The Crisis at KDHX: A Musician's Perspective

In the summer of 2023, I had a lot going on. I had health problems and spent some time in the hospital. The day after I was discharged, I released my self-titled EP, which began to get lots of airplay from several DJs at KDHX, St. Louis' community radio station. Within a month of release, I got so many spins that I made the NACC airplay chart (the chart for college and community stations). That's pretty incredible for airplay on only one station.

People were hearing and responding to the music I had worked so hard to produce and I was very gratified because music is how I communicate and KDHX was the medium in St. Louis. The airplay and feedback made my lot a little easier to take and gave me hope. While recovering, I had finished a new Corpus Alienum album of instrumentals and it was ready for release by the end of the year. Things were looking up.

And then it all stopped. All that airtime suddenly ceased. My plans for a new release were disrupted. My support vanished and the further development of a growing audience for my work in St. Louis was not realized. The Powers that Be at KDHX had pulled the plug. This state of affairs has hit me hard, as it has the rest of the community of musicians in St. Louis.

Most of the DJs who had supported me were fired, the rest walked out, and by the end of the year two DJs who remained with the station abruptly stopped playing my music, most likely because of public statements I had made criticizing management. This was no longer community radio; it was gatekeeping, something that is entirely antithetical to the spirit and purpose of community radio. So much for their claim to be "here for the music".

I have deep roots in community radio going back to 1981 when I volunteered at WPKN in Bridgeport, Connecticut at the age of eleven. I learned audio production there and heard all kinds of music. I met the djs who lived in my community who came from all walks of life. I learned about other cultures and the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion firsthand from people who really walked the walk forty years ago.

They allowed me to volunteer there, a kid with a visual impairment with no experience. I was embraced and encouraged to learn. I felt like I belonged somewhere for the first time in my life. It opened my eyes to new ways of being and experiencing the world. That commitment is alive and well at WPKN today. That's how a functional community radio station operates under the principles of DEI.

In 1987, two years after I moved to St. Louis, KDHX began broadcasting. I was excited to see a brand new community radio station in my new home. It gave me hope that a station not dissimilar in spirit and practice to the one I had left in Connecticut was taking root here. As I got older, I met, worked with and befriended some of the volunteers. When I started working as a musician and making recordings, I benefitted from radio support from KDHX. I enjoyed listening to many of the shows. I donated to KDHX when I could barely afford to feed myself. It was my community radio station and I was proud that it existed in my community.

In the wake of mass firings and groundless accusations against their programmers, KDHX has lost one third of their donors and the ratings are in the toilet. The station I love is now a sinking ship with cardboard sails. I take no pleasure in saying that. It has been a vital lifeline to musicians across the region, giving crucial airplay and exposure to acts that would have gone unheard. St Louis' musicians seem to be expendable in the forging of their "bold new vision".

I and other St. Louis musicians have been effectively sanctioned and silenced. I don't know if KDHX will survive. I hope it will. That's why I signed the Musicians' Call for New Leadership of KDHX petition. Their war on their own volunteers is a war on the musical community that those in charge of KDHX profess to nurture and serve. They must be held accountable for the damage they have wrought on an institution vital to St. Louis' cultural life. If the station fails on their watch, on their heads be it.