Also, look at the top of the page.  Our new banner is the new bumper sticker.  Also, be prepared for VKR compact mirrors and a new round of potholders.  Am I forgetting anything?  Probably, cause WVKR hooks you up with the goods.  Less than a week till pledge drive, during which you can pledge to keep our station running, get sweet merch, and receive tax deductions ALL AT ONCE.

Remember, if merchandise isn’t your thing, you can pledge online anytime by clicking ‘DONATE’ at the top of this page (and get a 100% tax deduction on your donation).

Also!  Expect real life merch photos soon.  (Pics or it didn’t happen.)

xoxo -WVKR

]]> http://www.wvkr.org/2010/09/wvkr-is-style/feed/ 0 http://www.wvkr.org/2010/08/the-last-days-of-summer/ http://www.wvkr.org/2010/08/the-last-days-of-summer/#comments Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:25:52 +0000 johnmcc http://www.wvkr.org/?p=1376

We’re cruising through Summer here at WVKR, spending long days in the studio with AC cranked to 11.  But there’s only 18 days left until our Fall programming kicks in, and you know that means it’s a very exciting time of year…  The Pledge Drive — our annual plea to Radio-land to keep our station up and running — is September 7-13.  Each year we interrupt our seamless, ad-free programming for one week to ask our listeners to give whatever they can, so we can stay afloat.

Oh, and keep your eyes peeled here at WVKR.org for our new line of merchandise that we’ll offer as premiums for your pledges.  (WVKR=Style.)

WVKR will be holding an open house from 1 to 4 PM tomorrow on Saturday June 5th inviting both former DJs and any other interested alumni to take a look at the station and see how it has developed and grown within the past few years. Alumni will have the opportunity to talk with the students currently staffing the station and be able to relive their days as the proud independent spirits that contributed to 91.3 FM. To reach the station, simply follow the signs in the retreat indicating the location of WVKR, which is situated on the third floor of the college center.

WVKR will be holding an open house from 1 to 4 PM tomorrow on Saturday June 5th inviting both former DJs and any other interested alumni to take a look at the station and see how it has developed and grown within the past few years. Alumni will have the opportunity to talk with the students currently staffing the station and be able to relive their days as the proud independent spirits that contributed to 91.3 FM. To reach the station, simply follow the signs in the retreat indicating the location of WVKR, which is situated on the third floor of the college center.

Caleb Coy of Headdress

DARIUS’ & ELODIE’S PICK OF THE WEEK:
HEADDRESS “Lunes” [No Quarter]
Oh. Yes. It’s the blues, but the blues drenched in shamanistic drone. It’s drone, but its drone rooted deep in Americana tradition. If you like peyote induced trance walks through the Sahara with only half a canteen of H20 and an old heavy oil burning lantern and the dry moonlight to (mis)guide you, this is your bag. “As ethereal as a twist of incense smoke, as head(dress)y as the first blooms of spring”…wait what?

OTHER TOP PICKS:

ROTFLOL “Rolling On The Floor Laughing Out Loud” [Audio Dregs Recordings]
This band seems to love Megazord/dumb photoblog gifs as much as we do. Check out their myspace. “Music: Puffy Smalls, Baha Men, Gay Nerds, Council of Deep Sea Creatures, Gang of 420″; Ok so this is the solo project of Jacob Ciocci, founding member of the Paper Rad art collective. His work is known for its brightness, manic energy, and jarring POP imagery—all of which comes through in this album. ROTFLOL is a collection of Ciocci’s smash hits and soundtracks from videos and animations. Lots of this is composed in ACII, blasted thru a series of vintage casio keyboards and budget electronics, recorded in real time and captured onto rainbow-colored (how Ciocci!) floppy discs before being mixed down to digibeta. Lots of 8bit fun.
Also, in one of his installations included real stuffed animals thrashing wildly and turning spits once you approach.
Also check out: http://www.paperrad.org/
“Also,” JK ROTFLOL.

LINDSTRØM & CHRISTABELLE “Real Life is No Cool” [Feedelity]
Who knew the Norweigans had such a knack for modern disco, this is by far some of the best dance cuts I’ve heard in a while. It combines Glass Candy with Michael Jackson with Miami Sound Machine and gives you enough good reason to enjoy 80s glitter candy. If the 90s started 20s years ago, then the 80s started 30 years ago, ok dude?

MALE BONDING “Nothing Hurts” [Sub Pop]
I like this! Besides their high-velocity poppy post punk sound, which we all know and love from No-Vice, this album incorporates a specific englishness even in its references to early 80s LA fuzz. RIYL: Darlings.

SOUNDPOOL “Mirrors in Your Eyes” [Killer Pimp]
Disco base hooks and infectious shimmering guitar jumbles, a canonball of cosmic sounds, sexy, dreamy, Slowdive for the new millennium…very 2000.

SCRATOA ! “Live En San Antón” [Killer Pimp]
BOLD Musique concrète, primitive sound montage poetry. “It sounds like it is named. As some kind of big musical lapsus, the kind of ones kids do everyday with toys. A Vomited and improvised – somehow elegant, sometimes not – non sense. A musical role playing game experiment in ten parts, where Tex Avery, Baruch Spinoza and Herbie Hancock’s spirits have been called over three nights to conduct a crowd of gorillas, frogs, cats, birds and ducks in heat, forgotten cartoon characters, families of gypsies and guitars, local pagan marching bands, and drunk kids armed with fire crackers.”

TONSTARTSSBANDHT “Midnite Cobras” [A Psychic Handshake]
A new release featuring “Midnite Cobras”, “I’m A Welsh Souper”, and “Electric Dragon Sword”. Why am I providing a track listing? Because the album art is visual bedlam . Anyhow, all three jams are bliss farts of psychic meltdowns.

ANNUALS “Sweet Sister EP” [Banter]
Africa in a land down under comes this Local Natives, Ruby Suns-esque sound of a band troddling at safari speed delivering some promising pop.

On my first day back to Vassar this fall, I was chatting with my advisor about hip hop on the quad under a scorching August sun.  He asked me if I had heard of this cat named J. Cole who was starting to get some looks for his new mixtape.  I hadn’t (wince) but looked him up that day, downloaded The Warmup and started keeping tabs on him.  His rise from that day last summer has been meteoric–his mixtape exploded onto the blogosphere, he was featured on Jay Z’s and Wale’s 2009 releases and was tapped as one of the prestigious Freshman 10 for XXL Magazine.  Now, with his debut album set to drop, J. Cole is on a college tour which stopped at Vassar last week to perform at the annual Hip Hop 101 Throwback Jam with Big Daddy Kane.  Although rain forced the concert inside and I couldn’t see him perform in the same spot where I first heard about the young rapper months ago, my co-host Hannah Yardley and I got the chance to sit down with J and ask him a few questions before he hit the stage.

Click here or on the above image to watch J. Cole Interview video

–Connor O’Neill, WVKR Hip-Hop Genre Director