A new Electric Sandwich radio program blasting 100 years of underground sound directly to yr furloughed cranium. We are a gubment of free jazz and not weak men. Health care not hair care. Acid jamz not shutdown plans! https://bit.ly/ElecSand100225
#FreeDC #NoShutdown #HealthCareForAll #FreePortland
#jazz #funk #indierock #psychedelicfunk #avantgarde #freejazz #DMV #WashingtonDC #undergroundradio #communityradio #WOWD #ArlingtonVA #psychedelic #FreakRadio #FreeForm #TakomaPark #ElectricSandwich

No escalators were harmed in the creation of the all-new Electric Sandwich, available now on Mixcloud with 2 extra hours: https://bit.ly/ElecSand092525
Take a flight of fancy on an (electric) stairway to the stars! Leave your feet behind and let your mind take over! Just walk up the damn thing!#FreeDC #jazz #funk #indierock #psychedelicfunk #avantgarde #freejazz #DMV #WashingtonDC #undergroundradio #communityradio #WOWD #ArlingtonVA #psychedelic #FreakRadio #FreeForm #TakomaPark #ElectricSandwich

Another all-new Electric Sandwich with music to soothe the most evil, heartless and ignorant people in your lives. Play it loud when driving by your favorite cowardly media company: https://bit.ly/ElecSand091825
#FreeJimmyKimmel #FreeDC #FreeMemphis #RIPBruceLoose #RIPFirstAmendment
#jazz #funk #indierock #psychedelicfunk #avantgarde #freejazz #DMV #WashingtonDC #undergroundradio #communityradio #WOWD #ArlingtonVA #psychedelic #FreakRadio #FreeForm #TakomaPark

The universe both giveth and taketh away. On the "giveth" front, it's a brand new edition of Electric Sandwich, full of excellent tuneage that'll make you feel like everything is gonna be alllllllllrighhttttt: https://bit.ly/ElecSand091125

Then there's the "taketh." Your social media feeds will tell you all about that. #FreeDC #FreeChicago

#jazz #funk #indierock #psychedelicfunk #avantgarde #freejazz #DMV #WashingtonDC #undergroundradio #communityradio #WOWD #ArlingtonVA #psychedelic #TakomaPark

First Electric Sandwich show on WOWD plus 2 extra freaky hours on Mixcloud! Music is so good and delicious, like a well-rounded breakfast. This is like having all-you-can-eat bacon. I'm trying to keep on the "sunny side" but these days I feel more like "fried hard!" https://bit.ly/ElecSand090425
#FreeDC #jazz #funk #indierock #psychedelicfunk #avantgarde #freejazz #DMV #WashingtonDC #undergroundradio #communityradio #WOWD #ArlingtonVA #psychedelic #FreakRadio #FreeForm #TakomaPark

GRAND JURY REFUSES TO PROSECUTE HAM SANDWICH. New Vinyl Assault Vehicle said to be %1000 percent better than DOJ lawyers. Find out at https://bit.ly/VAV082725
I'm pleased to announce that VAV is starting on WOWD in Takoma Park on Thursday 9/4/25 from 4-5pm. TakomaRadio.org and 94.3fm. New show name coming!
#jazz #funk #indierock #psychedelicfunk #avantgarde #freejazz #DMV #WashingtonDC #undergroundradio #communityradio #WOWD #ArlingtonVA #psychedelic #FreakRadio #FreeForm #TakomaPark

Sometimes the political universe is so predictable. Rip Van Winkle could have predicted that our prez would get chumped in Alaska. Want to avoid predictable? Tune in to this week's Vinyl Assault Vehicle and be SHOCKED AND AMAZED by what happens around every musical corner: https://bit.ly/VAV082025
#FreeDC

#jazz #funk #indierock #psychedelicfunk #avantgarde #freejazz #DMV #WashingtonDC #undergroundradio #communityradio #WOWD #ArlingtonVA #psychedelic #FreakRadio #FreeForm

Arlington’s embarrassing waste of a low-power FM license

For the first time in many months, I tuned the radio in our car to 96.7 FM Thursday evening and realized I hadn’t missed anything: WERA, Arlington County’s sole low-power FM station, was once again playing a canned loop of instrumentals, without a live human voice to be heard.

That this rated as an improvement over the dead air previously on that frequency shows how far WERA has fallen from the promise of “LPFM” after years of funding problems compounded by what seems to have been rampant mismanagement bordering on fraud. All of this ineptitude, as ArlNow reminded me in a report Wednesday afternoon about the station’s unexpected but unstaffed return to the airwaves, has left the station in a zombified state.

In other words, WERA has become the sort of lifeless broadcaster that it was created to counter.

When this station went on the air on December 6, 2015, dozens of guests packed Arlington Independent Media’s studio in Clarendon and toasted its debut with sparkling wine in plastic cups. Advocates of LPFM had spent a decade lobbying Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to ignore the opposition of incumbent broadcasters and authorize a class of nonprofit, hyperlocal stations; almost five years after President Obama signed the Local Community Radio Act into law, listeners next door to Washington finally had their own indie LPFM listening option.

WERA almost immediately earned a preset on our car’s radio for its delightfully eclectic mix of music and talk programming, which the limited reach of its 21-watt signal meant I could only hear within a few miles of the station’s transmitter. As I wrote at Yahoo Finance in late December of 2015:

The station has since served up a free-form mashup of music that you almost never hear on commercial FM. One DJ with his medium on his mind followed R.E.M.’s “Radio Free Europe” with Donna Summer’s disco hit “On the Radio” and Rush’s “The Spirit of Radio,” but the selection has also extended to French chanteuse Edith Piaf and 1950s mambo king Pérez Prado.

But over subsequent years, the ongoing decline of cable TV left less of a subsidy for Arlington Independent Media from taxes paid by Comcast on that revenue. Arlington’s government chipped in, but the real problem was not income but expenses. In March of 2024, ArlNow reported that the county had suspended further payments until it could complete an audit of AIM, while AIM staffers alleged “reckless” management of the station’s funds.

(The irony of one small, independent local-media organization doing such a good job of covering another small, independent local-media organization while the Washington Post has ignored this story is duly noted.)

Days later, AIM sacked its entire staff and took WERA off the air. The county’s audit, finally published in February of this year, revealed seriously sloppy financial management under former CEO Whytni Kernodle that included inadequate documentation of more than $1 million in expenses over two-plus years. The County Board referred the matter to a special prosecutor who then declined to file charges against Kernodle.

(My wife works for the county government’s IT department but thankfully has had no role in any of this.)

Things could be worse: The lack of paid employees somehow did not stop WERA from getting back on the air in time to prevent the FCC from revoking its license. But as ArlNow’s Dan Egitto wrote Wednesday, the entire operation seems otherwise dead on the inside. Would-be AIM turnaround president Amanda MacKaye told him that she’s no longer on AIM’s board or otherwise involved with the organization, nobody still on the board answered his questions, and the County Board seems set to wash its hands of this whole ugly affair.

You shouldn’t read this an indictment of LPFM, which was and remains a good idea and a useful antidote to soundalike corporate FM. The D.C. area’s other LPFM station, Takoma Radio, has been on the air since 2016 at 94.3 FM, and the chance to listen to WOWD on the way to and from D.C.’s Costco makes the traffic a little more pleasant. I’m listening to its stream as I type this.

But you absolutely should read WERA’s miserable saga as a stupid squandering of cultural potential. And everybody in media-policy circles who worked so hard to make LPFM a reality should be angry about it.

#943 #967 #ArlingtonIndependentMedia #ArlNow #broadcast #freeFormRadio #hyperlocal #indieMedia #lowPowerFM #LPFM #mediaReform #radio #RadioArlington #TakomaRadio #WERA #WERALP #WOWD

Point all your electrical devices to 94.3FM or takomaradio.org Friday at 8pm EST for a mix of psych, psoul, and the rest of Chuck Berry's 'Concerto in B Goode' album. It's gonna be a good time.
#communityradio #takomaradio #wowd #takomapark #washingtondc

. @krusynth I judge each episode of my favorite show on our community radio station based on how many deep cuts from the Internet Archive the station's AI playlist can't identify. (Derangement of the Senses, alternate Sundays 11:00PM) #WOWD https://takomaradio.org/schedule

Liebes #fediLZ,

am Ende des Schuljahres ein Rückblick auf drei #wowd:
1. Projektkurs und die vielen Aktionen zur #Erinnerungskultur

2. +3. mit @CatrinIngerfeld : Der agile LitKurs zur "Literatur im Februar 33" mit Erstellung des digitalen Museums
sowie die gemeinsame Klassenleitung z.B. mit: https://www.ingerfeldundlaube.de/blog/gemeinsamer-umgang-mit-chatgpt

#Geschichte #Schule #AgileBildung #Digitalität #Courage #Engagement #eduNRW

Retail Therapy!

Mostly recovered from food poisoning, went to Old #Takoma for breakfast, and to pick up two refurbished flutes; bought a little smoker box for the grill; visited People's Book for the first time, and waved at Bobby Hill doing his show at next-door #WOWD.

Seit Beginn des Schuljahres (!) arbeitet eine Schülerin an diesem Weihnachtsgeschenk (!) für ihren Vater. Und ich darf euch bereits jetzt einen kleinen Einblick in mein #wowd geben.
Die Figuren sind übrigens von Hand geschnitzt.

Mein #wowd : Meine 12. Klässlerin mit ihrer Aussage: „Wir haben das mit dem Zitieren noch nie so … deutsch gelernt“ 😄 Auf meine Nachfrage, was sie mit „deutsch“ meint, kam: „So strukturiert und mit Beispielen usw.“ Da darf man sich dann auch mal freuen als Lehrkraft 🥰🥰 #FediLZ #DeutschEDU #powerpoint