Seattlest Roundtable: Do You Pledge to KEXP?

Seattlest Clint: I find myself thinking "I should really donate to KUOW; I learn more from listening to that station than I would watching hours of television news. That's something worth supporting." probably half a dozen times a year. Then pledge time rolls around and I change the station thirty seconds into the first "listeners like you" spot I hear. I'm a bad person.

Seattlest Tom: Since I'm a sap for radio and a glutton for punishment, I do leave it on. At a certain point, though, my mind usually tunes out pledge breaks and reduces them to background noise just like it does with regular office chatter. When I've had enough, it is exactly like realizing that I've heard the same NPR news cycle for the fourth time: I will remember that I have iTunes or podcasts or pornography in waiting.

If I'm driving, however, all bets are off. I tune to other channels but they are very likely running their own pledge drives So I pull over and cry. Then I get angry at the Radio Act of 1927, the Communications Act of 1934, the FCC, Clear Channel, Entercom, et. al. for doing their best to fuck up radio. Then I cry again, but not before punching the first Clear Channel exec that I see.

Seattlest Matt: Golds Gym plays some hideous commercial free presumably satellite station of some kind and it is the most heinous club shit you have ever heard. Instead of commercials there are these lame ass pseudo-DJ obnoxious fill spots that I can't even describe. It's so bad it always gives me a hankering for KEXP pledge drives (which have never compelled me to donate anything) or even those spoken word sponsorship bits Paul Harvey's plugs for Bose or Rush Limbaugh's plugs for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

Seattlest Michael: I don't really listen to this "radio" you speak of, but I did send money to KCTS last year because they sent me a nice thing in the mail, and I set it aside to think about, then sent them a check. Their pledge drives have about as much effect on me as QVC, which is to say, zero. So far as I can tell, the main thing that pledge drives create is more pledge drives, and who wants to support that?

Seattlest Jeremy: Well, I can never bring myself to listen to KEXP because it's too boring. And the DJs are kind of snotty know-it-alls. I like it in theory, but not enough to pledge. As for KCTS, I like them less at pledge time when they play boring crap, but on the whole I have only mixed affections for public television--there's a lot of good stuff, like "Frontline," then there's pseudo good stuff like "The Newshour", and then there's a lot of really bad stuff. The only unequivocally good thing is the Britcoms. Public radio I like even less. I don't have much faith in the power of either to actually provide me information better than the newspaper in the morning, and listening to both tends to make me feel very, very white. So I've only ever considered pledging once--the NPR station was offering a free one-year subscription to the Economist at the $75 level; the normal subscription being over $90, it was a great deal. Does it make me a bad person that I was shopping pledges?

Seattlest Jack: I have to say I couldn't disagree more with Jeremy when it comes to KEXP. Without that station, I wouldn't have found out about scores of talented musicians and we'd all be stuck with shitty commercial radio or satellite radio which isn't much better. And "snotty"? I can't say I've ever heard a KEXP DJ come off as snotty. In fact I think they act more like real people than any DJ on any other station out there. That said, I've never contributed because I'm a lazyass and because whatever contributions I make during the year tend to be more of the social realm. At times the pledge drives can be entertaining enough to hold my attention -- like when KCTS shows the film about the guy building his cabin in the woods. I don't know if KEXP does anything like that (an amazing in-studio performance from '98?)

Seattlest Seth: John in the Morning plays too much britpop. It's like 1991 all the time with him.

Seattlest Courtney: I give KEXP money (not necessarily during pledge drive) and I give KCRW (in Los Angeles) money as well because I listen to them online nearly every single day. Garth Trinidad's "Chocolate City" is the best couple of hours of radio available, hands down.

I have my shitty complaints about KEXP too, but jesus people it is one of the few quality independent radio stations out there and I'd rather help keep them in business even if there are things I'm not wild about, rather than have a world over-run by Clear Channel clones. But yes, I turn the dial during pledge drive and agree with Ronald that it is pointless and should be replaced by regular small spots. Overall, I still heart KEXP. I sometimes tire of their overly-indie focus that rarely plays good hip-hop other than a few well-known locals, I actually like all John in the Morning's f-ing 1991 brit pop, and Kevin Cole's show is always a cut above the rest but maybe people don't listen as much from 2-6 perhaps?

Seattlest David F.: I am a huge Quilty 3000 fan -- Saturday yard work while my daughter sleeps is when I get to rock out. I'm with Jack. And the on-air begging wasn't too bad while I was mulching Sunday. Much better than NPR or the guy with the cardboard sign at I5 and 45th.

Seattlest James: I pledge to KEXP -- they got the proceeds from our Mazda 626 that needed a new engine, which combined with what we'd already pledged put us in the 500 Club that year. Which was completely uninspiring -- ooo, concerts I have no interest in going to scheduled at times that are inconvenient for me!

That said, I love KEXP and don't want to see it go away, so I pledge. But during the pledge drive -- as during the themed shows I don't care for -- I twiddle my radio dial to some other slot on the spectrum. Sometimes even Jack FM. When we bought our new Honda, though, we got XM free for 3 months -- and I'm very tempted to subscribe. For less than we tend to pledge to KEXP, we get 100+ channels, a broader variety of music, and no DJ chatter (which I find less snooty than irrelevant, most times, though nothing on XM is as mesmerizing as Michele Myers' voice). Will we skip our KEXP pledge this year? Hmm...