8/6/2019 Kings of the Mountain

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november 18 - novembe r 25 , 2010 BIRMINGHAM WEEKLY

The men behind the Mountain:Jeff Clanton (left), Geno Pearson (middle) andJeremy Harper (right) are bringing back quality radio to Birmingham.

cover storySam George

Internet radIo statIon pIcks up where LIve 100.5 Left off

Kings of the Mountain

Radio just isnt what it used to be. Whenthe vast wilderness o the FM bandwidth wasthrown wide open in the late 1960s by a newrule rom the FCC banning the practice o du-plicating AM programming on FM stations,the space was quickly (and more important,inexpensively) flled by DJs who played longsets o music rom multiple genres. It was aradio wonderland, where it was possible tosample a vast spectrum o what the airwaveshad to oer in one sitting. You could hearolk, jazz, blues, rock, soul and R&B, all in onego. Any and all tracks were permissible, andthe chances o hearing a new tune you hadntheard beore were high (as were many o thelisteners).

Now, o course, the broadcast landscapelooks much dierent. The majority o music

stations on the air are controlled by just aew giant conglomerates, like Clear Channel,Cumulus Media and Citadel Broadcasting.Stations are programmed to ft into narrowdemographics, with short, singles-only playl-ists. Since much o the music being put out to-day is designed to ft frmly into these stationsnarrow defnitions, the broadcast behemothshave slowly and surely turned themselves intoobsolete schlock-hawkers.

That isnt to say that there arent bright spotsin the darkness o the airwaves. Birminghamhas played host to a ew trend-bucking upstartstations that have dared to expand the scopeo their playlists to include songs that (gasp!)people might not have heard beore. There wasthe nationally recognized 107.7 The X, whichdistinguished itsel with the Live in the XLounge series o albums in the late 1990s andearly 2000s. And, o course, the ill-ated Live100.5 station, which was shut down last Febru-ary by Citadel even though it had over 20,000people join a Facebook group petitioning orits survival just beore it was switched over to atalk-radio ormat.

Sounds bleak, doesnt it? Well, hope is onthe horizon. Quietly, a ew local entrepreneurshave been working on flling the void o qual-ity radio broadcasting here in Birmingham.The new station is called Mountain Radio, andit will be going live or your listening pleasurein the frst week o December. The only thingis, this new radio station isnt on the radio atall. Its on the internet.

Mountain Radio is, at its core, three gentle-man: Geno Pearson, Je Clanton and JeremyHarper. I met them recently to discuss their

recent endeavor, and rom the get-go, its clearthis is something theyve been pondering or along time.

We talked about it beore Live 100.5 evencame on the air, says Clanton, but whenthey came on we wanted to support that. Then[they] went o the air and we sat and waitedand waited. We thought somebody else wouldcome up with the idea, but then we said Letsjust do this. We elt like there was a hole inBirmingham or good indie rock and alterna-tive music. [Ive] worked in radio in sales ora long time, and I knew Geno was a genius atprogramming that kind o ormat, so I knew

he was somebody i wanted to talk to about it,and wed been riends or many years anyway.And Harper is prolifc at web design.

Pearson denies his genius status, but agreeshe had a vision o a way to move orward. Ivebeen programming an internet radio stationcalled gotradio.com or the past seven years,he notes. Its jockless and its just music, wehave 40 channels and I program seven othemall o the alternative-related channels.Its not trying to be local, but national andinternational. And [I thought], we could try todo it locally and get jocks on because I thinkthis town would eat it up.

One o the frst things they did was torecruit Scott Register, host o popular Sundaymorning radio show Regs Coeehouse, andthe last human voice heard on Live 100.5 be-

ore it was snued out. Register has spent theintervening months since that moment look-ing or the right opportunity to get his showback on the airwaves, and though opportuni-ties presented themselves, none seemed theright one until Mountain Radio. Theres aniche in this town that we were flling that wastaken away, and its been long enough, saysRegister. Its time to fl l that niche again.

Clanton concurs. We thought the way thatwe could do it, he says, is really hearken backto the radio stations o old, like the 70s AlbumOriented Rock (AOR). Its locally driven, itscommunity-driven, its a live radio station,and were live and local as much as possible.We want this show to be living and breathingtoo; to change, and to grow as the communitygrows with it.

It cant hurt that theyve also brought onormer Live 100.5 personalities Drew Cun-ningham and Chris Adler and picked up

Reed and Will Lochamy, creators o the OhBrother podcast, who will be expanding theirlocally-made podcast into a longer ormat.

Im excited about what [the Lochamybrothers] are going to do, says Clanton.Its going to be a two hour-long show [on]Thursday nights and itll be more a call-in andguest kind o talk show, but with their ownslant. Very similar to what they were doing,but more. I think they had a lot o ideas withthe podcast that they couldnt do.

Having the internet as your broadcast me-dium can provide benefts that terrestrial radiodoesnt oer, especially in the area o socialmedia. Scott Register has a clear perspectiveon the dierences. Back with 100.5, he says,I always elt our parent company never quitegrasped the social media aspect o todays

culture like we did. So it wasnt a big a surpriseto me when they dismissed the 21,000 peopleon the Facebook page. They dont get it. Theydont get what kind o a milestone it is to havethat many people join a cause to save some-thing on Facebook.

One o the frst things we did [at Live100.5] was implement the texting eature oranything where we were interacting with ourlisteners, continues Register, so they couldhave real-time conversations with us. I loveseeing peoples reactions to songs as theyreplaying, especially in the morning. Its one othe things that made me able to get up at fveevery morning and be there at six. When youknow youre not alone, when youre sittingthere and its dark and cold, and youve gotyour cup o coee in your hand, and you playa song and all o a sudden ten messages pop upwith people saying, Dude, you just saved my

lie. I needed this song this morning. makes it un rom our end as well. Tho the frst things I do when I walk in,into my Facebook page and say, Gooding. Here we go. Lets do this. I thinka vital part o what we do.

Geno Pearson is also gung-ho on thprospects o using social media to pioan internet radio station. The social sponse has really caught me by surpriPearson. This town is so passionate amusic. Bands that, or this size o a towwouldnt think they would sell 50 t ickwhen they come here theyl l sell out Wplay, theyll sell out Bottletree, theyll the Alabama Theatre. Other towns th[those bands] wouldnt get hal that. Oously, even with no radio exposure, p

fnding out about it and theyre goingshows and buying the CDs.From the way reaction to the new s

is shaping up, it seems like Mountain may indeed have stumbled onto the nmodel. Their Facebook page has beena little under two weeks and already hans, even though they arent on the aPublic reaction has also been positive

We did a kind o aux preview laundown at [Lakeviews] Nightmare on 2Street Celebration on Halloween, whea aux version o the station with the sand the music we would play, and thetion was, What is this!, Youre going tSilversun Pickups, youre going to playHorses? All the music we were playinbody was like, This is great, I cant w

Whatever the uture o Mountain Rholds, while it is on the air, Birminghonce again be able to call itsel the homradio station that plays music worth lto, programmed by people who care asuch things. In an age where the l istenchoices available to us have balloonedimposing mass thanks to online distrwe need someone to flter out the signthe noise. Or, as Reg puts it, Theres sgoing on in the world today and thereenough good flters out there. Weve pourselves time and time again to be thSo, as happy as I am to be able to broaagain, Im even happier or our listenethe artists, because at the end o the dwhole reason I started Regs Coeehoall those years ago and the whole reasstarted Live 100.5 was to connect thes

lovers with these artists and give themorum, and now were going to try itanother way.

Mountain Radio will go live the frst December at www.bhammountainradbut in the meantime you can get the skiwhat they are up to at their Facebook ater pages, which you can reach rom thewebsite.

Sam George is the Managing Editor ofmingham Weekly. Please send your coto editor@bhamweekly.com.