On his 10th studio album, Temple Beautiful (Yep Roc), Chuck Prophet found his muse in the city he’s called home for 30 years. Exploring the local landmarks and myths with friend and poet klipschutz, Prophet winds his way through San Francisco, stretching tales even taller along the way. But this guided tour isn’t a detailed and prefabricated concept album, so much as it’s the product of spontaneous inspiration, and it’s not a document of the city’s past as much as it is of its present. Prophet will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new Q&A with him.
Prophet: For us San Francisco people, it seems like KUSF has just always been here. There was a time when I would walk down Haight Street and hear it spilling out of every store.
It was one of those. The greatest kind of non-commercial stations. It was a beacon. It brought people together.
A lot of us took KUSF for granted. Until one day it was gone.
Sure, there were a bunch of alt-dot bands that broke on KUSF, but KUSF was more than that. It was more than Lollapalooza, more than Burning Man. It was 12 languages of diversity. It was San Francisco. Recently it was sold to one of those companies that buys bandwidth and bundles them up. One of those companies that knows how to make money by moving money around. I don’t pretend to know how that stuff works.
But dig this: It turns out that USF (University of San Francisco) may not have been in the right to sell the station off in the first place. And letting that deal go down without a fight means your local station could be next. It’s a serious precedent. So, some of us are fighting back. And fighting back requires money. A lot of people have volunteered their time and efforts. But they need all the money and awareness fit to print.
Don’t take my word for it. Read about the KUSF sale in the NY Times.
Video after the jump.
2 replies on “From The Desk Of Chuck Prophet: KUSF”
A great local radio station is a treasure. Here in Fresno we lost ours back in the 80’s and… well you saw what happened.
If any town can fight for their right to great local radio it’s San Francisco. I wish you well comrades
Once again, Chuck Prophet speaks of the hard times to come should we not take action as a community, as a people. College radio is under attack by a company called Public Radio Capital who is moving around the country – from Houston to San Francisco to Nashville helping local public radio stations with NPR connections by out America’s college frequencies from University Administrators – Rice, University of San Francisco, Vanderbilt, – who are quick to devalue generations of student broadcasting for once quick buck.