In 1998, when University Radio He was over 70 years old and his FM was barely a decade old, Oscar Jalil found out through the literary editor Leandro de Martinelli that they were looking for a music maker. Jalil directed the youth culture supplement of the newspaper El Día – the first one in La Plata – and closely followed the circuit of college and university stations in the United States, more than a thousand and very influential in musical consumption, especially.
“It is true that university radio stations have the function of disseminating academic knowledge, but we could also make it coexist with rock as a link to other artistic disciplines, and through music develop programming that deals with youth culture,” explains Jalil, since then coordinator of the FM signal, more malleable in terms of experiments than AM and, therefore, more connected to the different changes in time.
The Radio Universidad de La Plata combo will turn 100 years old on Friday, when exactly a century has passed since the first AM broadcast on April 5, 1924. Indeed, the nodal purpose was always to disseminate the academic knowledge of the faculties beyond of the cloisters. What happened in the middle is that knowledge changed, and therefore the way of applying it. The FM, with its current branches on different platforms such as YouTube or Twitch, proposed updating the readings on the cultural narratives that circulate through the influential university circuit.
“Things were happening at a cultural level in La Plata, and especially through the faculties: photography, literature, independent cinema. All of that coexisted, so rock offered us a matrix in which the new can coexist. with the classic to, ultimately, bring the academic to the street. That’s why our slogan was to be ‘The radio that expands your knowledge,'” explains Oscar, who also hosts the Wild Detectives series with Nando Magistralion Fridays from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
“We started working with very few elements, we brought the music from our own clubs and the contracts were ridiculous, so many kids from the faculty who wanted to do their internships helped,” explains El Turco. “We were lucky that at that time Rock & Pop did not reach the city square, it was lost through City Bell, and at the same time there was no radio in La Plata that used rock as a link to other artistic disciplines, so “We proposed a more relaxed format in terms of intensity.”
Thus, cult cycles stood out such as Rock Culture, by Rocambole (the first to perhaps coin that label); Pop music concert, by Roberto Parreño; or Influences, by Sergio Pujol, which came from before and then took on another dimension. “It was a great laboratory of ideas where trial and error sometimes gave you magnificent results,” says Jalil. “No one objected to what you had to say, there were many liberators. I know some university radio stations in the interior and they still have a certain solemnity. We erase the solemnity with humor, irony and creativity.”
Simultaneously, local bands began to release their records, demos and cassettes. Thus, the radio put together something that became school: the anti-ranking where a group that carried its songs on a CDR with Nick Cave coexisted. “That generated a kind of high overlapping rotation of the La Plata groups to infect even announcers, operators or drivers who were not so in tune with that music.” In this and other ways, the FM became a pillar of ki that, starting in the 2000s or so, would be its own Indie scene. “In fact, the radio is like La Plata rock itself, which is also made by photographers, set designers, poets; each band has like a multidisciplinary group. The same thing happens here.”
The creative engineering they had also led them to be able to overcome the technical impediments that arose: “When the radio couldn’t be heard well, we took it out into the street,” Jalil remembers. Thus, various fairs, stages, cycles such as the Outlet or the Media Pila appeared, which were a hotbed for artists from the founding square and surrounding areas. And two deluxe tributes that allowed us to leave a physical record: the tribute albums to Virus and Los Redondos, the great ambassadors of the city in the constellation of Argentine rock, by groups from La Plata.
In 2019, the FM took its technological leap by moving from the terrace in front of Plaza Rocha to the brutalist Karakachoff Building, where between this Wednesday and Friday the 5th the first Latin American congress of university media will be held – as a commemoration of the radio centennial. and a festival that includes Juan Irio, Pels, Las Tardes, Carmen Sánchez Viamonte, Vita Set and the surprise appearance of Manuel Moretti.
“For me, radio is content, not opinion. Maybe when we became more narrators of reality, because politics demanded it, it didn’t go as well as when we talked about movies, books, records. I think that’s our place, although obviously the reality, and especially in this terrible context for the public media, is that one cannot hide,” describes the person who was FM coordinator until 2021, although since then he has continued to be linked to the musicalization of different sections from air.
“Politics has no answers to the right and the popular support it has, which is the most surprising thing. Furthermore, this attack on the universities draws my attention, because the closure of each one would imply marches of tens of thousands of students. I believe which is always the same project: the emptying. And, in this case, of knowledge,” says the Turk. “Therefore, I believe that the radio must respond with cultural actions and unique content. The content must be rigorous and serious, showing topics that are not found elsewhere. There is an audience that seeks to get out of the ordinary and university radio can satisfy those needs. Today they install a topic in ten minutes on Twitter. OK, let’s respond with more content. With more movies, with more books, with more records. Maybe we run the risk of being a niche radio station, but “In other places you don’t hear the music you hear at the university.”
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2024-04-05 01:47:06
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