The third annual WCOM Benefit Concert at the Kraken returned on Saturday, August 17th 2019 in White Cross, just west of Carrboro. Postponed by a hurricane in 2018, artists donate their time with all tips going to all volunteer, non-profit WCOM radio.
We appreciate everyone who came out for our most successful Kraken concert by far.We collected a total of $837.30 (roughly 4% of our annual budget). The first two combined earned $997.
The Kraken concert is a highlight of the WCOM calendar, bringing together our community in a fun atmosphere. The nest two station events are the Annual Meeting in October and the celebration of WCOM’s 15th birthday at the Hickory Tavern on Thursday, November 7th.
We appreciate the inventiveness and energy of Eliza Dubose in making the concert an event.Thanks to our emcees: Jerry Villemain and Becky Johnson. The event could not happen at all without the generosity of the Kraken staff, its owners Kirk and Jody, and its generous regulars. Most of all, we appreciate the exceptional musicians who donated their time to benefit your community radio station, WCOM. Rod AbernethyWyatt Easterling and Mike RosadaStan Lewis & His Lawbreaking Revelers (overheard quote of the night in the bar – “I don’t know much about country music, but that’s what it is.” (Karen Novy and Robert IrelandToo Much Fun )
WCOM Rockin’ the Kraken Schedule, Saturday, August 17, 2019
The format is a showcase of indie music sourced online from the Creative Commons, SoundCloud, the Free Music Archive, Bandcamp, and miscellaneous crowdfunding projects with occasional guest interviews or artist spotlights. Also included will be reviews of new recordings and music news.
A Cup of Technology is a weekly talk show that features lively analysis of the trending news in culture, education, important issues social issues, impactful interviews with those who know and of course, the latest in technology! A Cup of Technology welcomes calls, questions, or comments. Listeners can also submit topics for discussion.
Our World Today Host: Sam Bell Time Slot: TBD
“Our World Today” is an interview show that covers a wide range of topics of contemporary interest, including politics, history, science, and religion. The show draws most of all from people within our local community, especially since the universities, industries, and other institutions in our area draw in many people who would be interesting interview subjects. The host has a personal background in scientific research, history, philosophy, and religious studies that he can draw from.
The WCOM Board discussed how to make the audio of the report available – while deciding against pre-empting shows for broadcast, we are using our website to point listeners to the audio on the web at muellerreportaudio.com. The publication of the report was released April 18, 2019, and is available at justice.gov/storage/report.pdfary
For many of us, sitting down to read through the entire report page-by-page is unrealistic. Making this available in an audio format, without biased political commentary. Because of the wide public interest in the document, believe it should be available for free for anyone.
You can support in other ways by telling your coworkers, friends and
family about the show, sharing the episodes on social media, and rating
and reviewing the podcast on the various platforms are other ways to
help return the value you get from this production effort.
CARRBORO, NC: The Hickory Tavern located inside the Hampton Inn at 370 East Main Street in Carrboro hosted the annual birthday celebration for
The Jalaopy Records vinyl catalog is just one of several amazing raffle prize packages
community radio station, WCOM-LP 103.5, on Thursday, November 1, 2018 from 5PM until 9PM. Over $1000 was raised for WCOM. If you or your business would like to be a sponsor a show, please call 919-675-2787.
James Coley, long time host on WCOM, had a heart attack at his desk at UNC and died earlier this week. The NC Ethical Humanist Society held a memorial for him on Sunday, July 22 2018.
PER LISTENER REQUESTS, WE HAVE AVAILABLE A RECENT SHOW MR. COLEY DID WITH CONGRESSMAN DAVID PRICE, LISTEN HERE:
Mr. Coley was a past president of the NC Ethical Humanist Society, as well as a wonderfully friendly curmudgeon. Many at WCOM had serious debates with him, as well as a few less so. The humanists facebook page posted a note on his passing and you may find information there: https://www.facebook.com/groups/EHSOT/permalink/21151501954330/ or perhaps on the website ncethicalsociety.org
During his show time in the station July 5, 2018 (Thursday 6-6:30pm) we did a brief memorial to him (myself, Bluesman Marc Lee, and former jazz host Solomon Gibson III). James would have appreciated the songs we played, as a hard line atheist:
-John Lennon’s “Imagine” and “God”, and
-“Mean Church People” by MSG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Gr0Jmi6CE ).
I am a metaphysical naturalist, empiricist and scientific realist, with an epistemology that blends elements of foundationalism and coherentism. Circular chains of epistemic justification are allowed as long as they pass through a quasi-foundation of beliefs there is no good reason to doubt.
My view on free will I call firm determinism. There are conflicting ordinary language concepts of free will; my Control Theory of Freedom offers autonomous control as a successor. There are variations of the concept, and most but not all of them are incompatible with determinism.
In ethics, I have a prescriptivist view. There are no objective values, but that is no reason for me not to act on my Humanist value system. I believe in reason, but it is only instrumental with respect to a value system.
I am an atheist. There is no purpose for human life ordained by the Universe, evolution or anything else. We give life significance and purpose through our values, and most importantly our actions. The way to find meaning in life is to find meaningful things to do — and then do them
For another year in a row, community radio WCOM was voted a finalist in the “Best Local Radio Station” category for IndyWeek’s Best of the Triangle 2018. Our co-finalist was megawatt MIX 101.5, both beaten out for “best of” by mega station WUNC. We’re proud to be voted in the best-of, and thank our listeners and supporters!
Details are on the IndyWeek website: https://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/best-of-the-triangle-2018-local-color/Content?oid=14840479
On Saturday, Feb 3 2018 from 10am-noon, a special live on-air remembrance was broadcast on Rocco’s show “The Music Hall”. It was recorded by Tofu Dave and is now available for listening online:
On January 21, 2018, WCOM lost its most generous and sustained supporter and long time program committee member Cat Devine. She touched the lives of most of our hosts and, it seems, most of the citizens of Carrboro. She was a founder of WCOM’s parent non-profit, the Public Gallery of Carrboro, formed in 1997 for an amazing public art project on Weaver Street, some of which remains today.
Cat Devine
Andrew George found this column by Cat from 2005:
Not Built in a Day – WCOM 103.5 FM
The artist in each of us has least one gift to share with others. Take this notion home and dial your radio to WCOM 103.5 FM while you cook, garden, work on a car, paint, write, or entertain.
The artists at WCOM are gifted in all kinds of ways – creative, technical, logistical, and rhythmic. Their special talents, along with a desire to share them with others, brought volunteer-powered community radio home to Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
This particular work of art started with a lofty idea and some uniquely raw material. The raw medium takes the form of a new class of low-power FM radio stations created by the FCC, making room on the dial for legally inventive broadcasting. A small consortium of community-minded locals decided to get in on the action. The rest isn’t history yet.
WCOM broadcasts from the heart of downtown Carrboro in quarters that functioned originally as a bank drive-thru – more raw material to work with. The studio designers turned the space 90 degrees and preserved all of the building material, including the drive-thru window with its external visibility and internal countertop now facing the main drag. Cool!
103.5 FM is a hairline on the dial, but the low-power signal sounds fine within a five-mile radius. This we owe to gifted engineers. They had a year to comply with the FCC license. They equipped and configured the station and plowed through a ton of obstacles to launch WCOM last September. Bravo!
Then the fun began. With computer-generated music airing 24/7 and a thorough studio shake-down underway, the call went out for volunteer DJs. Yahoo!
Aspiring radio personalities lined up with program ideas to pitch in a juried selection. The chosen few exhibit the most passion for music, the most extensive and/or exotic personal collections, and the most eagerness to share their current favorites with a live audience. Each of them curates a weekly program put together in their “other” spare time. All of them have day jobs. Not all of them live within listening distance of WCOM.
(Case in point: I live well within listening distance. In fact, I live so close to the station that I could almost broadcast by sticking my head out the window. But loving the sound of your own voice will only get you so far. My quirky talk show didn’t make the cut.)
WCOM’s volunteer DJs fill the programming schedule with mighty fine offerings on weeknights and weekends. Colorful show titles like “Roots Rampage” by Bob Burtman and “Planet In My Kitchen” by Richard Klecka decorate the calendar. Cabot Dixon ‘s “Random Acts of Music” inspires me on Thursday nights. Ann Parrent named her show “This Is Easy.” That lets her keep reminding us how easy it is to run the board, juggle CDs, and have a general ball at the mic. Jayson Tanner airs “Wrecking Ball” at noonon Sunday – good timing. Likewise Mark Edwards’s “Psykick Dancehall” at 10:00on Monday nights — what the heck, the week is young.
Nuts for jazz and old standards, I go for “Saturday Morning Music Hall” by Ron (Rocco) Nittoli and “Breathing Room” by Fred (Fred) Wasser following Rocco. Melva Okun (“Musings With Melva” at 6:00 on Sundays) confides that she wants to be known as the Marian McPartland of Carrboro. Just between us, Melva’s got it nailed. She flies the whole plane.
“Y’alternative” makes for tricky spelling and a darn good show by Joe Swank on Saturday afternoons. Berkeley Grimball regales local singer/songwriters on “The Hook.” John Howie Jr. shows up at 10:00 on Tuesdays with all of his country music influences and golden tones.
My favorite announce of all time comes from Andrew “Furious” George. “Furious” airs on Saturdays at 5:00. Andrew plays funny infuriating stuff and then says, “You’re listening to WCOM 103.5 FM. I’m Furious.” Makes me laugh every time.
Next up, WCOM has public affairs programming and a twice-daily local news/features hour to develop. The latest call for volunteers goes out to potential hosts, producers, writers, reporters, and broadcast engineers.
Speaking of gifts to share, money works great – cash donations and fundraising energy. This all-volunteer undertaking revolves around a fairly expensive day-to-day operation, and it’s not finished yet. (Hint: Any plumbers in the house?)
Visit the WCOM website www.communityradio.coop and click on everything that brings out the artist in you.
Each Monday night from 6 to 8 PM Eastern, L.A. Batchelor hosts the outstanding sports and politics talk show The Batchelor Pad on community radio station WCOM.
This half-hour video provides a sample of the excellent, engaging, and informative programs L.A. delivers each week.
CARRBORO, NC: The Public Gallery of Carrboro, which operates WCOM-LP 103.5 all-volunteer community radio, received one of five $5000 50 Forward awards from Coastal Credit Union in a ceremony at its Raleigh headquarters on November 14, according to Public Gallery of Carrboro chairperson Art Menius. 50 Forward enabled participants to nominate a deserving nonprofit to win a $5,000 donation. Entrants are asked to identify a nonprofit within the 16 counties where Coastal does business, briefly describe why the nonprofit is deserving of a donation, and explain what it does that is meaningful to the person nominating it.
1500 people nominated 463 non-profit agencies, according to Menius. Five were selected to receive the $5000 awards. The other 50 Forward recipients were Raleigh Rescue Mission, Chapel Hill High School Philharmonic Foundation, Beginnings, and First NC Robotics.
“We’ve spent the past 50 days looking back on the impact we’ve made in the lives of our members and community over the past five decades,” said Coastal’s spokesman, Joe Mecca. “50 Forward is the kickoff to our next 50 years of serving the community, and lets our members pay it forward to the organizations they see doing great work.
One of the first stations to go on air under the FCC’s Low Power program, WCOM went on air on September 29, 2004. The station, which rents studio space from The ArtsCenter in downtown Carrboro, reaches listeners around the globe through its Internet stream on www.wcomfm.org. It depends on donations, grants, events, and underwriting for its income.
WCOM provides a radio home for dozens of volunteer hosts creating original programming including outstanding talk and current affairs shows and music programs spanning many genres with especial strengths in roots, jazz, and blues. Guests on WCOM over the years have proven as diverse as Congressman David Price, blues star Shemekia Copeland, then State Senator Ellie Kinnaird, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Chris Hillman, the late Elizabeth Edwards, and mentalist The Amazing Kreskin. WCOM has trained and given a first broadcast opportunity to countless area residents.
According to its website, “Our mission at WCOM is to educate, inspire, and entertain the diverse populations of Carrboro, Chapel Hill and nearby areas. We cultivate local music and facilitate the exchange of cultural and intellectual ideas, with particular regard for those who are overlooked or under-represented by other media outlets. We provide a space for media access and education by providing equipment and training to our community.”
