By Mariela Limon |Staff Writer|
Coyote Radio’s newest show, The Underground Music Hour, airs Tuesday nights at 5 p.m. and features local artists from across the Inland Empire.
The show, a collaboration among Coyote Radio, the Underground Music Society and Airborne Intl. highlights the best of underground music that is produced locally.
Emmanuel Rodriguez, founder of the Underground Music Society said that, “Underground music covers every kind of music, its just not mainstream and that is the only thing that defines underground music.”
Cam Grant, Adam Washington and Kev Alexander are the disc jockeys that are in charge of the hourly show. All three are part of Airborne Intl., where they work to distribute their work, such as the graphic design and promotions of music artist Grant.
Although they are not affiliated with the school academically, they participate in the Underground Music Society, a recognized organization on campus.
“This is all still fresh to us, we barley started to do this over the summer,” said Alexander.
Although they are fairly new at this and as a team have only broadcasted four shows all of them seem very comfortable and excited about their new jobs as radio hosts.
“Our show is about artists promoting artists, giving them a professional platform to promote their music,” said Grant.
The radio show is an outlet for these local artist to get the exposure they need to branch out with their work and get attention from the shows audience.
Independent artists have a lot more work to do when they are not signed to a major recording company. “Promotion is just way different, independent artists promote themselves,” said Washington.
Grant himself knows this all too well. He too is a local artist trying to put his music out there and says “You have to become your own publicist, your own merchandise seller.”
“Young artists, all they need is the platform to make it and once you make that platform accessible it allows new things to spring forward,” said Rodriguez
“Underground music is starting to transform,” said Alexander. As a radio show they are not loyal to just one genre of underground music; they are willing to play anything.
Rodriguez’s ultimate goal for the show is to make people on and off campus come together through the music.
Besides their vocal promotion of local artist, they also promote their shows, events that are held on campus and current local and national events. “We tell everybody about shows that are coming up and local artists,” said Washington.
The Underground Music Hour hits the Coyote Radio airwaves every Tuesday night at 5 p.m. You can listen at the Coyote Radio website- coyoteradio.csusb.edu, on iTunes and on the TuneIn app. Local artists are encouraged to send the station music that they’d like to have on the airwaves.