An Apology of Sorts…

Thank you for your support of the show. It really is appreciated and we adore each and every one of you.

I know the podcast has been posted at odd intervals lately. You support the show, so you deserve to know why.

I, Kristen, am handling this website entirely by myself. On top of working. I maintain it all. Lately, my day job has been kicking up and that leaves me very little free time.

I’ve been keeping up as best as I can. I will continue to do the best that I can, but you guys deserve to know why I slip up every now and then. And, as always, if you ever feel the need to stab me a bit and get my priorities straightened out…email me any time at Kristenbowie@gmail.com.

Thanks again for the support guys!

Sometimes, it’s just gotta happen…

Things change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worser. But there’s no way around it–change is inevitable.

If you’re like me, you resist change. In my case, it’s because I’m a creature of habit that likes to drag her feet begrudgingly towards setting any sort of routine.

Don’t Panic PDX! has been on the air for almost 6 months now. Wow. 6 months. That’s almost as long as any other show I’ve ever done. And with that marker, it’s time we change a few things up. I’ve gotten positive feedback from you in regards to the show, and we hope that you tell your friends. We really appreciate it.

Please tune in Friday as we make an announcement in regards to how and when you can get the show. If you could, please go to Itunes and rate our show. Give it some love. We’d greatly appreciate it.

6pm. Tomorrow. http://pdx.fm. Be there.

Well Then…

I have well meaning friends. They make me laugh from time to time. I, however, do not know what to think about this recent emailing:

So You Want A Revolution…

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution

I am in love with talk radio. I know the exact moment it happened. The second week of June in 2006, I got asked to fill in on a very exciting, very different talk show that had just started on the station, KCMD (970 AM)– The Rick Emerson Show. Rick’s producer, Sarah Dylan, was going on vacation and they needed someone to come in and produce the three hour talkshow.

I was petrified. I had always been either behind the scenes, producing live remote broadcasts on the FM station in the cluster, 98.7 KUPL…or badly DJ’ing country music on the weekends. I promise you, it was bad. No matter what anyone says.

KCMD reinvigorated my love for radio. There was some sort of emptiness that I felt with music radio, I felt like I just couldn’t quite connect on the level that I wanted to. This was a *talk* station, but not your typical bullshit talk station where it was politics and stale news updates every 15 minutes…this was (and I hate this term, but it fits) a lifestyle type of radio. From video games to books, comics to movies, dating to quirky anecdotes that we noticed about life in general–we were able to create radio that I was fucking proud of.

Eventually I got my own show, Musicology! Here with Timmy Ryan, Adam Thompson, and James Robinson…we had our own blank canvas.

And then, truly a testament of how clueless radio is and how out of touch with the people that matter–their listeners, they canceled the show due to “budgetary” reasons. A show, that at the end, only cost 40$ per show to produce.

KCMD eventually went away and turned into every other talk station in existence. In June, I got our web hit numbers…

And 3500 people had downloaded our podcast. We had gained an audience of *3500* people in under a year.

Really?

This made me really think about things. Maybe radio is missing more than it thought it was. Maybe Portland Radio doesn’t even know what’s around the corner. Maybe it’s bigger than the Ipod and the recession hurting the business.

Maybe it’s too late. Could they really be *so* ridiculously out of it that they missed the fork in the road?

In between dodging the vitriol that was constantly being spewed at me by yet another psycho supervisor, and loathing the fact that I scheduled commercials for a living…I started looking around and I found PDXSucks.

A show that once again made me feel happy to listen to talk “radio.” Radio doesn’t have to be talking *at* the audience. It can be interactive. People can relate to it without dumbing it down…even though we all are dumb occasionally.

A couple of months after I found that show, PDX.fm started. It’s changed a lot since they began…but here we are again. A strongly devoted audience, innovative shows, and being able to create a community based around performance. That’s why I got into radio in the first place. That’s why I loved it like I did.

So after re-evaluating my feelings on my current position in my career, I quit Alpha Broadcasting. I wasn’t happy, it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing…and I’ll be damned if I’m going to keep a job just to “stay in the industry.”

And I started a podcast…Don’t Panic PDX.

A month into it and my shitty server problems aside, I’ve gotten great feedback from you guys. Thank you for all the love. It means a lot. But it’s time to get serious about this, because, well…hell. It’s my passion. It’s what I’ve lived for over the last decade. I love being involved in it for a reason.

Which is why, when something as special as PDX.fm rolls by…I can’t just ignore it. I’ve fallen in love with the station, I listen constantly and I enjoy everything I hear. I wanted to be involved…

…so beginning March 15th, Don’t Panic PDX comes to PDX.FM three days a week. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6pm.

Thank you for everything. Every single one of you, whether I’ve met you personally or not, have become part of MY (sorry for stealing this, Rick..) Best. Audience. Ever.

So uhh…

Don’t Panic Portland’s first week was a success! Thank you to all who listened, sent me feedback and spread the word!

We’re live on Itunes, so if you could…please hop on over there and rate, subscribe, and leave reviews. It all helps. I promise.

This week’s first show will be a little late. Due to scheduling, we were going to do Wednesdays and Saturdays as a tentative show schedule–but we will be out causing problems at a very prominent show in Portland tonight. Expect full snark and reviews tomorrow when we record and post the show.

Again, thanks to everyone for the support. Mike Russell, Fatboy Roberts, Will Radik, Sabrina Miller and RobertWagner have been nothing short of gracious and amazing to me (Kristen) as of lately. I greatly appreciate all the local support, and I hope that we continue to grow like we have in the last week.

Don’t Panic Portland.

Radio isn’t dead…yet. That thought has been running through my mind constantly as of late. The painful feeling that you guys get when you listen to what has happened to the Portland airwaves over the last two years, is also felt inside the buildings.

What you get instead, is that the effect has been lost. It’s been lost for a long time. Granted, I came in late in the game…hell, I’m only 26..I couldn’t imagine how different it would have been to do radio in the early 90′s–or previously. That being said, the art hasn’t been lost. There’s an entire lifestyle that’s brewing slightly beneath the surface. Eventually, technology will outpace tradition and an evolution will occur.

I will be there for that complete transition, I’m sure of it. What my role will be in that transition is completely up to me. I want to be a part of it. I love the idea of a revolution, and while being what I like to refer to as an “aggro-pacifist,” I think this style of revolution is completely up my alley. (I used a colloquialism. Ass. You know who you are.)

Which is why, along with my incessant obsession with Douglas Adams, I decided that the perfect way for me to demonstrate that yearning for creative change by starting a show by the name of  Don’t Panic Portland. The medium isn’t dead unless we sit around and let it die, refusing to legitimize the next generation of aural entertainment.

I posted something yesterday about Musicology that seems to have caused some confusion. Sorry about that. Fact is, we can’t do that show right now. I’d love to, it was a blast…but I think we’d be sacrificing too much to be a talk show, about music, without being able to play any of said music. That being said, I think at this time…Musicology would serve well as a little weekly blurb about something cool musically that I and others find fascinating. There’s so much we could do with that, it’s ridiculous.

But, we’re working on a new show. Is it rusty? Fuck yeah. What new show isn’t? But we’re going to do it and keep doing it…so for now, please pardon the dust.