It’s one other vivid, sunny and promising Thursday morning in Los Angeles in early October, however issues will not be going properly for the morning group on the general public radio station KCSN, often known as the SoCal Sound.
Morning present hosts Nic Harcourt and Jet Raskin are seven days into the station’s eight-day “shortfall” fundraiser, named for the season and the funds the station is making an attempt to make up after its practically $250,000 grant from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting was canceled after the group was defunded by Congress in July.
This morning, Harcourt and Raskin are experiencing their very own shortfall. They’re behind on their objective for the primary two hours of the present, but they’re plowing forward, pleading with their listeners to contribute to the trigger, providing premiums resembling live performance tickets, vinyl information and a specifically designed long-sleeve hoodie T-shirt with the phrases “Shield Public Radio” written on a graphic of an acoustic guitar held in a clenched fist.
After the impassioned plea comes extra music. David Bowie’s “Nite Flights,” a Walker Brothers track featured on the late legend’s 1993 album “Black Tie White Noise,” blares from the audio system. It’s not the album model, however fairly the “Temper Swings Remix” launched in 2010. It’s adopted by “Ico,” a brand new track from upstart Canadian indie act Jo Handed’s forthcoming album, that’s been designated because the present’s “Contemporary Squeezed Observe of the Day.” You’re not prone to hear the 2 songs back-to-back anyplace, particularly on the radio, however that’s the enchantment of the SoCal Sound. The station has a playlist, nevertheless it permits its DJs so as to add their very own picks to the combination, making it a listening expertise on the radio dial.
The on-air mic within the station at 88.5 FM SoCal Sound.
(Matt Blake)
A couple of hours later, Harcourt and Raskin are respiratory simpler because the pledges begin to roll in they usually’re practically again on monitor. For Harcourt, the highs and lows of a fundraising marketing campaign are nothing new. He estimates he’s performed greater than 60 of them when you mix his years at KCSN and KCRW, the town’s best-known public radio station which first launched the British-born DJ to Los Angeles listeners in 1998.
“The old-school approach of doing it was two fund drives a 12 months, a spring and a fall, however lately, public radio stations have discovered that that’s not sufficient, so that you’ll discover mini drives and pop-up drives or day right here or day there,” Harcourt mentioned in a current cellphone interview. (The station additionally receives assist from plenty of native sponsors and underwriters together with My Valley Cross, the Pantages, the Hollywood Bowl and others.) Apart from the morning drive present, Harcourt can also be heard weeknights from 6 to 7 p.m.
He bought his begin in radio at WDST, a small business station in Woodstock, N.Y., after a pal advised he deliver his information and assortment of information by artists from Australia, the place he spent his mid-20s, to the station for a specialty present. Harcourt bought the gig and finally grew to become the morning host and program director.
At KCRW, he grew to become synonymous with breaking new artists because the station’s music director and host of “Morning Turns into Eclectic,” and people artists haven’t forgotten. At their gig this summer season on the Hollywood Bowl, French band Air thanked Harcourt from the stage, years after he gave them their huge break in America.
Raskin, his co-host since March 2020, is a relative beginner. An artwork historical past main on the Faculty of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, she switched her focus to broadcasting after an teacher mentioned her desires of changing into the top curator on the Getty Museum have been unrealistic. She recalled listening to KCSN in her automobile, modified her main to broadcasting and transferred to California State College, Northridge, the place the SoCal Sound has its studios. Initially, she was working in promotions till she was supplied an in a single day shift. “I used to be like, ‘Sure. You don’t should ask me twice. In fact I need a shift,’” she recalled. That led to weekends and in the end the morning present. When normal supervisor Patrick Osburn advised that Harcourt add a co-host, he requested Raksin. She additionally flies solo from 6 to 7 a.m. weekdays on “Jet Into Work.”
The station’s different common workers is a mixture of radio veterans, with most refugees from business radio who’re thrilled to go away that world for a public radio station the place they’ve extra freedom. Music director and noon host Julie Slater’s resume features a prolonged stint at WXRK (Ok-Rock) New York, the place she adopted Howard Stern. Program director Marc Kaczor, who bought the nickname Mookie from late rock ’n’ roll madman Mojo Nixon after they each labored at XTRA (91X) San Diego, is on from 2 to 4 p.m.
Maybe the station’s most well-known persona, Matt Pinfield is a former MTV VJ and one-time host of the favored different music present “120 Minutes.” He’s on from 4 to six p.m. and is blissful to be again on the air. In January, he suffered a life-threatening stroke and caught MRSA pneumonia whereas recovering within the hospital.
SoCal Sound program director Marc Kaczor, left, and DJ/MTV legend Matt Pinfield.
(Photograph from SoCal Sound)
“I’ve gotten loads of my talents again,” mentioned Pinfield, who returned to the air in June. “Definitely, I’m rather a lot additional alongside than they ever anticipated me to be. They advised each my daughters that I used to be by no means going to stroll or discuss once more and possibly want 24-hour care.”
The station additionally has a number of specialty exhibits, together with Byron the Curator’s “Bilingual Sounds,” heard weekdays from 9 to 11 p.m., “L.A. Buzz Bands” and “Rock ’n’ Roll Instances,” heard Sunday and Wednesday nights, respectively, hosted by former L.A. Instances columnist Kevin Bronson and longtime pop music critic Robert Hilburn. Whereas the station has 12 paid staff, the weekend workers is basically made up of volunteers.
Broadcasting from the campus of CSUN, the station struck a deal in 2017 with KSBR at Saddleback Faculty in Mission Viejo, which shares the 88.5 frequency. The partnership permits it to be heard in Orange County in addition to the San Fernando Valley. Nonetheless, there are elements of Los Angeles the place it’s troublesome to select up the station on the radio, nevertheless it’s additionally obtainable to stream on the net and numerous radio apps. It additionally has a partnership with fellow public radio station KPCC, the information/discuss station often known as LAist, the place SoCal Sound DJs refer their listeners to for information.
Staffers on the SoCal Sound take nice pains to level out that the station doesn’t broadcast information however grew to become collateral harm within the Trump administration’s obvious conflict on liberal-leaning NPR stations. “We don’t play information, however we bought sort of caught up in all of that,” Raskin famous.
The SoCal Sound’s persevering with battle to outlive comes at a time when all radio stations are struggling to retain their audiences amid competitors for music streaming companies, podcasts and social media apps like TikTok. “It’s a giant media market and we’re looking for our place inside it with huge behemoths and heritage manufacturers,” mentioned Kaczor. “We all the time lean into the localism and the grassroots of all of it and now we’re leaning into that much more.”
Apart from providing listeners a spot to listen to a curated combine of latest, native and older artists, Osburn, who grew to become normal supervisor of the station in 2019 after working in gross sales for a number of years at business stations in San Diego, factors out the SoCal Sound performs a vital position to a selected section of the music trade.
L.A. band La Lom performs at SoCal Sound’s reside efficiency studio.
(Photograph from SoCal Sound)
“The labels and the music trade love this format, they usually love this radio station as a result of we’re Triple A and we’re in Los Angeles,” he defined. “The trade wants us to outlive and be there to interrupt new artists and to interrupt new music by present artists,” he added. “They actually don’t need to see us go away.”
Paul Janeway, frontman of St. Paul & the Damaged Bones, can testify to that. The veteran neo-soul band lately launched their sixth studio album, a self-titled effort on their very own impartial label, Oasis Pizza. The lead single from the album, “Sushi and Coca-Cola” lately topped the station’s weekly playlist, which is a giant enhance for a band that loved a next-big-thing buzz a decade in the past after they performed Coachella and appeared on many of the community late-night TV exhibits.
“For us, it’s been an extended journey, however we’ve all the time sort of lived in that world of KCSN and the general public radio sphere,” Janeway mentioned. “We’re not Prime 40 artists. It’s a platform and a spot for us to reside. We’ve no different place to go.”
As for the SoCal Sound, the station fell a bit wanting its objective to cowl the quantity of the grant cash that was rescinded, Kaczor mentioned. “Though we didn’t hit our objective, we take into account the final drive to be a hit. We really had enjoyable doing it,” he added. “We’ll be doing our greatest to lift much more cash transferring ahead. We could should get inventive with it.”
