Ani Popielak
via the Internet
Backwash, Not Whitewash
Regarding Laura Bond's July 29 Backwash: I read your article on the Denver music scene today and thought it gave a very accurate description of our community and general state of societal confusion and musical staleness. I think you speak for many people when you speak of the lack of surprise and innovation in the music that some kids are growing up on today. The mainstream music of the late Nineties has become so definable and non-adventurous that listeners have been forced to pick a style or two that they like and hang on to it for dear life. Unfortunately, the music that is being created hasn't proven itself to hold on to the listener.
It is people like you who are in the position to open people's ears. You have the rare power to be able to come out on a regular basis and tell the entire city your ideas and observations. I have heard someone speak out on the music scene without candy-coating it and trying not to step on anyone's feet. I think if everyone had a more straightforward attitude like that, there would be a lot less artists living on empty promises of millions of dollars and a lot more people just trying to communicate and rock.
Clay Bustin
via the Internet
Micropower to the People
Regarding Marty Jones's "End Transmission," in the July 29 issue:
I wholeheartedly agree with the idea that there should be an alternative to big-budget corporate radio stations like the sex-crazy ALICE, the drugged-out rocker station KBPI and the once-decent KTCL. I have completely stopped listening to radio stations, instead relying on the Internet to discover new bands. It shouldn't be this way. By bringing stations on the air with no hidden agenda or corporate intervention, we could finally have a radio station that actually has more music than propaganda and more talk about events in the community than about sex. I hope the FCC starts loosening up on LPFM and cracks down on what it needs to: the money-making sell-out stations that seem to fill the FM band.
Rafael Vera
via the Internet
I first heard of pirate radio broadcasting in an Institute for Justice newsletter: A rancher in North Dakota did not care for what was broadcast on the one radio station in his area, so he set up a low-power transmitter that he could pick up in his truck anywhere on his spread, and he arranged to rebroadcast Denver talk radio. His neighbors liked a choice in listening, too.
I understand that the FCC once used to license low-power stations. Lobbyists for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and others persuaded the FCC to abolish that class of license.
In the silence of the Big Sky country of Montana and North Dakota, that sounds like bad public policy that ought to be reversed.
David Olson
Littleton
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