October 2012 and it was the 5th leg of Ellesbells does the world and off I went NYC.
After Paris, NYC was the city I most wanted to visit. Everyone told me it was my city, that I had the spirit of NYC. I used to waitress and customers would often ask me if I was from New York. So to say I was excited would be to say Everest was tall, understatement.
I got to NYC and off I went to do all that NYC bizziness. Drank whiskey in a hotel, shopped in Brooklyn, had beer in the meat packing district, got my hair done in Harlem and ate Ice cream cookie on the high-line. The high light of my visit, however, might well have been going to Jersey. You heard right, Jersey.
The story starts about a year or so ago when I started listening to a great radio station on the recommendation of a friend; WFMU is an ex college station with free form programming. After listening in live for a few weeks I happened upon ‘this is the modern world‘ with Trouble. She was fun, funny, had great selection of music; she was an all round dope radio lady. I’d listen, chat in the chat room and get involved with the yearly fundraising(I mean it just $20 but still!)
As the days crew close to my NY sojourn I told Trouble that I was stateside bound and she kindly invited me to the station. So off to Jersey I went. I took the PATH train towards Hoboken and walked a short distance to the home of WFMU.
The place is a wonder, spread over four floors it has a music library filled with vinyl, CDs AND cassette tapes. It has a pretty sweet broadcasting suite as well as a live band broadcasting suite on one floor.
The ‘office’ and lunch room floor has a corridor filled with velvet ‘paintings’ of presidents and rap stars. The station director’s little obsession.
I got to sit in on an interview that Trouble was doing with a local restauranteur Kevin Pemoulie who had just launched Thirty Acres, a seasonal and local restaurant (see here for mouth watering instafood pics) Trouble interviewed, played music, update the track listing, chatted to listener and was funny, charming and consummate professional (listen back to the show on the WFMU flash player or get the MP3 on the show archive page)
After the show Trouble took me on a tour and we had a chat about music, art, raising chickens and radio. Trouble is the only lady DJ on the station and I asked her what that was like. She said that in the past the pathways into radio or most things music related was narrow and though it’s not wide enough yet it is getting better.
I was inspired. I’d been in love with radio since the nights spent holding the antenna on my FM radio by the window to listen to Itch FM but had never considered it as an option for me. Going to NYC, NJ & WFMU showed me that anything is possible, radio didn’t have to be this specific thing I had in my mind and with all the technology available to me I could do it, I could broadcast. And Lo! the podcasts were born.
So, how is this a post about Travel? Well the act of traveling isn’t the ‘thing’, i.e. it is not the reason for traveling. Traveling opens and widens your horizons, it brings you in contact with different people and teaches you something about yourself. Travel is important to me, and it should be to you too. If you are in the luxurious position of someone that can travel, do it, you might get to go have a tour of a radio station or something equally brilliant.
Next time on Travel Thursday: Malaga, no really stick with me.