March 26, 2010

By this time, I think it’s safe to assume that most people who would be reading this already know about WOXY.com’s fate. If you don’t, doing a blog search for “WOXY” right now will point you to a billion blogs talking about them and their recent plight.

A lot of people have already talked about what WOXY meant to them, and I feel I should add my own words, since, well, there would be no “You, You’re Awesome” without them.

When I moved to Cincinnati in 2000 for college, music was already a huge part of my existence.  Since radio was already sucking pretty hardcore, I had to rely on other ways to find music I liked. Sometimes it was friend’s suggestions, or I would blindly pick something out based on the cover art, or I’d spend time on Amazon.com picking an artist and clicking on ‘sounds like’.

While I was driving up to Cleveland to visit the folks, a station began to come clear as I drove north of the city. I was amazed that I was hearing a radio station play Radiohead that was NOT Creep. I was amazed that I was hearing Pixies, and I was amazed that the DJs actually mentioned each song by name.

The signal was always hard to get around the University of Cincinnati, but I managed to find a sweet spot halfway up my driveway where I could hear them clearly.  One night, a DJ by the name of Shiv was playing a track by Orbital, and it was at that moment that I was hooked. My favorite electronic band being played on the radio? absurd!

In 2004, they ended their terrestrial broadcast. I couldn’t help but tear up listening to all the DJs say their goodbyes. I realized that the station was more than just a nameless place to listen to music. I felt like I knew these people. I cared about them even though I had not met them. I still remember how deafening the silence was when they pulled the plug. I sat in the silence for a while.  It fucking sucked.

Soon after the shut down, I joined the message boards.  Sounds pretty geeky, but I loved the conversations that happened, be it about music or other randomness.  The DJs were often sharing their own thoughts and it felt like a pretty cool community of like minded folks. I started meeting people’s real life persona’s at shows and board functions, and I made a lot of long lasting friendships.  One of those people was Kevin. I won’t bore you with how our friendship happened, but without the WOXY boards, we would’ve never met. Never become friends. Never joked about starting a surf band. Never become YYA.

We’ve been lucky in this band.  People seem to dig us, and we’ve been lucky enough to get a lot of great opportunities. Again, it can all be traced back to WOXY.

I’d been trying for years to get something I’ve written or been a part of to get played on air.  Nothing ever did. I never let it deter me. I figured it was because what I was writing was crap. Which it probably was. I couldn’t stop making shit though, so eventually YYA came into being, and we had our first show.  By this time, Kevin and I were good friends with Shiv and the other good folks at the station, so he came down to check it out.  The next day he played us on the air.  It felt unbelievably validating to me.  Something I created was finally deemed worthy to be played in the same company as Radiohead and Super Furry Animals. I was ecstatic.

The WOXY folks were kind enough to invite us down to their new home in Austin to be one of the first bands to play a SxSw lounge act.  Little did we know it would be one of the last too.  Even though I was friends with Shiv, who did the interviewing, I was nervous as hell.  I was finally fulfilling a musical dream I’ve had for almost ten years.  I’d like to share the entire session with you all, since WOXY can’t anymore.

http://youyoureawesome.com/index.php/site/music/

I hope that WOXY gets another chance, but I also realize that this may have been the last incarnation for the guys. I’m feeling quite empty. I’m not sure how to get to people’s ears without those folks behind us.  I want to personally thank Mike, Joe, and Shiv for always supporting us. Thanks to Brian Niesz for letting 5 folks from Cincinnati crash on his floor during South-by. And though I only met Paige for a brief second, thanks to her as well for being a part of the team. We’ll miss you.