Greg Wood: The State of Rock: WUTK
WUTK, if you can’t deduce by the name, is run on the campus of the University of Tennessee by Benny Smith and a staff that is 95% college students. The station plays your typical college radio selections (Modest Mouse, The Shins, Arcade Fire, among others) on regular rotation, which other stations in town lack.
However, 90.3 is known as “local music’s best friend", playing up to 30 songs per day by local acts—something distinctly unique to their station.
“Not only do we play more local music than anybody in town,” Benny Smith said, “we’re very liberal about it, genre-wise.” Specifically, Smith mentioned new releases coming up from Americana singer/songwriter Brendon James Wright, indie-rockers Westside Daredevils and Angel and the Love Mongers. “We feel it’s important that get that exposure,” Smith added.
As well as frequently playing local music, WUTK has a vault of exclusive tracks. The station invites local acts to play a live set in the studio, which is aired on Wednesday nights from 5:15 until 5:45. Some gems from these performances include a version of Scott Miller’s “Lulu Waltz” with just him and an acoustic guitar, and a track by Robinella that she’s never performed live anywhere else, just to name a few. These tracks make it into regular rotation, as well as older live tracks from bands like the Judybats.
“The really fun thing is going back and playing old Judybats songs,” Smith said. He said it reminds everyone that the “really strong music scene didn’t happen overnight here.”
WUTK doesn’t just help out local bands by airing their music. They go so far as to help bands with Electronic Press Kits and other self-promotion, fully earning their title as local music’s best friend. Smith mentioned that just a few days prior he had helped out Brendon James Wright.
Overall, WUTK is encouraging college students specifically to form a band, or at least get out and play music. As Smith says, the station is very liberal about what they play. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll play just anything. “The litmus test for bands is do they play out,” Smith said. Although recording is great, in order to be an active member of the local music scene, live performance is imperative.
The station hosts an annual battle of the bands as well as numerous other promotional gigs. Soon, they’ll be having a Bonnaroo promotional. When you hear the sound clip of Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars yelling “Bonnaroo!, call into the station and the 7th caller is entered into a drawing. The week before the show there is a reverse drawing (when your name is pulled, you are eliminated, narrowing the crowd slowly) and the winner gets two tickets as well as a camping package and a Bonnaroo Survival Kit.
But despite being local-music oriented, WUTK is broken up into a number of specialty shows, which really separates it from other stations. These shows are usually run by upperclassman who have stuck with the radio program for a few years. The shows are done by genre and occur on a regular schedule, available on their website.
“What this allows is people who really like a certain genre of music to really listen to nothing but that,” Smith said.
The station started a new segment where they play cheesy ‘80s songs up against more alternative, musically relevant ‘80s songs—a fascinating concept.
Much of the staff is provided by UT students who are required to do an internship for the Journalism and Electronic Media course. Each student has a two-hour shift where they get hands-on experience in running the station. Smith also added that this gets students into music they wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to, which is part of the college experience.
But despite being located at UT, and being staffed mostly by students, WUTK receives no funding from the University since October of 2006. The university funded the program for 24 years, but dropped them months ago. The bulk of their funding now comes from private donations which are made through their website.
“We’ve got to depend on that now,” Smith said. “Otherwise, it will go away. That will kill the local music scene on a couple of fronts.” Smith stresses that college radio is a large part of the college experience.
“We’re listener supported or we’re not run,” Smith said.