WARC returns for another semester of autonomy

By Emily Porter
Our Generation Staff

October 10, 2006 11:06 pm

— Recently we caught up with Allegheny College’s radio station WARC-90.3's station manager. Brandon Lichtinger, 20, claims his station has the ability to “Rock Your Face Off.”

Q: Why did you join WARC?
A: When I looked at colleges, I wanted to make sure that they had a college radio station that was a visible part of the campus. I looked at schools like Kenyon College and Oberlin College, both small liberal arts schools in Ohio that are similar to Allegheny. I couldn’t find the radio station at those schools, but Allegheny’s was right in the Campus Center. I have always liked music, played in bands, stuff like that, and I think that working at a radio station is the natural progression of that interest.
It’s a great way to hear new music and work with people that are also into music. I think that a lot of people are really bored with commercial radio, especially when you have corporations like Clear Channel running radio markets in so many cities, so I think that college radio is as viable a medium now as it was in the early 80’s when bands like REM first became popular.
I think that bands that don’t get exposure in the mainstream still look to college radio as a starting point. I remember that WARC was playing the Killers and Yeah Yeah Yeah’s albums long before I ever heard them on commercial or a music channel. Being a part of an organization that is hip to new things in music before they break out of the underground is really exciting.

Q: What is the state of college music?
A: I think that college music right now is kind of like mainstream music actually. For every band that’s really doing something exciting and interesting, you have 10 or 20 bands that are just riding their coattails. College Rock is a niche, and promoters have figured out how to market to that niche. So it takes some effort to get past what the arbiters of cool tell you to like and really find what you like.
I think that’s the strength of college radio: it’s much easier to wade through stuff you don’t like to find something you are really into. There’s more autonomy.
We don’t have computerized playlists force-feeding you stuff 24 hours a day (although that can happen when no one’s on air). We have real DJs making their own playlists live in the studio, playing the stuff that they want to hear and any requests that they can get (The request line is 332-5275). To get more into it, I don’t think that there are a ton of bands that are doing anything revolutionary, but there are some really talented bands making some really good albums that I think will have longevity.

Porter is a seventh-grader at Meadville Area Middle School.

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