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Sinfonian Radio: Music Thru the Web
Scott Erb,
Tattler Staff
 Have
you ever been surfing the web wishing you had tunes to listen to? And you
don’t want to pay for XM Radio and you are tired of all the local radio
stations? Well, do we have a solution for you – Sinfonian Radio!!! You read
me correctly. Sinfonian Radio will revolutionize the way you listen to
music. Well, maybe not; but wouldn’t it be cool to listen to music from
Brothers from all over the country, even the world? One brother has made
that happen. That brother is Tommy House (IN ’93).
Bro. House had a vision one night like a light bulb
going off. “It all came to me one night listening to the Las Vegas Tenors’
new CD and goofing around with www.subsonicradio.com,
a great internet station that plays Disney® music/attractions all the
time,” Tommy said. “I got to thinking… It sure would be great to be able
to listen to other Sinfonians’ music.”
How many of you have tried to find music and works by
other brothers? It’s hard to get knowledge of new work unless you know
the brother directly. Tommy thinks this approach will help bridge the gap
and create a means of so doing through Sinfonian Radio 1898 ©.
Tommy said the purpose of this radio will be to
encourage loyalty to the alma mater (I
had to stop Tommy from repeating the old purposes… you know how Alumni
get). It will connect brothers from all over within our Sinfonian
Radio Forums, it will allow every Sinfonian brother opportunity to get
their musical creations heard and serve our old purpose of “installing in
all people an awareness of music’s important role in the enrichment of
the human spirit.”
You might ask how do I listen to it and get my music
on there. You can go to www.sinfonianradio.com or send an
email to studio@sinfonianradio.com
. Tommy encourages all Sinfonians to send their
recorded works in.
Once we have enough listeners and content we will
publicize through the National Fraternity and its provinces and through
our MySpace, Facebook
and other social networks. You can check the Sinfonian Tattler through MySpace. www.myspace.com/sinfoniantattler.
You might ask if I have to pay a fee to put my music
on there. Submitting your music to Sinfonian Radio 1898 is absolutely
free. All Tommy requests is that they be of a good recorded quality
and in mp3 format. Live performances are welcome just as long as they
sound good.
How will the radio grow? Any cool gadgets in the
future? Right now we have a temporary website up that will allow you to
access the audio streams. We are currently working on our interactive
website that will eventually allow the visitor to not only listen to the
streams free of charge but once registered (for free), will be able to
make requests live from the playlist. Yes, you
will be able to search the entire Sinfonian Radio 1898 catalog of songs
by Sinfonian artist and request it to be played on the station. Not
enough? Wait, there is more! You will be able to see what is playing and
what is coming up to play. Ooooh, it gets
better! You will also be able to click on a buy button to be directed to
the website that is selling the artist’s work. Many times this is at the
artist website. You will also have the album artwork to view and a link
to the artist website. Not to mention a community forum to chat in and
send messages. Each track will show on our website that it is playing and
the website visitor will be able to find out which chapter the brother is
from and what record label, year, or album title that the track is on.
As it stands right now Sinfonian Radio 1898 can
accommodate 170 continuous listeners at one time. We are hoping that the
listener base will grow and the stream allocations will grow with it.
Brother Scott Hamilton has volunteered his time to
record some voice imaging for Sinfonian Radio. I encourage all brothers
across the country to send in an audio clip that says, “Hello, this is
________ from ________chapter and you are listen to our SINFONIAN RADIO!”
Come join the Radio Train!!! All Aboard Sinfonians!!!
Brothers in Broadcasting… Sinfonian Radio could use
your help. If you would like to record a show or spots or anything
contact me today!
www.sinfonianradio.com
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Q&A: Michael Bird, IN ‘94
Phil Wilson, Tattler Staff
“Three times on a match…” are
words spoken to me by this month’s interviewee. Michael Bird is one of
our most famous and beloved brothers of the Iota Nu Chapter. He is so
famous that he even has a marching move named after him. Find out what
he’s been up to.
Tat: What year were you initiated into
Iota Nu?
Michael: March 11, 1994 - as a sophomore. I would have
been in that 23-member pledge class of 1993 had I been at Troy sooner, but I spent some time at Huntingdon College before transferring.
Tat: How did you become interested
in radio?
Michael: Growing up in Montgomery, I was a fan of Larry
Stevens, Mark Thompson, and other disc jockeys who
made the music fun with what they talked about in between songs. I have a
record collection thinned down to around 500, CDs in the thousands, a
loaded iPod – you get the idea. From
earliest memory, I have been in love with music.
Tat: 8-tracks, records, tapes, CDs
and now mp3s have all been fads (or soon will be). Do you think radio
will ever bite the dust? What do you think has kept it alive? How can it
be futurized?
Michael: Honestly, my radio experience is so limited.
WTBF in Troy changed a lot over the 10 years I worked for them, but they
still use records, carts, reel-to-reels and CDs. At Bluewater
Broadcasting, we have a computer in each control room – each one is
programmed to operate Bama Country 98.9, 97.9
JAMZ, 1170WACV, or Alice 96.1 – and all the announcer has to do is touch
the screen or click a mouse. It's quite different.
As far
as radio biting the dust, in some ways it already has by automating
everything. Financially, a great idea. But listeners like the fact
that a warm body is sitting in the studio talking to them, taking their
calls, etc. And that, unfortunately, is a rarity these days. The push to
streamline and consolidate has kind of a homogenizing effect on
terrestrial radio, and since people can find those things on satellite
radio or elsewhere, it may be the death knell for radio as we have known
it.
Radio
has had to reinvent itself in the past. In the 1950s, when television
came along and took all the soap operas, sitcoms, and other radio
material, programmers turned to music. And now, a listener expects more. So,
I'd look for radio to branch out (as it has been doing) into completely
streaming stations, high-definition signals, etc. It's already here, but
it will gain prominence later on.
Tat: Currently, I understand that
you are continuing to work in radio. Tell us where and what type of music
you play.
Michael: Actually, I have been a band director for the
past ten years. I currently teach with Robby Glasscock in the
Tallassee City Schools system, and I have finally found the place I was
meant to be all along. I love the kids, the administration is
supportive, the parents are great, and the band is reaching new heights
every day. So, my "profession" is still music education. There
are good days and bad days, but overall it is an exciting time to be a
teacher. Certainly an interesting time! Plus, so many people I knew at
Troy were from Tallassee – Ed and Dave Lawrence, Travis Bryant, Mike
Hammonds, Scott Erb, Staci Erb (Oliver), Beth Barber (Herren),
Michael Pierce, Julie French (King), Kristi Short (Whitaker), Missy Smith
(Waldrop), Andy and Tonya Bodenheimer – all of 'em
were from T-town.
Interestingly,
Don Bryant (Travis's father) is STILL the Music Booster
Club president after nearly 20 years. And I eat lunch with Linwood Erb
(Scott's dad) about once a week. We're working on a Tallassee FOB
Squad chapter.
The
choir is superior in Tallassee. Jerry Cunningham, the director, is also a
coach at the school – and he has around 380 students in the choral
program. When a school only has 600 students, that's pretty amazing by
anyone's standards.
When I
moved to Montgomery, I worked at Robert E. Lee
High School, my
alma mater, as band director. When that job ended (unceremoniously, I
might add), I began to look for other employment outside of the music
field. Bluewater Broadcasting did not hire me
at that time, but I realize now that making friendships with some of the
people who worked there would set me on the course to getting a job with
them. I am a talk show host on WACV-AM 1170 (www.1170wacv.com)
on weekends, which is a tough piece of radio real estate to carve out for
yourself (on AM, on a weekend, on a talk show). But somehow, we have
succeeded in a time slot where a lot of shows have gone to die. I've been
lucky to have interesting guests on the show, from authors to musicians,
to doctors and lawyers, to disc jockeys and counselors. It's been great.
The
other side of this is that I have been blessed with an opportunity to
write for The Tallassee Tribune. They began running
my weekly column in December 2005, and as of this month it has also been
picked up by another local publication, The Tri-County Gazette. So, it may be small time, but it's
syndicated now!
Tat: The Tat is about to launch our
very own Sinfonian Radio, which will highlight fellow Sinfonians
music. Any advice?
Michael: George Chadwick all
the way.
Actually,
I'd love to hear the Men of Music. Maybe someone (T-House) could produce
a show that features a different Man of Music each week or so. A while
back, I dug out some recital tapes and gave them to Scott Erb. It would
be great to hear us raising our voices once again, in cyberspace, all
these years later.
Tat: You were in the fraternity at
a very interesting time. I say interesting because there were a ton of
brothers at that time. Any long lost shout-outs you want to send out?
Michael: Of course, everyone thinks their time in high
school or college was special. It's because you're going through the
biggest changes and most excitement in your entire life within the span
of four or five years. And it's over sooner than you're ready for it to
be, so for a year or two you hang around and try to act
"college" even though you're really supposed to be grown up.
However,
now that we've all married off (some of us, more than once)...had
children (some of us, multiples)...been hired and fired, up and down,
back home or far away – I have unfortunately lost touch with many
Brothers I wish I'd stayed in contact with. But, I do talk to Sinfonians all the time in my profession and am doing
my part for the Five Purposes. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Let
me take this opportunity to educate – the Fraternity has restored the
original Object, and the five purposes, as many of us learned them, are
no longer recognized, though they are not much different than the Object,
and still worthy of our thoughts and actions. FM)
Recently, Jim Brasher helped me out with my church choir at Easter; Larry
Wells and I are working on yet another variation of "Best of the Sound,"
this time on DVD. Most of the time, I get to use the grip with another
Sinfonian band director somewhere.
There
are times I wish I could go back, with what I know now, and keep my mouth
shut and just listen to the sound of everyone sitting on that big front
porch at 806 North Three
Notch Street. Burt
Pitts cussing at the top of his lungs while sucking
down the twin lites of Marlboro and Miller;
Brian Salter and Dan Seaborn breaking out
the horns to play for anyone who'd listen; Tony Pearson singing
"Starlight Express"; Shane Wilson teaching us the truths of
Brotherhood; Scott Grossman inviting the town over for a party. And there
were my absolute role models, like Allen Gray, Jason Fountain, Dallas
Burke, J.J. Sewell – to me, they were everything. Hearing those guys play
in the clubs and on campus had me worshipping at their feet. And now I
realize they are only a few years older (well, Allen is a lot older).
OK,
enough bubameising about the past. The coolest
news, as a band director, is that I have been able to pin and initiate
one of my students into the Iota Nu Chapter, and see him become a member
of family 337; I have a former drum major who is now a section leader in
the Troy band; I have another former student who is now the assistant
drum major of the SOTS. So, I can live vicariously through them and enjoy
their experiences in Troy,
Phi Mu Alpha, and Sigma Alpha Iota, seeing it
through their eyes.
One
last shout out: I still have many jerseys, but FYI: I was the last
official Sweetheart of SAI – they retired the title for a while. How I
got elected, I'll never know, but I have now moved on to impregnating and
marrying non-SAI sisters.
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I
have what you might call a “photographic” memory, except somewhere
between the initial shot and the developing process, my brain overexposed
the film and left me with, at best, two or three decent photos. Needless
to say, nature didn’t see fit to give me any useful skills of
recollection (anyone who has tried to tell me “Remember when...” will
undoubtedly know what I’m saying). Despite this, I’ve managed to hold on
to a few key images of my active days in Iota Nu; none of these are more
vibrantly defined than my probationary weeks. One image in particular
always evokes a nostalgic sigh: late-nights at Adolfo’s.
