A distinctly avant garde sounding Internet radio station has launched along the Hudson Valley city of Beacon, New York. The Ground is run by Josh Kogan and Vicki Vergolina. The latter is currently the producer for the Both Sides Now radio program. The former hosts the podcast Undergrowth via the Radio Hive collective in New York City. As I write this post I just heard a piece by composer Charles Amirkhanian, now followed by a program about broth—both the vegetable and meat varieties, with some observations about risotto forthcoming.
According to this article in the Phillipstown.info, The Ground operates from the “former assistant principal’s office in the old Beacon High School.” The room, “once a pit stop for troublemakers on their way to detention” is now the station’s main studio since the beginning of this year.
The piece notes that the operation is looking for hosts. “There’s a lot of creative souls here and there’s a lot of people with a lot to talk about,” Vergolina says. “Sometimes they don’t connect. But if we can get some conversations going out there, people will discover some new things. There’s some interesting folks in this town.”
From the fledgling station’s About page:
“Our mission is to operate a community radio studio where members can come-in, record, and air on our web-based station. Broadcasting voices and melody brings a different way of communicating in an over-wrought media culture, where the art of conversation is sometimes muted and other times lost. We believe it is important to get community conversations going and to create a forum to get those under-represented voices and sounds heard.”
Thus far The Ground lists eleven shows, among them Chewing the Fat (the aforementioned cooking program), the Bottomless Radio Hour (“a cultural examination of the modern human condition, with particular attention given to the eponymous rock band Van Halen”) and Wigwam Radio (“The Empire may be sinking, but there are still more entertaining options than playing shuffleboard or rearranging the deck chairs”). Much more and similar (or dissimilar) content presumably to come . . .
