This Friday: Say Farewell to 40 Years of KTRU on the Air

I’ve always felt that grieving the dead by being all somber and quiet and melancholy is generally a bad thing; you shouldn’t celebrate the dead by acting like you’re dead, but rather by celebrating life and survival and all the other good things that continue on. One of my most vivid memories as a kid was of my Uncle Bill & his biker buddies getting rip-roaring drunk at my Nana’s house the night of Grandpa Donovan’s funeral service — they drank and partied and hugged long into the night, even though most of ’em barely knew my Grandpa except when they came by to pick up my uncle & go drinking.

It was a surreal thing, but even to my young brain, it made sense to me to celebrate somebody or something’s passing, rather than getting all mopey about it. Grandpa definitely wouldn’t have wanted that (although I’m not convinced he wanted a bunch of hairy bikers tromping all over his house, either, but hey).

And in my typical rambling fashion, all of this is to say that I’m happy as hell to see that the students & volunteers behind {KTRU} aren’t willing to go quietly into that good, frequency-less night. Instead, they’re throwing a party, which they’re calling KTRU – Farewell to 40 Years of FM — the name’s both an acknowledgement of the station’s storied history and the fact that while KTRU as an FM-broadcast station may be dead, KTRU as an entity definitely isn’t.

The party-slash-show will be held on both floors of Fitzgerald’s, with the following excellent bands & musicians raising a glass to the station’s past & future:

UPSTAIRS:

{Christopher Cascio}
Joe Mathlete vs. {Hearts of Animals}
{listenlisten}
{Linus Pauling Quartet}

DOWNSTAIRS:

{Muhammad Ali}
{Featherface}
{Winter Wallace}
{The Dead Revolt}

Beyond the music — which will be badass on all fronts, seriously — the KTRU crew are putting together some kind of retrospective montage-y deal, including video, photos, and whatever else they can find. If you’re a KTRU alum, email any contributions to the effort to Johnny So at “jso at alumni dot rice dot edu” by Thursday night at the latest.

Oh, and the whole thing is free and all-ages, so drag along everybody you can find and see KTRU off the airwaves in true Irish-wake style.