief stay at KTAO to be every bit as important in the way I came to see the world as my earlier years in college or my later ones as a graduate student.

KTAO is long gone, and while stations of this type and spirit remain, survival is not easy. Two staples of community radio programming have always been volunteerism and "enlightened amateurism," and these concepts are not considered of much value by NPR and the CPB. In a 1997 Policy Analysis issued by the Cato Institute, Seattle journalist Jesse Walker concluded that "CPB rules pressure community radio stations to replace volunteers with paid staff and to abandon diverse, experimental local programming for more bland fare."

Now "Web radio" - streaming audio, more accurately - is squarely upon us, in an explosion that has yet to cease resonating. Here I am again, trying to rework my own concept of community and a vision of music-you-can't-hear-on-the-radio after all these years. My old program was reborn as Sisyphus Tracks - "music to roll your stone by" - this past July. The possibilities - including integration with a related website, creating opportunities for presenting information not available in the traditional radio format - are exciting. The current limitations are clear as well. These days I can broadcast 24 hours a day by preparing programs in advance and letting them run, but reach a relative handful of listeners compared to the audience I had in what was generally just one or two three-hour slots per week on KTAO over 25 years ago.

With all the potential, precious little quality programming is as yet available. The now corporate behemoth Rolling Stone offers worse-than-bland, commercially-oriented playlists directed primarily towards a young audience - gee, wonder what they're up to. Others have made deals so you can link to their broadcasts directly from your browser's toolbar, but it's the same bland fare or worse - and the same pandering agenda. Then there are all the individuals out there. My guess is there are more Webcasters than armadillos in Texas, but Web radio is all too often kids' play, or a me-me walk down vanity lane for kid-brained adults - much like the absurdly ubiquitous personal Webcam sites. Too many of the "stations" are simply trying to be clones of the big boys, in one commercial format or another, playing music-you-most-certainly-can-hear-on-the-radio, anytime, anywhere, and with better sound quality. There are numerous "talk shows" where the puerile rush of hearing one's own voice transcends any attempt at substance. Not all amateurism is enlightened, unfortunately, and this strain is particularly banal.

And who's listening? On Live365.com alone - where a relative handful of interesting programs from around the world coexist with the terminally lame - there are 17,000 broadcasts available and generally between 1,000 and 6,000 listeners at any given time. At best, that's about 1/3 listener for every broadcaster.

So I do wonder - where are the communities of people joining together in some common interest with common goals, in lieu of common geography? Is the Internet - the biggest revolution in the history of media, with all its potential for balancing the power structure, democratizing, and bringing people together on a global level - instead fragmenting us all even further? Everyone has a voice, but if things continue as they are, each individual will have his own little Web radio station, and one part-time listener - himself.

While the wanking flourishes, the technology keeps growing in mind-altering proportions, and wireless streaming audio is on the horizon. That will mean new Diamond Rio-like gadgets to take to the beach like the old little transistor radios, only now we'll be able to get broadcasts from the Web, as well. I imagine it won't be long before the differences between this new kind of radio and the old begin to blur, but consider this possible beach scene, a seven-year-old with her beleaguered mother trying to relax and soak up some rays: "Hey, Mom - I'm bored." "You're bored? You've got 234,000,000 radio stations to listen to, and you're bored? Go build a sand castle!"

New technologies bring disorder, which eventually breeds increased regulation. Too much variety recreates the Tower of Babel, which adds to the confusion and undermines community. All will shake out somehow; there's a battle outside raging in ways Bob Dylan didn't anticipate back in '63, and between the many-tentacled, dragon-breath corporate monster and Big Brother, the little guy with something of value to say is going to have to be resourceful, committed, and many other things to be heard.

So why am I doing this? As someone who has been involved in music, in one way or another, for virtually my entire life, I passionately care about its future, and how it will be distributed. Not only can anyone broadcast in this new age, but anyone with the will and a few bucks can produce a CD independently, and thank Goddess for that, because if Mr. Dylan was young and starting out today, he would not get a recording contract as he did with Columbia and John Hammond close to forty years ago. He'd be going it alone, self-producing on the Dwarf label and selling his CDs at gigs to recover his investment, trying to figure out how to make the next one without waiting tables on the side or eating dog food. It ain't easy out there.

In the KTAO days, self-production was prohibitively expensive and unlikely for most songwriters and musicians, but today there is an abundance of quality recorded music crying to be heard, begging for inclusion in this new mode of distribution that changes virtually as we speak. I don't know about you, but even if the Napsters and MP3.coms survive somehow, I don't trust them to introduce me to the kind of music I want to discover - intelligent, adult, rootsy, heart and soul, blood and guts, flesh and spirit. I want deserving artists exposed, regardless of how obscure they are in some or all places, so they can support their art and be supported by it. I want the community spirit of Austin - musicians, songwriters, and audience - to spread. I want those artists who are known in one place but not in others to be heard. I want those great ones who have not been heard enough, whether living or deceased - the Townes Van Zandts and Nick Drakes, the Kate Wolfs and Eric Andersens - to get play. I want to celebrate the old with the new, to hear and explore the roots of who we are, and where we've been. I want intelligent adult listeners to find a place on the Web and on Internet "radio" that feels like it's for them - like it's home. I want it to be exciting, stimulating, and surprising, as well - by putting it all together in a way that flows artfully. I want the power taken out of the hands of the recording and media company giants, and given back to the artists and audience alike - where it belongs.

The community to which I'm directing my programs - and the Sisyphus Tracks Website - is spread out around the country, and throughout the world. It is a community nonetheless. It is not necessarily "disenfranchised" in the sense Lew Hill meant it, but it is a community that is generally not getting its needs met through traditional media. Artists are disenfranchised if they can't be heard by those who might love - and support - their work. Listeners are disenfranchised if they never get to hear them.

The Internet has radically changed the whole concept of community and communication - including radio - and the dust is yet to settle because the revolution is still happening. New models will have to replace old ones. That's not a bad thing, because - as much as I love the spirit of community radio - the Lew Hill/Lorenzo Milam model has at least one fundamental flaw that was inherent in the Marxist ideology of the Old Left and the countercultural idealism of the New one. "Enlightened amateurism" can be wonderful and passionate and vital, but it doesn't determine the worthiness of radio or art itself, which need not be completely divorced from commerce - it can't ever be, and it never was. If that were the case, the talented, starving painter who is suddenly commissioned by a wealthy patron has thereby become "professional," thus losing his "enlightened" panache. Ditto for the music played on the radio - commercial, community or public - since artists have a stake in the recordings they make or otherwise contribute to, and sales of these recordings support them and their work, whether independently or major-label produced. Commerce flows even in the arts, so why should the artful broadcaster - or anyone else who supports it - not be expected to participate in the process?

I don't doubt that the result of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's "professionalizing" of community stations choosing to take advantage of available grants has often been "blander" programming. However, the cause and effect is suspect, and I'm not convinced that the blandness is a result of government meddling or creeping corporate influence. Even if this were the case, it's a problem with the CPB, and not an inherent problem with workers being paid for what they do. I'm quite certain that if Lorenzo Milam were gainfully employed in a supervisory position by one of the stations in question, programming would not be bland. Perhaps the wrong people are being hired and retained. And - if truth be told - even KTAO's broadcasts were not always "enlightened" when Lorenzo's back was turned. Sometimes there was even the dread dead time, because a volunteer didn't show up, didn't call and there was no one who could quickly enough replace him. That's a highly unlikely scenario with a predominantly full-time, paid staff.

The "starving artist" is a myth, after all. It's not that artists don't often starve - they do, and I know this first hand - but they don't have to in order to do quality work that is enlightened and impassioned. Overall, I'd say people who tend to be "enlightened" and "artful" and "creative" all at once are that way whether they make money or not - they do it their way, and rather than pander to commerce, if they're talented and persistent and lucky enough, commerce ultimately adapts to them or they meet somewhere in the middle. All of us who are not independently wealthy by birth, industry or dumb luck must keep rolling that big rock uphill to make a living. Money itself isn't the problem that thwarts the qualities in art we most value. Greed is, and pandering to the Corporate Dragon and the lowest common denominator at the expense of honest, soulful, intelligent expression with relatively low commercial expectations.

Greed and pandering, of course, are the very qualities that bring "success" to commercial radio stations. To achieve success on a different level, we need new models that integrate the best aspects of the community radio movement - low-overhead, challenging, exciting, artful, imaginative programming committed to nothing but the direct support of the community and its own needs and ideals - with the new technology and new possiblities of community and creativity it brings. We also must recognize that making a living is a reality for most adults - that creative people cannot be expected to work long, hard and well for nothing, and ultimately deserve compensation for whatever talents, skills, or quality services they provide to keep the big stone moving uphill.