If the name Bobby Skafish rings a bell, there’s a good reason for that. He’s been on the air in Chicago now for 37 years. Skafish currently holds down The Drive’s afternoon slot (3 to 8 p.m.) on WDRV-FM (97.1), but his start in the radio business was slightly less glamorous. After graduating with a radio/television degree from Indiana University, Skafish was having a hard time getting his foot in the door.

“I was living in Hammond working at Carson Pirie Scott,” he recalls. “A local record store called S&J Stereo brokered a 10 to midnight show on a Crown Point radio station. On the strength of my college tape, I got the job to host it. It was a one-man operation. I sold some spots, recorded commercials, picked my own music, and was the only disc jockey.”

Though the job only lasted a few months, it gave him the kind of experience he needed to capture the attention of WXRT-FM (93.1).

“They hired me in November of 1976 to do all nights on Saturday, and I gradually moved up the food chain to better slots.”

His calling card has always been his flair for language – an almost beatnik jazz approach – but it’s never been an act. The Bobby Skafish you hear on the air is the same man you’ll meet off the air.

“Yes,” he says with a laugh. “I really do talk that way in real life. Daddy-O, for instance, became a big savior for me when I couldn’t remember someone’s name. I’m not that good with names, so I started calling people Daddy-O.”

Of all the FM disc jockeys in Chicago, few Daddy-Os have had the kind of storied career enjoyed by Skafish since he first arrived in ‘76. He established himself at ‘XRT, moved down the dial and rode the wave of The Loop’s meteoric rise in the 1980s and early ’90s, returned for another successful run at ‘XRT, and has been an important part of The Drive’s success since he arrived there in 2007.

All of those iconic rock “n” roll stations that employed Skafish over the years have had one thing in common: The disc jockeys were not an afterthought. They were integral to the sound of the station.

“A DJ gives a format flesh and blood,” Skafish points out. “Pandora isn’t a format, it’s a playlist. I’m not knocking that, but a good disc jockey can enhance the pleasure of the music. We’re a diversion – someone to make you laugh and think, someone that entertains you.”

At The Drive, that entertainment often comes in the form of information about the music. When your audience has been listening to your music for many decades, finding new information is no easy task. Yet Skafish and the other on-air personalities at The Drive manage to do it every day.

“The specials and the artist portraits – you can credit [Hubbard senior vice president of programming and format creator] Greg Solk for that,” Skafish explains. “This is the way he envisioned the format. It’s important to respect the music, and these things enhance the experience.”

The music just happens to be the preferred choice of the advertiser’s dream – the demo with money to spend. That’s why no fewer than four other stations in Chicago are playing the same or similar artists. The Drive routinely beats them in the ratings, and Skafish claims to know why.

“I think it’s a complete package. From the imaging to the jocks, who legitimately care about the music, to the respectful presentation and the specials we do. We give a sense of history about the music without doing it in a dry scholarly way. We paint a picture that accompanies the music and put it in context.”

And The Drive is also very active in social media. Skafish admits that he and his colleagues were gently nudged in that direction by station management, but any trepidation he might have had is long gone.

“Being on Facebook during the show has enhanced the experience for me. It’s a great way to link with listeners. It’s immediate. It’s interactive. I do quizzes and teases and start discussions about songs. These things have really grown organically. It’s great to have it going alongside the radio show. I no longer have to say everything on the air – I have this other outlet for doing it. It means I can be more concise on the air, but I can still solicit opinions from the listeners. I really like that.”

After close to four decades in Chicago radio, Skafish has been around long enough to know there’s something very special going on at his current home. He considers it his happiest experience yet, both professionally and personally.

“One thing I love about The Drive on a personal level – no one’s on an ego trip. Everyone treats each other with respect. There aren’t any teacher’s pets. It’s a great work experience in that regard. Any criticism I receive from Greg Solk or [program director] Patty Martin, I know there isn’t a hidden agenda there. They have a vision for how they want the station to sound, and if they feel you’re besmirching it or not doing it justice, they will let you know. They have an idea of what sounds good and what doesn’t.”

Judging by the ratings figures over the last decade, it’s hard to argue with that.

– Rick Kaempfer

This is my first column as the media critic for Illinois Entertainer, and I’m very excited to be joining a publication I’ve been reading for 30 years. Those of you familiar with my history know that the media has been my life’s work: as a participant, an observer, and a critic. If you aren’t familiar with me, let me introduce myself.

I was a radio producer in Chicago for 17 years, working alongside radio legends like Steve Dahl and Garry Meier and John Records Landecker. My experience as a producer gave me insight into the inner workings of a radio show – the personality clashes, the struggles with management, and most importantly, the incredible amount of work that goes into doing a personality talk show of any kind. I wrote a whole book about it – The Radio Producer’s Handbook (Allworth Press, 2004) – with fellow producer John Swanson.

I was also a disc jockey for seven years at The Loop (WLUP-FM, 97.9) in Chicago (in the late ’80s, early ’90s), and I have a great appreciation for music radio. I don’t think the DJ is an unnecessary interruption from the pure music experience. On the contrary, I believe they are essential to the past, present, and future of radio. We’re lucky in Chicago to be blessed with some of the greatest jocks in the country, and I consider it part of my job description to share their names and stories with you. I did this with pride for more than five years on my blog, Chicago Radio Spotlight, and I did this in longer form recently with Records Truly Is My Middle Name (Eckhartz Press, 2013) – a book I co-wrote with Landecker.

My focus with this column will not just be with radio, however. I’ll also be covering, following, and reporting on television. I’m lucky to have worked for and with many local television personalities and journalists over the years. I’ve written for them, written about them, booked them on the radio shows I produced, and appeared on their shows. There’s something truly amazing about watching a great broadcast journalist in action, just as there is comedic value in witnessing those who keep the spirit of Ted Baxter (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show”) and Ron Burgundy (Anchorman) alive.

But I think my most important asset as a media critic has actually been developed in the years since I left radio. I studied the financial side of the business in excruciating detail while I was working on my satirical novel, $everance (ENC Press, 2007), and I studied the “advocacy journalism” of cable news and political talk radio. I was slightly disgusted by what I found, but trust me, it wasn’t evidence of a vast political or financial conspiracy, and it wasn’t widespread political bias in the media.

I will, however, admit to a few biases of my own . . .

•    I’m pro-talent
I have a soft spot for great talent and the talent behind the talent, but I have a very low tolerance for blowhards. I won’t hesitate to take them to task when they blow a little too hard or take themselves too seriously.

•    I’m anti-mogul
The media moguls, and the bankers that control the media conglomerates’ ridiculous debt loads, are constantly under my surveillance. I know I’m just one voice, but I will happily remain a burr under their saddles. (By the way, if you want to read the most narcissistic book ever written, check out Sumner Redstone’s A Passion To Win. I’m convinced that the editors at Simon & Schuster – also owned by Redstone – intentionally didn’t edit his thoughts so the whole world could find out what kind of a boss he was.)

•   I’m an F.C.C. skeptic
The Federal Communications Commission is constantly trying to slip a new rule by us while we aren’t paying attention. Unfortunately for them, I’m always paying attention. I consider the deregulation of the media in 1996 the single biggest reason the business is now a shell of its former self, and for some reason, the F.C.C. seems to have learned zero lessons from this mistake.

•    My B.S. detector does not have an off switch
I’ve heard so much of it in my career, my eyes roll on their own.

•   I’m not ratings-obsessed
One thing my 20-plus years working in broadcasting taught me was ratings ebb and flow, and you can’t overreact to someone’s good or bad ratings in the short term. Only long-term ratings trends are real stories.

•    I always follow the money
Whenever there’s an inexplicable decision in the media, I follow the money. Whenever there’s a show or station going downhill suddenly, I follow the money. The answer nearly always lies there.

I’ll climb off my soapbox now. Starting next month, I’ll begin introducing you to the people I believe are making a difference in the media – either good or bad. I want to thank IE for giving me this opportunity and wish the previous media critic, Cara Jepsen, the very best in her future endeavors.

– Rick Kaempfer

My first column for this magazine 20 years ago was about a riveting radio show that featured two brilliant hosts with contrasting styles and personalities.

That show was “The Wild Room,” on WBEZ-FM (91.5) and the hosts were Gary Covino and Ira Glass. I thought it was the best radio I’d ever heard – and said as much in my column. (Full disclosure: After the column ran, I was Covino’s guest on the show.)

“In a lot of ways that program was what I always thought more radio should be,” says Covino, now an independent radio producer and consultant based in Massachusetts. “The notion being that it had no set format. It could sound wildly different from one episode to the next. One week it could sound like some intensely prepared documentary. The next week it could be a free-form discussion with phone calls and bits of tape flying around in a seemingly very random order. It could be serious or funny. There could be many voices, or it could be a monologue. There were no set times for any of the segments; there was no clock, except to go on the air at the top of the hour and end at the top of the next hour. The space was as expansive as possible, to handle as wide a range of topics as possible, with as many different attitudes and emotions as possible.”

“I remember what a real free-form show it was,” says Glass, architect of the public radio program “This American Life.” “One out of four was great, one out of four was awful, two were O.K. Torey Malatia put us on late Friday night for good reason; it was not always so awesome. You really couldn’t tell what would happen next. Gary was such a great radio performer, but far braver than I was and he’d push us places where I’d feel like, ‘Whoa, we’re going here?’

“‘The Wild Room’ definitely was a place I was trying out ideas to see how they’d work and where I was retraining myself in how to perform on the radio. To be looser, more like my real talking voice versus that stiff NPR voice,” he continues. “And there’s a kind of story I did a lot on ‘The Wild Room’ – where I’d interview one person, edit the tape, and string it together on the air with music – that we do on ‘This American Life.’ But ‘The Wild Room’ was truly a free-form show. The chaos of it was kind of the point. ‘This American Life’ – everything’s edited and re-edited and carefully mixed and orchestrated. It’s a very different form.”

The show ran from 1990 to 1996 in the days before the widespread use of the Internet, when an appreciative audience would have pounced on it.
In those pre-Internet days, I checked facts by making calls, reading books and newspapers, and sending faxes. I wrote my first columns on a borrowed Tandy 1000, printed it out on a dot-matrix machine, got on my bike and rode it over to former editor Michael C. Harris‘ house.

Over the years I interviewed a who’s who of radio personalities, including Connie Szerszen, Ken Nordine, Allan Stagg, Karen Hand, Bobby Skafish, Johnny Mars, Major Tom Johnson, Steve and Garry, Mancow, Karl T. Wright, Richard Steele, Chuck Mertz, Steve Cushing, and Howard Stern (who ended up interviewing me – on air). I wrote for everyone from Billboard to the Sun-Times, with regular stints at the Reader and Newcity.

Many of those publications have folded or contracted; former colleagues now tend bar, train dogs, and plan craft parties. A few exceptions are former Reader editor Pat Arden, an award-winning senior reporter at Metro New York, and former Sun-Times media critic Robert Feder, whose Time Out Chicago blog masterfully combines the best of old and new media with its mix of solid beat reporting, enterprise journalism, a sharp wit, and reader commentary.

The rest of the media landscape also suffered over the past two decades. Radio became consolidated in the wake of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Add competition from Internet and satellite radio and a new ratings system, and famous names, innovation, and local flavor went out of favor.

“Things keep getting more and more formatted and more and more predictable in radio and there’s the notion that well, that’s what people really want,” Covino says. “But I believe that people want unpredictability and spontaneity as much as they want predictability. The unpredictable has to be good, though. The people doing the show have to be very talented. And the audience will really respond to that. But they hardly ever get it. ['The Wild Room'] was an example of people actually getting it – if they happened to be near the radio when it was on – and they were responding in a very positive way.”

The one constant through all this change was IE, which never sold out its readers and gave me ample opportunity to tilt against corporate media windmills.

But now it’s time for me to leave and pursue yoga full-time. Starting next month, this column will be in the capable hands of former radio producer, publisher, author, and longtime media watcher Rick Kaempfer.

– Cara Jepsen

Musicians who are trying to get their music heard on the Internet – and failing – may want to take a second look at public access TV. Specifically, the Chicago Access Network or CAN-TV, which has been airing every imaginable type of music and message created by Chicagoans since 1985.

“You think you can put anything on the Internet,” Jake Austen says. The co-producer of the long-running all-ages rock ‘n’ roll dance show “Chic-A-Go-Go,” which airs Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. and Wednesdays at 3:30 p.m. on CAN-TV 19, continues: “But no one’s going to find it unless you’re looking for it. If you’re on Channel 19 and someone comes through flipping channels and you put something on that is ridiculous or exciting, people are going to stop if your band looks awesome. People will stop and look at you out of curiosity; you’re going to get eyes that you would never have gotten on you if you utilize it correctly.”

The Roctober magazine publisher stumbled across CAN-TV back in the early ’90s. “There was the girl named Kelly [Kuvo] who was in the Scissor Girls, who was utilizing it for all of her art projects – TV shows and music videos,” he says. “It was really inspiring. My wife and I always wanted to do a show and were interested in alternate media. But seeing someone we knew really utilizing it was really inspirational.”

Austen says the format is every bit as relevant as it was when he and co-producer Jacqueline Stewart launched their show in 1996.

“Now, when people can do so much on computer, you’d think it’s less important to have that space. But there’s nothing like having a five-camera studio to be able to shoot whatever you want to shoot as long as it’s not commercial. There are no limits as far as ideas or attitudes or anything like that.

“I’ve seen the most underground rap artists, different kinds of ethnic bands, big bands – people have really pushed what you can do in that studio,” Austen says. “You’re recording on mono on an old board, but the energy you can get is really something.”

Anyone with a Chicago ID or letter from a nonprofit organization and $25 can attend one of CAN-TV’s mandatory orientation sessions and learn how to use the equipment in a basic studio production class on the way to becoming a producer (for about $200). Content is completely up to the producer, as long as it’s not offensive or commercial. (Learn more at cantv.org).

Access is cheap and easy because cable came late to Chicago, and activists demanded it. CAN-TV was incorporated in 1983 as part of the city’s progressive cable ordinance and began serving the public in 1985. Funded by the cable companies, the freestanding independent nonprofit has trained 16,000 Chicagoans and 5,000 nonprofit representatives to use the equipment; over 200,000 local shows have been cablecast as well as 20,000 hours of live shows and thousands of live events.

“I think it’s important that people in Chicago understand that this should not be taken for granted,” CAN-TV executive director Barbara Popovic says. “The decision was made in Chicago to make sure there are set-aside channels on cable TV and funding for a maximum amount of public participation. If you look at how cable has unfolded around [the] country, Chicago has done it right by making sure local residents had a say and had a way to be involved, because that doesn’t happen everywhere.

“I think it’s important for people to have a trusted local organization where they know that their speech and their free expression and creativity will be the priority,” she continues, “so that they can come and use CAN-TV to get their message out, whatever that may be, and that we’re going to do it without judgment and without requiring a lot of money – without a lot of the normal obstacles people face when they’re dealing with the media.”

Austen has worked on hundreds of TV shows over the years. “What’s really nice is that different people are doing it for different reasons. There are church people who want to get their preaching on TV, egoists who want to be stars, different people with political views trying to get on, activists, eccentrics. You end up working with a bunch of people you wouldn’t ordinarily get to know,” he says. “That influences what you can do there. You can let people who are helping you influence content. It’s really special.”

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: After a long struggle with school administrators, Northeastern Illinois University’s WZRD-FM (88.3) returned to its regular free-form format with live “Wizard” DJs last month. The university had been broadcasting an iPod playlist since barring Wizards from the station in June . . . New York-based “Democracy Now!” is now heard weeknights at 8 on Newsweb Radio’s WCPT-AM (820) and simulcast on WCPY-FM (92.5), WCPT-FM (92.7), WCPQ-FM (99.9), and ChicagosProgressiveTalk.com . . . FCC chairman Julius Genachowski has been talking about loosening the media cross-ownership ban in top 20 markets, which would open the door for News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch to purchase the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. As Mike Royko once said, “[H]is goal is not quality journalism. His goal is vast power for Rupert Murdoch, political power.” Learn more at freepress.net.

– Cara Jepsen

Photo by Jill Brazel

– Cara Jepsen

– Cara Jepsen

Open any newspaper or media website and you’re likely to see more hard news bylines belonging to men than women – and even fewer by minorities.
But it’s not part of a conspiracy, says Michele Weldon, seminar leader at The OpEd Project.

“The gender gap in most all cases is not deliberate. It is a matter of circumstance.” Weldon, author, assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and leader of the Public Voices Fellowship at Northwestern, continues,”The problem with the underrepresentation of women and minorities in many outlets is the problem of women and minorities not submitting at the same frequency that men do.”

The OpEd Project strives to increase the number of submissions written by women and minorities for publication in traditional and new media. The goal, however, is to have women shift focus from “pink topics” such as the Four Fs: food, family (relationships, children, sex), furniture (home), and fashion.

Instead, The OpEd Project scouts and trains non-journalists who are experts in their field to submit opinion essays on timely topics to add to the public conversation. “We have had enormous success on all levels; so it is a curriculum that is empowering and transformative,” says Weldon. “And it can shift the disparity of voices in the media landscape.”

The OpEd Project also encourages journalists to interview sources from all walks of life for their stories. “If we take the care to seek a diversity of official and unofficial sources – men, women, all races, abilities, and backgrounds – we would simply have deeper and better stories,” says Weldon. “At the Medill School where I have been teaching for 17 years, this is required. A student cannot turn in a story with all men quoted, for instance, or all 18-year-olds.

“It is important to have women and minorities more involved in the public conversation because whoever narrates the stories of the day, narrates history,” she continues. “To view the world through a narrow lens that is not representative of all voices is an injustice. Simply by involving more people in the democracy of fair journalism, we are able to learn more, understand more, and perhaps improve the world.”

The next “Write To Change The World” seminar in Chicago is Jan. 19, 2013; details at theopedproject.org.

DEBATE THIS: Ever wonder why the presidential debates only feature two candidates – and why the panelists ask such lame questions? It could have something to do with the Commission On Presidential Debates (CPD).

The commission was created by the Republican and Democratic Parties in 1987 in an effort to replace the non-partisan League of Women Voters, which had included third party candidate John B. Anderson in the 1980 presidential debate and did not allow major party candidates to select the debate panelists in 1984.

Critics point out that prominent Democratic and Republican leaders make up the commission’s senior staff and sit on its board, and a candidate must have garnered 15 percent of voter support in a major poll in order to participate in a CPD-sponsored debate – effectively excluding third-party candidates.

Need more proof? Third-party presidential candidates Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader were actually barred from participating in and even attending the presidential debates in 2000. The pair filed a lawsuit in 2004 challenging the Federal Election Commission’s legitimization of the CPD. In September, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson filed an anti-trust lawsuit alleging that the Democratic and Republican Parties are conspiring to keep third-party candidates out of the presidential debates. Learn more in George Farah’s 2004 book, No Debate: How The Republican And Democratic Parties Secretly Control The Presidential Debates.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: Too cheap to sign up for Steve Dahl’s podcast? His no-cover Monday night football parties take place Nov. 19 and Dec. 3 at John Barleycorn in Schaumburg and feature other members of his Dahlcast posse (dahl.com) . . . WLS-FM’s (94.7) new lineup of salty old Chi-town talent is nice, but shame on Cumulus Media boss Jan Jeffries for not liberating octogenarian dean of rock radio Dick Biondi from late nights and bringing him back to evenings so he could revive his popular Friday Night Request Party. A token woman in the lineup would also be considered a good-will gesture – say, top girly rock jock Connie Szerszen . . . Speaking of revivals, WLS-AM (890) talker Roe Conn’s live rockin’ journalist concert “Newsapalooza” returns Nov. 10 to the Park West. Tix are $75 and benefit Clearbrook, the state’s largest provider of services for children and adults with developmental disabilities. Guests include Richard Roeper, Val Warner and Ryan Chiaverini of “Windy City Live,” and a slew of local TV folks (roeconn.com) . . . As host of “Family Feud,” a syndicated radio show (weekdays 5 to 9 a.m. on WVAZ-FM (102.7) and an eponymous daytime TV talk show (weekdays at 2 p.m. on WMAQ-Channel 5), author/comedian/philanthropist Steve Harvey has to be the hardest-working broadcaster in Chicago. Learn how to get tickets to tapings of “The Steve Harvey Show” at NBC Tower at steveharveytv.com . . . Our favorite media read so far this year is Brendan Greeley’s no-holds-barred essay, “My Year At Chicago’s FM News 101.1,” about his rollercoaster year at the schizophrenic Merlin Media-owned FM news station. He writes: “Billionaires must be impatient. We were told repeatedly that our ratings wouldn’t be any kind of issue until at least Year 3 of the FM News experiment. Looking back now, I think that was a lie. [Randy] Michaels must’ve been searching for answers to give the billionaires when inspiration struck. He got an idea in his head that he just couldn’t shake: voice-tracking. He envisioned a national news cooperative that would overtake the media world. New York’s FM News was instructed to work hand-in-hand with Chicago’s FM News. One anchor would handle all the national stories and others would do only local. We stopped going live sometime in early 2012. As anchor Jeff McKinney told me at the time: He was no longer a news anchor, he was a voice actor.” Read the rest at dahl.com/2012/09/year-chicagos-fm-news-101-1/.

– Cara Jepsen

I recently had a driveway moment while listening to Loyola University’s WLUW-FM (87.7). The host was doing an in-depth, hour-long retrospective on Daft Punk – whom I’d never heard. Yet I couldn’t stop listening. The way the show’s host, Steve Damien, used live and pre-recorded interviews with full-length versions of songs to tell the story of the French electronic duo’s artistic arc had me riveted to the radio.

The show combined great production values with excellent interviews, so I figured it was syndicated.

Wrong! “The Retrospective” is the brainchild of local CAN TV producer Steve Niketopoulos (Damien is his middle name), and it debuted on WLUW in 1999 – where it’s aired on-and-off ever since (it will air Thursday nights at 8 starting in January). Niketopoulos has done about 400 shows and it’s been picked up by some 25 public stations via the Public Radio Exchange.

“I was always inspired by late-night radio hosts who would go in-depth and explore different types of music,” says Niketopoulos, a history and anthropology major. “I tried to combine what the courses were teaching me with what I was learning about the music. I read an article about Leonard Cohen and saw a rerun of VH1’s ‘Behind the Music’ and thought: it’d be a neat idea to go through an artist’s whole career. But, I thought that you don’t get an idea of them if I don’t play the whole songs. So I put that idea together with what I was reading about Leonard Cohen and wrote the first script and played whole songs and found interviews about why he put the songs together the way he did. And I knew that it would be interesting to someone else listening in.”

At the same time, “I was starting to realize how many different artists had a lot of history to them, and not a lot of the college kids knew much of the background. I tried to develop a show that would be an educational tool for people to listen to and hear selections throughout the entire career arc of an artist and would try to be as biographical as possible, and not add too much opinion into it. It’s more educational, so that people can non-judgmentally listen along and learn what is behind an album or recording or interview.”

There’s very little commentary from Niketopoulos, except to fill in gaps. “I want the musicians or artists themselves telling the stories behind things, or quoting them,” he says. “If I have to go out of my way to get a live interview, I’ll do that,” contacting the band’s management or booking company and setting up a quick interview when they’re in town.

His last live interview was with the Swell Season, the Oscar-winning duo of Once. “Usually I ask for 15 minutes because I don’t want to overwhelm anyone and usually in that time I can design five questions and cut them up and use them in the piece,” he says. “They gave me an hour and a half.”

Califone, Detholz!, and the Sea And Cake are among the local bands he’s covered. “I try to profile artists that have at least three albums of work so we can focus on their evolution over a [whole] hour,” he explains. “Sometimes, someone will come out with a new album, or I’ll [ask] my program director about who she wants or who she thinks we should do. Every once in awhile I’ll drop a mass email to DJs at WLUW and ask them. Often, they come back with bands I never heard of.”
The show is truly labor of love, produced in Niketopoulos’s home studio, and each takes about seven to nine hours to produce. “I’ve never made one dollar off my radio show,” he says. “It’s not about that. I just love sharing music history.

“I like to, in a completely non-pretentious way, create a radio show that allows people to learn without feeling like they already should know this. I want it to be a thing that people stumble upon and find to be a resource.”

Past episdoes of “The Retrospective” are available at www.theretrospective.org

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: Fox-owned WPWR-Channel 50 just started airing “Crime Stoppers Case Files – Chicago” Saturday nights at 11. The cold case show in the vein of “America’s Most Wanted” features host Lisette Guillen – a Chicago resident who also serves as executive producer . . . Longtime Midwest band booster and afternoon DJ Tom Lounges recently left Northwest Indiana’s WXRD-FM (103.9), where he also served as music and promotions director. “The upper management simply opted to make some changes in the on-air scheduling, as they have the right to do,” he explains on his Facebook page. “I have simply chosen to move on to other adventures elsewhere, rather than accept the position offered to me. No drama.” He continues to write a column for the Times of Northwest Indiana . . . Look for former Q101 jock Kevin Manno to host a new reality series on Lifetime. “Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition” features a dozen kids competing for $100,000 and a scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet School’s Young Dancer Program. Judges include Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin and “Dance Moms” Abby Lee Miller.

– Cara Jepsen

Chicago is one of the most talented cities in the country as comedians, actors, artists, bands, indie filmmakers, etc,” says Craig Erpelding, creator and writer and co-producer of the new, independently-produced local sitcom, “Two Flat.”

“I felt it was a tragedy that sitcoms that are supposed to take place in Chicago are really produced in L.A. by Hollywood actors,” he explains. “We wanted to create a truly Chicago-centric series that highlights Chicago-based actors, Chicago locations, Chicago brands . . . because it only seems right.”

The sitcom focuses on a local art blogger (Frankie Cusimano) and his bike messenger roommate (Neal Dandade) and their neighbors in a Ukrainian Village two-flat. It features local actors, art, brands, and locations as well as music from such homegrown acts as Naked Raygun, Maps & Atlases and Archie Powell and the Exports. (To have your music considered for the show, contact Erpelding at facebook.com/TwoFlat.)

The show was inspired by the Blizzard of 2011, “based off people being stuck in their two-flat for the winter due to a horrific Chicago snowstorm – including a one-night stand that turns into the worst ‘day after’ ever for a gal who can’t leave from her embarrassing sleepover,” he explains. “[The] problem was obviously, snow melts no matter how bad the storm was. So, the longevity of the series was very short.”

The writers kept the same characters even after the thaw – including an aging hippie (Richard Strimer), a lesbian filmmaker (Karisa Bruin), and their unconventional landlord (Judy Rossignuolo-Rice). “Instead of the snow storm, they just meander through post-recession Chicago as residents of a Chicago two-flat,” he says.

The producers covered the cost of the pilot out of their own pockets, and will use $995 from an indiegogo.com campaign to help fund five more episodes. The “sets” include Erpelding’s Huron Avenue apartment and artist Mark Phillips’ Wicker Park studio. Props such as beer cans, pizza boxes, and art come from local companies and artists. “I knew we didn’t have much of a production budget, but for the show to look like it has real production value, we needed stuff to fill our set,” says the Kansas City native.

The crew met in DePaul’s digital cinema grad program (most are working towards MFAs) and cast members have done time at iO Chicago, Second City and Steppenwolf.

The pilot was submitted to October’s New York Television Festival and Erpelding says he hopes to eventually partner with an online broadcast outlet to air the show’s first six episodes.

Even if it does well, they have no plans to pull up stakes and head west. “I feel like I’d be cheating Chicago if we shot this anywhere else, and feel like that would be a deal breaker if a network wanted to take the show out of the city,” he says, “but, I’d be happy to fly out to L.A. periodically to shake important hands and have expensive dinners.

“But this show is Chicago’s show and with production facilities popping up here in town to facilitate dramas like “Boss” and “Playboy Club”, there is no need for a sitcom like this to film anywhere else.”

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: In case you missed it, Merlin Media-owned WIQI-FM (101.1) fired the entire news staff and flipped to an adult hits format. Then they brought over WLUP-FM (97.9) morning host Pete McMurray and news/traffic anchor Jane Monzures to morning drive (The Loop is also owned by Merlin Media). Apparently, Merlin wizard Randy Michaels hopes to siphon off some of Eric and Kathy’s female listeners — an odd choice, given McMurray’s past as an uber-male-skewing jock . . . Which reminds us: Eric and Kathy’s WTMX-FM (101.9) “Don’t Think and Drive” billboard is a favorite (although, we reach for the dial every time Eric Ferguson opens his mouth, thinking that we’re hearing Mancow Muller’s carnival barker voice) . . . Merlin-owned WKQX-LP (87.7) has added local DJ Shark to its lineup. Also known as Eric Austin, Eric Olson and Ric Stone, Shark did time at Q101 and the Zone and may also wind up doing double duty on WLUP using one of those monikers (full disclosure; this columnist and former DJ has also used the names Tina Trash and Kali Om) . . . Mike Sabbath has renamed his eponymous WPNA-AM (1490) radio show “Chicago Punk Rock Radio” and claims it’s the only such show on the airwaves (Saturday nights at 11, and at blip.tv/ChicagoPunkRockRadio) . . . Right-skewing talk station WIND-AM (560) will hold a “One Night Only” event Nov. 3 at the Akoo Theatre, featuring a comprehensive lineup of past and present personalities including Dennis Miller, Glenn Beck, John Howell, Steve Cochran, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Clark Weber and one. single. woman. — Amy Jacobson . . . Trainwreck or not, Jonathon Brandmeier’s morning show on WGN-AM (720) is a rare treat: live, local “free” radio done with energy and humor at the crack of dawn. And his occasional off-the-cuff remark (such as a recent aside about a dental implant) gives some insight into the sharp, vulnerable human behind the wacky showman – the same one who gave us the brilliantly scathing “Unemployed Mo Fo” video (which you can still catch on YouTube). “Eat me, blog that and Tweet this,” indeed!

– Cara Jepsen

Remember Michael Essany? He’s the teen who hosted a nighttime public access talk show in his parents’ Valparaiso living room from 1997 to 2007. In 2003 and 2004, he starred on an eponymous reality show on E! and was poised to take over late-night television.

Instead, the husband and father of one has been living in Valpo and working as vice-president of the Indiana Grain Company.

This fall, he returns on a locally produced show called “Seven On Ridge.”

“On one of the last episodes of the E! series, Jerry O’Connell said to me, ‘What do you plan to do when the series runs its course?’” recalls Essany. “I was in college at the time. I said, in the future I would like to host a late-night show from Chicago, because it’s the one major market that’s been overlooked. There’s [David] Letterman on the East Cost and [Jay] Leno on the West Coast. We’re going to make this show as Chicago as it can be.”

The hour-long program will be shot downtown and air weeknights on WJYS-TV. The centerpiece is the charismatic Essany, whose ability to attract A-list celebrities to his parents’ home led to appearances on everything from “Oprah” to “The Tonight Show.” The format will include the usual monologue, sketch material, and celebrity and musical guests. “Because it’s of and for Chicago, Chicago is going to play heavily into the material we present,” says Essany, who is the show’s co-executive producer.

“I have continuously attempted to build a show like this, but I’ve failed to do so for the past 10 years,” he continues. “I have had meetings with local channels and national platforms. They’ve always been interested in doing something, but at the last minute there was usually a major concern for the station or producer, from adequately funding an enterprise like this or ‘Can you really get celebrities in Chicago every night to compete with other shows?’ I don’t know why it has changed, but it seems like now it’s finally going to work. It will be interesting to see what the impact will be. I imagine that if it goes well, Chicago will become a new destination on the map for other late-night shows, whether it’s local or national.”

The house band is a 21-piece swing orchestra featuring six vocalists, and headed by local saxophone legend Terry “Sonny Lee” Tritt. Audience members will be seated at tables and booths (and can elect to have dinner during the show). ” It will look different from what you’re used to seeing in late night,” says Essany. “It will have an elegant, sophisticated air to it.”

Except perhaps for his sidekick: a 10-foot tall animatronic rooster named Kaka. “In late-night TV, the sidekick is usually an obsequious, fawning character – a yesman who laughs at every joke,” says Essany. “The rooster and I have an antagonistic relationship towards each other, and we’re hoping that will parlay into comedy.

“We had a media conference with the rooster, and we got great feedback with the live audience and press who were in attendance. I think we have a good formula. If nothing else, there will be substantial buzz so we’ll have a good initial turnout. And if the show is good, people will stay.”

The biggest obstacle for the show, which hits the airwaves September 17th, will be luring the audience to obscure, Oxford Media Group-owned WJYS – which usually airs religious and brokered programs or infomercials and is carried by all major cable outlets.

“We want first and foremost focus on the content and quality of the show,” says Essany. “Then we’re hoping that if it’s good enough to grow, it will. We’ll worry about the business side as it develops. With all of the grunt work that goes into putting entertainment like this together, all hands on deck are focused on the content, look, and presentation of the show.”

There will be 300 to 450 free tickets available for each taping. For more info, visit sevenonridge.com.

ODDS: Chicago-based “Great Lake Warriors” follows the dangers boat captains face in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Ontario, and airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on The History Channel . . . We’re far more interested in Billy Corgan’s local pro-wrestling reality show – which at press time was still lacking a title and a network . . . Jill Egan joined The Mix on Sunday mornings.  She continues doing traffic on WBEZ-FM (91.5) and the “Brooke And Jill Show” podcast . . . Plans are in the works for WPWR-Channel 50 to simulcast Mancow Muller’s syndicated morning radio show, weekdays from 6 to 8 . . . The vibrant mix of new, classic, and vintage rock and metal on south suburban The Kat (KAT 105.5) is the handiwork of PD, afternoon host, and former Mancow sidekick Wally “Freak” Kozielski – who got his start at The Mix. Listen online at kat1055.com.  . . . Chicago Public Media will purchase bilingual, youth-driven WRTE-FM (90.5) from the National Museum Of Mexican Art for cash and services totaling $450,000, pending FCC approval.

– Cara Jepsen

Former “Local 101″ producer Jaime Black just landed a gig in front of the cameras at “JBTV.”

The 29-year-old music-scene watcher and IE contributor had been focusing on his local music-focused “ChicagoVerseUniteD” and “Dynasty Podcasts” since the demise of Q101. Then Jerry Bryant came a-calling via Twitter.

“[He] mentioned that he’d love to air some of my ‘Dynasty Podcasts’ video interviews,” says Black, who goes back a long way with Bryant. “From there, it led to discussions about me contributing to the show.”

He adds, “Having grown up in the Chicagoland area, of course I grew up watching ‘JBTV.’ So to get to be a part of it is obviously very exciting.”

TV is a new frontier for the Oak Park native, who started as Chris Payne’s intern at The Blaze (Rock 103.5) and Q101 when he was just 15, and started his Chicago music/“Dynasty Podcasts” network in 2005. “It’s definitely a different type of exercise,” he says. “You have to be a bit more quick on your feet, do a bit more improvising, and you have to figure out what to do with your posture, your hands, where you look, etc. Audio interviews are much easier – or at least much less to worry about!”

His first interview, with Belgium’s Black Box Revelation, was a breeze. “They were fun and laid back, so they greatly contributed to making my TV debut a painless one.”

Black’s local favorites are Smashing Pumpkins, Scattered Trees, Loyal Divide, Scott Lucas, Gemini Club, The Lawrence Arms, Rockie Fresh, Patrick Stump, and Kill Hannah. But he’d love to interview John Cusak “about Chicago, music – anything.”

In the meantime, Black is focusing on his other gigs and Rockit.LIVE, a monthly event at Rockit Bar & Grill that can include a music industry panel, a one-on-one interview, or a music performance that’s turned into podcasts and short films. (More at jaifidelity.tumblr.com.)

And he’s always trolling for new talent with product to push. “If you’ve got a CD release, a big headlining show, or new music you want to premiere, hit me up on Twitter [@jaimeblack].”

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: We were not amused when the Reader was acquired by hedge fund Atalaya Capital Management LP in 2009, but far worse was learning that the venerable independent weekly has been purchased by Sun-Times parent company Wrapports LCC. In addition to diminishing the independent print voices in Chicago, we fear that the Reader’s incisive, long-form investigative reporting will be muzzled in favor of a focus on food, entertainment, and content sharing.

Then there’s that ownership issue: how can one company own a major daily newspaper, an independent weekly, and 30-odd other local mainstream publications and cover the area with integrity? The Sun-Times‘ seemingly endless spate of layoffs and now, talk of platform-sharing, could mean even fewer reporters and resources devoted to covering increasingly complicated issues. The Reader isn’t the only publication with ownership issues: Time Out Chicago owner Joe Mansueto is an investor in Wrapports, and Chicago magazine is owned by Tribune Co. Tribune Co. creditors are poised to sell off its assets – including the newspaper (possibly to Wrapports). And The Onion recently slashed all of its loca arts coverage.

As with radio and TV, it seems there are many choices until you search for relevant, surprising, or subversive content, come up dry, and realize that most outlets are owned by the same few entities. (Full disclosure: my byline has appeared in every publication listed above.)

Not that anyone will look up from their smart phones long enough to notice or care. Neil Postman hit it on the head in his masterful 1985 anti-TV diatribe, Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse In The Age Of Show Business:

“[In 1984, George] Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in [Aldous] Huxley’s vision [Brave New World], no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: Steve Dahl’s podcast network has added TV funnyman Dino Stamatopoulos to the roster (Stamatopoulos plays Starburns in the NBC sitcom “Community”) . . . In an odd mix of old and new, artists wishing to submit music to Kevin Matthews‘ podcast must download and send in a release form with their CD – via snailmail. Details at dahl.com . . . The Tribune recently reported that Pandora expanded its local office and is going head-to-head with radio for local ad dollars – and winning . . . Merlin Media’s Q87.7 sounds a lot fresher than the old Q101-FM. So why not switch it back to its old frequency, and flip the fledgling FM News into the hard-to-find slot?

– Cara Jepsen

After nearly a year without a commercial alternative-rock station, Chicago has now has two — both of which pay homage to the old Q101: WKQX-LP on 87.7-FM and Q101 on WJJG-AM (1530).

Last July, Merlin Media dumped Chicago’s modern-rock station, WKQX-FM (101.1), in favor of a young-skewing FM news format. In June, Merlin jettisoned the smooth-jazz station at 87.7 in favor of resurrecting the same alt-rock format it killed 10 months earlier. (Merlin launched a digital smooth jazz station on 97.9 HD-3; WKQX can also be heard at 101.1-FM HD3).

“Underground Alternative” WKQX-LP is run by Merlin , which is headed by Randy Michaels — who oversaw some unpopular changes at WGN-AM (720) when he was chief executive at the Tribune Co. Merlin, which also owns WLUP-FM (97.9), runs 87.7 under a marketing agreement with Technologies Group LLC (which retains the license). But the station may not last long; 87.7 is actually a low-power television station (Channel 6) that must convert to digital after 2015 in order to comply with FCC requirements.

Merlin Media Operations manager Jim Richards says the new WKQX would not be a clone of the old one. “The thing that we have in common is the call letters. But it’s a brand new, reimagination of the format — kind of like Batman and Spiderman, when those franchises get reborn.”

An hour before the new WKQX debuted, local-radio entrepreneurs Mike Noonan and Matt Dubiel launched Q101.com on Elmhurst’s WJJG-AM (1530). Their syndication company, Broadcast Barter Radio Networks, purchased the Q101 brand last July and turned it into a virtual “station” via website and app. DuBiel is general manager at WJJG, which had been airing syndicated talk shows — including Mancow in the morning, which still airs (just like old times).

When asked if flipping WJJG to alt-rock was a stunt or a permanent move, DuBiel said, “Q101 has as much chance of being on 1530-AM this time next year as FM news does being on 101.1 at this time next year. Currently, Q101 has more people listening online than Arbitron claims are listening to FM News on radio, so our chances may be even better. In fact, since WKQX is low power, chances are Q101 will be alive and kicking well after FM News and 87.7 are long gone.”

Asked whether WKQX would be around in five years, Richards joked, “If the Mayans have anything to do with it, we’ll all be gone.”

In its first days, the station aired promos warning listeners not to let others in on the secret, or they’d be taken off the air again — a strange irony considering that the company that killed off WKQX is the same one that revived it. “The important thing is that it’s back,” Richards said.

At press time, it was undetermined whether there would be a local music show, although Richards promised that the station would connect with local bands. As for sponsoring shows, “We definitely plan to create events where we can bring in a large group of our listeners and introduce them to our clients’ products and services.”

Noonan said that Q101.com has always had a strong focus on local music, and continues to sponsor concerts. Last month, he and DuBiel raised $77,000 to put on a Jamboree concert via a Kickstarter campaign — falling short of their $299,000 goal. “[Seventy-seven thousand] is an unbelievable testament to the passion and love fans have for Q101,” he says, especially when the fans didn’t know the venue or band lineup.

He continued, “If we decide to have sponsors underwrite this event, they’ll be able to see that interest in Jamboree is not only high, but fans are willing to get on board and support it.”

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: The first local station on the Q bandwagon was actually suburban classic rocker WRXQ-FM, which rebranded itself “Q Rock 100.7″ on May 1st . . . On World Press Freedom Day (May 3rd), the bodies of three journalists were pulled from a canal behind a sewage plant near the cartel-plagued Mexican port city of Veracruz — all had been tortured. One week earlier, Regina Martínez Pérez, a reporter for an investigative news magazine, was found beaten and strangled in her home in the same state; the four were among the few journalists still working on crime-related stories in the area. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission reports that 75 media workers have been killed in Mexico since 2000. While the Committee To Protect Journalists puts the figure at 51, the consensus is that the attacks escalated after President Felipe Calderon took power in 2006 and launched a military crackdown on drug cartels. Today, self-censorship is the norm, with most media hardly covering the latest murders. “Vast self-censorship has taken hold as a result, prompting numerous news outlets to abandon coverage of crime and corruption,” writes the Committee To Protect Journalists in its 2012 Impunity Index. “Journalists and citizens have turned to social media to exchange news of criminal activities — only to find peril there as well.” More at cpj.org.

– Cara Jepsen

From bizarro Eddie and JoBo wreaking havoc at the auto show to John Tesh backing up a yellow-haired “Christoper Walken” crooning holiday tunes to a wacky “Jerry Lewis” performing with the Million Dollar Quartet, the “WGN Morning News” dances the line between news and entertainment.

The bits are the genius of producer Jeff Hoover. The Second City alumnus and former “Jonathon Brandmeier Showgram” producer/performer/writer found himself out of work when Johnny B didn’t renew with WLUP in 2001 — and watching a lot of TV.

“I remember watching ['The WGN Morning News'] and thinking, ‘These are real people having real conversation and I would like to have them as neighbors, maybe grab some beers with them,’” he recalls. “I was smitten with their chemistry and natural ability to bust each other up and break balls over bad tosses and cheesy news teases. I started calling into their ‘Voicemail Frenzy’ segment, and they started playing my messages and using some of my show suggestions.”

“We ‘discovered’ Jeff when he started calling into our voicemail segment — doing impersonations. He was just hysterical,” says co-anchor Larry Potash, who met with Hoover at a bar and found him to be surprisingly normal. “We begged — and then threatened — management to hire Jeff, and the rest is history.”

Hoover — who likens his time with Johnny B to earning a PhD in comedy — initially contributed to the show on a per-diem basis. He was hired a year-and-a-half later as a producer/performer/writer (and recently signed a new one-year contract).

Potash says Hoover injected new life into the show. “I think when he came . . . we had all just started having children. It had become more difficult to go out and shoot bits for the show, and our energy was running low. Jeff was the creative spark that really pushed the show to the next level.”

Hoover easily made the transtion from radio to TV — where things have to be clear to the audience from the start. “Radio is easier to be spontaneous,” he explains. “However, some of my favorite moments are when the unexpected happens on live television. Tracy Morgan flopping himself up on onto the anchor desk and lifting up his shirt and pushing out his stomach and yelling that he’s pregnant is still priceless to me.”

His primary co-conspirator on the show is local comedian Mike Toomey, who plays Eddie to Hoover’s JoBo. In one bit, the pair ask locals about what they’re thankful for — peppering their interviews with plenty of enthusiastic “yeahs” and auto-insurance plugs. Eventually, they run into the real Eddie and JoBo — who play right along.

“This past Halloween, we were on our way to do our annual remote at Fantasy Costumes with Ana [Belaval] and Paul [Konrad} listening to Eddie and Jobo on the radio," Hoover explains. "Mike and I always loved poking fun at their auto-insurance commercials. We saw these Abba costumes and thought this is just stupid enough to work, and I slapped on a goatee and made our appearance alongside Ana . . . Mike and I started posing like them from the commercial and doing the lines, 'Did you know you can get auto insurance over the phone?'

"It was a hit. We couldn't believe it. The real Eddie and Jobo got the joke, and enjoy their clown clones. I asked them to make a cameo in one of our skits and they couldn't have been nicer: 'Yeahhhhhhhhhh!'"

But Hoover's favorite bit was Tom Hanks' apperance on the show last year (that clip and many others are at WGNtv.com). "I had a stupid idea to have different people lined up in the hallway in different costumes that represented different chracters from some of his favorite movie roles," he explains. "As a surprise and with no rehearsal, Entertainment Reporter Dean Richards escorts Tom down the hallway and the first person he sees is me dressed as Woody from Toy Story sweeping the floor. Tom's smile became a laugh, and he riffed on each of us as he made his way to the studio.

"He made us look good by going along with the idea. He could have just said 'whatever' and kept walking to the studio while rolling his eyes."

While Hoover has a lot of freedom on the show, not every idea flies. "

He adds, "I have to keep in mind that this is still a news show. Sometimes it's easy to forget that fact: 'What do you mean we have to kill the burlesque dancing monkeys because there is a dog running loose on the Eisenhower?'"

And what about that line?

"There is a line between news and comedy," he admits. "It keeps moving like a jump rope. Sometimes we can double dutch and sometimes we get nailed in the crotchtorial [sic] region. I think we ‘get it’ better than anyone else in town. We’re not ‘The Daily Show,’ but we don’t have 78 comedy writers.”

It seems to be working. The show consistently beats its competitors in the adult demos between 7 and 9a.m. — including “The Today Show.” Hoover says most of the audience feedback has been positive. “However, there’s always a few boo birds on the branch that crap on our clown car: ‘Stop goofing around and give me the weather. We don’t want to see that idiot in a neckbrace make a sandwich with his feet.’”

He adds, “I think it’s weirder seeing our competitors try to have fun with the news. Their idea of having fun is showing first-birthday photos and crayon weather drawings.”

Potash agrees. “Media has changed so much in the last 40 years and yet, most shows are as predictable now as they were in 1972. We try to create an atmosphere of unpredictability. We cross the line now and then, but that’s more interesting than another segment where the anchors make a tuna casserole. We take the show seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously.”

– Cara Jepsen

This article has been updated since it was originally posted.

Both children and their parents love singer/songwriter Ralph Covert’s “Ralph’s World” indie-pop CDs.

Now, the Bad Examples frontman wants to wow both age groups with a “Ralph’s World”-based TV show, “Time Machine Guitar” (more info at timemachineguitar.com).

“With the TV show, we’re trying to create something that has the same sensibility to it, and also do a show that engages and activates the kids. I think that’s something that’s not done enough with TV,” he said during a phone interview, during which his 3-year-old son, Jude, interrupted him. “Our show gets kids moving and thinking and participating.

“The early ‘Ralph’s World’ videos have dancing kids that come along and dance with me. Every time I watch those videos with kids, the kids get up and dance along. Time Machine Guitar features four music videos in every show, and in the first one on every show we have dancing kids so we can have that same experience with kids.”

The clear guitar Covert plays on the show acts as a time machine that takes him and three puppet friends — a cat, dog, and a squirrel — on trips through history, where they’re exposed to different lessons and different types of music. In the pilot episode, they travel to 1785 in search of Benjamin Franklin — and end up meeting his mole.

Covert and his wife/business partner, Rita, have shopped the kids’ show idea around to Hollywood for nearly a decade before deciding to make the pilot themselves. “I have had deals that have gone all the way to a signed deal with a network and producer, and it fell apart before it came to fruition,” he says.

“The money involved in making a show is enormous, which is part of why the choices of both cable and regular networks are so safe,” he says. “There’s a lot of risk in going from taking the idea from in your head to where you can see it. That’s why I felt it was important to make the show: I was taking some of the risk out of it for them. ‘Here’s the show. Here’s what it’s going to look like. You can watch it for half an hour and decide for yourself: Do I suck or am I engaging?’ The proof is in the pudding.”

He continues, “If you look at the Chicago music and theater scene historically, and even some shows like ‘Oprah’ that came out of Chicago, they didn’t do it by asking permission. People here historically do it by having a great idea and pursuing it. For better or worse, that’s been my business plan with the music, so we might as well apply it to the TV show.”

At the urging of Bad Examples fan, friend, and Charlottesville, Virginia-based producer Erica Arvold, Covert shot the pilot there in January, using his own funds and $18,577 raised through a Kickstarter campaign.

Although he’s acted and written plays and musicals (he and G. Riley Mills‘ musical “The Hundred Dresses” is currently playing off-Broadway in New York), Covert says shooting the pilot was a stretch. “It’s been in some ways more stressful and challenging than anything I could ever imagine, because it required me to pull from so many different directions. When you’re standing on a set, and it’s your money paying for it, and a friend who pulled the production together got a lot of A-list film and TV people together, and you’ve got to go and act with these puppets, it’s something else. It’s exciting.”

At press time Covert — who, growing up, was a fan of Mr. Rogers, the Banana Splits, and “Get Smart” — was editing the pilot, which he plans to shop around to public, cable, and network TV.

“We got through the first big thing,” he says. “We have a worthy and exciting show on our hands. Now we need to find somewhere we can share it with people in a way that we can keep the magic intact — which is a great challenge to have.”

Covert is also gearing up for a Ralph’s World concert at the Old Town School Of Folk Music on April 22nd. “The Old Town School is where this started, with me, when I was doing ‘Wiggleworms’ before ‘Ralph’s World.’ It’s one of the most magical shows we do, because we get a chance to go back and stand on the stage where it all started.”

ODDS N SODS: Look for Sean “Diddy” Combs and Comcast to launch a new TV channel “influenced by the nonstop chatter of social networking” called Revolt next year. Magic Johnson and filmmaker Robert Rodriguez also have channels in the works . . . Robert Feder’s Time Out Chicago piece about radio’s irrelevance on the night of Whitney’s Houston’s untimely death was spot-on . . . RIP Chicago News Cooperative: we’ll miss you — really . . . We can’t decide whether we love or hate WGN Morning News’ brilliant (yet so wrong) “Eddie & JoBo” bits featuring Mike Toomey and Jeff Hoover . . . Anyone else underwhelmed by the new Trop-rock college radio format, which features acts like Jimmy Buffett and Bob Marley? Decide for yourself at lewisu.edu/wlra/index.htm.

– Cara Jepsen

This version of the story has been updated since it was originally posted.

In the 1970s, local radio legend Steve Dahl revolutionized talk radio with his raw form of radio verite.

Now, he’s breaking new ground by turning his “Dahlcast” podcast (at dahl.com) into a podcast network haven for personalities who are no longer on airwaves and deserve to be heard.

Subscribers who pay $9.95 a month (or $99.95 per year) can hear podcasts three times a week by Kevin Matthews and his alter ego, Jim Shorts, as well as a monthly interview show by former Q101 (WKQX-FM) jock James Van Osdol. At press time, Dahl was talking to rock legend Joe Walsh, sports talker Chet Coppock, and others. He also added a weekend archives show highlighting the best bits from his own storied past.

The podcast is not free or live like broadcast or satellite radio, but there are no commercials, or time/content restraints. Plus it can be heard anywhere, at any time.

We asked Dahl — who’s been off the air since 2008 and podcasting since 2009 — about the new network.

IE: When/why did you decide to turn the “Dahlcast” into a network?
Steve Dahl: I was always planning on adding more shows, but Kevin Matthews getting fired in Grand Rapids was definitely the catalyst for doing it now rather than later.

IE: You’ve always been on the cutting edge of digital/internet technology. Are there any innovations that have made this endeavor possible, where it might not have happened, say, five years ago?
SD: Smart phones really make the whole thing doable. We have both iPhone and an Android app, and I’d say the bulk of our listening is done via those devices. Of course you can just listen the old-fashioned way, too: on an iPod or just streaming from our website on your computer.

IE: I assume that the others record their shows at home, and do not commute to your basement . . .
SD: They send us the files via Yousendit.

IE: Why’d you want James VanOsdol to be a part of it?
SD: I think he’s talented and he’s a displaced radio person, so he meets my criteria for network status.

IE: Do you own your archives? How many years to you have?
SD: I own everything that I’ve ever done in Chicago.

IE: Are you serious about Chet Coppock?
SD: Yes, if we can think of a good concept for him. It’s not live, so some thought will have to be put into it.

IE: Any women on your wish list?
SD: I asked Wendy Snyder and her husband if they wanted to be a part of it and they declined. Come to think of it, they might not meet all of my criteria.

IE: Why not Kathy & Judy? They still have a loyal following.
SD: That’s an excellent idea, and I would love to talk to them about that.

IE: What does it feel like to be running your own “station”?
SD: I like it. My favorite part is letting people do whatever they want to do. No limits (except libeling someone). I feel like I’m on the cutting edge of something revolutionary, which is a feeling I’ve had before, but not in awhile, so that’s fun, too.

“JBTV” Goes Nationwide: Chicago’s longest-running independent music showcase was picked up by the NBC Nonstop Network on February 18th. Now, fans of new and independent music in major markets across the country can catch “JBTV” at 10 p.m. on the digital sub-channel. Smoking Popes, Rise Against, White Lives, Kill Hannah, 30 Seconds To Mars, The Menzingers, and Phantom Planet will all be featured in March.

“It is definitely our most robust opportunity to bring ‘JBTV’ to a national audience via broadcast,” says show creator Jerry Bryant, who has been dong the show as a labor of love for the past 27 years.

In recent seasons, “JBTV” added hosts such as Ryan Manno, Tobias Jeg, and Jenna Martinelli, and segued from a music-video show to a live-performance stage shot in Bryant’s state-of-the-art digital studio. “We want to continue to introduce people to new music first,” says Bryant.

But it doesn’t stop with the network show.

“We’re laying the foundation to transform ‘JBTV’ into a 24-hour radio, new media, and television network,” he says. “We believe very strongly in introducing music fans to exciting artists that don’t have a platform anywhere else, so we’re creating the platforms.”

Stream the developments at jbtvonline.com.

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: No word on whether Jonathon Brandmeier’s weekly NBC Nonstop Chicago TV show “Almost Live” has been picked up nationally . . . We’re sad to see the demise of scrappy little new-age mag Mindful Metropolis. The paper rose from the ashes of Conscious Choice in May of 2009. Publisher Richard McGinnis explained in a note to clients, “After 32 consecutive monthly issues, we decided to retire the title and move on to other endeavors,” and referred readers and advertisers to Natural Awakenings Chicago North and North Shore . . . Jim DeRogatis‘ riveting, meticulously-reported “Pop ‘N’ Stuff” blog posts about Lollapalooza’s sweetheart tax deals really do deserve a Pulitzer. Read them at www.wbez.org/blogs/jim-derogatis.

– Cara Jepsen

Chris Auman and his buddy Tom Ziegler conceived of Reglar Wiglar during a night of drinking in Lincoln Park’s punk-rock haunt Delilah’s in 1993. The first two black-and-white, text-only issues poked fun at alternative music, and featured fake record reviews and fake interviews with fake bands.

At its peak, the $2 zine featured 100 pages of real, well-written reviews, comics, and articles with a circulation of 2,000 and distribution through Desert Moon Periodicals and Tower Records.

But Auman, who plays in Soft Targets and runs RoosterCow Records (and has written for IE), ceased publishing Reglar Wiglar in 2005.

“It was just too expensive,” he says. “Printing was the biggest expense, of course, but postage and shipping was a close second. It was also getting to the point where reviews of bad punk-rock CDs were becoming the bulk of the content, so the fun was being sucked out of it, too. That was my fault, due to my unwritten policy of reviewing every single piece of music I received. It also didn’t help that both of my distributors went under.”

Contributor Mike Dixon set up a blog for the zine in 2005, and four years later Auman restarted it as an online-only endeavor (reglarwiglar.com) that includes archives as well as fresh content such as interviews with Roctober’s Jake Austen, Radar Eyes, Portland comics artist Jesse Reklaw, and plenty of reviews. (Bands may visit the site to learn how to submit their work.)

The growing site gets 2,000 to 3,000 hits per week, and Auman loves the ease of digital publishing. “Kinko’s is out of the equation, as are trips to the post office. I don’t need to pedal around town with bags full of magazines during Chicago’s brutal winters. I can correct typos and edit content to infinity if I need to. I can fact check things more easily, thus making myself look smarter. It’s easier to get readers to find you through blogger tags and links from other sites; even Google searches bring people to the site.”

Later this year, Auman hopes to return to print – with a new zine “based on all the crappy jobs I’ve had in the past 25-plus years, which will be accompanied by comics and sidebar anecdotes.”

TERRESTRIAL TO PODCAST – METALMOUTH RADIO: Before launching his metal podcast, Neil Wonnell had a string of jobs as a producer, board op, and/or DJ at a handful of suburban radio stations, including WJOL, WICB, WLLI, and WCSF. The last straw came when he was working overnights, and gave the only respondent to a call-in contest its tiny jackpot. “[She] was ecstatic that she had won the entire pot of $9.50 and planned to use the money to buy doughnuts for her church,” he says of the elderly winner. “Monday morning, the station manager was less ecstatic and needless to say that ended my career at that station.”

Wonnell launched “Metalmouth Radio” in July 2010, as a heavy-metal talk show. “Not getting too many calls at first, I added music, but the sound quality on that original site was horrid,” he says. So he switched to music and started pre-recording on the city’s far South Side before uploading it to reverbnation.com/neilwonnell. (The show is distributed through Wonnell’s N.E.W. Audio Concepts LLC, and syndicated on Fox FM and Monclair State University’s WMSC-FM.)

Wonnell plays old-school, new-school, thrash, punk, and heavy metal and plenty of unsigned bands. A recent selection ranged from Fueled By Fire’s “Eye Of The Demon” to Killer Of Sheep’s “Lose Control” to Black Flag’s “Black Coffee.” After an energetic diatribe on the hypocrisy (and aroma) of hippies, he put on “Hippie Killer” by Suicidal Tendencies.

He says he’d like to find a co-host and do a full four-hour show on terrestrial or satellite radio, and add a talk edition of “Metalmouth.”

In the meantime, he says the recent signing of South Siders Diamond Plate to Earache Records put Chicago on the metal map. “Bands to watch for are Savagery and Smash Potater.”

Bands can submit music by contacting him via neilwonnell [at] yahoo.com.

ODDS N SODS: WGN-AM (720)’s new lineup is virtually devoid of women now that Karen Conti and Johnnie Putman are gone. At least they kept “Sports Night” co-host Andrea Darlas and “Sunday Night Special” co-host Marianne Murciano. The latter is one of the few live shows remaining on the weekends, which are now devoted to – yawn – “best-of” reruns . . . We loved the debut of Brooke Hunter and Jill Egan’s new weekly podcast, “The Brooke & Jill Show” (the two first paired up at “The Zone” in 2002). At press time they hadn’t launched a website; listen at chicagoradioandmedia.com or check out their Facebook page . . . They’re following the footsteps of local radio veteran Wendy Snyder, who continues doing her weekly podcast – which she started two-and-a-half years ago – with husband Jimmy “Mac” McInerney. Listen at snyderemarksradio.net . . . Which reminds us: on February 1st, the Chicago Foundation For Women co-sponsors a free screening of Miss Representation, a documentary about gender and discrimination in media. More at cfw.org.

Back in 1979, half of Chicago tuned into Wally Philips’ popular WGN-AM (720) morning show. That year, newcomer Steve Dahl released his song parodying the venerable Philips and his loyal listeners, “Oh Wally.”

Thirty-three years later, the Chicago Tribune-owned station hardly resembles your grandparents’ WGN.

The shakeup that put Jonathon Bramdmeier into the morning driver’s seat, simultaneously sent his old producer Bud Wiser packing, and moved Bill Leff to overnights has the station – with Garry Meier doing afternoons – starting to resemble your parents’ WLUP during its early-’90s all-talk heyday.

The shakeup also included the ouster of Greg Jarrett, whose local mispronunciations did not endear him to listeners, and husband-and-wife hosts Steve King and Johnnie Putnam, whose overnight show included live, in-studio jams with visiting bands.

But all is not lost, music-wise.

That same week, vice president and general manager Tom Langmyer quietly ushered in a startling new hire for the staid station: a foreign left-winger with Bad Jibs and no radio experience, who is actually under 30.

The newcomer is Chicago Blackhawks forward Daniel “Car Bomb” Carcillo, who hails from Canada and was born the same year Wally Philips moved to afternoons, in 1986.

Carcillo’s one-hour music show, “The Bomb Shelter,” airs sporadically on the station after weekend home games. (For more, visit wgnradio.com).

Car Bomb’s music obsession dates back to when he was elementary age, and played a cassette of Michael Jackson’s “Black Or White” until he wore it out.

“I had a white boom box by my bed, and shared a room with my younger brother,” he explains. “He got that song stuck in his head as well – whether he liked it or not. I always remember that. I had pretty strict parents. I was about 7. But I always blasted it when I was getting up and going to bed. I liked that track, and the intro of the guy banging on the door, telling him to be quiet.”

Carcillo’s father, Gino — who named his son for the Elton John song — appeared on his first show. They talked about music and the family’s history in Monte Cassino, Italy – which was ravaged by World War II. “I was digging around trying to find out why I have this fascination and love for music,” Carcillo says.

“[My father] went into the history of my great great-grandfather going around when the war was going on. He had a little music box and a monkey and the whole deal, and that’s how he’d make money during the war – he’d go under people’s windows and he’d play music and they’d throw money.”

These days, Carcillo’s taste tilts more towards classic rock than organ grinder or MJ. “I’ll never get sick of it,” he says, and rattled off some favorites ranging from the Allman Brothers to Led Zeppelin. As for new bands, he likes Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket, and The Black Keys.

Carcillo says he was blown away by WGN’s massive vinyl vault. “It’s kind of overwhelming walking in there. There has to be over 5,000 records. It’s exciting to be able to pick a shelf and sift through it and play the records you find in there – from The Beatles to any motion picture you want from the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. It goes back a long way.”

He hopes to do an all-Canadian band show, featuring bands like Bachman Turner Overdrive, Rush, The Guess Who, Neil Young and Tragically Hip.

“Every Canadian hockey rink you go to, it’s the Tragically Hip playing,” he says. “They’re an amazing band – I love them a lot. It’d be nice to play them on the radio.”

He’s thrilled to be playing hockey for one of the Original Six teams, and playing music on a heritage station that dates back to 1924. “To have the opportunity to express myself away from the rink is pretty amazing. To have the organization fully behind you is a big honor.”

ODDS ‘N’ SODS: The Vocalo.org radio show “Morning Amp!” was recently picked up by two college radio stations, Loyola’s WLUW-FM (88.7) and Elmhurst College’s WRSE-FM (88.), which probably quintupled the latter’s audience. Not that there’s anything wrong with the show, which is hosted by local comedian Brian Babylon and radio producer Molly Adams. But shouldn’t that prime-time air space be reserved for the kids – whose tuition finances it? . . . Steve Dahl recently added a weekly 60-minute podcast by the recently canned Kevin Matthews, which is included in the monthly podcast price. More at www.dahl.com . . . Numero Group recently released a CD called Eccentric Soul: The Nickel & Penny Labels, featuring 24 songs produced or written by local radio legend Richard Pegue . . . The best thing we’ve seen lately is the return of MTV’s “Beavis And Butthead” – particularly when they lampoon Mike Judge’s other great creation, “King Of The Hill” . . . The best thing we’ve read lately is a lively discussion of weathercaster body language on the Chicagoland Radio And Media Bulletin Board. The consensus? That some local female weathercasters lean backward and arch their backs, accentuating certain assets, while some males lean forward , hiding their paunch. The solution? “Straighten up!” More at chicagoradioandmedia.com.

– Cara Jepsen

Q101 may have flipped its format in July, but the music rocks on at www.q101.com. The busy website features streaming music, entertainment, and information aimed at alternative-rock fans.

The site is the brainchild of Matt Dubiel and Mike Noonan – the duo behind the short-lived “Save The Loop” movement. They own the syndication company Broadcast Barter Radio Networks, which purchased the Q101 brand and turned it into a virtual “station” designed to go where the listeners go via mobile apps and social media.

“We look forward to giving fans a genuine say in who and what they hear – one that traditional broadcasters only pay lip service to,” says Noonan, a former WLUP jock. He and Dubiel, general manager at Elmhurst’s WJJG-AM (1530), plan to add talent to the audio stream (live.q101.com) next year – which will also see the return of the local music showcase “Local 101.”

“No matter who we choose [as host], we’ll be listening closely to the feedback from fans on the hosts and content and production value of the show,” says Noonan. They also plan to bring back the Jamboree and Twisted concerts as well as new events.

“Radio isn’t dead or outmoded by any stretch, but obviously has been immersed in a metamorphosis since the mid-’90s, and that has been detrimental in terms of homogenizing it, giving listeners less variety and less top-flight and local talent, while also underserving advertisers. Radio is till one of the best ways to reach and motivate people,” says Noonan.

“Having said that, we feel the unique brand affinity for Q101 and being free now to expand it from being a ‘radio’ brand to being a ‘lifestyle entertainment’ vehicle without regard to what corporate minders and consultants say is huge,” he continues. “We can and will communicate directly with fans and listen to their needs and desires and be in a position to meet those needs, without the heavy burden of debt or the quarterly, even daily demands of stockholders to hold us back. We have a tremendous opportunity and don’t and won’t take it lightly. We’re perfectly positioned and suited to take Q101 and make it the tip of the digital spear.”

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!: Whereas Q101.com plays major-label artists such as Lenny Kravitz, Kings Of Leon, Filter, Weezer, and the Beastie Boys on Q101.com, you’re more likely to get Stereolab, Azita, David Lynch, Afrika Bambaataa, and The Del-Byzanteens on North Center-based Chicago Independent Radio Project (CHIRP).

The online station is a truly alternative, non-profit, all-volunteer, listener-supported community project that is still hoping to get its hands on a low-power FM license. In the meantime, you still get to hear real, live music lovers playing their own records. It’s available online or via app at chirpradio.org.

The city’s other alt-stations all have a terrestrial presence – in other words, they broadcast over the airwaves – and all it takes to tune them in is a simple box with a couple of knobs.

CBS-owned WXRT-FM (93.1) is still plugging along, playing new alternative music along with mainstays such as BoDeans, The Pretenders, and Albert Collins. Grouse all you want, but “Chicago’s Finest Rock” makes us the envy of rock fans in other cities.

College stations have been playing new music all along, and now that they’re online you no longer have to be within a two-mile radius to tune them in.

Loyola University’s WLUW-FM (88.7) continues to rock the North Side with new music, despite the massive walkouts when the university regained control of the station a couple of years ago. Plus they play “Democracy Now!” at 9 a.m. each day. Listen at wluw.org.

With 5,000 watts, Northwestern’s venerable WNUR-FM (89.3) is still the area’s biggest college station, blanketing the North Side and northern suburbs. “The Rock Show” airs weekdays from 2 to 9 p.m.; “This Is Hell” airs Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. More at www.wnur.org.

The most underground is Northeastern Illinois University’s WZRD-FM (88.3), which has no format but leans toward sublimely obscure rock. As its mission states, “WZRD’s brand of freeform is commercial free, devoid of ego, eclectic, and radically non-mainstream.” More at www.wzrdchicago.org.

University Of Chicago’s “Pride Of The South Side” WHPK-FM (88.5) states that it “is dedicated to playing music not commonly heard on the mainstream.” The live music show “Pure Hype” airs Fridays at 9 p.m. Rock shows air most weekdays from midnight to noon. More at www.whpk.org.

ODD ‘N’ SOD: We enjoyed the Reader’s 40th-anniversary issue, which featured former editors and writers waxing poetic about the independent weekly’s storied past. But we missed hearing from and about Patrick Arden, managing editor during most of our tenure at the “Backwards R” (full disclosure: my byline appeared regularly in the Reader from 1995 to 2008). Arden was a rarity: a great editor who also advocated for the writer and refined our stories without playing “guess what I’m thinking” or SCREAMING AT US IN ALL CAPS. He was (is) perhaps the most intelligent person I’ve ever met – talking to him was like using Google, only with relevance, context, and history. Plus he loved his job. How well I remember coming to the empty Reader offices early one morning after a cover story about the White Sox was put to bed. I nearly tripped over Arden – who was asleep under a desk, his Sox hat askew. Best. Editor. Ever. And now Senior Reporter at Metro New York who earlier this year won the 2011 political reporting prize from the New York Press Club. Bravo!

– Cara Jepsen

Soul Train has a reputation for being Chicago’s groundbreaking showcase for African-American musicians.

But six years before Don Cornelius launched that great show on WCIU-TV, there was “Jubilee Showcase.”

It presented the nation’s top gospel, spiritual, and jubilee musicians on WLS-TV Channel 7 every Sunday at 7 a.m. from 1963 to 1984. It was one of the only places where viewers could see black musicians and a black audience on a show aimed at black people – and certainly the only one featuring inspirational music.

“Jubilee Show-case” was the brainchild of host Sid Ordower, a white civil-rights activist, broadcaster, and World War II hero who helped found Operation Push (a 1969 guest on the show was the Rev. Jesse Jackson), and was instrumental in helping Harold Washington get elected mayor. Ordower, who hosted the show, described gospel as “that fine American music.”

“When we started out, gospel was not as big as it is today,” he told the Chicago Tribune’s Howard Reich in 1992. “We had to find the audience and build it, so we gradually won over their confidence. Because back then, most people didn’t even know what gospel music was. So we were trying to play to a general audience and to win their confidence, which I think we did.”

Performers range from Otis Clay to Martha Bass to Clefs Of Faith to the Operation Push Chorus to Thomas Dorsey. Some of them – including Andrae Crouch, Inez Andrews, Jessy Dixon, and The Soul Stirrers – appear on a riveting new DVD of show, produced by Ordower’s son, Steven (who’s also working on a related documentary).

Watching artists like The Staple Singers, who perform with the accompaniment of just Pop’s twangy guitar and handclaps, it’s easy to make the connection with Delta blues and early rock ‘n’ roll.

The music is, in a word, amazing – even to this old punk rocker.

Not to mention inspiring.

To purchase the Classic Moments From Jubilee Showcase call (877) 459-7904 or visit jubileeshowcase.com – which also has videos and background info, and details about an upcoming documentary.

GO JOHNNY GO!: We were thrilled to accidentally run across Jonathon Brandmeier’s new show, “Brandmeier,” on WMAQ-TV’s “Chicago NonStop” (digital channel 5.2, or Channel 52 on my TV).

It’s about time he’s back on the air – even if it’s just a weekly half-hour sub-channel TV show.

(Brandmeier was unceremoniously dumped by WLUP-FM (97.9) in November 2009, and has been on the loose ever since.)

During the first “Brandmeier” TV show, he interviewed a champion air guitarist; the Wisconsin man who got a $166 ticket for giving the finger to Governor Scott Walker and driving back and forth in front of his house; and Californian Chuck Testa, whose deadpan taxidermy ads are a hit on YouTube. Johnny B. also riffed on the involuntary manslaughter trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray.

The show is in the midst of a 10-week run.

Brandmeier says on his website, “It’s a work in progress for all involved, but I’m thrilled to have the opportunity.”

Here’s hoping he’ll loosen up and add a bit of the heartfelt venom he displayed in his scathing 2010 video, “Johnny B- The Unemployed Radio Mo Fo” – which you can still view at johnnybontv.com.

ODDS N SODS: We’re disappointed but not surprised by the mainstream media’s coverage (or lack thereof) of the Occupy Wall Street movement against corporate abuse of the American political system. After all, the media is owned or financed by the very banks and corporations that are being protested. The local press has also largely ignored Occupy Chicago, located between the Federal Reserve Bank and the Bank Of America building on LaSalle Street. At press time, the only ones that had noticed were The DePaulia, Huffington Post, In These Times, and NBC-TV Channel 5. But, as one sign at Occupy Wall Street proclaimed, “The People Are Too Big To Fail” . . . Another nail was hammered into Radio Arte’s coffin when program director Carlos Mendez was forced out of the low-power Pilsen-based nonprofit station, where he also served as engineer and on-air host. WRTE-FM (90.5) was put up for sale by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum earlier this year, but as of presstime there were no takers . . . Muckraking not dead! We loved Jim DeRogatis‘ story about the story behind the mess that Lollapalooza left behind in Grant Park. It’s on his Chicago Public Media “Pop N Stuff” blog on www.wbez.org. It’s right up there with Mick Dumke and Kevin Warwick’s excellent Chicago Reader story, “Basketball Controversies,” in which they examined race and class through the lens of public basketball courts. If only this type of reporting were in the 99 percent – and not the 1 percent – of what usually appears in the media.

– Cara Jepsen

When someone is barely even mentioned anywhere on the Web, that’s when you know what obscure really means – and it’s amazing how much info has yet to make the billions of pages that Google looks through,” says author and “Chic-A-Go-Go” cofounder Jake Austen. As publisher and editor of Chicago-based Roctober magazine, he’s spent the past two decades publishing the work of underground cartoonists and writers, and telling the stories of the most unique, overlooked, underappreciated, and obscure musicians and artists on the planet (and beyond, if you believe the band Zolar X).

Austen started the magazine in 1992, when he was a student at the Rhode Island School Of Design – “if you can use the terms publishing and magazine to refer to a messy clump of stapled Xeroxes ornamented with crayon marks,” he writes with trademark humility in the introduction to the new book, Flying Saucers Rock ‘N’ Roll: Conversations With Unjustly Obscure Rock ‘N’ Soul Eccentrics (Duke University Press, $24.95). It features 10 Roctober interviews with everyone from Sam The Sham to Oscar Brown, Jr. to Armenian-American novelty artist Guy Chookoorian, who covered R&B hits in his native language. The riveting pieces are by Austen and other Roctober contributors, whose unbridled enthusiasm for their subjects makes the book hard to put down (plus there’s an enthusiastic foreword by longtime fan Steve Albini).

The title comes from a song by the late-’50s rockabilly artist Billy Lee Riley, whose 60-page interview with Ken Burke is the book’s longest (and is the longest that Riley gave in a career that spanned five decades). “I think as a genre – dynamic music that is not really of this world – [the title] applies to everyone in the book, especially the actual space-alien group Zolar X,” says Austen, author of 2005’s TV-A-Go-Go: Rock On TV From “American Bandstand” To “American Idol.”

But an artist doesn’t have to be obscure to appear in Roctober. “We have had articles about Kiss and Michael Jackson – but some aspect of their career has to have escaped good coverage,” says Austen, admitting that two of his favorite pieces – about the late disco singer Sylvester and underground filmmaker and musician Sid Laverents – didn’t make it into the book. “Basically, nothing in Roctober can read like it was written by a publicist, or like a writer is trying to fill a word count to get paid. The writer has to have and be able to share the passion they feel for their subject. But usually it is with a subject that it is exciting to learn their story because it has never been told before.”

Austen has only to check his computer to see if he’s done his job. “Even if we’ve never wielded enough power to put much money in the pockets of our interviewees (or ours, for that matter), we take satisfaction in the fact that Google no longer mocks them with a smug, ‘Your search did not match any documents,’” he writes in the book’s introduction.

Each piece is a labor of love, since no one gets paid for writing them. Austen’s piece on NYC’s The Fast (included in the book) began with a several-hour interview and included many follow-ups. “In the Internet era I guess stuff takes a lot less time, but back when it was libraries and microfilm and collectors and artists’ personal archives that held all the hidden info it took ages to research stuff,” he says. “But it was always worth it.”

Many of the artists who’ve been in the pages of Roctober have also appeared on “Chic-A-Go-Go,” the show that Austen created with his wife, the film scholar Jacqueline Stewart, after Austen interviewed Jack and Elaine Mulqueen, cohosts of the ’60s preteen dance show, “Kiddie A-Go-Go.”

“We have done about 800 episodes, and we try to get everyone on ‘Chic-A-Go-Go’ that we interview in Roctober, if possible, because we love to see young people reacting to old, off-center music,” he explains.

Austen says the highlight of his work at Roctober magazine occurred after he wrote a mostly glowing but mildly critical review of the 1995 book, Black Monk Time: Coming Of The Anti-Beatle by Eddie Shaw, who was the bass player for the ’60s proto-punk garage-rock band, The Monks. “The self-critical aspect of Eddie delighted in getting actual criticism, and out of the blue he calls me on the phone telling me how much he loved the review, and invites me to Bemidji, Minnesota for a Monks reunion at lead singer Gary Burger’s cabin,” Austen explains. “I end up sleeping in a tent with Eddie and his daughter, watching the band play jam sessions in Gary’s studio, and having a bonfire with the group.”

The 50th issue of Roctober comes out next month; a subscription for the semiannual magazine is $10 for three issues. “Chic-A-Go-Go” airs Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. and Wednesdays at 3:30 p.m. on Chicago Public Access Network’s Channel 19, and anyone can attend the tapings. More info at roctober.com.

– Cara Jepsen

Radio legend Steve Dahl started charging for his podcast last month. He was dumped from “free” radio in December of 2008, when CBS Radio bought out his WJMK-FM (105.9) contract (and continued to pay him). Two years ago, Dahl launched his podcast, joining a growing number of local media figures who have tried to reinvent themselves in today’s topsy-turvy media world: paying for equipment; a staff of seven; and a $7,500 per month fee to CBS to allow him to do the podcast.

Dahl has total control over every aspect of the show, since there are no suits or advertisers to alienate. He does it from the basement of his home – so there’s no commute (although some of Dahl’s most inspired bits happened when he called in late to his old show with Garry Meier). One of the drawbacks of the format is that there’s no room for live listener input.

Now, subscribers pay $9.99 per month (or $99.95 per year) to keep the podcasts a-coming (more info at www.dahl.com).

I asked Dahl a few questions about the pay-Dahlcast in an e-mail interview.

IE: So, how do you feel a week after launching the pay podcast? Is it different from before?
Steve Dahl: I feel good. We have been signing up a lot of subscribers (many for a year) and they all say the shows are the best ever.

IE: Was this your plan all along (to offer the podcast for free, and then charge for it)?
SD: No, that idea evolved as I began to understand that it was the only viable way to monetize it.

IE: What makes you think this model will work, when it is failing for journalism (i.e. trying to charge for something that is free), and Sirius XM Internet offers 120 channels for just $12.95 per month?
SD: It’s the only place to hear me!

IE: Will the show have paid staff? If so, whom?
SD: Yes, the same staff that I have had for the past two years (Mary Sandberg, Pete Zimmerman, Jim Ruffato, Stephanie Fallara, and Brendan Greeley).

IE: Why is a radio legend of your stature doing a podcast?
SD: Because a legend can do whatever he wants.

IE: For that matter, why do you think that radio legends like you, Johnny B, and Mancow are all off the air in Chicago?
SD: You would have to ask them, but I suspect it’s because radio is losing its focus and shifting away form the one-on-one connection that made it such a great medium.

IE: Do you think a young Steve Dahl could come up in today’s corporate radio environment?
SD: Definitely not. There is no place to experiment, fail, and therefore improve.

IE: If Merlin Media, Tribune Co., or a similar entity offered you a lucrative prime time slot with Garry Meier, would you do it?
SD: I wouldn’t rule it out, but no one has asked, and I’m very committed to making the podcast work, since I really think it’s the future of what used to be called personality radio.

IE: Please add anything else you feel is relevant.
SD: I haven’t felt this good about something since I started talking instead of playing album cuts on FM radio back in the ’70s (while program directors told me to shut up)!

A NOT-SO-BRIEF-HISTORY OF Q101: In August, WKQX-FM (101.1) flipped to a news format, and Q101 joined the ranks of Chicago’s late, great rock stations: WMET, The Zone, The Blaze, and WCKG. But Chicago has always had alternatives to Q101 (anyone remember when WXRT and Q101 used to duke it out?) down on the nonprofit, lefthand side of the dial.

On Q101’s last day as a rock station, former DJ James VanOsdol exceeded his Kickstarter target for his upcoming book, Smells Like Rock Radio: An Oral History Of Chicago’s Q101 (1992-2011).

“I think that once the Q101’s demise became reality, there were a lot of people who wanted to ensure that the project happened, and become part of the it in the process,” says VanOsdol. “I’m grateful for the overfunding – it means I’ll have better resources and help with the book.”

VanOsdol spent years at the station, but left his on-air job earlier this year. “I was working part-time, doing weekend shifts,” he explains. “That found me working seven days a week for quite some time. I needed to catch my breath and get my weekends back.”

Now that the book is funded, “I’m proceeding slowly and methodically,” he says. “My plan is to talk to every air personality, Program Director, General Manager, and relevant support staffer from the station’s history. So far, I’ve completed 20 half-hour interviews, with an estimated 75 more to follow.”

So far, no one has declined his interview requests. He says the trickiest part is coordinating interviews around his work and home schedules.

He says the book will take “however long it takes. I’m trying not to put a date on it, simply because I want to do this right.

“If I had to guess, I’d say late ‘12/early ‘13.”

As for his music taste these days, “I listen to a pretty exhaustive amount of artists and styles,” he admits. “I’m perfectly happy listening to indie, metal, classic rock, and blues. It’s not unusual to hear The Jesus Lizard or Rush blaring from my car.”

More at blog.jamesvanosdol.com.

Not long after the music stopped on Q101, local radio stalwarts Matt Dubiel and Mike Noonan purchased the Q101 brand (the pair was also behind the short-lived “Save The Loop” movement and head up the Broadcast Barter Radio Network; DuBiel was program-operations director and air talent at WERV-FM Aurora and PD at 9 FM; Noonan is a former WLUP jock and former assistant production director at US-99). The duo kicked off the new “goes where the fans go” venture last month with a party at the Cubby Bear, featuring Redlight King. Look for the alternative rocker to be resuscitated via mobile apps, social media, concerts, and its online home – Q101.com.

– Cara Jepsen

Imagine a technically perfect freeform radio show where you’ll hear everything from Arctic Monkeys to Frank Zappa. Add clever drop-ins, seamless transitions, and cryptic humor. Then, imagine that every time you listen, you hear a new artist or song, or a version of a classic track that’s so obscure you never even knew it existed.

That would describe “The Best Radio You Have Never Heard,” the biweekly 80-minute podcast that’s hosted by Perry Bax and posted on the 1st and 15th of each month at bestradioyouhaveneverheard.com (full disclosure: IE is one of the show’s main sponsors).

“I’ve got a lot of really rare records,” admits Bax, an obsessive audiophile who picked up a lot of free records during a career that included DJing at Western Illinois University’s WIUS and Smart Bar, working retail at Val’s Halla Records, and serving as operations director of db Sound Chicago. He’s also written for IE, mixed local Chicago shows, and toured with Stabbing Westward, Black Uhuru, and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin.

Bax estimates he’s repeated about 15 songs during the 160-plus shows he’s done. “I always try to use versions of songs no one’s heard before, especially if it’s a kind of common song,” he says. A recent show featured a version of “We Are Crazy” by Todd Rundgren (on guitar and drums) with French synth player Jean-Yves Labat (a.k.a. M. Frog, on screams and groans) from an unreleased demo album called Froggy Goes A Pumpkin.

MP3 players were still a novelty when Bax launched the podcast in 2004; nowadays he gets 20,000 hits per month for the show, which he records at his home studio in Wrigleyville. The shows usually feature healthy doses of artists such as Genesis, The Allman Brothers, or Yes as well as ’90s alt rock, punk, and new releases. “My thinking when I started was, ‘Why can’t I use all the colors in the palette?’” he says. “But you’ve got to make it work and make transitions work. Some people say it’s classic rock. It’s not that; it’s a hybrid of all things. I think that the media dumbs down what people can deal with. And they’re a lot smarter than people give them credit for. There’s no limit to what people can comprehend.”

An unabashed perfectionist, Bax listens to each show over and over for errors and cleans them up before posting (plus he pays all the royalty fees for all the songs he uses).
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“Production is really important to me,” he admits. “I really hope that the way I do the show separates the wheat from the chaff.” It was ranked the #1 Classic Rock Podcast from about.com in 2007 and 2010.

He continues, “I’ve heard some leading podcasts out there, and my mouth literally hangs open; they’re dropping microphones and all kinds of things. I treat it as professionally as I can. One thing people comment on all the time is that show is on schedule to the minute. That separates it from other shows that come on when someone feels like getting one done – it separates it from guy in basement with his pants around his ankles.”

But the real artistry lies in the show’s subtle themes and the presentation of disparate artists in seamless new ways.

“One of great things that people have told me, is they have gone out and bought music from bands they hate because they heard it in a context that made it make sense to them,” he says. “And that’s what it is all about to me. Sometimes I think that context is lost on people. They think it’s random songs. But it’s never, ever random.” (Bax Photo Credit: Paul Natkin/Photo Reserve)

HE’S BA-ACK – THE RETURN OF RANDY MICHAELS: At press time, former Tribune Co. CEO Randy Michaels‘ new company, Merlin Media, was poised to purchase controlling interest in WLUP-FM (97.9) and WKQX-FM (101.1) as well a New York City station from Emmis Communications. Robert Feder reported in his Time Out Chicago column that he was planning flip Q101 to an all-news format, leaving Chicago without an alt-rock station. You may recall that Michaels was forced out by the Tribune board last fall after a tenure characterized by alienating employees and running roughshod over tradition; among other things, he used Colonel McCormick’s vaulted office for an after-hours poker party and hired Kevin “Pig Virus” Metheny to run WGN (where he fired long-time hosts Kathy & Judy and Steve Cochran and hired convicted felon Jim Laski and out-of-towner Greg Jarrett).

The worst is detailed in former Chicago Tribune managing editor Jim O’Shea’s new book The Deal From Hell: How Moguls And Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers, which includes a scene with Michaels receiving sexual favors from a female employee in his Tribune office. It’s all the more horrifying when you consider his famous memo of 101 terms he said should never air on WGN – including “bare naked,” “behind closed doors,” “diva,” and “down there.”

As the bell tolls for commercial alt-rock radio in Chicago, former DJ James VanOsdol is hard at work on a book called Smells Like Rock Radio: An Oral History Of Chicago’s Q101 (1992-2011). At press time, VanOsdol was attempting to raise the $9,750 needed to fund the book through a Kickstarter fundraising campaign (where the premiums include slightly used records from his own collection). For the latest, visit blog.jamesvanosdol.com.

– Cara Jepsen

The travel bug bit Regina Fraser at an early age. “My father [trumpeter Rex Stewart] was with Duke Ellington for about 15 years, and traveled all over the world with his orchestra,” she says. “He’d come back with a traveling trunk full of colorful stickers from all over the world. He’d point out the ones from France, Australia, Russia, and so on, and he was a great storyteller. I was fascinated, and thought, ‘I’d love to go to all of those places.’”

That’s exactly what she does with “Grannies On Safari” co-host Pat Johnson, with whom she checks out food and culture from India to Zanzibar to South Africa on Mondays at 5:30 p.m. on WTTW-Channel 11.

The Chicago-based duo include a lot of local music on the show; the Peru episode included an indigenous Incan folk troupe playing music related to the elements as well as Andean music and an Afro-Peruvian group.

“Music is really critical to us,” says Johnson, who’s been an avid traveler since she was a teen. Chicago jazz trumpeter and composer Orbert Davis, whom the pair has known for years, composed the show’s theme song. They also asked Carlsbad, California-based Afro-Venezuelan composer Allan Phillips to create music for the show, and he jumped at the chance. In 2008, “Grannies” won a regional Emmy Award for his music.

Fraser sits on the board of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic and is a marketing, media, and communications strategist, while Johnson is an arts administrator. (Both are, indeed, grandmothers). They’d traveled in the same circles since the 1970s, but didn’t meet formally until they worked together on an international arts-exchange program in the mid-’90s. Fraser hit on the show idea in 2003, and asked Johnson if she wanted to be part of it – even though she had her hands full as founding director of the Museum Of The African Diaspora in San Francisco.

“I twisted her arm and made her quit and come back to Chicago to join me,” says Fraser. They sold their fur coats and Fraser drained her 401K to fund the first shows with help from Fraser’s husband and other family members. They’ve limped along financially, picking up sponsors here and there, until the current season, which is sponsored by the AARP. The pair also became involved with local initiatives serving seniors. “There’s still a lot to learn in this world – and travel is a good way to meet new people and expand your horizons,” says Johnson.

“When you travel, you have the ability to come back and tell family members about your experiences and inspire them to travel,” says Fraser. “If they don’t understand that the world doesn’t revolve around their immediate area, they’re going to lose out on making cultural connections and finding out where their place is in the greater world.”

The pair also lead tour groups, and made international news when they were in Cairo for a four-day cruise on the Nile during the January uprising and couldn’t get out. “It was kind of dicey,” says Johnson, recalling that the demonstrations became a full-fledged revolution in front of their eyes and they couldn’t get ahold of the U.S. State Department to get them out. The two had enough travel smarts to keep their group calm – including an 82-year-old grandmother from Columbus.

They’re currently kicking around ideas for season number four – ideal destinations include Brazil, Croatia, and Cuba – or perhaps even a trip on the trans-Siberian railroad.

“It depends on if we can get the necessary support for that,” says Johnson.

“Like funding!” says Fraser, without skipping a beat.

ODDS N SODS: Pilsen’s youth-run Latino community station Radio Arte (WRTE 90.5 FM) is slated to be sold by the National Museum Of Mexican Art, along with the two-story building that houses the station and its youth art-training program. The newly formed Latino Media Cooperative says it plans to bid on the 14-year-old station’s license, antenna, transmitter, name, and frequency. Chicago Public Media, DePaul University, and California’s Radio Bilinguë have also been mentioned as potential buyers. The 73-watt station covers a 14-mile radius and has been a broadcast home to hundreds of kids since the museum purchased a Class D radio station from the Boys And Girls Club Of Chicago a decade-and-a-half ago . . . Kudos to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) for launching an inquiry into former FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker’s transition from Comcast regulator to Comcast senior vice president of public affairs just months after voting to approve Comcast’s merger with NBC-Universal. Perhaps she was trying to one-up former FCC Chair Michael Powell’s gig heading up the National Cable And Telecommunications Association. Now, Freepress.net is urging FCC commissioners to take a pledge not to work for AT&T or T-Mobile – whose merger is under consideration – when they leave office. “Unless they take this public stand and stop the revolving door, public trust in government will be impossible to restore.” Um, what trust?

– Cara Jepsen

Amy Eldon’s 1998 documentary, Dying To Tell The Story, focuses on her photojournalist brother, Dan Eldon, who was stoned to death by an angry mob while covering a bombing in Somalia in 1993, shortly after the “Black Hawk Down” incident.

In it, she comments to London-based photographers Des Wright and Carlos Mavroleon that there wasn’t much news about Somalia after the Marines left. Mavroleon responds by saying, “It wasn’t because the Marines were there [that it was in the news]; it was because we were there.”

Sadly, front-line journalists are still dying to get the news out of the world’s ever-growing zones of war and unrest. Some 57 journalists were killed in war zones in 2010, according to the Paris-based journalist advocacy group Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontièrs, or RSF).

In April, photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were killed (and several others seriously injured) when the Libyan city of Misurata was bombed, while they were covering battles between Colonel Gaddafi’s forces and anti-government rebels. Hetherington was nominated for an Oscar earlier this year for co-directing the 2010 documentary Restrepo, about U.S. troops in Afghanistan, while Hondros was an award-winning photographer for Getty Images.

“If we weren’t there, filming, reporting, it is as if it didn’t happen,” Hetherington had told New York Times reporter David Carr.

Hondros had done seven tours in Iraq, and had told Carr that he kept returning because, “Unless it happens right in front of you, you can’t make a picture of it.”

As Carr pointed out in his Times tribute to the pair, “Missiles can be guided from great distances and drone aircraft can be commanded by a joystick, but journalists still have to go and see where the bombs landed.

“Information has sprouted from all manner of new tools, including Facebook, Twitter, and cellphone video,” he wrote, “but no one has perfected the journalist drone.”

During the protests in Egypt earlier this year, CBS reporter Lara Logan was beaten and sexually assaulted for 25 minutes before being rescued by a woman in a burka. CNN’s Anderson Cooper and ABC’s Christiane Amanpour were also attacked, as were a Reuters crew and a Greek journalist, who was stabbed in the leg.

Apparently, some pro-Mubarak supporters blamed the press for publishing pro-democracy views and fueling the uprisings.

“Attempts to manipulate foreign reporters, arbitrary arrests and detention, deportation, denial of access, intimidation, and threats – the list of abuses against the media during the Arab Spring is staggering,” the RSF said in a May 3rd report. “Those determined to obstruct the media did not stop at murder in four countries – Syria, Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen.”

Last month, Logan appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” to talk about the attack and break the code of silence surrounding sex assaults on female journalists.

“Women never complain about violence because you don’t want someone to say, ‘Well, women shouldn’t be out there,’” she said. “But I think there are a lot of women who experience these kinds of things as journalists, and they don’t want it to stop them from doing their job. Because they do it for the same reasons as me – they’re committed to what they do. They’re not adrenaline junkies. They’re not glory hounds. They do it because they believe in being journalists.”

At press time, 18 journalists and two media assistants had been killed so far this year. In addition, 151 journalists, nine media assistants, and 128 netizens have been imprisoned, according to RSF – which does not track sexual assaults.

As RSF Secretary General Jean-François Julliard explained, “Journalists are seen less and less as outside observers. Their neutrality and the nature of their work are no longer respected.”

He continued, “If governments do not make every effort to punish the murderers of journalists, they become their accomplices.”

Learn more at www.rsf.org.

ODDS N SODS: Kudos to political reporter Mary Ann Ahern for taking Rahm Emanuel to task for excluding her and NBC 5 from a one-on-one interview with local outlets. As she posted on her station’s Ward Room blog (and as Robert Feder reported in his Time Out column), Emanuel’s people “refused to notify NBC of rare one-on-one interviews allotted to our competitors. The TV business is competitive, but typically politicians and public figures who are involved with big events grant the same access to all-comers. When we asked why we were left out of the mix, the Emanuel communications team implied they weren’t happy with the coverage of the VIP inauguration [where some seats cost donors as much as $50,000]. They didn’t challenge facts, but were upset with tone. So they left us out. It’s an old game . . . kill the messenger not the message; cut off the access.” Sounds like something that happens in those other countries . . . The incessant Oprah bashing by local journalists surely will have quieted now that she’s left town. But we predict they’ll immediately set their sights on Rosie O’Donnell, who is slated to originate her new OWN Network talk show from Winfrey’s old Harpo Studios. We see Rosie firing right back at ‘em . . . The quarterly, nonprofit Bitch: Feminist Response To Pop Culture magazine has been taking mainstream misogyny to task since 1996 and is still going strong; learn more at www.bitchmagazine.org.

– Cara Jepsen

Print is not dead. For all the wily charms of the digital world with its tweets, feeds, blogs, and apps, there is still nothing like the pleasure created by ink on paper.”

So says the manifesto in the debut issue of Delayed Gratification magazine, a quarterly journal launched in January as an antidote to the 24-hours news cycle — its endless crawl across the screen and absurd army of journalists doing standup reporting from remote hotspots where the action has died down.

I can’t help but love a magazine that brags about being the “Latest to breaking news.”

The hefty, U.K.-based almanac is halfway between a magazine and a book, and is the brainchild of Marcus Webb, international editor of Time Out, and Robert Orchard, freelance writer and editor of Time Out Croatia, who met eight years ago. “Over the past eight years, media started getting faster and faster” with the introduction of live streaming video, Twitter, and the like, says Orchard. “People started tweeting from British court rooms and live blogging big events. We felt that sort of the journalism and the way we all consume it was opening up a gap at the other end for slower, more considered journalism that allows journalists time and perspective to add value to stories.”

Webb, Marcus, and their group of co-owners call their company the Slow Journalism Company, and each ad-free issue of DG examines three months of events with context and perspective. In addition to quality analysis and writing, the magazine also boasts excellent paper, illustration, and design.

He admits it’s an unusual choice at a time when more and more people get their news from the Internet. “A lot of bigger publications have felt increasingly threatened about he advent of online journalism and are not sure how to deal with it,” he says. “Others are trying to encapsulate online journalism in magazines. We felt the opposite way: that we should be playing on the strength of magazines; that we should engage readers and have great paper quality, fantastic images, and a fantastic product rather than try to emulate what’s online.”

Indeed, Webb has dubbed the 24-hour new cycle “the spectacle of the ridiculous.”

The first issue included a roundup on a recent spate of health-scare stories in the press. Iraq-born calligrapher Hassan Massoudy created the cover illustration for the second issue, which hits newsstands this month and boasts a piece about the economic realities of the Edinburgh Zoo’s acquisition of two pandas; an article linking China’s rise as an economic power to train delays in Britain, as well as pieces about Egypt and Japan; and plenty of infographics, including a bird’s-eye view of the recent revolutionary movements in the Arab world. Briefs about unusual stories that people may have missed are sprinkled throughout.

Orchard says they’re not hoping to do away with today’s nonstop, up-to-the-minute journalism, but providing an attractive alternative. He notes that there are similar start-ups in Norway and Sweden.

At press time, DG had 1,000 subscribers. Orchard couldn’t tell me how many were less than 50 years of age, since they don’t collect information about their customers — or market to them.

“We’re not trying get you to sign up so our carefully selected media partners can profile you,” he said. “We’re only trying to sell you one thing — the magazine.”

The Web site has a preview of the magazine, but to see it you have to buy it (an iPad version is still on the drawing board). “What I want is for people to buy the print edition, so then they get the full experience,” says Orchard. “It looks amazing, feels amazing, and smells amazing.” Subscriptions for this side of the Atlantic are £55 ($90) per year, or £16 ($26) for a single issue.

LOCAL SLOW NEWS: Some local examples of long-form or “slow” journalism are still around:

•The Chicago Reader still has long-ish cover stories, but the free weekly is so skinny these days (and coming with a major, glossy redesign) the stories are fewer, shorter, and far less quirky than they were in its heyday. But they’re still there (www.chicagoreader.com). We’re thrilled that the Reader just hired back senior writer Mick Dumke, after a year at the ailing Chicago News Cooperative.

•We love the long-form interviews Jerome McDonnell conducts with everyone from world leaders to activists to lowly workers on his WBEZ-FM (91.5) global-affairs radio show “Worldview,” which airs weekdays from 12 to 1. More info at www.worldview.com.

•But our all-time radio favorite remains Chuck Mertz’s “This Is Hell,” airing Saturdays from 9 to 1 on WNUR-FM (89.3). For the past 15 years, Mertz has been conducting incisive, open-ended interviews with activists and others on the front lines of fights and issues overlooked by the mainstream media — all while injecting a welcome dose of lively humor into the often-depressing subject matter (each show includes a hangover cure). Hear the live stream at www.wnur.org, or find the podcast at thisishell.net.

•It’s not exactly slow — the half-hour roundtable covers a week’s worth of news — but Ken Davis‘ “Chicago Newsroom” is a step in the right direction. It’s produced by Chicago Access Network TV and airs Thursdays at 6:30 on cable channel CAN TV19. More info at www.cantv.org/newsroom or chicagonewsroom.org.

– Cara Jepsen