In late October, KWCW’s manager senior Matt Bachmann and music director senior Cecily Foo returned from a trip to New York City with a number of big ideas for the radio station. The two students attended the 30th CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival, an annual event located in NYC with over 120,000 attendees. Now, only a month after the festival, Hot Poop Records has a “KWCW Recommended” section, KWCW is contributing music reviews to the Union-Bulletin and the radio station will soon start releasing a monthly zine entitled “Hey, Man.”
Bachmann explained the reasoning behind many of these new changes.
“We really wanted to put more focus on getting more new music to the Whitman and Walla Walla community,” said Bachmann. “But [the new changes] also help us spread the word about KWCW.”
Bachmann and Foo got the idea for the zine at College Day, a day at the New York festival that allows representatives from college radio stations all over the nation to meet, hold panels and share ideas.
“The University of Boston’s [radio station] handed out copies of a zine that they put together, and we were basically like, ‘This is a great idea, we should do this,'” said Bachmann.
Foo was equally inspired by the events and panels of College Day.
“I came back from CMJ so excited and inspired by new ideas for the station,” said Foo. “[I was] seriously elated. I couldn’t wait to get started.”
It did not take the team long to start producing the zine. The first issue of “Hey, Man” will be released later this week and will be available in Reid Campus Center. The issue will feature KWCW’s top albums of 2010.
The layout for “Hey, Man” was done by first-year Kaity Curry, and the zine will also feature artwork by junior Sam Alden. Foo was very satisfied with how the first issue currently looks.
“When I envisioned the zine at CMJ, I pictured something that was charmingly crappy,” said Foo. “But I think this is pretty amazing and way more legit than I imagined our first issue would be . . . I couldn’t be more impressed with the final product.”
Bachmann also noted that the zine would differ from KWCW’s current blog.
“‘Hey, Man’ is a lot different from the blog. For one, it [has] completely new content,” said Bachmann. “[It] is definitely an extension of the blog, but because of the format, I think it will reach more people.”
Foo expanded on this idea.
“I hope it gets more people excited about and interested in [KWCW] and new music in general,” she said. “Even if we only turn a few people on to a few new albums that they might not have listened to otherwise, I’d be stoked.”
