Typical Inheritor Behavior
The Devil Will Find Work For Idle Hands To Do
Mark Rushton’s Abundant Spare Time is a weekly email on Substack where I talk about my ongoing work as a recording artist and visual artist.
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This week’s topics:
The Death of KDPS-FM in Des Moines
The Smiths - “What Difference Does It Make? (Peel Session)”
The Death of KDPS-FM in Des Moines
Off in the distance of this photo is the tower for KDPS-FM, where I got my start in radio in 1983. The station shut down a week ago after 72 years. The wretched local newspaper, which I delivered as a child - and managed to not be snatched off the street corner during my tenure - wrote an absurd article about the end of the station and got a lot of things wrong. The less said about that nonsense, the better.
I have such good memories of working at KDPS-FM in high school. Being on the radio was something I sought out on my own at age 15 and made into a kind-of happening. My mom would drive me down before I had a drivers license. I bought and borrowed records. All the people I brought down to the station, and there were a lot, got to join in. Our excellent night station manager, Dave Gruber Allen, who went on to fame as the school counselor in Freaks & Geeks, and many other things. The other radio shows that got started because of me. The people I met and still know. The records that got played. The songs that saved your life. I wrote about this just a few months back.
It’s too bad the Des Moines Public School system didn’t know how to keep it going. It’s typical “inheritor” behavior. They can’t hire a replacement teacher. Can’t establish formats and programming and upgrade equipment. No community outreach and fundraising. No alumni outreach. Don’t use it as a reason to put Des Moines on the world cultural map in any way.
Why give the kids of today and tomorrow a chance to learn how to be a DJ, learn how to talk on the radio, write and record PSAs, get involved in the community, broaden their musical horizons, manage submissions, and use it as a launch pad to college radio, commercial radio, or some aspect of the music or entertainment industry?
Instead, the inheritors fantasize about selling off the station to the highest bidder. The reality is that they’ll get pennies on the dollar, or it’ll be some kind of money laundering scheme and tax write-off for the buyer. What a waste.
The Smiths - What Difference Does It Make? (Peel Session Version)
I definitely played this song on KDPS in the early 80s. I played all The Smiths’ early singles and the first album. I mostly played songs from the Hatful of Hollow album, which this version is on - a collection of singles and alternative versions. Hatful of Hollow is a bit more peppy than their first album.
It’s a song about a young guy who tells his best friend that he’s gay, and his friend can’t handle it. Can we still be friends? Perfect song for the high school kids. Plus, it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.
I snuck a lot of these types of records under the radar on my high school radio show. “Hand in Glove” and “How Soon is Now?” by The Smiths, “XOYO” by the Passage, “Warm” by Cabaret Voltaire, and many others. Did we all forget the subject matter of “Blue Monday” by New Order. Go back and listen.
At work this week, I heard this song playing on Monday after I dropped off outbound correspondence in the mail room. They play music in the mail room. So I used Shazam and confirmed it was the Peel Session version from Hatful of Hollow.
What difference does it make? Well, it’s nice to hear music I liked 40 years ago in random places. Music I championed when commercial radio wouldn’t or couldn’t.
I’ve read about how the kids of today are being inspired by music from the past - and are rejecting today’s jizzed-out, generic, robotic sugar. “The music you’re told to like” - or they’re tired of reading about the manufactured controversy that the clickbait media endless throws up about recording artists.
I’d like to think future generations will figure it out. Maybe radio will make a comeback? Maybe it’ll only be a niche, underground thing like vinyl. That’s OK. Perhaps that’s where it belongs.