Photography by Sara Anne Finke
Listeners to KDHX may not notice a difference when they tune into 88.1 on the FM dial, but change is afoot at the community radio station, and it involves a lot more than just a new mailing address.
The station’s new studios have a performance venue called The Stage; the soon-to-open Magnolia Café at its front door; an upgraded live studio for on-air performances; and a gigantic lit-up sign sure to be seen by the sundry audiences who head to Grand Center to see plays at the Fox, the symphony at Powell Hall, and concerts at the Sheldon. The Larry J. Weir Center for Independent Media, located at 3524 Washington Avenue, is next door to Jazz at the Bistro and just a few blocks from St. Louis Public Radio (a.k.a. KWMU 90.7 FM) and KETC-The Nine Network of Public Media (the local Public Broadcasting System affiliate). The building used to house the Creepy Crawl and before that, the Club Riviera.
KDHX’s fellow travelers in its new neighborhood might be a bit higher profile than the largely volunteer-staffed community radio station, but the 26-year-old station already has an audience, an identity, and an established track record filling its eccentric niche. And that niche is bound to grow as more people discover it.
“The visibility of having the station in an area where there is so much foot traffic, particularly with folks that don’t already know about us, is huge,” says KDHX executive director Bev Hacker. “Our gigantic sign draws folks in to ask what KDHX is all about, and we can tell them about all the cool stuff we do.”
Tom “Papa” Ray, co-founder and co-owner of Vintage Vinyl in the Loop and long-time drive-time volunteer DJ on Mondays, calls the move to a new location with expanded studio space a “quantum leap” for the station. “This places the station at the absolute forefront of community radio in the nation,” Ray says. “With this new facility, KDHX becomes the aspirational role model for non-commercial media in the USA.”
That’s right, there are no commercials—just 164 hours of music per week, with four hours of arts and news talk on Monday nights. The station runs on revenue from membership drives and other fundraising.
The move happened in December, and already the station is in the midst of collaborating with other Grand Center entities, including the Sheldon and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, while also planning Tuesday evening music-related movies and educational programming. Music is still upfront, even with the new space, including The Stage performance venue.
“We can bring in artists that might not otherwise be able to play the area,” Hacker says. “The upgraded live studio will enable us to host even more bands for our in-studio sessions that can be heard on air and heard and seen online at KDHX.org.”
Jean Ponzi, host of the hour-long program Earthworms on Monday nights, hopes to use the increased space for “green-themed” environmental events as part of the Tuesday evening series. “KDHX continues to provide the opportunity to explore environmental issues with no limitations or censorship of any kind, outside the normal broadcasting boundaries of taste and regulation,” Ponzi says. “A stronger, better-connected KDHX enables my ‘green’ focus to better reach audience and promote sustainable ideas and practice.”
Ann Haubrich, host of Literature for the Halibut, which airs during the Monday night news-and-arts block, sees Grand Center’s emerging image as an arts-and-public media district as an advantage for collaboration and an aid in booking guests: “Radio often seems to be an invisible media, so having a physical presence in Grand Center should make the station more tangible to the community.”
But make no mistake: KDHX is driven by music, and the eclectic mix is what draws listeners to the radio and online listening. No other local station remotely offers the range and quality that it does, both from the variety of music featured on each show and the breadth of the music played within each show. There are shows featuring bluegrass, reggae, hip-hop, rock, pop, jazz, rhythm and blues, folk, Brazilian, blues... The hits—and non-hits—just keep on coming.
On a recent Thursday morning, for example, John Wendland’s show Memphis to Manchester played “April Fool” by Patti Smith, “Camel Walk” by the Ikettes, and “Stockholm” from Jason Isbell’s most recent release. Mixed in were cuts by Randy Newman, the Animals, Los Lobos, and local duo Sleepy Kitty. Wendland says the “considerable” time he spends preparing his playlist will continue, yet he sees changes due to the new venue. “I think the new location, coupled with The Stage and the café, can give KDHX more visibility and outreach than ever before,” says Wendland, adding that there's the possibility of a second digital-radio channel. “There’s just so much more that wouldn’t have been possible at the old location. It opens up so many more avenues for community outreach that weren't possible before. I don’t see how that excitement can’t help but carry across in the on-air programming.”
KDHX is more than just music, though. The station airs about 10 local theater reviews a month, along with about the same number of movie reviews. Nowhere else can the listener hear a lengthy review, for example, of Young Goethe in Love, a German film showing for one night at Webster University. The “Local Artist Spotlight” is a regular several-minute feature focusing on a local music artist, telling the story of the band or a singer-songwriter, so the audience gets a fuller understanding of the music. (Much of this is accessible at kdhx.org.)
And a block east on Washington Avenue, the Folk School is a nonprofit effort by KDHX to preserve and perpetuate traditional music and folk arts.
KDHX will continue to do what it has been doing, but now it will have a higher profile and the opportunity to do more. In raising $2 million of the $3.5 million needed to renovate the new home for KDHX, Hacker says that she ran across some common misconceptions people had about the station.
“Probably a common one was that we are just a funky radio station. People are always surprised to learn about the Folk School, Twangfest, the Folk and Roots Festival, our street-level arts promotion and presentation, our educational outreach, and all of the other things we do,” Hacker says. “We need to do a much better job telling our story.”
Vince Schoemehl, the former three-term St. Louis mayor and current impresario of Grand Center, says KDHX’s move helps the district and the city in numerous ways: “A formerly empty building is now filled with life. There is more live music in the district. People know that KDHX is in Grand Center, and that helps enormously with the branding of the district as a place where cool things happen. And the building is beautifully designed—maybe one of the best adaptive reuses in recent years. As people visit The Stage and Magnolia Café, they will see a very special building, which adds to the brand of Grand Center as a place of extraordinary design.”
And when listeners tune in, they’ll get the same dependable musical surprises on the radio—without commercials.
D.J. Wilson is the host of Collateral Damage, a weekly 30-minute news talk show at 8:30 p.m. Mondays that began on KDHX in 2001.
