Stix

 From the agenda for this week's city council meeting, it looks as if the owner is planning to do work on the long shuttered Stix building. I certainly hope so as that would be one fewer building getting dilpaidated in the downtown area.

Also on the agenda is a similar request for a TIF agreement at 213 N. Washington, just south of the  WDBX radio station. and for 108 East Oak, which is the WDBX station.  Since these TIF requests are all part of the consent agenda, unless a council member requests an item get considered individually, they will all get passed with one motion. 

New WDBX Manager

After the controversy that resulted in previous station manager Dave Armstrong resigning, the WDBX Board has hired a new station manager. Hopefully, he has as long a tenure as Armstrong did

Power the Tower

Advanced Energy Solutions will install solar power on the WDBX station building at no charge to the station and use the opportunity as a hands on training session on July 16 &23. Hopefully, other local businesses will check out the event and see if converting to solar might be a feasible option for them.

 In Celebration of 17 Years of Business, Advanced Energy Solutions Plans to install Solar Power on WDBX Community Radio Advanced Energy Solutions Group, Inc. dba AES Solar has now been providing excellent service and resources to Southern Illinois for 17 years as of June 4th. In the Native American tradition celebrating your birthday by giving presents to others, AES Solar will be gifting WDBX Community Radio 91.1 with solar power, and using the opportunity to train future solar power providers through a hands on John A. Logan class in Solar knowledge scheduled for July 16th & 23rd.

The Southern Talk Show

The Southern has started a new call-in show on WDBX, airing at 9:30 Monday mornings, just before Talk of the Town. Unlike most WDBX programming, the currently unnamed show is available for download from The Southern's website but lord is it difficult to find.

Halloween Ball

Looks as if the weekend of October 26 will be quite busy:

The WDBX Halloween Costume Ball will be October 26th, from 7-11pm, at the Garden Grove Event Center (formerly Sportsblast) in Carbondale. Tickets are $30 each, with large group discounts available. The Well Well Wells and Hobo Knife will perform, and we will also have a costume contest with prizes. Tickets are available at Arnold's Market, the Neighborhood Co-Op, Dayshift, Plaza-Wuxtry Records, Navreet Kang Insurance, and online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com. All proceeds will benefit WDBX 91.1 FM.

WDBX Follow-up

The DE has a follow up to the reaction to the addition of Democracy Now to the WDBX lineup

WDBX Board Meeting

Tonight's WDBX board meeting promises to be interesting. From what I have heard, some of the recent changes, such as cutting half an hour from the afternoon shows to make room for Democracy Now and rescheduling others, have upset some people, who plan to make their disagreements known at the board meeting. If you want to catch it, the meeting takes place at 6 p.m. tonight at the Carbondale Township offices.

New Show

DaveX, host of It's Too Damn Early on WDBX, announced on his blog that he will start hosting a similar show on WSIU Sunday morning starting in April, possibly becoming the "largest broadcast of experimental music anywhere in the state".

John Cage Performance

Just received the following email from WDBX radio show host DaveX

John Cage Composition To Receive World Premiere Performance at SIUC

Southern Illinois resident and sound artist DaveX will perform the world premiere of "KNOBS" by John Cage this November 18, at 7:45 p.m., in the SIUC Student Center Auditorium. The performance will be part of "All Together Now," a three-day inter-arts event beginning the same evening.

"KNOBS," a 1971 composition by John Cage and former University of Illinois faculty member Lejaren Hiller; is a highly unique work scored for a recording of an earlier Cage/Hiller composition "HPSCHD" and stereo equipment. As was often the case with Cage's works, the score was generated through random means-- for "KNOBS," Cage and Hiller utilized the State University of New York at Buffalo's (then) state-of-the-art CDC-6400 mainframe, resulting in ten thousand unique and separate score printouts originally included in the LP release of "HPSCHD."

To date, none of these 10,000 scores have been publicly performed.

"After discovering an intact copy of the score in a used LP, I started trying to find out if it had ever been presented," DaveX said. "I was amazed to learn that it hadn't, especially after 38 years!"

"HPSCHD," a recording of which takes center stage in the performance of "KNOBS," is widely-acknowledged as one of Cage's most ambitious works. At its premiere performance in 1969 at the Assembly Hall of Urbana Campus, University of Illinois; "HPSCHD" featured seven harpsichordists, 208 computer-generated tapes, 52 projectors, 64 slide projectors with 6400 slides, 8 movie projectors with 40 movies, a 340 foot circular screen and several 11x40 foot rectangular screens. The performance lasted over five hours, with thousands of persons in attendance.

"These two composers were pioneers," DaveX said. "Cage introduced chance processes in composition, and Hiller helped create one of the first pieces of computer music. Hopefully, this performance will give Southern Illinois a nice introduction to them both."

"KNOBS" starts at 7:45 p.m., November 18, in the SIUC Student Center Auditorium. Admission is free.

City Council

Sat in on city council last night and the place was pretty packed. Kicked off with a five minute meeting of the Liquor Control Commission that quickly approved a temporary liquor license for Carbondale Main Street for the Pig Out and an A-2 license for the Stadium Grill.

Next up was the swearing in of new C'dale police officer Barry Bailey ( sp?). He left right afterward, followed by about 10 people, family members, I'd guess. The announcement afterward that Feb 23rd was designated Rotary International Day in the city freed up another dozen or so seats after the obligatory picture.

No citizens comments or public hearings so the mayor moved straight into the consent agenda, with everything passing as a group, except for item 2 which Councilman Fritzler asked to have voted on separately since he wanted to discuss travel expenditures by the mayor (about $3300) and other staff members. Fritzler pointed out that some staff members were traveling and training on the city's dime, then leaving city employment soon after and wondered if there was some way to prevent avoid this. The mayor responded that the city manager was looking into it. The exchange went much more smoothly this time then their last one.

Then, it was time for the big event, the reason so many people had shown up, the consideration of funding requests for community organziations. These were pre-applications that had to be submitted for evaluation and council approval prior to actual funding in April when the 2010 budget is set. All of the requests were approved without debate except two.

Carbondale Main Street had requested a 3% increase in funding to $12,021, while the city staff recommended funding remain at $11,660 and the lower amount was the official amount being voted on. Lance Jack moved the funding increase back to the original $12,210 level and the increase passed, with the mayor and Councilman Haynes voting against.

WDBX's $4000 request was the other item voted on separately, with the funding earmarked for a stand-by generator for the station. The radio station originally planned to ask the city to fund the full $8000 cost but had been told they funding was more likely to get approved in the form of a 50/50 grant, with the station raising half the necessary funds. The station's rationale for asking was that, in an emergency, the city could use the station's transmitter to communicate to the region. However, when asked, Jim Wall, vice-chair of WDBX's board said they station had not raised any matching funds yet. The funding request was voted down with only Councilman Wissmann and Councilwoman McDaniel in favor. Mayor Cole did suggest that the council would look more favorably on the request in the future if matching funds were raised.

The only other groups speaking were representatives from the Boy's and Girl's Club and the I Can Read program, both of which brought program participants to thank the council for past funding and tell how the respective program had benefited them. After announcements about the Boy's and Girl's Club Night at the Oscars fundraiser and the African American Museum's Obama exhibit reception, the meeting adjourned about 7:55.


Update: The DE has a report up on the meeting as well
Update: Here's the Southern's article on the meeting. I see it has the old figure for Carbondale Main Street's funding.