Somebody download FSRN! Maybe we should put in an alarm to remind us.
Reunion/Commencement Open House – We heard from some alums who are coming, so it’s probably in the agenda. Virgil will check up on food. 2-5 pm, Friday.

Next year, the 75^th Anniversary should be an opportunity for a lot of cool archival stuff.

Jim & Rosemary situation – Avery and Ben are working on it.

Music Purchasing budget – definitely money for CMJ passes, and to dole out to other sub-MDs, Jesse and Adam will try to work with new music directors to figure out specifics with Ben, reach out to people in the past who had suggestions.

Summer Program – Adrien still needs to hear from a couple of people but it’s coming into place and will be done this weekend.  Virgil and Ben will talk about the guide, probably a fairly simple one sided thing to mail out.

Training  – people still scrambling to get service hours and testing done. Preference is to insist that trainees get all their requirements done before they take the test. Make sure newly qualified DJs get info about summer apps, so they don’t miss out. Come up with an email to send out to them with summer info, instructions for door code, spinitron.

Pledge Drive – $7602! Thanks for everyone who donated! Send your packets if you haven’t. Ben will send out a staff update to remind people that it really is on them to reach out to people they know for donations. Ben has been putting up daily facebook posts, we should all work our social media! Adam put out the Wesleying post. Still a few email campaigns to work. Service hour project: fixing up the alumni email list. Overall, new model has some pros and cons, allows the work to be spread over a couple of weeks which is nice. Ben will rethink this summer to come up with an intermediate model. Maybe start off each season with a slow pledge drive, moving into phone banks a couple of months in. Ben will be putting together a few strategic phone banks in the next couple of weeks.

Avery responded to our fan mail from Tai Pei!

Review! – We had some great events, with our lecture series and our concert series. Maybe let’s scale it back a little next year, cause that was really intense. Fewer events also means more focus ability to promote outside Wesleyan. Meet early to get public access to events. The live show was a fun idea we didn’t get to do, so hopefully next year. Avery has some contacts for lectures potentially. Potential partnership with SHOFCO recording children’s books, possible link in with Middletown Youth Radio, and other community engagement projects.
hhh
We did a lot of conferences this year. We have contacts at Barnard and SUNY New Palz. We went to IBS (run a workshop next year), Megapolis, CMJ, keep your eyes peeled for other cool events like that. Mickey and Issy got press passes for SXSW, you could do that in the future! Or we could make our own renegade press passes, says Virgil. Bring stickers.

Show Reviews next year – giving people feedback on their show.
Keep up the monthly DJ spotlight.

75^th Anniversary! So much cool stuff we could do. We are still in touch with our founder, he is so old! We could a film project, all kind of stuff.

Need to be better at putting people’s individual skills to work in service hours, encourage people to think of how they personally could help.

Lee is getting started on the new shelving. He is the man.

Student Forum on radio documentaries in the fall. Students might want to take the forum, or otherwise collaborate. Possibly might be open to community volunteers also.

The Administration is interested in ways the station might tie into academics.

New Shoes for Ben!! Love, the Board. The most renegade dad shoes.
Reunion/Commencement Open House – Virgil will email later today, then Avery can get back to Rob about food. Possibly it’s too late for us to get on the official list, but we have other ways of getting the message out. Friday 1 – 4.
Music Purchasing – Ben, Jesse, and Adam will figure out what has already been bought and what budget is still left to see what we can buy.

Summer Program – Adrien has adding finished Ben’s edits. Virgil can do a program guide next week.

Training – Adam sent out everyone’s board hours for administering the practical exam. Need to get trainees to sign the contract after they pass. Staple all the papers together, and put it in Adam’s box. Maybe give people 10 mins to prepare if you have the time.

If people need service hours, email Ben.

Middletown Remix festival is Saturday. Mickey can livestream parts of it. Hasn’t yet contacted the DJs on air that day about broadcasting. Andy says we can have advance copy of the remix, could broadcast that instead. They need paid staffers, if anyone is interested.

Interview Opportunities – Anyone who wants to interview some the artists should contact Andy the PR guy. Ben forwarded the email to people he thought might be interested. Volunteers can make a promo tomorrow.

Pledge Drive – $210 dollars from t-shirt sales. Pledge drive total: $5,586. We’re on the RothBlog! Also in the Middletown Patch and the Middletown Eye, also got sent to various other local news sources. Hopefully will go out to the faculty listserv. Ben made a facebook event. We should all promote it, and also keep putting out new totals.
Facebook – We merged the two pages, but WESU the person is still out there. We have more than a 1000 likes!
Put the press release on Wesleying.
Donate Now button on our Tune-In page.
Bunch of new pledge promos, Ben found some old anytime promos. We probably have enough but if you still want to make one, please do.

Email campaigns using volunteers to compile lists. Avery is on it.

Next week the new usurpers are coming.

Adam is going to work on a new test for next year.

Jim and Rosemary – at least 3-4 complaints this year. They are popular, but they keep saying really contentious things that upset people. They need to better preface these things as their own personal alternative views. There is a disclaimer at the beginning of the show, but they need personally to distance themselves from the station, making it clear that those are their individual views.
We also bend the rules for them to broadcast from out of town. Dave spoke to them about concerns about production values. Also relying on work from Ben to assemble their show.
Course of action – Avery and Ben will talk to them and take it from there. Email them if you have a particular concern.

Matt Fine is not in the logs, hasn’t responded to Adam’s email. Avery will find him! Let next year’s board know about his lack of standing.

Instagram!

Meeting Adjurned!

Summer Show Applications out 5/6, due 5/13, program most likely starting 5/20

Students responsible for finding their own replacements for shows during finals week. Please avoid emailing the whole staff listserv, this uses up our email quota.

Pledge drive is still happening, just quietly. Please take 2 packets to personally give to people who will donate, use your powers of persuasion!
Ben is here!
Ben: New pledge drive strategy has been challenging. Two ads in the Hartford Advocate, designed by Virgil. We still need pitching on air, even though there are no phone banks, this pledge drive is different but not less intense, everyone needs to be personally involved in getting people to donate. If you do want to get together a phone bank, Ben will help you organize that if you need training. Ideally recruit one or two people to answer the phone. Check out donation policies if you work for a largish employer, consider donating yourself! Spam your email contacts. NB, if you’re using incentives, be very clear about what you are actually offering.

Elections!
Only fully fledged staffers may vote.
Two minute timed speeches, since so many people are running. If you are running for multiple positions, you may make one speech for all, or multiple speeches. If you want to be a write-in, you won’t be able to speak.
Ballots distributed.
Speeches given.
One write in for music director.
Questions from the staff – two questions for each position.

Leave ballots on the way out, ice cream awaits!
Check your packet, make sure everything is in there before you leave.

Congrats to our graduating seniors on the board and in the staff! And thanks to all who are moving on.
Awards! – Prize is a t-shirt!

Most Service Hours – Psychedelic Rick! Bryan Skowera! Bill Dennert!
Anniversaries – 3 staff members with 5 years!, 4 staff members with 15!
Best Promo – Leif with “Lucy”, runner-up to trainee Ellen Lesser
Most New Releases – Bill Revill

Thanks everyone, great year!

Currently, WESU operates  24 hrs per day, 7 days per week, and is supported by a volunteer staff of over 150 student and community volunteers, 2 part-time paid staffers, and one full-time General Manager. WESU is supported by a partnership between Wesleyan University and listeners, organizations, and businesses throughout the CT River Valley. As evidence of WESU’s transformation over the last decade, for the first time, WESU was crowned “The Best College Radio Station” in the 2013 Hartford Advocate’s Annual Readers’ Poll! 

WESU receives no federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or any other grant or foundation sources. WESU depends on listener support to cover roughly one third of their lean $120,000 annual budget. When other public radio stations around the country, including right here in CT, have budgets so huge they can afford to pay their General Managers more than twice WESU’s entire annual budget, WESU continues to grow and develop as a community service. With Public affairs programming from NPR, Pacifica, local and independent sources in addition to a plethora of free-form music and community programming, WESU offers more perspectives than any other radio station in the region.  

In addition to bringing listeners hard to access news, music, public affairs, art, and perspectives from across the world, WESU enables our local communities to inform, share, organize, educate, celebrate life, and connect with the world around them. Thanks to the growth in internet broadcasting, WESU now also serves thousands of listeners from around the globe each month. WESU has come a long way since a young student named Arch Doty built that first one-watt radio station in his Wesleyan University Clark Hall dorm room back in 1939.

As an innovative listener-supported community radio station, WESU is constantly exploring new ground. This spring, WESU is taking another risk by exploring a kinder, gentler approach to fundraising in an effort to avoid disrupting the airwaves with another traditional on-air public radio pledge drive. 

You can help prevent an over-the-top pledge drive from taking over the WESU airwaves by donating online at www.wesufm.org  or by sending a check to WESU Radio, 45 Broad St, 2nd fl, Middletown, CT 06457 . WESU is also asking supporters to help spread the word throughout their communities and social networks that reaching new donors is critical to sustaining WESU. Past donors will be receiving letters of appeal in the mail as well.

Community support during this drive specifically supports locally produced free-form radio created by student and community volunteers.  WESU offers a truly unique mix of public affairs and cultural programming that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve. With your support, WESU can further distinguish itself from the radio pack and avoid resorting to interrupting regular programming in order to continue doing what it does best!

2    ADRIAN YOUNGE    Adrian Younge Presents The Delfonics    Wax Poetics The classic 70s Philly soul group (you might remember their iconic “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” single from the Jackie Brown soundtrack) return and sound as beautiful as ever on this collaboration with producer Adrian Younge. Younge, who previously scored the Black Dynamite soundtrack, is also an entertainment law professor, and he’s been killing it lately. He just followed up this Delfonics collab with an impressive Ennio Morricone-style concept album team-up with Ghostface Killah called Twelve Reasons to Die.
3    AUTRE NE VEUT    Anxiety    Software

4    THEE OH SEES    Floating Coffin    Castle Face  Thee Oh Sees follow up the man-dog cover art (which fun-hating Pitchfork put on their Worst Cover Art list) on last year’s Putrifiers II with strawberries, eyeballs and teeth.

5    DEERHUNTER    Monomania    4AD
6    STEEL WHEELS    No More Rain
7    NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS    Push The Sky Away    Bad Seed
8    FLAMING LIPS    The Terror    Warner Brothers
9    JJ GREY AND MOFRO    This River    Alligator

10    KURT VILE    Wakin On A Pretty Daze    Matador  Kurt sounds a lot happier than on the sleepy, melancholy Smoke Rings for My Halo. He’s such a dad (see this adorable video of his daughter dancing to his excellent single “Never Run Away”) but that doesn’t make this album toned down or boring. In fact, this is his most confident, epic full-blown rock & roll record. And “Wakin on a Pretty Day” is so good that after nine and a half minutes I wish it would keep going.
11    WAVVES    Afraid Of Heights    Warner Brothers

12    CRIME AND THE CITY SOLUTION    American Twilight    Mute Check out WESU DJ and Wesleying maestro Zach Schonfeld’s review of this one here.

13    BALLAKE SISSOKO    At Peace    Six Degrees Previously covered this one here.
14    SHOVELS AND ROPE    Johnny 99 B/w Bad As Me [7-Inch]    Third Man
15    CAVEMAN    Caveman    Fat Possum
16    STROKES    Comedown Machine    RCA
17    VAMPIRE WEEKEND    ”Diane Young” [Single]    XL
18    RON SEXSMITH    Forever Endeavour    Cooking Vinyl

19    CANNIBAL OX    Gotham The legendary Def Jux group returns sans El-P (who’s at work on what’s going to be a very very cool collaboration with Killer Mike called Run the Jewels).

20    POND    ”Giant Tortoise” [Single] Pond, who share three members with Tame Impala and a likeminded psychedelic sound, return with new material after their promising and excellently-titled debut from last year, Beard, Wives, Denim.
21    SUUNS    Images Du Futur    Secretly Canadian

22    RAEKWON    Lost Jewlry [EP]    Ice H2O  We wrote about this one here.
23    DEVENDRA BANHART    Mala    Nonesuch
24    JAMES HUNTER SIX    Minute By Minute    Concord

25    OTIS TAYLOR    My World Is Gone    Telarc A blues album that prominently features Native American guitarist Mato Nanji and reflects on the troubled history of indigenous people in this country. A welcome suprise.
26    PARENTHETICAL GIRLS    Privilege (Abridged)    Marriage-Slender Means Society
27    CHVRCHES    Recover [EP]    Glassnote

28    RED BARAAT    Shruggy Ji    Sinj A unique mixture of DC-based go-go music and the British/Punjab genre of Bhangra.
29    COLLEEN GREEN    Sock It To Me    Hardly Art
30    JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE    The 20/20 Experience    RCA

Click here to see Advocate writeup

Voters Said:

“They have a program for everyone.  They’re very diversified, I love it!”

“Still free form after all these years and some of the best music and alternative community affairs programs available.”

“WESU is a great resource for Connecticut as it plays unique music and hosts thoughtful talk shows. Homegrown! Rob DeRosa!”

Congrats to Rob DeRosa for placing in the Best Radio Personality and Best Radio Show categories for his weekly “Homegrown”, CT connected music show heard on Thursdays on WESU at 5:05 pm. 

Click here to support WESU with a much needed donation.

Apparently someone has never signed the log for his show. Is he even doing it? Adam will look into this.

BREAKING NEWS: WE WON A PIZZA PARTY!!! May 7^th. Thank you, Issy, for collecting our award.

Tabling for Usdan – We have enough volunteers, can store the stock in the WSA conference, and keep the money in mail boxes. Bring stickers to sell for a dollar.

Mailing is almost ready to go out, we have 5 or 6 more promos but we need more.
Every board member should make one. Contest for best promo. Issy will send out email. Remind people to talk about it on air. Communicate more with staff.

Some issues with email listserver.

Manic Productions – Pick 5 shows for ticket giveaways.

Advocate party! – Music Directors have cars! Meet up at 6 at the station, to be back at least by 9.

Commencement and Reunion Open House plan – Virgil will make sure we are on the event schedule, Ben will find the contact. Avery will talk to Rob about Red & Black catering.

Scan all the posters/letters of intent for Election Projection! Someone should moderate it – Avery. She will bring the quacker. Virgil will make a ballot. Katherine will send out an email about the scanning, say that they can send their poster directly, mention that tech director is open, and that everyone will have to make a minute speech. If you are running for multiple positions, multiple speeches.

Awards for people who have done exemplary service for the station, and for 5 year anniversaries. Avery will contact Sam to ask where the information from last year is.

Still need to move the records to the Goodwill.  Katherine will email the people who need service hours seeing if any of them can drive the van/help load and figure out a day to do that. Fun opportunity to go to Goodwill!

Jesse and Avery will be at COL dinner next week. Cap’n Cohen will take the helm.

Cardinal Printing traded us underwriting to print our letter, and they folded it and put in envelopes!

Grateful Dead talk – the poster is “groovy”.  April 30^th. Mickey will make the promo tomorrow. Interview with John is all set up. Mad props to Mickey!!
Megapolis was super cool, highly recommended, future WESU kids should volunteer to get in for free. You get to meet cool people.

Advocate Ad – It looks great, Virgil is a champ.

Boldy James/Gifted Higgz – Dan DJ’d for the opener, excellent job. Many enthusiastic fans, much stage presence. Best sausage fest. Peak attendance of maybe 80? Mickey had a strange interaction with PSafe about checking IDs. Seemed like they weren’t made aware that the event was open to the public. Mickey will follow up on why this was.
Should get a blurb about it for the site, there was a dude filming, so maybe we can get some footage from him.

Congrats on the Concert Series!!! In the future, Mickey recommends one concert a semester, so that we can really focus on promoting and working on it. Does limit ability to cater to diverse tastes, so the board would have to make sure to be aware of representing this diversity either within one varied line up or over time.

Psychedelic Grateful Dead lecture – Speaker is now in touch with Uncle John, Mickey is working on getting a phone call to make a promo. They will be making their own poster, we might need to make a black and white flyer. They are mostly working through CFA so it’s unclear how much publicity they need us to do.

Featured DJ from the music director’s blog should go onto the main page.

Record Fair follow up – All music from the fair is still at the top of the stairs because we need to get rid of it. Organizing party to put it in a van and take it to Goodwill.

Student Leadership Award – Izzy is going anyways, so she will represent us.
Live Radio Show meeting – next Tuesday at 4. Piers is in! Adam W will do a wesleying post.

Pledge drive – We should tell everyone when the packets come up. They will include a letter, a program guide, and a thing you can mail off for a tshirt, plus an addressed envelope. Need to get everyone to play the promos.
Look into sending out bulk mailing using Wesleyan’s status as a non-profit.

Tabling for shirts in Usdan – new for $15, old for $10. Avery will talk to Frank at SALD. Once we get the table we can organize staffing.

Can we get some publicity in the Argus? They apparently want an actual story, so let’s use the Advocate award, and also our new style pledge drive. We can also share this with local news outlets.

Issues with previewing posts on the website, Dan will look into it.

New campus engagement news letter for students, could be a good PR opportunity for us, recruitment tool, etc. Email Ben or Cathy with content.

So much interest in the board! Katherine will send out an email discouraging people from running for two many positions. We need to clear some space for letters of intent. Or people could put them on the studio bulletin board.

ICE CREAM PARTY – Ben will talk to the ICE CREAM MAN. Make a promo saying ‘PLEASE GIVE US MONEY FOR ICE CREAM’, maybe work out underwriting with him.

The Boy Scouts cancelled on us!

WesFest – Direct interested pre-frosh to look around the station, ask DJs with prefrosh to bring their pre-frosh. Could put a sign on the door saying “Welcome Prefrosh” etc.

Commencement Open House- Figure out who to contact to make sure we are in the book, since this has been an issue in the past. Avery will ask Red & Black about sandwiches and coffee.

Nicholas Msall from Aural Wes wants to see if we can put a stream on Aural Wes. Dan will email Nick about working this out.

SHOFCO is doing an audiobook recording project. We could offer our studio for recording.  Could get a little crazy with scheduling, but we could give them a mobile recording facility.

DJ Quandry, aka Eriq Robinson, is a sophomore at Wesleyan University. We’ve decided to profile him somewhat arbitrarily, but also because he’s a rad dude. This is our first of what we hope will be a monthly feature, “On the Spot,” where we spring on unsuspecting WESU DJs and interview them.

I caught up with DJ Quandry at our a cappella rehearsal.
WESU: Surprise! You’ve just been put ON THE SPOT. So, what’s your show called?

DJ Quandry: Okay. My show’s called “Shelf Life.”

W: What’s the format?

Q: It’s an electronic music show. I find random albums off the shelf and play ‘em. [See his Spinitron playlist for this month here.]

W: Groovy. When is your show?

Q: Every second and fourth Wednesday, 11pm – 12:30am.

W: When did you join WESU?

Q: I joined freshman year – first semester I went through training, second semester I had my first show: “Flight 881 with Captain Q.” It was a world music show, where I went to a different country every week. You know: “Flight 881. Buckle up!”

Then I moved to “Shelf Life,” and that’s probably going to be the format I stick with for the rest of my time at WESU.

W: What music have you recently come across doing “Shelf Life?”

Q: Peace Orchestra, which is pretty trippy. One of my friends told me about Four Tet – and KH, who is also Four Tet – and a track called something like “Play that song that you always play… that I like…” – or something – it’s really cool.

W: Do you get calls on your show?

Q: This one time, I was playing Purity Ring, and this dude called in, and he just kept going on and on about how he loves the show, and how he loves WESU – he wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise – and he was so into Purity Ring, and he said, “That was so deep, and I was so into it, and I’m just at the gas station getting some s***, and that song was so deep, and I love you guys.” And I said “thanks,” and then he said, “Alright, I gotta go.” I was like, “Whoa.”W: Were you involved with radio before WESU?

Q: No, but… I’ve always listened to a bunch of podcasts: This American Life, Radiolab, The Joe Rogan Experience, The Duncan Trussell Family Hour, most of the Death Squad podcasts. And that vamped up story one…like Prairie Home Companion. The Truth! That’s what I’m thinking of. They’ll be at that conference you’re going to.

W: Megapolis?

Q: Yeah.

W: I’m not going to that. They gave us like one ticket.

Q: Cool.

W: Have you ever had to hit the dump button?

Q: No, because I have control over what I say. And I don’t see why people use it – or why people don’t use it.

W: Good answer. So what’s your favorite part about being a DJ?

Q: The way my show’s set up, I’m constantly listening to new music that I haven’t heard before. So it would be this new method of music discovery – especially because it’s bringing things that aren’t to anyone’s attention.

W: We get some weird music sent to us, don’t we?

Q: Yeah. This one time I put on a record – ‘cause I was feeling cool. So I was like, “yo, let me put on this thing from the experimental section,” ‘cause I thought it was going to be a weirder version of electronic. But it’s not; it’s totally its own beast. So this record featured a bunch of girls, one of whom was saying repeatedly, “No. Not again. No…” and it went on for fourteen minutes, and saying some really messed up stuff – it was possibly the same girl doing different voices – and seven minutes in I stopped it, because I was getting freaked out, and I didn’t want to freak my listeners out.

I’ve played some really bad songs, but that’s part of the process. And I enjoy it.

W: And you get to discover some good stuff, too. Right? Like Purity Ring; I assume you discovered them?

Q: Yes, I dubbed them “Purity Ring” … in a weird English ceremony. No, usually on Shelf Life I do feature one artist. So if things suddenly start going down the tube… like, last show I said, “I don’t know what to do anymore…BJÖRK.”

W: Have you ever hosted anyone on your show?

Q: Only interns. I love interns – fun to talk to, shoot the breeze with. I’m usually in there solo dolo, but otherwise it’s fun to have a second body. But I don’t normally want to relinquish any of my control.

W: So you wouldn’t want to co-host a show?

Q: Oh, dear God, no. It has to be all mine.

W: What would be your ideal time slot?

Q: The one I have right now is a real catch. If I could, I would have it from 11pm to 1am.

W: Why’s that?

Q: Well, when my show was an hour, it didn’t feel too quick, but when it’s an hour and a half, then around song 10 is when I really start getting into the rhythm of exploring everything. So it would give me more time to know where I’m going.

I don’t want to lose minutes. “Oh, I wish I hadn’t played this horrorporn from the experimental shelf.” That was a bummer.

W:  Thanks for this! Quick, nearly last question: What do you like best about WESU?

Q: The fact that it is freeform radio. I didn’t even know that was a thing, and now that I know that’s a thing, I notice when other stations are not the thing. Also, I love the fact that we play uncensored music after 10pm. Most other stations are kind of boring…they’re not taking any risks. And my thing is…not taking risks, exactly, but…

W: Kind of a risk, no?

Q: But it’s not like I risk losing tons of listeners.

W: Yeah, but you could lose our license if you keep playing horrorporn.

Q: I don’t think I’m going to dig into the experimental section anymore.

W: Any last words?

Q: Dude. WESU. All that’s left.