Listen local

The case for the return to old-school radio

At its peak, radio was the most ubiquitous form of entertainment in America. Now, the signal is starting to fade. But it doesn’t have to.

Streaming services like Pandora and Spotify give listeners instant access to countless songs. They can choose exactly what they want to listen to and, if listeners are willing to become paying customers, do so without being interrupted by ads. By comparison, radio, not listener controlled except during those all-request lunch hours, seems like a thoroughly outdated format. But buried among the car commercials and the morning DJs who wear too much hair gel there is a small force of people fighting for local music in a way that the Internet cannot. 

For all Tulsa’s music scene has going for it—amazing talent, attentive press, decent venues—its crowds are inexplicably disengaged. Even though there are at least a half-dozen shows every night, you can hardly hear the music over people’s assertion that there’s nothing to do in our city.

“We’ve got a lot of outstanding musicians in Tulsa and across the state,” said Brian Horton, whose non-profit label Horton Records represents some of the city’s most well-known acts. “And I think a lot of people outside of Tulsa, nationally and internationally, are somewhat more aware of it than we are here.”

Grace Gordon, who hosts Oklahoma Rock Show with oklahomarock.com founder Ryan LaCroix, said many can’t see beyond a narrow swath of the state’s talent.

“There is a stereotype, or a genre of music that people associate with Oklahoma—folk, bluegrass, Americana, whatever,” she said. “That stuff is totally killer and deserves its due, but the problem is even people who live here don’t realize that there is so much going on outside that genre, because they never hear it.”

Nearly all of Tulsa’s commercial FM stations are owned by four companies—Cox Radio, Clear Channel, Journal Communications, and Times-Shamrock Communications—and, with the exception of sports- or news-talk, most limit their playlists to the top-40 artists in their format, with no room for or mention of Tulsa-based talent.

“So, if you start flipping through stations, chances are you’re going to hear the same song on three different stations,” said Garrett Powders, host of 91.3 FM’s OK Connection. “If more stations started playing Tulsa artists, they could help music fans understand that there is great stuff going on outside of the BOK Center.”

Fan awareness is the obvious benefit for musicians, but there is something less tangible, too.

There’s a scene in the 1996 Tom Hanks-directed movie “That Thing You Do!” where the band’s characters hear their song on the radio for the first time. They run through the street, screaming, elated. As much as radio has lost its appeal, that feeling for bands hasn’t changed.

“We’ve still never actually heard our songs on the radio, but we found out earlier this year that we’d been being played at a few out-of-state college stations,” said Kylie Slabby.

As front-woman for Who & The Fucks and stoner-pop duo The Daddy O’s and sometimes-bass-player for Moonshine, Slabby is one of those musicians who seems to be onstage at every show. Her bands’ songs can be found scattered around Facebook, Bandcamp, SoundCloud, and various online magazines and podcasts. Still, she said, hearing that someone was playing her songs on the radio was motivating the way playing live or seeing her songs on streaming services isn’t.

“We were freaking out,” she said. “We never thought people would want to play our songs on the radio, but it made us want to send out our music to other places because we realized people actually liked what we’re doing.”

“When you’ve been around the local music scene as long as I have, you know that everybody has a band,” said LaCroix. “Everybody has a band and everybody has songs, but not everybody has it recorded and definitely not everyone is on the radio.”

Gordon agreed.

“A lot of times it can be hard to read a room when you’re playing a show,” Gordon said. “You might not know how well it went over or you might think that your friends are complimenting your show because they’re your friends. To have other people recognize your work, and not just recognize it but recognize it as good, can be legitimizing for bands. They can feel like they’ve reached a certain level, and then, hopefully, they keep going.”

Radio, for its part, could benefit from local programming.

“At one time, radio was all about your community and what was happening locally,” said LaCroix. “Patti Page, this legendary performer, broke on KVOO. Wanda Jackson, the queen of rockabilly, got her start on a local radio station in Oklahoma City. That’s radio’s purpose, and it needs to return to more of that.”

“Everyone says that radio is on the downslide,” Powders said. “But if you focus on local stuff, stuff you can’t get on Pandora or Spotify—local music, local talk, local news, weather, whatever—it won’t go anywhere.” 

Sounds like Tulsa // Where can you hear local music on the airwaves?

• OK Connection – 91.3 RSU Real College Radio (Sunday, 4 p.m. – 5 p.m. and Wednesday, 6 p.m. – 7 p.m.)
• The Oklahoma Rock Show – 107.5 The Spy FM (Thursday, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.)
• Friday Morning Live – 97.5 KMOD (Fridays on the Big Mad Morning Show)
• Domk! – 97.5 KMOD (Friday, 11 p.m. – 12 a.m.)
• Home Groan – z-104.5 The Edge (Sunday, 10 p.m. – 12 a.m.)
• Radio IDL – radioidl.com