KSER FM 90.7

[SeattleObserver]

Just a reminder that Snohomish County does have one more radio station of its own. I was listening a little over the weekend - caught "chill" (Where else can you hear that around here?) and some old-time artists tonight (ie. Dean Martin).

 

[Bongwater]

KSER is the direct descendant of KRAB, that weird, but lovable freeform non-com station formerly on 107.7.

Even for a freeform station, KRAB was a mess. But it was the ONLY place on the dial in Seattle to hear blues, modern rock, jazz and oldies on FM radio in the '70s. They were even the first station - long before KKFX to play a new street music from New York called "rap" music. KRAB had a lot to listen to....that is if you can also sit through the performance artists, anarchist rabble rousers, Laotian music, environmentalist talks, BBC news off a shortwave radio, radio programs of Greek philosophers, etc. In short, it kicked ass.

But it existed off then easily available government grants to independent non-coms and not much else and when those dried up in 1981, the end was nigh. KRAB's owners, The Jack Straw Memorial Foundation sold it's 107.7 frequency to Sunbelt Broadcasting in 1984 and became KMGI "Magic 108" in 1985. That $3.5 mil went to start KSER in 1990 (after a brief - reportedly hostile attempt as a frequency share with KNHC) and a new state of the art recording studio in the U-District. KSER was later sold to the KSER Foundation.

Trivia: WHO was Jack Straw? (The answer may have eluded even the sharpest of you.......)

 

[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

As I recall Straw was a British patriot, revolutionary, or MP of some kind. We dodged a bullet because they COULD have named it the Yoko Ono foundation.

 

[Bongwater]

As I recall Straw was a British patriot, revolutionary, or MP of some kind. We dodged a bullet because they COULD have named it the Yoko Ono foundation.

Close......Very close.....

"The name Jack Straw has several appeals for us. Naturally, we delight in the obscurity of it. It refers to a trouble-making peasant type who, in 1381, led a riot against the Flemish inhabitants of London for nothing less mundane than economic reasons, but better, is associated in Chaucer with the absolute confusion and demi-philosophical statements of Chanticleer and Dame Pertelote under attack of the ‘povre wydwe, somdeel stape in age.’ Figure that one out.

Jack Straw bodes well for KRAB, with outside help we may be able to escape the inordinate confusion of our farmyard studios. We are sometimes revolted by our poverty and dream – as we have said – of glistening studios with miracle equipment and a transmitter lost somewhere in the clouds of faultless transmission and wild improbable plans. We will refuse, of course, adamantly, to give up the confusion of our quasi-philosophical stance– that it the nature of KRAB and Dame Pertelote....."

~The Radio Papers: From KRAB to KCHU by Lorenzo Milam

Excerpt of Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

So hydous was the noyse, a benedicitee!
Certes, he Jakke Straw and his meynee
Ne made nevere shoutes half so shrille
Whan that they wolden any Flemyng kille,
As thilke day was madde upon the fox.
Of bras they broghten bemes, and of box,
Of horn, of boon, in whiche they blewe and powped,
And therwithal they skriked and they howped,
It semed as they hevene sholde falle.

http://www.jackstraw.org/main/about/jack.shtml

.....so there you are. the Jack Straw Memorial Foundation was straight out of Chaucer..........

 

[SeattleObserver]

KSER is the direct descendant of KRAB, that weird, but lovable freeform non-com station formerly on 107.7.

That $3.5 mil went to start KSER in 1990 (after a brief - reportedly hostile attempt as a frequency share with KNHC) and a new state of the art recording studio in the U-District. KSER was later sold to the KSER Foundation.

Why would you put a state-of-the-art studio in the U. District for a station that can't really be received south of Lynnwood (and that's in cars)?!?

I'd heard some of the history. Thanks for sparking the thread.

 

[TakeItFromMe]

Well this thread is a yawner. Now I know why I left town

 

[Bongwater]

KSER is the direct descendant of KRAB, that weird, but lovable freeform non-com station formerly on 107.7.

That $3.5 mil went to start KSER in 1990 (after a brief - reportedly hostile attempt as a frequency share with KNHC) and a new state of the art recording studio in the U-District. KSER was later sold to the KSER Foundation.

Why would you put a state-of-the-art studio in the U. District for a station that can't really be received south of Lynnwood (and that's in cars)?!?

I'd heard some of the history. Thanks for sparking the thread.

Well, Jack Straw wanted to branch out into more than radio (a VERY smart move on their part.) Jack Straw Productions aren't a part of KSER and never really were. Just a place for the indie/alternative crowd to get some quality recording space........