How has GPB’s takeover of WRAS’ daytime programming affected you?

On the morning of June 29, I woke up in a hotel room in Chattanooga, Tenn., after spending a few days hiking around Signal Mountain. My laptop was open to Facebook, and from across the room I could see it happening: GPB’s egregious takeover of 88.5 FM/WRAS had happened. Each new post that appeared on my screen came with a mixture of sadness and anger. I closed the lid out of denial. I have spent the past week retraining my reflexes: Do not tune in to 88.5 FM until 7 p.m., when the occupying force of GPB has signed off.

GPB’s takeover has ruined my morning drive. The CD player in my car hasn’t worked for a few years, so the radio has been locked on 88.5 FM. The student voice of Geroge State has been a tastemaker for more than 40 years, and listening to the music on 88.5 FM always instilled in me a sense of being dialed in to a larger world of modern independent music. Like many others, I found myself pulling out my phone to Shazaam what I was hearing multiple times every morning. More than simple entertainment, it was and still is a vital and progressive voice for the city, and one of Atlanta’s true cultural assets. Now it’s been replaced during most of the daylight hours, largely by the same NPR programming that we already get via WABE. Time to buy a new CD player for the car.

Over the past week, I’ve asked a handful of musicians, promoters, and other people involved with the local music scene how they have been affected by GPB’s takeover of WRAS’ daytime programming. For this list, 13 local music fixtures weigh in with their feelings on the current statues of 88.5 FM/WRAS.

Blake Rainey, Blake Rainey and His Demons: “As a musician, it limits the chances of my or any local band’s music ever being heard on terrestrial airwaves. But as a listener like everyone else, I’m missing both those moments of discovery where you hear something you would have never searched out on your own and the great genre programming you can’t hear anywhere else. And what do we gain? I’ve attached a video of what we get in return.” (See above).

Agent 45, Georgia Soul Recordings: “In what feels like a past life now, I worked at a college radio station (WUSC-FM, Columbia) which for me was tantamount to joining a fraternity. That experience was life-altering in the best possible way, and is undoutbedly the reason music, and records specifically, are still such a part of my life today. My work researching soul music, and as a DJ, has allowed me to be a proud guest on programs both on GPB and Album 88 in the past. However, the secret back room dealings that led to this inauspicious relationship between GPB and GSU has more than left a sour taste in my mouth. The college radio experiences I and so many others had are likely be totally lost on future GSU students, while GPB’s programming hasn’t shown any marked improvement over WABE (their lack of Lois Reitzes notwithstanding). Were I in a position to give any advice to high school students who may have an interest in media, broadcasting or radio, I would not hesitate to suggest they strongly consider educational options away from GSU. The sad truth, however, is that 10 years from now, Mark Becker will have moved onto another job without an ounce of care about what he has done to WRAS.”

Chilly-O: “When I first moved to Atlanta from the affluent city of Stamford, CT in 1994 there were two sources I had for hip-hop and cutting edge music and that was Tower Records and 88.5. Been a fan ever since because of that same progressive thinking the kids spin today. What the hell am I supposed to do now, I have a CD player in the car and a cassette player in the truck. 88.5 became the barometer for cool.”

Dillon Maurer, rapper and lobster enthusiast: “I don’t usually drive and Shazam, but when I do it’s because WRAS 88.5 is putting me on to YET ANOTHER jam that I wouldn’t have heard ANYwhere else. They’ve hipped me to countless joints of all genres and they have kept the home team in rotation. Coming from a place where college radio doesn’t even remotley exist, I was amazed at the diversity of music and on-air personalities. Now I’m even more amazed and saddened that it’s gone. Damn.”

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Dr. Dax @snortthis: “For my generation of the ’80s and ’90s, WRAS was a good way to open your mind. I Iearned about a world of music, listening to all of the obscure music being played on 88.5, as well as playing my rare vinyl finds there at one time. It’s sad that the kids of Atlanta’s seemingly uncertain future won’t have the same priviledge. I hope it doesn’t change the quality of music being made locally.”

DJ Jelly: “It crushes me to see that type of entity being taken away from college students. It’s a robbery of expression and early field experience, and it was one of my humble beginnings in radio before I did V103. I was reared through that womb.”

Casey Yarbrough, Order of the Owl: “Mondays have been my Sundays for 10 years. I get up, turn on NPR, drink coffee, feed my animals, and relax. After, I run my fun errands, and listen to 88.5. I have loved this station for a long time. Hearing GPB now instead of WRAS infuriates me to absolutely no end.”

Eric Levin, Criminal Records/Aurora Coffee: “Throughout this tragedy, I was incredibly impressed with WRAS program director Anastasia Zimitravich’s grace under extreme pressure. She kept her unflappable cool and led her team through a very difficult and public fight. At Criminal Records, we’ll miss the daily conversation where a customer asks, ‘I heard this song on Album 88...,’ and we would refer them to Ana, over on the cash register. Hopefully, she’ll be with us for years to come.”

Speakerfoxxx: “I learned about GPB taking over WRAS’ daytime programming the same week I learned that East Village Radio was closing it’s doors for good, and my show Ballerseve would no longer have a home. Honestly this news was more than disappointing to me being both an Atlanta native and a musician living in ATL, having grown up listening to 88.5 shows for punk music and tuning into Hush Hush. The lack of diversity in broadcasted music is a growing problem and a blind spot in out culture. In order for the arts to continue to flourish we must support independent radio, DIY art shows, have a space for independent musicians to be heard etc. If we don’t make independent radio important, what we end up with and are headed for is homogenous corporate radio that is driven by marketing dollars. That’s not the music culture I want for our future.”

David Courtright, Suno Deko: “College radio is massively important for a musician’s or any music lover’s development and evolution, and is key to the understanding of the diversity of expression and genre in music. I have found so much music through WRAS and other college radio stations, which as it infiltrates the psyche, changes the understanding of human expression and musical possibility. Not to mention the vast importance of championing small bands and labels, and validating young bands’ existence by having their voices heard on a large platform.”

Brannon Boyle of Speakeasy Promotions/Psych Army Intergalactic Records: “There are fewer opportunities to get local bands heard, and fewer opportunities to give away concert tickets to show. The Difference Machine was charting on CMJ because of their plays on WRAS. Will CMJ still chart them if they’re only played on the online stream?”

Luciano Giarrano, the Cottage: “Ever since the announcement that GPB would be taking over the 88.5 airwaves the subject has taken over my life. Everyone that comes to the studio, everyone that I run into wants to discuss it in perpetuity. How Album 88 played such a strong and rich role in their development as individuals. There are such feelings of betrayal, anger and sadness. When I talk to people its palpable.

88.5 was the single most important outlet and delivery system Georgia had for local, national and international musicians. It reminds me of coal and steel towns at the end of the industrial revolution, take away the industry and you kill the town. Take away an iconic and functional symbol of a culture and you’re going to affect that culture and send a shockwave through the community.

The lack of vision in understanding that everything in a community is connected to is astounding to me. Just on a practical basis, arts and culture affect real estate and development, which in turn affects jobs which affects crime and our political system, and so on. Not to mention the effect of diluting one of the strongest and longest brands Atlanta has had to offer. I hope those in charge of this astigmatic and bumbling decision realize they are writing their legacy right now.

I think right now is the single worst time to dissolve an institution like WRAS. The last few years has seen such a positive development in community comprehension that Atlanta is poised to become a renaissance city in a very short time and to sweep the legs out from under us, if we let it, could have a debilitating effect on our progress. I hope we can continue to protest such an awful mistake, and despite the outcome, rally to our potential as a city.

On a personal note WRAS has been a constant in my life, and not being able to turn on the radio and tune in to 88.5 I really do feel a loss, nostalgically and practically. I remember first finding out about Album 88 as a teenager. Finding out about Daniel Johnston and the Replacements and the Rock *a* Teens. I remember calling in every time there were ticket give aways. I remember the first time a band I was in got played on 88.5 and being so proud ... Of listening to it all day every day when I attended GSU, of it being a reason I decided to attend GSU ... the first time something I produced wound its way on the air. And now every lunch we take in the studio we turn on 88.5 in the car. Its really is disorientating to turn to the station and not being able to hear what I have come to expect for the last 20 years of my life. Despite the sadness and bewilderment, it has been encouraging to see such numbers and diversity rally to the defense of WRAS. It gives me a feeling of connection that we can sometimes forget and it bolsters me to continue fighting for such an important part of our identity.”

Jeremi Johnson, the 10th Letter: “GPB’s takeover of WRAS is taking the prime hours of radio play that have helped me reach the people of Atlanta as well as make it onto CMJ’s charts. This Takeover is taking away my, and countless other starving Atlanta artists’, outlet to reach our community.”