Life in "General"

On a day like today, you can be both really excited to be a part of CJAM and really depressed. Why you ask? Well it is it because today, September 24th, is the one day of the year where CJAM as an organization is picked apart and looked at from all aspects. It is the Annual General Meeting, or the AGM.

Now, I am sort of a nerd. I like the AGM. I get really excited during the day, watching the hands of the clock get closer and closer to 7 o'clock. Why do I like the AGM do you ask? I am not exactly sure. I guess I kind of like the aspect of being apart of something bigger. You get to play company executive a little, with all the serving motions and seconding motions. I also like the fact you get inside inform on upcoming events and really it gives me material to write about in this blog.

But with the good comes the boring. To go along with this exciting stuff that I mention before, there is a whole load of boring stuff. When I say boring, I don't mean unimportant, because in reality all of the goings on at the AGM are important. It's just stuff that kind of is just "going through the motions". You have to review the budget, which is always a treat. But I do have to say we did fly right through that tonight. Then there is always one person who really has done too much research and talks WAY too much. I guess it is good because they utilize the AGM for what its true purpose is, to talk about issues they have that are going on at the station. But to be honest, a lot of us there (maybe I am just talking about myself) are there to get together as a big group, go through some of the upcoming events, do the usual song and dance that is needed to be done, but overall to get free pizza and pop. I am glad they find a bigger purpose for the AGM, but to be honest I do find that a lot of people were talking when some of the volunteers brought up more trivial topics. But I must reiterate again, they ARE using the AGM for its purpose, this is just my opinion.

What did we chat about at this year's AGM. Excellent question. As usually we have staff reports, which is a summary of what each staff member has done in the last year or so. These are usually recaps for a lot of volunteers because a lot of us spend so much time at the station that we've seen a lot of these summaries unfold in front of us. After the staff reports, we went over the finance and the numbers that the station put up over the last year. I would get more in depth into this topic, but I don't think it is entirely appropriate for this type of forum (if you are actually interested I suggest you ask someone at the station and they will assist your inquiry). One of the bigger topics we talked about was th annual pledge drive, which is one of the main events in the CJAM calendar. We briefly touched upon the pledge drive during the meeting, but I don't want to get too into it as it will be its own blog entry in the coming weeks. Let's just say the shirts this year are 100% sweeter.

Another of the big events which we talked about was National Campus Radio Confernce. This is also an event which I will talked about in a later blog entry. Let's just say that the talk at the meeting was incredibly encouraging, and I think this event will do so much for CJAM and the University within the scholastic community.

The last event of the night is usually my favourite but this year was a big let down. the election for the Board of Directors is usually the most exciting moment of the meeting. People nominate others, and it is very edge of your seat. This year not so much. Four seats were open, four people got nominated. Not exciting. But my nomination did get a seat, Go Murad!

So, that's it for another year. The AGM is one of my favourite CJAM events of the year and unfortunately I have to wait another 365 days till the next one.

Playlist #3

Here is my playlist for September 24th, 2007

Saves the Day - Always Ten Feet Tall
Lifetime - 25 cent Giraffes
the Locusts Have No King - Anna's smoke*
the Most Serene Republic - In places, empty spaces*
.moneen. - Bleed and Blister*
Manchester Orchestra - Where have you been?
the Paperbacks - Hesitation Marks*
Midway State - Met a Man on Top of the Hill*
Texas is the Reason - Back and to the Left
Bang Lime - Kick the Habit*
the Doers - United and Strong*
Ben Lee - What Would Jay z Do?
Attack in Black - If All I Thought Were True*
the Receiving Ends of Sirens - Swallow People Whole
Built to Spill - Happiness
hothotheat - Outta Heart*
Sea Wolf - You're a Wolf
Blurt - Bedrock Blues*

* - Cancon

Playlist #2

I am pleased to present the whole reason this blog was created, well half the reason. I present you the debut episode of "Sound Off College Radio". This is the playlist for today's show. You can catch the show Monday mornings from 10:30 am till noon. For those of you who tuned in this morning, I apologize about the state of my voice. I was very ill and lost about 75% of my voice. Anyways, here's the set list:

Locusts have no king - Grave Danger*
the Weakerthans - Plea From A Cat Named Virtue*
the Weakerthans - Virtute the cat Explains her Departure*
Citywide Vacuum - Sweet Kraut*
Ted Leo and the RX - Shake the Sheets
the Russian Futurists - These Seven Notes*
the New Pornographers - All the Old Showstoppers*
Attack in Black - Inches and Ages*
Against Me! - Borne on the FM Air Waves
Arcade Fire - Crown of Love*
Bayside - Blame it on Bad Luck
Cain and Abel - The Son will not Rise*
Christie Front Drive - November
Chuck Ragan - Geraldine
Germans - I am the Teacher*
New Amsterdams - Your Ghost
Locusts Have No King - Goodman on a Strange Horse*

* - Canadian Content

Special Events Cont. [Harvesting the FAM]

This is just a small little post to wrap up the Harvesting the FAM festival. The festival itself was absolutely amazing. Everything went off without a hitch. My favourite band of the night was the Locusts Have No King. I was running around all night, up and down from the basement location of the CJAM studios and the CAW atrium, so I got to see the fashion show as well as the artists that had displays. One thing I did miss, however, was the films portion of the festival which I am disappointed about.

What Did Pat Do at the FAM?

Well thats is a good question, and seeing as this blog is about behind the scenes at CJAM I guess I am obligated to explain what exactly I did at CJAM during the FAM. Well myself and Aaron Feldman, who is the DJ for the literary talk show ;) took a four hour shift in the production studio. CJAM at the FAM had a three group set up. One group, called the On Air Studio (which featured such CJAM personalities as Thom and Jon in the Morning as well as music director Chris "Chonky" White) which was basically the front lines for the broadcast. These were the people who made sure the feeds were good to go and always running, as well as greeted the listeners with their lovely voices. The second group was the CJAM Atrium group. These guys had an interesting group, not only were they supposed to be the face of CJAM and give out flyers and stickers, but they were also in charge of recording the acoustic sets going on in the CAW atrium. Finally, the hardest working out of the bunch.....ha ha ha. But seriously the last group was the production studio group. It was our job to record interviews with bands that had just finished their sets, edit the interviews as well as the music coming from the CAW atrium and most of all look handsome well doing it. I think Aaron and I succeeded.

In the end the FAM was fantastic and I would do it every weekend if I wasn't so exhausted

Special Events: vol. 1 [harvesting the fam]

Here I am writing to you with great anticipation of tomorrow's event. Harvesting the Fam is taking place tomorrow, all day from 2 pm am to 2 am at the CAW centre on the Univrsity of Windsor campus. Now you ask, what does this have to do with CJAM and this blog? Well let me tell you. CJAM is a proud member of the Windsor arts community and is an active participant in locals arts festivals all over the city. So when the opportunity came to help out this amazing event, run by none other than CJAM DJ Murad Erzinclioglu as well as Benjamin Young Hart. CJAM has become a large part of the festival, broadcasting from the basement stage (the old Thirsty Scholar) at the original Harvesting the FAM and then this year broadcasting from both the basement as well as the Sturgeon Records outdoor stage. That plus the CJAM Atrium stage which hosted acoustic acts in the CAW centre and a buttload of CJAM volunteers who pitched in to try and make the day run as smooth as possible. But I really don't wanna take any credit away from Murad, Ben and all the other volunteers, because without them the event would not have existed.

But back to the actually festival itself:

15 Films - 44 Artists - 34 Music Acts / 1 Day - 12 Hours - 0 Dollars

The festival is also getting a lot of media coverage as well.

Recap after the FAM....

Playlist #1

Along with my blog entries I will also be posting my play list for my shows each week. You can catch Sound Off College Radio mondays 10 am till 12: 30 pm, only on CJAM 91.5.

BAND SONG
the locusts have no king* catching a slow train on a dead mans birthday
the rentals sweetness and tenderness
attack in black* chimes and church bells
weakerthans* virtute the cat explains her departure
stars* today will be better I swear
prarie cat* grumpy forever
measured in angles* the object serves
mad caddies coyote
against me americans abroad
junior senior I like music
the go team flashlight fight
pietasters late night call
what seas, what shores* deplay/attack/fortify
black before red bosa nova #7
minus the bear white mystery
weakerthans* utilities
manic street preachers winterlovers
black tie this time around
hopewell to the slaughter

*indicates canadian content

Dead air: what the hells with that?

Just a quick introduction before I get this whole dog and pony show on the road. My name is Pat Craven and for the past two years I have been a disc jockey at CJAM 91.5 University of Windsor campus radio. Over the past two years I think I have witnessed just about everything there is to see when it comes to how a college radio station works. And although I would say 9 out of 10 North Americans are exposed to radio on a weekly basis, a lot of them probably have no idea about half the stuff that goes on. And with that, I present: SOUND OFF: what's the deal with college radio?

For my first entry I am going to talk about dead air and how it affects radio. Wikipedia states "Dead air is a phenomenon whereby a broadcast which normally carries audio or video unintentionally becomes silent or blank (also known as unmodulated carrier). The term is most often used in cases where programme material comes to an unexpected halt, either through operator error or for technical reasons, although it is also used in cases where a broadcaster has 'dried up'."

At CJAM dead air is not your friend, it is actually your arch enemy. Dead air is the equivalent to the black plague for radio hosts. If you encounter it, fix it, or run away before you can be seen my others.

There are a few reasons why the airwaves become dead, some the fault of the dj and some aren't.

1) Song ends and another one is not queued up/ dj is not ready to go on the air. This problem is probably the most common. It probably happens once or twice a show without people realizing it but trust me, the dj is in the studio frantically trying to fix the problem. The only time dead air becomes a problem and listeners are affected is usually when a dj will throw on a cd for the over night shift and does not select repeat on the cd player. This can lead to hours of dead air and a lot of unhappy listeners and board of directors.

2) The other reason why dead air might occur is because of faulty equipment. For example, last year a lot of the in studio microphones were not working and dj didn't know of this problem. So when they thought they were broadcasting out onto the airwaves, they were really just talking to each other in a small enclosed room. This is not a regular occurance, but just another example of how dead air occurs.

Finally, the age old question, how would a dj know there is a dead air problem. Well good question. CJAM is equipped with a dead air alarm which sends off a really annoying high pitched ring when there is dead air over the air waves.

So that should answer your question, what the hells with dead air?

till next entry,

Pat