Cooler
than an Afterschool Special: im on the stereo
We all wanted to reach levels of impossible, adult coolness as we
were growing up. We tried to look older, act older and generally try
and convince the world that we knew everything. im on the stereo,
a program run by junior Andrew Leland and senior Chelsea Martinez,
allows Oberlin kids to reach a level of coolness that most of us could
not even begin to achieve when we were but wee things. Monday through
Thursday at 5 p.m., area kids produce, script and air their own radio
show, which is broadcast from WOBC 91.5 FM. Besides getting a taste
of what its like to do a real job, Oberlin kids
are provided with an alternative to sitting at home or hanging out
after school. im on the stereo is a unique creative outlet that
many kids in their teens never get to experience. Arts Editor Cat
Richert caught up with Leland and Martinez in the WOBC office to inquire
about the program.
Cat
Richert: So tell me how the program got started.
Andrew
Leland: Joshua Rosen (OC 01) in 1999-2000 year had this great
idea of im on the stereo. Its named after the Pavement
song stereo in which theres a lyric [Leland wows
me with his singing capabilities] Listen to meee/Im
on the stereo/ Im on the stereo-o. So you know: its
like kids, enthusiastic that they are on the stereo.
Chelsea
Martinez: And that they have malaria.
AL:
Oh yeah, yeah. Right now [Rosen] is still in Oberlin working as
a tutor, a substitute teacher and assistant teacher. With the middle
school?
CM:
Im not sure
yeah.
AL:
Some local public school. His major interest is kids and community
outreach and that sort of thing, so he started [im on the
stereo] with that in mind, it being a way for kids who otherwise
would not know what to do after school
getting them off the
streets.
CM:
Out of the living room.
AL:
Right out of the living room. Sometimes they would just DJ shows
we
do less game shows than he [Rosen] did. His big emphasis was on
these quiz shows where they would have some sort of questions. Some
would be like, high school students versus college students. A lot
of bands, local bands
we have the capability to do a live show
on the air. We also do some pre-recorded stuff where you go out
in town or go down to the basketball court near Rax, go down to
the Boys and Girls Club, have a few questions in mind and ask a
wide range of kids the questions. Then come back and edit them.
We end up having sort of a cross-section of what local kids think
about: what they think about the new building down the road, what
they think about cops in Oberlin
stuff like that.
CR:
Do you think that these kids go home and talk to their friends about
it, and say look what Im doing, look how cool that is,
dont you want to do that too? Is it growing that way,
or do you still have to advertise to pull in kids from the community?
CM:
Its hard to get younger kids because theyre shyer and
theyre
at home. Theyre not listening to the radio, theyre not
hanging out with friends after school quite yet, so theres
no word of mouth there. Were trying to get younger kids, but
high school students are coming because they know about it already.
CR:
Do you have the same kids on everyday?
CM:
We havent had any repeats, but after Fall Break we might have
people on again.
AL:
One major difference between the way were doing it and Josh,
is that Josh had the ExCo, but as it turned out the people in the
ExCo didnt really end up doing much. But this year, the ExCo
kids are basically running it as much as we are. We have enough
people so that everyday theres a different group of people
taking the ExCo who help produce. And another thing about that word-of-mouth
thing. A lot of times, especially with high school students, their
friends will call in and well put them on the air [Leland
impersonates someone calling in] Hey Im hearing you
on the stereo, man.
CM:
On their cell phones.
AL:
Yeah, on their cell phones.
(laughter)
CR:
One time last year, I turned it on. There was this little, little
kid on there singing that song thats like Why do I feel
this way/ It must be the money [Richert also displays her
impecible singing capabilities]. These kids were all singing in
chorus, and they didnt really know the words. I thought it
was so ironic that these kids have no idea what the song is about,
but they know all the words to it. Do you find that these kids have
a collective knowledge that you just didnt have at that age
or listen to music that you never would have
you know, dirty
music.
AL:
Not even dirty music. Their intelligence in general, Im consistantly
impressed with. Even just the way they speak is eloquent for freshmen
in high school
and their sense of humor is really sophisticated
these
kids, their humor definetly keeps up with the college students
who are in here.
CM:
Definitely.
CR:
Do the parents get in to it too?
CM:
sometimes parents call in, requesting weird folk songs from the
70s. The kids are like This is for my mom (laughter).
Its a weird break in the music, but its fun. I definitly
want to try and make the stations resources available to them
[the parents] so if they want to look for stuff they dont
know about.
CR:
Would you guys have done this if you had had the program available
to you growing up?
AL:
Definitely.
CM:
I dont know. I was a really big nerd
I probably would
have. Although I did not live in a boring town, and I have plenty
of things to do, there werent a lot of arts or extra-curriculars
at my school, so I probably would have done it. Especially if I
could do whatever I wanted. Which is what we are trying to do here.
We dont want it to be really structured, like we have this
goal in mind, or we have to do kids news. And we hope that enough
people get interested in it that want to do radio in the future
when they grow older.
AL:
It appeals to a broad range of kids. Radio is versitile so
theres
like no newspaper at the high school, so we were talking about maybe
doing something on the air. Maybe a newsmagazine that school kids
produce. Theres also stuff like
the music, where kids
are writing free-style and singing those on the air. So there is
this whole artistic side to it. Were doing skits for the Mad
Factory, writing poems, reading books and straight-up DJ-ing
with
all that breadth, theres a lot of people that can get involved.
im
on the stereo can be heard MondayThursday at 5 p.m.
on WOBC 91.5 FM.
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