I leave and heave a sigh and say good bye - goodbyyyyyyeeeee!

As I look forward to the long Labour Day weekend coming up, I am also lamenting the loss of summer; my time here as Aboriginal Music Archive Coordinator for OIMA has been an incredible experience. I have discovered new music and artists which I never would have come across if I wasn’t offered this position. It has given me a greater appreciation of the immense challenges artists face in gaining exposure and trying to make a living off of their work. This position has also helped me understand just how important campus/community radio and projects like OIMA are in promoting independent artists and helping them gain exposure. One of my favourite parts of this job was going on OIMA and discovering amazing albums (some of my favourites: Jordan Mason and the Horse Museum, Morgan Cameron Ross, Andy Mason, and anything by The Thin Line).

I’ve always been a “try and listen to the whole album” kind of guy. A general rule of thumb: you need to listen to an album at least 3 times before judge it. With OIMA, I am able to download full albums from a variety of independent artists and become immersed in the music. I love cohesive albums; ones that leave you with a sense of contentment afterwards. While there are a ton of “mainstream” albums that I love and adore, the cohesiveness of the albums have often been offset by a single that I have heard a million-plus times. I love Van Morrison’s Moondance – but if I hear one more bar-band do a mediocre cover of Brown Eyed Girl, I’m going to scream. It’s the same reason why Exile on Main Street is one of my favourite Rolling Stones albums; there are no instantly recognizable singles on it (although Mick Jagger has noted it’s one of his least favourite for that very reason). There are almost always parts of an album that are weaker or stronger than other parts, but that’s why I love it. So many singles are perfect from beginning to end, but you can’t listen to a single on repeat without slowly going mad. Albums have lows and highs that need to be experienced!

This brings me back to the c/c radio stations. These stations never play the same singles every 30 minutes; they realize there is too much music to play, and to repeat tracks constantly would be a waste of time. This has been the summer of Get Lucky and Blurred Lines (both incredibly catchy, but also incredibly overplayed). I absolutely love Daft Punk's newest album, but I have to press next whenever Get Lucky comes on because I’ve simply heard it too many times! Campus and community radio stations never present me with this dilemma. For example, listening to one show last week, they chose to play a new Daft Punk track – here’s the twist though – it wasn’t Get Lucky! (Ahhh who am I kidding...I still love listening to Get Lucky).

 I have always enjoyed campus and public radio stations throughout my life – I love the thrill of discovering a new artist on the radio and rushing to the local CD store to see if they have anything in stock. And while I have listened to c/c stations for years and have had a vague idea of what they’re all about, it’s not till after my experience of working for the National Campus and Community Radio Association that I have come to more fully understand the dedication and commitment people working in this industry have. It’s a community like no other. Because of this, I will most certainly become more involved with campus and community radio in the future.

Oh, and check THIS out.