This is a party and a platform for musicians to lend their voices and their sound to Artists For Media Diversity’s first national radio show for the Pacifica Radio Network.

WHEN:

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

7:00 p.m to 11:00 p.m

WHERE:

411 W. Monroe Street,  Austin TX  78704  (map)

Austin Art and Music Partnership (Austin AMP)

Artists For Media Diversity (A4MD)

Artists For Media Diversity (A4MD), a 501(c)(3) organization based in Austin,  has been invited to produce it’s first half hour radio documentary for the Pacifica Radio Network.  “Sprouts, Radio From The Grassroots”, a half hour weekly program,  will take an in depth look at the Austin community’s recent response to programming changes at UT’s National Public Radio affiliate KUT Radio as well as the steps artists, musicians and members of the community are taking to address their local concerns.

A4MD and Austin Art and Music Partnership are hosting the party for local musicians.   Two minute testimonials from artists will be recorded (both audio and video) to allow them to express personal opinions concerning musical, cultural and media diversity.  Artists are encouraged to bring a CD of their music for use in the broadcast.  Testimonials will also become available, at a future date, for broadcast on non-commercial stations as a service to artists and community media organizations.  A4MD provides a platform for artists to take a stand in support of community radio stations.

Austin is one of the fastest growing cities in the United States of America.  (Since 1990, the population has nearly doubled.)  Austin’s growth is attributed to it’s bohemian culture and musical diversity which has garnered attention from around the world.  For decades,  Austin’s community minded radio DJ’s have kept their ears to the ground and their hearts on the air, providing a lifeline and a vital testing ground for hundreds of unknown artists who have reached local, regional and sometimes national prominence.

Across the nation, many community stations are under pressure to give up their grassroots approach to local programming in order to sustain themselves.  A trend exists for stations, under economic pressure to survive, to adopt national programming strategies, often reducing airtime for local music and community voices.

Artists For Media Diversity was organized to address a national trend in radio’s dwindling administrative support for local cultural diversity.   A co-founder of A4MD is Barbara Kooyman, a Grammy nominated artist and radio activist, a guitarist/singer/songwriter whose hit song in the late 1980’s, “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades” brought her band Timbuk3 into an international spotlight.  “ A4MD supports artists who support media diversity.  Together, we will begin to counteract the negative effects of media consolidation.”

A4MD’s first project is to aid the Pacifica Radio Network in it’s quest to provide assistance to it’s grassroots community based broadcasting network of over 150 affiliated radio stations.

For more information, e-mail us at artists@a4md.org or call us at 512-772-3570.

A4MD is thankful to the following organizations for  sponsoring our event:

Austin Art and Music Partnership

Instruments For Peace

Threadgill’s World Headquarters

Sweet Leaf Tea

DJ Dojo

Austin Airwaves