RADIO: The WZRD DJ lockout grinds on
On June 29 administrators at Northeastern Illinois University dissolved the student club that runs the school’s radio station, WZRD 88.3 FM, and barred its members from the facility. WZRD remains on the air, but it’s staffed by an administration-approved skeleton crew and mostly broadcasts an automated stream of music that the locked-out DJs (who call themselves “Wizards”) put together to play during personnel shortfalls.
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Student Leadership Development director Sharron Evans called an impromptu June 29 meeting with the DJs, presenting a memo listing WZRD’s alleged violations of the school’s student-government bylaws. Since then NEIU has abandoned some of those allegations (including a charge that WZRD was missing years of FCC documents reporting its community-service programming), but several remain, among them misuse of funds and problems with the selection process for new members. Evans’s memo also mentions that the school was fined $7,000 in 2007 because the station’s FCC license wasn’t renewed on time (the renewal process is now under way again, and should end by December).
Founded in 1974, WZRD is a rare surviving example of a free-form station. It has almost no genre-focused programming or specialty shows; DJs can play almost anything they want, and they’re encouraged to explore the greatest possible variety of nonmainstream music. Enger is passionate about getting the DJs back on the air, not least because of his love for the format. “We feel like we’re defending free-form as an art form,” Enger says. “It’s dying in this country.”
Abrams will be joined by Kelly, autoharp player Ben Boye, keyboardist Jim Baker, harmonium player Lisa Alvarado, and drummer Frank Rosaly at the Empty Bottle on Thu 10/4 (part of Adventures in Modern Music), and that same lineup plus Boykin will play a record-release show at the Hideout on Wed 10/10.
—Monica Kendrick
