My last post was almost a month ago. I’ve been busy working on my book-length history of radio station WFHB, home of my weekly Big Talk interview program. I hope to get this thing done by July but if I had a million dollars for every hope that has come true recently, I’d still be broke.
Speaking of Big Talk, I’ve been on a great run since January. In case you missed any of my episodes (and, if you did, it’s time to take stock of your life and priorities) here’s my show lineup this year:
Participatory Democracy: Peter Dorfman
Ecologic Apocalypse: Shannon Gayk
Bloomington Early Music: Suzanne Ryan-Melamed
Trashion Refashion: Sophia Wang
Planetary Futures: Rebekah Sheldon & Tess Given
The Hundredth Hill: Krista Detor & David Weber
Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington: Charles Pearce
Canopy Bloomington: Ava Hartman & Jon Vickers
Bloomington Int’l Film Festival: Matt Rice
Alternate Dimension Mill: Emily McGee
Poetry, Puppets & Music: Johanna Winters & Dave Torneo
This week and next, during WFHB’s Spring Fund Drive, I’m featuring the iconic, the storied, the contrarian anti-star, Mark Bingham. He’s back in Bloomington for the nonce. He recently completed a month-long residency at the Orbit Room. Bingham has spent his adult lifetime tilting against the celebrity-driven music industry even as he’s made a living recording and producing acts ranging from Dr. John, REM, Allen Ginsberg, the Dave Matthews Band, Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint, the Black-Eyed Peas, Joe Sample, Steve Earle and even Harry Shearer.
In part one, Bingham tells the most delicious anecdote about a young, aspiring entertainer in early 1980s New York City whose countless graffiti mentions on music club bathroom walls (specifically referring to her outsized libido) was her first intro to celebrity. Her surname, by the way, was Ciccone. Madonna Ciccone.
Bingham 50 years ago was instrumental in getting the then-named Community Radio Project off the ground. The nonprofit corporation that owns WFHB (and is now named Bloomington Community Radio, Inc.) was started by geeky, tech-y, dream-y, post-hippies Mark Hood and Jeffrey Morris in the summer of 1975. They knew they needed ready cash to get their noncommercial, listener-supported radio station off the ground so they staged a live music benefit show at the Bluebird. Bingham at the time ran Bar-B-Q Records here in town and was a member of the prog-rock band, Screaming Gypsy Bandits. He wrangled all the acts for the benefit which packed the house and earned Hood/Morris a nifty $700 bucks. They thought it was a fortune. Little did they know they’d need about a thousand times more than that before they could get their station on the air.
Well, they did it.
And now, in this weird Trump-world where National Endowment for the Arts and Corporation for Public Broadcasting funds are no longer a sure thing, it’s more important than ever for you to reach for your wallet and help us stay on the air. Anything helps: if you can only afford a buck, send in a buck; if you can afford $10,000, we won’t refuse it. Just call 812.323.1200 or make a safe, secure donation online at WFHB.org. And make sure to mention Big Talk when you give.
Thanks.