Publishers Weekly
09/18/2023
Jewell (Dollars for Dixie), an associate professor of history at Fitchburg State University, chronicles the rise, fall, and legacy of college radio in this sprawling and richly detailed account. Describing how college radio stations navigated America’s changing cultural landscape in the second half of the 20th century, Jewell explains that while college radio’s noncommercial status “offered useful cover for DJs seeking the weird, the unheard, or underappreciated,” other proponents of the format, including some station managers, “wanted to cultivate a professional sound that emulated commercial rock radio, except with a few new cuts thrown in for the youngsters.” These contrasting views shaped a patchwork network of stations that engaged with such issues as feminism, antinuclear politics, and civil rights, often in left-leaning ways (for example, broadcasting public service announcements for abortion clinics or playing “anti-Reagan hardcore punk” music). While financial pressures and the internet hastened college radio’s decline in the new millennium, Jewell attributes “the real fracture” to a culture of higher education that promoted less artistic exploration, and a shift toward mainstream radio trends. Jewell offers both an animated homage to college radio as a microcosm of American culture and reassurance for readers that the medium isn’t dead. It’s a fascinating deep dive. (Dec.)
From the Publisher
Jewell . . . chronicles the rise, fall, and legacy of college radio in this sprawling and richly detailed account. . . . [Live from the Underground] offers both an animated homage to college radio as a microcosm of American culture and reassurance for readers that the medium isn't dead. It's a fascinating deep dive."—Publishers Weekly
A meticulously researched book."—Boston Globe
The large and small stories told [are] valuable . . . Jewell follows the interesting tension in the college radio idea of musical, social, and political communities. Without commercial pressure, they could stand outside dominant commercial culture."—Brooklyn Rail
Offers a deeply researched, insightful account of college radio from its beginnings up to the present day. . . . Live from the Underground will be influential on future histories of radio and broadcasting. Jewell expertly shows how to source rich narratives about ephemeral media."—American Journalism
Deeply researched . . . Jewell tells some wonderfully obscure tales. . . A pleasure for fans of alt-rock and its dissemination in the face of corporate and academic resistance."—Kirkus Reviews
An interesting and insightful look at how this nationwide phenomenon has sculpted American culture. . . . Live from the Underground teaches us the importance of listening to college broadcasters while supporting their experimental stations as sites of free speech and free expression critical to our Democracy."—Midwest Book Review
From breaking explosive news stories and discovering the next exciting underground music scene to challenging the status quo by allowing ALL voices to be heard, college radio continues to be a vibrant cultural force. Katherine Jewell provides an entertaining, authoritative, and in-depth look at this unique medium and all it has to offer."—Jim Bolt, Founder, KSSU Student-Run Radio, Sacramento State
Jewell (history, Fitchburg State Univ.) deftly chronicles college radio's story . . . Although music is central here, this monograph shines by illuminating the intricacies of stations' various allegiances to governing bodies (parent institutions, funders, the FCC), their audiences (campus, the broader community), and their staff (fomenting creativity, professional skills, or both), while revealing the profound connections between DJs, artists, industry, politics, and culture."—CHOICE
Kirkus Reviews
2023-10-21
A history of America’s left-of-the-dial college radio stations.
If you know the Replacements’ paean, you’ll know that college radio gave many alternative acts their start. History professor Jewell, a veteran DJ with a penchant for the “indie-rock scene” of her college years, notes that by the 1980s, the network of college-affiliated, mostly student-run radio stations numbered about 1,200. Soon after, as an entity, it “had earned a national identity that evoked generational dissatisfaction with pop culture even as it remained deeply conversant with it.” Some college administrators didn’t quite know what to do with the broadcasters and their “none of the hits, all the time” ethos, while others smelled money in the much-coveted FM bands that the stations controlled. (So it is, Jewell observes, that most college stations now stream over the internet, their FM airwaves having been sold off long ago.) The author, who considers 1978 to be the ground-zero year when “college radio” emerged as a genre, tells some wonderfully obscure tales—such as UCLA’s attempt to buy then-faltering KROQ, which turned around and presented playlists that were heavily influenced by what was happening on college radio, thus becoming a station without pedigree until emerging as “a launchpad to commercial success for underground artists in the 1980s.” Another anecdote from Jewell’s deeply researched files concerns Sean Hannity, who was noxious even back when he was a student DJ on UC Santa Barbara’s station—and who, fired for his calumnies, recruited the ACLU to defend him, an affiliation he probably wouldn’t want to admit today. College radio continues to be “a site of struggle over the sound of America,” Jewell writes, even if it may be a shadow of its golden-age self.
A pleasure for fans of alt-rock and its dissemination in the face of corporate and academic resistance.
