CKUW Transmissions

In 2004 we created the ‘Transmissions’ CD. 18 songs recorded live at CKUW or specifically for broadcast on CKUW. It’s a snapshot of our first 5 years on air and includes some really great performances.

Originally available during Fundrive 2004, we felt the time was right to make this music available online.

Use the embedded player, or click the song names to download for yourself! Share and enjoy!

If you would like a copy of the Transmissions CD along with the deluxe booklet and notes, it can still be yours for a donation of $120 to CKUW 95.9 FM.

The Flip of the CKUW Trip: A Fundrive Five Disc Drip

By Yer Honorary Horror Host – DJ Vom

Yep! You Put the U in CKUW!!

Five long years – but that’s just the tip of the CKUW flip. What you hold in your pledgy palms is something more super special than any of us can really realize. Sure we’re all in this campus/community radio thing together – heck ho- you wouldn’t even have this dynamic disc in yer pretty pink’n pudgy possessive phalanges – to read ‘n re-read these hammy bin liner notes – if you didn’t, in some way, connect with us at the mighty CKUW.

This disc, like CKUW itself, cannot be bought – that’s one of the reasons why it’s so bloody speeeeeshul – you mean a lot to us and we mean a lot to you or – AGAIN AGOG – you wouldn’t be owning this FIFTH ANNIVERSARY FUNDRIVE compilation of pledge premium music that was either recorded at, or especially for – CKUW and You!

Yeah… you can only get the disc by pledging your support for the Spin-Ups U-Dubs of CKUW. Yep, it’s a rarer-thanrare trippy treasure o’pleasure, and I’ll tell yez all why right now, so gather round the old imaginary fire-colored radio box while ole Vom Ruse-velt hunkers down by his always-imaginary microphone to spin great gravelly yarns about the fantastic end product of much much more than five years of hard toiling on the ‘C‚- KYEW crew, involving thousands of volunteers, over many, many years… and of course… you!

The Spittin’ Spirit of Listener Driven Radio: Or You Get What You Get When You Get It

For too long it’s been readily apparent – o’ faithful listeners and C-KYOOOO- W true believers – that not everyone’s vision of what CKUW can be or is – is the same.

Ya see lavish listeners, this CKUW thing was homegrown hatched back in pre-nu century 1968 – check it and see fer own self on our website: www.ckuw.ca

Sure… things in ole Peg take a little while longer to happen than say in bigger cities with smaller community mindedness – I mean we went through the whole genre of College Radio in eighties Winnipeg without any on-air College Radio Stations at all… but I’m getting ahead of myself, so just hold on to yer rackety radio!

It didn’t matter if the founding 4 Fathers of CKUW in 1968 and the air wave ticklers of 1998 and the first three months of old centch 1999 were not ON AIR. It was the Spirit of anticipation that counted – the belief in actually doing something about the situation instead‚a complaining about it! That’s why we’re here now for yooooo! All the volunteers that have come and gone in the various CKUW incarnations were all dreaming while DOING! That’s why we are still here! This community has trained-forbroadcast volunteer alumni that numbers in the thousands! We do things right at CKUW even if it takes what seems like forever!

The Back Take on the Spin Ups: Historical Trickle Example Potion

I first got my untrendy Northendy ears involved with CKUW back in 1979 when the heyday of the first independent wave of punk rock was simmering down and becoming watered cash crops by the major core labels and marketed as the New Wave. Blondie, the third Clash album London Calling, and the Romantics were on constant rotation at CKUW along with the usual stuff found on all the radio stations at the time: Led Zep/Yes/Genesis/ELO/ Poco goo – stuff that I termed ‘Wimp’n Blimp Rot’. It was central core listening – piped to the students and staff like some non-essential serum to someone who doesn’t know they need better stuff – from the closed circuit CKUW based out of Lockhart Hall Basement and broadcast over the old PA system speakers imbedded in the yellowing – like the tunes – ceiling tiles.

My show then was titled The Squirmin’ Necklace Radio Un-Hour – because it was slightly longer than an hour and squirmin’ slightly more than bad – and I truly thought I’d found some type of basement brat pietri dish community where, as in the misfit socio genre of punk rock, I could be alone among like-minded loners and non-sporty musical experts. A place where the darkness of cold boredom could be fired up to shine. Alas CKUW then wasn’t ready for my experimental take on radio involving stereo broadcasts of mono feeds – two things going on the gong at once which I recorded at home – one in each channel on the bounce, sort of an ART damaged audio dual pastiche take on the W.S.Burroughs/Gysin cut-up method involving cartoon snippets and other aural flatulence tossed in for weird measure to wave goodbye to the Nu Waif too – hey I was just a teen! Anyway the station manager seized my Kiss and Runaways and Ramones and Uncle Bob and Archie and DEVO and Sparks and crappy Salesman records because these serious radio guys were caught like gnats in the spirit of New Wave marketing and they didn’t want any pre-wave glam or unexplained whatever it is gumming up their programming and skewing the charts so the promo maximization of infinite ineptitude could prevail. Kiss wasn’t even considered Classic Rock… yet! Anyway… no harm done – I just waited.

And waited… then in ’80 a miracle happened. A batch of Southenders were doing a show one atrociously cold February afternoon, and they spun records I had only read about in CREEM, Rock Scene, Trouser Press and those lousy British tabloids that didn’t have enuff color pictures in ‘em. These guys – Bruce and his friends – resented my interrupting presence, I was drooling over their shoulders… but they played one of the best sets I’d ever heard up til then at CKUW. It was fresh, it was exciting, I was floored.

This was the first time I’d heard “The Man With the Dogs” by Dead Kennedys, “Disco Sucks” by DOA, Lowlife’s Leaders ep and “A New Face In Hell” by the Fall. I was blown to cinders. And it’s moments like this that make CKUW so crucial. Everyday CKUW turns people on to new things – new ideas – new possibilities – new music – all with a volunteer spirit that is organized with unmatched enthusiasm and knowledgeable fanmania. Everyday – 365 days out of the year, more this year cuz it’s leapin’ – Everyday – in the best possible way – CKUW blows open minds!!!

The Spin Take on the Back Ups: Community Radio in Motion

Just think for a minute what it would be like without CKUW. It would suck. You would probably have no local community grounding to what was going on in the various genres of music. You would have no other street level take on political ideas and world events from a local perspective. You would have only what wouldn’t be there if we were gone. That would be a radio void that was not Listener Driven. Radio that really didn’t give a delicious darning damn about you. Radio that was ad or stock driven. Radio that was preprogrammed, formatted, stuffed into an announcing role with nauseating hyper jock sportcasting inflective deducement blasting. It’s a wide world out there, and sure… not all of us will ever have the same vision of what

campus/community radio is all about. But one thing’s for sure – CKUW is about the “You” in ‘Us’‚ first, and the “Me” in the upside ‘We’‚ waaaaaaaay wee-weeeee second. It’s a governing belief that’s lasted around here since the sick sick sixties, kids. It might be considered unhip or too hippie trippy, or even grass-rootin‚ tootin commie, but without it we’re nothing but something like everything else. With it we’re Yooooo-neeeek’n’ special. In April, on the 27th or the 30th, depending on who you ask – CKUW will be celebrating its FIFTH Anniversary of on-air broadcasting.

Last week I celebrated, rather quietly, my 250th broadcast of Scratching the Surface Noise – 1500 hours on air, on the 450 watts o’ community power. I’ve been around this volunteer organization for 25 years in some capacity – as a buyer of LPs to stock the station Library, as a member of the FUNDRIVE committee, as a broadcaster, host, a self creator of historical DJ vometic nonsense of the Dungeon of Vinyl Horror or the novelty ineptipuke – out there and out of here 4 O’Clock Failures. Heck they even let my stupid band play their events… so it was a real honor when Station Manger Schmidt asked me to write these liner notes for this disc.

Radio in Community Motion = CKUW + You: Happy Tears for the Many Years of Amazing Volunteers!

I just want to take a little bit more of your reading time to ask you to pause for a milli minute and bop your head in some type of communicable glee for all the CKUW volunteers who have taken their precious time to entertain or educate us over the years – the thousands of hipsters, jockos, soothsayers, scryers, addix, media geeks, news junkies, punk rockers, classick rock heads, hip hoppers, wavers, reactionaries, beats, hippies, folkies, trendies, poetry freaks, classical gassers, misfits, electro pioneers, prog rawkerz, synth punks, outcasts, hardcores, cyber dweebs, sound artists, musicians, promoters, entrepreneurs, students, kid stuff broadcasters, historians, disco-ites, fashion zombies, world beaters, scratchers, diggers, glams, goths, true music fans, flag wavers, writers, loners, poseurs and dyn-o-mite flipsters who wanted to make a difference in our community. Thru the magic of their involvement CKUW has become what it is… because of them CKUW is amazing! They were and they are… to use the vernacular – amay-zack!! Here’s to them. And to you. Excelsior!!! Spa-Fon!! Squa-tront!

Forever it may take, and forever it will probably last, and those that have come before us would all stand aghast! Get involved! Dig in and dig it you mofos! Cuz the mighty CKUW is on the air, and there’s no stopping what’s good fer ya! Especially when yer there to support it! Where else are you going to get yer music played if yer in a local band? CKUW that’s where! Now listen to this compiled-by-volunteers disc you guys. I’m not required to volunteer anymore info about it until then… ear tip of the head flip… Amen at last! Remember to Fire it Up! Future salutes to the past!

Volunteer-ily yers,
DJ Don Vom,
Winnipeg in February 2004
Scratching the Surface Noise
The Dungeon of Vinyl Horror
4 O’Clock Failures
CKUW 95.9 FM

Thank you to Rob Vaarmeyer, Ted, Rob, Jill, Barb, Don, Stu and all the fine people who made this possible way back when.