By Suzanne G. Cusick in Revista Transcultural de Música/Transcultural Music Review
#10 (2006) ISSN:1697-0101

Abstract:

One of the most startling aspects of musical culture in the post-Cold War United States is the systematic use of music as a weapon of war. First coming to mainstream attention in 1989, when US troops blared loud music in an effort to induce Panamanian president Manuel Norriega’s surrender, the use of “acoustic bombardment” has become standard practice on the battlefields of Iraq, and specifically musical bombardment has joined sensory deprivation and sexual humiliation as among the non-lethal means by which prisoners from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo may be coerced to yield their secrets without violating US law.

The very idea that music could be an instrument of torture confronts us with a novel—and disturbing—perspecti ve on contemporary musicality in the United States. What is it that we in the United States might know about ourselves by contemplating this perspective? What does our government’s use of music in the “war on terror” tell us (and our antagonists) about ourselves?

This paper is a first attempt to understand the military and cultural logics on which the contemporary use of music as a weapon in torture and war is based. After briefly tracing the development of acoustic weapons in the late 20th century, and their deployment at the second battle of Falluja in November, 2004, I summarize what can be known about the theory and practice of using music to torture detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. I contemplate some aspects of late 20th-century musical culture in the civilian US that resonate with the US security community’s conception of music as a weapon, and survey the way musical torture is discussed in the virtual world known as the blogosphere. Finally, I sketch some questions for further research and analysis.

Max Neuhaus passed this week. He was known for many radio art works.

From Rhizome:

This week marked the passing of a true visionary of contemporary art, Max Neuhaus. Originally an accomplished solo percussionist who toured with Boulez and Stockhausen, in the late 1960's Neuhaus moved his practice out of the concert hall and into the public sphere, setting up numerous sound-based installations in and around New York City.

In the first "Public Supply" in 1966, he combined a radio station with the telephone network and created a two-way public aural space twenty miles in diameter encompassing New York City, where any inhabitant could join a live dialogue with sound by making a phone call. Later, in 1977 with "Radio Net," he formed a nationwide network with 190 radio stations. The current project, "Auracle," constructs a twenty-four hour a day global entity for live interaction with sound over the Internet.

From Make Magazine:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T6vHeyDmlk&hl=en&fs=1]

The "Future Pirate Radio" project is a combination of a cell phone application that reads QR Codes and printable stencils for graffiti artists to put up the codes on local walls. When photographed, the codes produce radio broadcasts streamed live over the Internet. Although it seems like a hard way to find a radio broadcast (searching the streets) we will most likely see more of these types of apps surface through our mobile devices.

After many weeks of bandying the shuttlecock of decision back and forth, Congress has passed the DTV delay bill, moving the analog-to-digital TV switchover back four months until June 12. Therefore "The End of Television" broadcast festival is also delayed until June 12. The festival will continue to accept submissions and the submission deadline is pushed back until May 20, 2009. Stayed tuned for details concerning the broadcast event on June 12 in Pittsburgh, which is now going to be bigger and better than ever. Follow the progress at theendoftelevision.blogspot.com.

Sen. John McCain (R- AZ) campaigned for president last fall, in part, on a platform of more rural broadband access. In 2005, he co-sponsored legislation "to bring broadband into rural areas." Now that President Obama wants to fund more rural broadband access in the stimulus bill, McCain is now against it.

This is a collaboration for "Lines of Sight" by philosopher and pioneer of mini-FM radio, Tetsuo Kogawa, and sound artist Yasunao Tone, based on an e-mail exchange about radio art. In "Lines of Sight," the artists Barbara Held and Pilar Subirá offer a very personal program to explore the extraordinary range of musical registers present on the world scene, following paths as diverse as musical notation and non-linear composition, and introducing artists who explore ideas of broadcasting as a means of creative expression for Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona. Click here to listen.

Visual Arts Call for Entries: The Arts Center of the Capital Region is pleased to announce a Call for Entries. Visual artists in all media are invited to submit proposals for consideration. Submissions can be of any media, and will be viewed anonymously by a panel of professional artists and curators. The Arts Center of the Capital Region is also calling for curatorial proposals from experienced curators. Download the Call for Entries brochure at http://www.artscenteronline.org/optional_ section2/index.cfm
The Arts Center of the Capital Region, 265 River St., Troy, NY 12180

From Free Radio Berkeley via Mediageek:

The venerable Free Radio Berkeley has a (relatively) new video demonstrating all the parts in the air chain of a micropower unlicensed radio station, fresh from their Oakland, CA shop:

To celebrate Some Assembly Required's Tenth Anniversary, mnartists.org and Some Assembly Required are teaming up to produce a compilation of fifty-second tracks, by as many as fifty artists. To have your work considered for this online compilation, please submit your original works of sound collage, featuring at least 50 percent post-consumer audio (sounds found in the media) by March 16, 2009. (Listen to Some Assembly Required every Monday at 11 a.m. on free103point9 Online Radio.) Send your submissions to one of the following addresses by 3/16/09:
Email: assembly (at) detritus.net
Mail: Some Assembly Required, 2751 Hennepin Ave. S. (#145), Minneapolis, MN 55408

From Kim Hart in The Washington Post:

Key senators have reached a compromise on a bill that would delay the nation's switch to all-digital television from next month until June 12. A vote on the legislation is expected early next week. Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Commerce Committee, has been working with ranking member Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), to draft legislation that also would give consumers more access to coupons for the converter boxes needed to continue receiving broadcasts. Television broadcasters are scheduled to turn off analog signals Feb. 17. Consumers with an analog television will need a converter box to get broadcasts. People with digital televisions or cable or satellite service will not lose programming. President Obama earlier this month urged Congress to postpone the transition due to mounting evidence that consumers are not prepared. The Nielsen Co. said Thursday that more than 6.5 million U.S. households are still not prepared for the upcoming transition and could see their television sets go dark next month.

From Stephen Labaton in The New York Times:

President-elect Barack Obama intends to nominate Julius Genachowski , an adviser on technology issues and longtime friend, to become the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, advisers to Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Genachowski, 46, was a major fund-raiser for the Obama campaign who also played a leading role in the campaign’s highly successful online strategy. He remains very close to Mr. Obama—both men went to Columbia College and Harvard Law School and the two served together on the Harvard Law Review. They also were basketball buddies.

During the campaign, Mr. Genachowski shaped many of Mr. Obama’s telecom policies. He advocated an open Internet in the debate over so-called “net neutrality,’’ and media-ownership rules that promote a diversity of voices on the airwaves.

People involved in the transition said that Mr. Genachowski was a top candidate for both the chairmanship and a new White House position overseeing technology issues that has not been fully defined yet.

If confirmed, one of his first challenges at the commission will be what to do about the problems plaguing the conversion to digital television. The Obama transition team has asked Congress to delay the conversion, set for Feb. 17, because millions of viewers have been unable to obtain coupons to pay for converter boxes that would enable their sets to receive signals once all broadcasters lose their analog signal. (The conversion will not affect viewers who subscribe to cable or satellite television services.)

The chairmanship of the F.C.C. has played a more expansive role in regulating the economy, particularly with the rise of the Internet and wireless communications over the last 20 years. Now, as the new administration plans to make the expansion of broadband and Internet services a significant part of its stimulus package, Mr. Genachowski, with his close ties to Mr. Obama, could wind up with an even bigger role than his predecessors in shaping economic policy.

After graduating from law school, Mr. Genachowski clerked for federal appeals court judge Abner J. Mikva after Mr. Obama turned down the same job. Mr. Genachowski then clerked for Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter. He was chief counsel to Reed Hundt, a chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, during the Clinton administration. He then worked for eight years as a senior executive at Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive Corporation. He also founded an investment and advisory firm for digital media companies and co-founded the country’s first commercial “green’’ bank.

Text by Johan Lehrer, graphics by Javier Zarracina, from Boston Globe:

From Future of Music Coalition:

Back in October 2007, the FCC opened a brief licensing window for full-power, non-commercial stations. FMC and our friends at Radio for People thought this would be the perfect (and rare) opportunity for community arts organizations to get on the dial. We worked to identify qualifying groups, letting them know about the possibility and assisting interested parties with the application process.

Now, the approvals are starting to trickle in. New York State "transmission arts" collective free103point9 was recently awarded an FCC license to launch a 3,300-watt FM radio station on 90.7-FM in Greene and Columbia Counties.

Freelance journalist and radio enthusiast Mike Janssen (who worked on and has written about the full power licensing process) recently interviewed free103point9's Tom Roe about how they plan to build a community-oriented radio station from the ground up.

Listen to the podcast here (right -click or option-click to download).

From DIY Media:

I've just finished updating the Enforcement Action Database. The FCC's Enforcement Bureau has reported its field actions through mid-December, and as you can see, given any activity over the balance of the month, it is on target to meet and/or (most likely) beat the record enforcement year of 2007.

What does this mean? It depends on how you look at the data. Sure, the FCC's busting more pirates than ever, but does that really mean it's making a dent in station proliferation? A couple of major conclusions from the year-in-review are striking:

1. Most FCC enforcement is concentrated around geographic "hot spots" around the country. The top two are south Florida (most notably the Miami-Dade metroplex) and New York. If you add New Jersey in with NYC, the density of enforcement actions is about tied. It's not that far of a stretch to equate that with the density of existing pirate radio stations (i.e., they're not going away).

2. Although most of the enforcement occurs in these hot spots, the fact that enforcement takes place essentially nationwide makes the phenomenon of pirate radio a national one. I think it's just much less of a priority for some field offices than others.

3. There's a compelling trend this year in the timing of enforcement actions. Multiple field offices tend to go pirate-hunting around the same time of the month (often on the exact same days). If I had to guess, the FCC's mandate from D.C. is, "spend some time hunting pirates to show that we care," and the agents in the field mark a day or two on their monthly calendars to handle any pending complaints. (For what it's worth, there's no indication that the FCC's 15 month-old online pirate station reporting form is doing much good).

4. Finally, the primary tools of FCC enforcement remain, by and large, quite administrative. Station-visits and threatening-sounding certified letters are the field agents' ammunition of choice. It's worth noting that although the amount of monetary forfeitures has risen to 2006 levels, the FCC's expected recoupment for each enforcement action it takes is paltry; going pirate-hunting is a big money-loser for the agency. Note that the number of arrests and convictions have remained stable - and less than a handful at that. It would seem that those state laws criminalizing pirate radio are doing a whole lot of nothing.

In fact, looking at the raw data from which I compile the majority of my statistics, the Enforcement Bureau's been going after more serious unlicensed broadcasters, like those who potentially jam public-safety, maritime, and land-mobile two-way radio networks. This is a phenomenon that also appears to be on the rise. The FCC's much more quicker to bring the fiscal hammer down on those sorts of people, but they're the ones doing real harm.

The bottom line? 2009 will be a year of opportunity for unlicensed broadcasters. Without some sort of massive infusion of human resources, capital, and political will, the FCC simply doesn't have the strength to shut much of anything down. It's reached its enforcement capacity, and it's being overwhelmed. In that sense, we're winning.

From MSNBC:

President-elect Barack Obama is urging Congress to postpone the Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital television broadcasting, arguing that too many Americans who rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air channels won’t be ready.

In a letter to key lawmakers Thursday, Obama transition team co-chair John Podesta said the digital transition needs to be delayed largely because the Commerce Department has run out of money for coupons to subsidize digital TV converter boxes for consumers. People who don’t have cable or satellite service or a new TV with a digital tuner will need the converter boxes to keep their older analog sets working.

Obama officials are also concerned that the government is not doing enough to help Americans — particularly those in rural, poor or minority communities — prepare for and navigate the transition.

“With coupons unavailable, support and education insufficient, and the most vulnerable Americans exposed, I urge you to consider a change to the legislatively mandated analog cutoff date,” Podesta wrote in a letter to top Democrats and Republicans on the Senate and House Commerce committees.

In a statement released Thursday, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, acknowledged that the transition to digital television is not going well, and that millions of Americans could experience serious problems on Feb. 17.

"We also know that many Americans will experience difficulties connecting their converter boxes, that there could soon be a shortage of boxes, and that the federal government is not prepared to answer the many questions confused consumers will have. I am reviewing the President-elect's letter and will work with his team and my colleagues to address the problems created by this poorly managed program," he said.

The Greene/Columbia community radio project is a community-run media project, re-envisioning radio as an innovative platform for local participation. Our inclusive programming connects diverse voices, and distributes information across the public spectrum in New York's Greene and Columbia Counties.

free103point9 will launch a 3,300-watt community radio station with a radio art bent, in 2010 on 90.7-FM in Greene and Columbia (and southern Albany) Counties in New York.

From Xeni Jardin on Boing Boing:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls3QPKEs74s&hl=en&fs=1]

My friend Siege blogged this YouTube find and explained it like this:

On a hotel bed, Steven Spielberg talks to Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger about TV static ghosts, picking up radio stations on his teeth, and swallowing the future.

Spielberg confesses *swallowing* a transistor after his father presented it to him, and said "son, this is the future" -- it was the young boy's first hands-on experience with technology. Or, perhaps better stated, his first technology-in-gullet experience.

My Friends Andy, Steve and Bianca Just Hanging Out (YouTube, uploaded by user michaeljamespinto, read his blog entry about the clip here. )

Update: BB commenter DHC says, "It's worth noting that his is an outtake from a TV show that Warhol developed and aired on Manhattan cable. You can get more of the story here."

Location: York University, Toronto, Canada,
Dates: July 27-30th, 2009

This conference – the fifth transnational forum – aims to continue the
work of Sussex 2001, Madison, Wisconsin 2003 Melbourne 2005 and
Lincoln 2007 to bring together scholars, practitioners, and students
of radio to share ideas and perspectives on radio's cultural role in
an increasingly global media context. We welcome proposals and abstracts for papers, panels, and symposia on all aspects of radio – historical, cultural, critical, and
institutional – including investigations of the changing form and content of radio and its associated audio media. Preference will be given to papers and panels which report on current empirical research, introduce innovations in learning and teaching strategies, or engagement with key areas of theory or debate in radio studies. You may submit proposals for individual papers, pre-constituted panels, or symposia. Papers should be in English primarily. Should there be sufficient interest, French and/or bilingual panels may be formed. See our website at http://theradioconference2009.apps01.yorku.ca/ for information and instructions on how to submit your proposal.

Submission deadlines

Abstracts deadline is Friday 30th January 2009 and decisions will
be20communicated before Tuesday 30 March 2009. If you have a
particular need for an earlier decision please explain why in your
submission. Please send a 250 to 300 word abstract, brief author's
biography and contact information to Anne MacLennan at
radio09@yorku. ca (radio zero nine at yorku.ca). The conference is jointly sponsored by the York University, Toronto and the Radio Studies Network. The proposals will be peer reviewed by a panel of international scholars including:

Gail Philips, Murdoch University, Australia
Per Jauert, University of Aarhus, Denmark
Ken Garner, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
David Hendy, University of Westminster, UK
Paul Moore, University of Ulster, UK
Michael Keith, Boston College, USA
Peter Lewis, London Metropolitan University, UK
Anne Dunn, University of Sydney, Australia
David Goodman, University of Melbourne, Australia
Hugh Chignell, Bournemouth University, UK
Eric Rothenbuhler, Texas A&M University, USA
Kate Lacey, University of Sussex, UK
Russell Johnston, Brock University, Canada
Jeff Webb, Memorial University, Canada
Len Kuffert, University of Manitoba, Canada

Organizing Committe
Anne MacLennan (York University, Canada; Joint chair)
Tim Wall (Birmingham City University, UK; Joint chair)
Michele Hilmes (University of Wisconsin - Madison, USA)
John Tebbutt (Latrobe University, Melbourne, Australia)

Please contact radio09@yorku.ca to submit abstracts and for further
information.

The End of Television is a video program beginning when analog television ends. On February 17, 2009 the U.S. television broadcast signal will change over from analog to digital. No television will receive a signal without a special converter box. On February 17, The End of Television will air through analog broadcast TV on channel 2 in Pittsburgh. When broadcasters turn off their analog transmitters The End of Television turns it's analog transmitter on and broadcasts the program. Using a restricted and nearly obsolete medium (broadcast TV), The End of Television re-imagines the omnipresent idea of "broadcast yourself." We are accepting all videos submitted before the deadline and there is no submission fee. The End of Television will hold a countdown event on the evening of February 16th in Pittsburgh (Location TBA) and at midnight we will flip the switch. Contact: ian.f.page@gmail.com or visit TheEndOfTelevision.blogspot.com for any updates.

Send videos to:
The End of Television
331 S. Aiken st
Pittsburgh, PA 15232

Deadline: Postmarked by January 25.

- Work should be submitted on miniDV or VHS.
- Work will not be returned unless a SASE is included.

*It should be noted that this program will accept all work submitted, but the program reserves the right to not broadcast a video if it is deemed unsuitable.

Last week House of Representative Democrats voted 137-122 to replace John Dingell (D-MI 15th District) with Henry Waxman (D-CA 30th District, pictured at right) as the chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Dingell, the longest-serving member of the U.S. House, was considered by many progressive Democrats as standing in the way of key legislation, most notably auto industry reform. The Commerce Committee also oversees the telecommunications industry, and Dingell had stalled the Local Community Radio Act of 2007, which would have created thousands of new Low-Power FM stations around the country. Dingell was not one of the 99 co-sponsors in the House, and had kept the bill stuck in Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. Maybe that's because Dingell regularly takes large contributions from LPFM's biggest enemy -- the National Association of Broadcasters. Waxman, on the other hand, did co-sponsor the LPFM bill, and back in 2000, was the main opposition to the limits on the first LPFM bill Congress passed, while Dingell believed the since-disproved fake CD of alleged LPFM interference the NAB produced. Waxman's appointment as chair doesn't guarantee anything, but his past record indicates he is an LPFM supporter.