WKNC Goes to Washington, DC In Search of the Future!

Sunday, October 4th kicks off the first day of the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit in Washington, DC and WKNC will be there.  Mike Perros, better known as Mikey P,  and myself, Kelly Reid, known on air as Mz. Kelly, will be attending the Policy Summit, in search of the future.

Pun aside, there is relevance---the music industry has been going through a serious transformation as technology changes the way music is heard, enjoyed, received, bought, and participated in.  Right now there is a big gap between the fast paced advancement of technology and the transformation of the laws that direct the way the technology is used with respect to music and its listeners.  Technology advances with lightning speed but the law, and how it is interpreted in the courts, moves with a much, much slower pace.  There lies the need for The Future of Music Coalition, an organization that participates in the intersection of music and law, serving to inform and through information, provide a bridge to the gap of music and law.

Why does any of this matter?  Well because it affects music in so many ways:  the way musicians are represented, the way they are payed for their music, the way radio stations like WKNC operate, how music is heard in restaurants or at live shows, it even affects the ability to get a full list of search results when one uses Google.

For ones like Mikey P and myself, deeply in love with music and not quite sure of the future of the music industry, the 2009 Policy Summit is an opportunity to hear many important and experienced individuals give their take on what's happening now and what the forecast for the future is.

Featured speakers include Democratic Senator of Minnesota, Al Franken, and FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski. And of course, the Triangle is strongly represented featuring Jed Carlson, COO of ReverbNation, Mac McCaughan, co-founder of Merge Records and musician in Portastatic and Superchunk, as well as Fiona Morgan, journalist for the Independent.

To follow the trek to, through, and back from the Policy Summit you can follow Kellyisthere on Twitter.

EOT05 Health Care 9/21/09

Since President Barack Obama's election into office, health care reform has been a topic of heated debate among Democrats and Republicans. So this week's Eye on the Triangle focused on this issue in several of our segments, giving both the Democratic and Republican perspective, as well as opinions from around the University and opinions from locals. If you missed the show, you can listen to the clips below, and you can also get more information on our interviewees and topics here. And if you are tired of hearing about the health care debate (though our segments are unique and a must-hear!), be sure to at least check out our Wolfpacker of the Week segment.

VIP:
Thanks to some of our friends' connections in the political scene, Eye on the Triangle's Adam Compton and Saja Hindi spoke to U.S. Congressman David Price (D), serving N.C. district 4, and the spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party Jordan Shaw by phone about each of the party's stances on the proposed health care reforms.

N.C. GOP Chairman Tom Fetzer was scheduled to do an interview but canceled at the last minute due to a pending knee surgery.

You can watch a N.C. GOP video here on criticisms of the proposed reforms. You can also read a response from the N.C. Democratic Party on the president's health insurance reform speech here.

Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs Steven Greene also gave his Eye on the Triangle his own analysis of the health care debate, a topic he has been discussing in his classes this semester.

We also replayed Soundbytes from Sept. 7's EOT about students' opinions on health care reform.


COMMUNITY CANVAS
EOT's Kelly Reid talked to local musician and licensed insurance holder Alex Maiolo about his role in leading HINT, Health Insurance Navigational Tool, which is part of the Future of Music Coalition, where according to Maiolo, "policy and law and music all sort of intersect -- that's where we are. Things that happen on Capitol Hill that affect musicians, that's what we're interested in." Maiolo said his focus is on the health care crisis in the musicians' community.

HEAR THIS
This segment was not free of a health care reform spin either. EOT's Jacob Downey interviewed Mike McDonald, organizer of the Tom Cushman benefit concert scheduled for Sept. 27, from 3 p.m. to about 2 a.m. at White Collar Crime . Cushman, a local musician and veteran of the first Gulf War, was hospitalized for pneumonia a few months ago,  two weeks later hospitalized again due to lung failure and was admitted once again to the hospital last week. Eleven bands will be playing at the benefit concert to raise money for Cushman, who doesn't have health insurance, to pay his bills. Read the Indy's article for more.

The song clips played in between segments of the show all came from songs from bands playing at the concert.

WOLFPACKER OF THE WEEK

Wolfpacker of the Week, 2005 alumnus in English Language, Writing and Rhetoric Ben McNeely talked to us by phone about his new project, Modern Film Fest taking place Sept. 25 to 27. You can follow @modernfilmfest on Twitter for more information. Attached are some photos of the venue (courtesy Creative Commons, Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic) as well as the co-directors.[gallery columns="2"]

Check back for updates about next week's show. Send your ideas, comments, questions, suggestions and complaints to publicaffairs@wknc.org.

http://interviews.wknc.org/eot/EOT05_092109.mp3