Your favorite WFMU DJ!

Interview with Dave the Spazz about his COVID experience. Looks like he's recovering but they're still doing fill-ins (Ira the K again last night).
https://www.psreader.com/pandemic-diary-vii-%e2%80%a8dave-the-spazz-covid-felt-like-blowtorches-behind-each-one-of-my-eyeballs/

title made me wonder how many eyeballs he has

Ira K doing lots of fillins, incl now til noon ET

I appreciate him.

Looks like I can appreciate him every week for the next year in the midnight Tuesday slot.
https://www.wfmu.org/table?period=45

yeah I saw that! surprised.

Ken really goin for it rn

https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/93678

Looks like the Rock n Soul Ichiban stream has been shitcanned without any announcement.

Debbie D: "Sorry, folks. I was permanently suspended from WFMU today. I had a disagreement with management. Thanks for 10 great years of Ichiban."
https://www.facebook.com/groups/162415257052/

Oof. Wonder what that's all about, can't really get a handle based on those FB comments. Seems like some folks are calling for other DJs to quit WFMU in support, but others saying there's another side to the story? Odd.

Yeah, anyone know why?

i saw longtime best show caller fred from honolulu beefing with ap mike on twitter, and i couldn't figure out what it was about, but fred made remarks about women being creeped out by p@ul brun0 ... is that related?

sorry i shouldn't be spreading rumors i know nothing about

yeah disregard my post it's unrelated

As much as I love the Ichiban stream, there's some sketchy bullshit being spread by folks close to Debbie D and elsewhere online -- the Hound is straight up making things up about Ken Freedman on Instagram. I have a feeling Ken may have called a bluff that's been going on for a while; I think Debbie D said "you have to do it my way, Ken, or I will take Ichiban and that sweet Tom Hanks pledge money with me" once too often.

Ichiban stuff broadly related to huge internal strife at the station regarding WFMU's BLM statement

Saw the Hound also been trolling (now ex)Ichiban DJs in IG - I think he's just happy to see anything related to WFMU go wrong

who is the Hound?

Jim Marshall

https://pleasekillme.com/hound-back-on-the-air/

the Hound has been a gigantic anti-FMU asshole ever since he lost his show (in the '90s?)

1997 it says in that article.

the Hound has been a gigantic anti-FMU asshole ever since he lost his show (in the '90s?)

The Night Owl Show is on the stream right now.

I do suspect that the BLM statement may have something to do with things, but that's one of the points that Debbie D's crowd and the Hound are straight mythmaking about -- that Ken fired her for putting up a pro-BLM statement, when in fact Ichiban was the last stream to put anything up, and their statement was a weirdly-edited, shorter version of the Drummer Stream's statement. Also got a Controversial Mod Edit on the Ichiban Facebook group deleting my (factual, non-shaming) comments about the still-active far right broadcaster who did the gross, racist Queen Bee Barbecue bits they've been playing forever *before* the "KEN FIRED DEBBIE FOR SUPPORTING BLM" bullshit started spreading.

From the Night Owl playlist comments:

Hi OjaibJohn -
Thanks for writing. I am working hard to bring Ichiban back by the end of this month. It had not been my intention to turn the stream off. I suspended the manager of the stream because they said they were going to quit, but they refused to discuss it with me.
I was going to leave the stream up, while I searched for a replacement, but the Ichiban DJs recommended to me that I turn the stream off, at least for a few weeks, while people cooled down.
I hope to be able to provide a date of Ichiban's relaunch next week. When the date is settled, I will post it on the WFMU homepage.
In the meantime, all the Ichiban playlists and archives remain up and working, all on the landing pages for each show. Please let me know if I can help you locate any of the show pages.
-Ken Freedman

oy, such a clusterfuck

It's really gross. Any sympathy I had for Debbie has disappeared as she's started insinuating really shitty things about Ken and the station that just aren't true. She's parroted the "no djs of color on WFMU" thing from the Hound just now, as the Duane Train begins. And she's doing it in my least favorite way: the bad liar's truth, where you insinuate and ask questions and stop just sort of a clear declarative sentence and everyone understands what you are accusing, but you never actually let the untrue words leave your lips. From the look of it on the Ichiban Facebook group, people are buying it. The insanity of her pretending to be the Only Righteous DJ at FMU? As the head of Ichiban? I thought the trash garage crowd had more integrity than the rockabilly crowd, but I guess I was wrong.

There are no djs of color on the Ichiban stream and I don't think there ever have been (somebody who knows better please correct me), although Gaylord has co-hosted a bunch of times.

not to get into too much detail, it wasnt over Ichiban posting a BLM statement (although i can see how ppl might think that from the timing), but was definitely a falling-out with Ken in the broader context of a huge station-wide uproar over the past week surrounding WFMU making (or not wanting to make) a statement in support of BLM & general diversity at the station. Very sad to see all around, really hoping people will cool off soon and the station wont get crippled from within over this stuff like so many community/volunteer stations have in the past.

dont want to get into it here but tbf TWU, go through the schedule and count the ratio of white DJs to POC, its about 50 to 1.

It's about 5 out of 20 on the new schedule, as opposed to 0 out of 10 at Ichiban.

I mean, I am not taking a census and just going by djs I know. Statements are everywhere on the WFMU homepage and a couple of the streams, djs have been talking seriously about the matter for the last couple of weeks, Ichiban has no black djs and plays "funny" racist tunes all the time, but sure, all hail Debbie and cancel WFMU.

I absolutely agree with your hope that this won't cripple the station -- seeing Debbie go scorched earth on Facebook and seeing people suck it up is concerning as hell to me.

I was bummed to see Jeff Sarge wasn't on the new schedule, but it looks like it's more to do with him not being able to DJ from home and he'll be back.

xp FMU also the station that made a bundle off of trump-promoting nachum segal tbf. I love FMU to death but it also shouldnt be that hard to imagine that they might have some work to do behind the scenes re:how to engage with this current cultural moment. All i can say is you gotta trust me that theres plenty of blame to go around on this one, i love FMU and ichiban both, theyve both got some work to do rn, hopefully theyll both be fine.

The reality is is either goes down, I lose a shitload of intelligently curated (and in the case of the main station, often black curated) African American music, and that matters more than the relative sins of two white people. Yes, Irwin and Nachum and X-Ray Burns and a million boring whiteboys playing bad hiphop and extreme metal, but everything else besides and very little listenable alternative. I think I'm saying I didn't want to pick a side until Debbie started insisting that everyone choose a side and that hers is the side of justice, and that just grosses me out in the face of hearing a variety of djs over the last couple of weeks actively engaging the subject and grappling with their personal role on the air on WFMU while Ichiban played old Rex airchecks with the mic breaks cut out. The struggle is totally real and the work has to continue, but I don't think that's what Debbie's about now.

"while Ichiban played old Rex airchecks with the mic breaks cut out"

otmfm

methinks some listeners have no idea of the race of some individual hosts (along with their names)

Loving the newly-united Friday ladies block of Sheila B-Shut Up Weirdo-Dance With Me Stanley.

Worried about Dave the Spazz -- whatever his health issue is, I hope it's treatable and he'll be back in the fall.

(He said on his May 4th show that he was having some medical thing done, and there have been fill-ins the past three weeks. This week is the last of the current schedule and he's not on the summer schedule. No fill-in host listed for tomorrow so I'm hoping for a fun season finale and some good news on his health.)

Spazz is back on the fall schedule, hooray! Also, he's going to be the improbable guest-host for the prog show "It's Complicated" in 50 minutes. I'm hoping for Sammy, Dean, Frank, Jerry Lee et al covers of "Lucky Man" and other prog-adjacent stuff.