And so it was

Ladies and gentlemen, Battle of the Bands was an enormous success. Congratulations to The Cups, who came away with 1st place, and to The Pulitz Surprises (2nd), Burt Zupanic (3rd), and MiLO (honorable mention). And thanks to all the bands who participated. Year after year, the quality of the bands get better and better, and that's really what this is all about: encouraging students to come together and make music.

Check out pictures from the competition below. Thanks to all who came, and get ready for another great battle next year!

Battle of the Bands 2007

BATTLE TIME

Battle of the Bands is upon us. Friday (tomorrow), 10:30pm, Union Atrium.

Free wings. Good music.

Be there, and bring your friends.

Live WALT Thursday!

Please Join WALT and the Union Board for:

WALT Thursday

The first EVER collaboration between WALT and Live Thursdays!!

This Thursday, March 29 @ 10PM in the 900 Room

Featuring: Andrew Whiteman, Kate Minogue and David Dennis

Podcasts are down

Dear online WALT listeners,

Unfortunately, we're having some technical issues with the computer that handles our podcasting. As of the past week or two, no podcasts are able to be recorded. We are working hard to fix this, and we'll try to start pushing your favorite shows back to the web as soon as we're able to record them again.

Thanks for understanding!

Jrod

Battle of the Bands 2007

In 2004, WALT hosted its first Battle of the Bands. Every spring since, the Davidson College campus has been treated to one of the most successful student-produced events to grace the Union Atrium.

This year we're looking to break every record, and hopefully the Union skylights, as WALT puts on its fourth annual BATTLE OF THE BANDS on APRIL 13, 2007.

Pull those those guitars out of their dusty cases, start toying with tunes on the Union piano, and get some friends together to participate in this year's event.

Applications are available here, and outside of the WALT studio on the fourth floor of the Union.

WALT in the news

Last week, The Davidsonian published a staff editorial about WALT. In response, Wes, Taylor and I submitted a letter to the editor. Unfortunately, we were informed that our letter was too long, so I had to cut it down a little. Hopefully, that version will appear in Wednesday's paper. Below, however, for you loyal WALT blog readers, is the unedited version. We'd love to hear your comments, so leave them below!

To the Editor,

The WALT executive board appreciates the attention that the The Davidsonian brought to the radio station last week with its staff editorial. However, we would like to clarify some of the points the article made, and to correct some others.

First, the editorial stated that only “five percent of the campus population” listens to WALT. This is incorrect; roughly five percent of the campus population produces radio shows as DJs. Indeed, the editorial itself made clear that WALT has had a daily average of about 200 unique online listeners this semester. Last September, 47% of our 1,640 online listeners were on-campus. While technical limitations prevent us from determining exactly how many students listen during a given period, these figures indicate that the number far exceeds five percent.

Second, the editorial’s criticism of WALT’s self-promotional activities shows a general misunderstanding of the station’s philosophy as a student organization. We find that students don’t tune to WALT as they would to a commercially-viable, 24/7 radio station; rather, they listen to specific shows on WALT (which has become even more convenient with the advent of podcasting). Ultimately, WALT is a shell organization for a variety of products, and not a product itself. If we provide the opportunity for DJs to reach their target audience, we consider ourselves successful.

To that effect, we actively promote our website, blog, podcasts, and online stream through Crier ads, mailbox fliers, and Facebook ads. We encourage our DJs to advertise their own shows as they see fit. Some want the whole campus to listen live, while some want only their close friends and family to download their podcasts. The e-board wants to encourage every student who has an interest to become a DJ, and so we leave it to them to determine how much exposure they have on campus.

Four years ago, WALT was a station of roughly 30 DJs with a weak AM-signal and zero campus presence. Today, with over 70 DJs, we continue to broadcast on 1610am but now offer live on-campus streaming and podcasts that are accessible worldwide. Additionally, we financed and produced two successful freestyle rap battles, two benefit CDs of Davidson artists, and we are currently planning our fourth annual Battle of the Bands for later this Spring. While we recognize that we can still improve as a station, perspective is important: we’ve come a long way in just four years.

Again, we want to thank The Davidsonian for drawing attention to WALT with their editorial. We also want to take this opportunity to thank the student body for listening, and encourage them to continue exploring the diverse content that is produced by their peers every week at www.listentowalt.com.

--The WALT Executive Board

Schedule and Podcasts

OK, ladies and gents, the schedule is up and the podcasts are... 'casting. Check it.

Let's get it started

[image provided by (jennY) on flickr through a Creative Commons licence]

Alright folks, it's go time. As of yesterday, the WALT Spring 2007 season has officially commenced. Once again, we have a great line-up. We have new DJs who will be doing their first shows this week. We also have some veterans, myself included, who will be doing their last "first" show. We are still adding some shows on, so I'll wait to report on numbers of shows and DJs for a week or so.

The schedule - along with the streaming and podcasts - should be available within a couple of days. Hold tight until then.

If you are interested in writing for this blog, please shoot me an email (jrtaylor --a-t-- davidson --d-o-t-- edu). We'd like to have music reviews, concert reviews, news from the music industry, etc.

A New Year for WALT... and its blog

Happy New Year to WALT DJs, our listeners, and members of the entire Davidson community. I hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of 2007. There has been a lot of sadness with the departure of people we knew and people we admired: Gerald Ford, James Brown, and most recently and most sadly, Jay Chitty, a senior at Davidson College who died in a plane crash in Charlotte. Hopefully the year will only improve after these unfortunate losses to our communities and to our country.

On that note, I wanted to go ahead and announce on behalf of the WALT Eboard that Wes Cobb '07 is our new Station Manager. Under his semester of leadership, we will press forward with our fourth annual Battle of the Band, continue to improve and expand programming, and boost our listenership and community involvement. Taylor Ansley, who will be going into emeritus mode as he finishes his honors thesis in Political Science, has served the station well and we are all thankful for his dedication to WALT, its DJs, and its listeners.

Having stepped down as Program Director, I will be looking after the blog during my final semester at Davidson. With the help of our technical director Owen Bussey, we have successfully switched to the updated version of Blogger. Over the next week or two, I will be working with the layout of the blog to make it more interactive and hopefully a little more user friendly. Please bear with me while I play around with the new layout and features.

My goal for this space in the spring of 2007 is to turn it into a place where like-minded music-lovers can gather to share stories, links, videos, music, comments, and viewpoints. We had a great start in the fall, from off-the-wall clips on YouTube to album reviews to concert schedules. I think the next step is to get more people involved in sharing these and other ideas with us.

So, on that note, drop me an email [jrtaylor (at) davidson (dot) edu] if you care to become a contributor to the WALT blog. In the meantime, enjoy the first few weeks of 2007, and we'll see you soon when WALT gets back on the air later this month!

State of the WALT

WALT has gotten off to a tremendous and record-breaking start this season. As of the end of last week, we have 74 student DJs hosting 46 shows. Simply put, this is the greatest student participation we've seen in the life of WALT since its humble start almost a decade ago. There is a great mix of content: music, talk, and everything in between. I am also pleased to announce that almost every single show from this semester will be available on the web as podcasts. That's right! Head over to WALT's home on the web and subscribe to your favorite shows!

Taylor, Owen, and I were recently interviewed by The Davidsonian about the history of the station, its recent successes, and its future plans. Be on the lookout for the article in a future edition of the campus paper!

More will be coming on this soon, but be on the lookout for details about...
- the second annual WALT benefit CD
- the second annual Freestyle Battle
- more eboard-in-action pictures
- and more!

Meet the Eboard!

Although these will go up on the WALT site soon in some wicked-sweet flash player contraption, I thought I'd give you blog readers a special sneak peak at...

...the new...

...the improved...

...the WALTacular...

Meet the Eboard album:

WALT Eboard '06

Welcome to WALT

Welcome to the official blog for WALT 1610AM, Davidson College Student Radio. This space is going to serve multiple purposes. First, it will give us a way to let you know what's going on with the station, its executive board, its DJs, etc. We'll promote our show of the week, tell you of upcoming events such as our Freestyle Competition and Battle of the Bands, and let you know when we'll be mobile DJing around campus. Second, our music directors will talk about music that we've received from various labels, which we'll be playing throughout the week on all of our shows. Finally, we'll report on music happenings at and around Davidson.

We hope you'll find this blog useful, and that you'll return to get the latest on WALT. Thanks for stopping by!