On Friday, March 25, “The college station of College Station,” is hosting local artists to raise money to help grow its program.
KANM, Texas A&M’s student-run radio station, is set to host its “Save the Music” event on Friday in Bryan with doors opening at 8:30 p.m. The event features local artists “Jasper,” “Good Looks” and “Divine Divine,” with all money raised going toward KANM’s programming costs. Sociology senior Gwen Howerton, public relations director for KANM radio, said as a student organization, “Save the Music” is the primary way it raises money to keep student radio running.
“The goal is to make money to buy equipment, buy advertising and to grow. Also, I think, philosophically, we want to showcase some local artists and to show that we are a radio station,” Howerton said. “More broadly, it’s a way that we like to bring local music to the community. We like to put on this event for our members, for students and whoever wants to come in the community as a way to bring something fun to do.”
Seeing the community come out to Bryan to appreciate music together is what Howerton said is the best part of the event.
“I just love seeing all the people. I love seeing students come out, I love to see our members come out and people for my classes,” Howerton said. “People who saw a poster on campus, I love to see just completely random community members who heard about it through whatever means … Last semester one of the bands said, ‘This is the biggest show we’ve ever played in town,’ and for me, this event is showing these local venues and showing these bands that there’s an appetite for their music.”
History junior Jannah Burgess, music director for “Save the Music,” said the event has a lot of importance in showcasing the local music scene outside of country music.
“Outside of predominantly what you would think of music at Northgate or at Hurricane Harry’s, it shows that there’s more,” Burgess said. “There’s a broader music scene in College Station … The last show, we had some pretty great punk bands, shoegaze, lots and lots of diversity.”
Psychology junior and music director Nick Rafieha said he loves seeing the indie music scene of College Station enjoy time together.
“Something I really noticed at last year’s event was most of the bands were unknown, but the energy in the room when they’re performing was insane,” Rafieha said. “As if, like, they were huge fans of the band. They probably haven’t heard much of their music, but they were just really excited to be there and to support them. And, [it seemed] like everyone had a good time. People love live music. People will show up if you bring it.”
University studies architecture sophomore and assistant public relations director Eren Redd said “Save the Music” portrays diversity, both in music and the student organization.
“We’re about over 200 members strong right now, and so we’re only getting bigger,” Redd said. “We want to showcase what we’re about. This is a great way for a ton of people who aren’t in the org[anization] to come to this event. It’s not just for us, it’s also for the campus. It’s like, ‘Hey, look, we’re an awesome org. Please join us, you know, have fun with us,’ kind of thing.”
Nutrition junior Paige Musselman and “Save the Music” music director said raising money through the event is beneficial, not only for KANM, but for the campus community as well.
“Fundraising enables us to do our job and [provide] programming,” Musselman said. “We provide really good opportunities for our members, like our website committee is building a whole new website right now. That’s a really awesome opportunity for somebody who’s interested in radio and computer science, but they can’t do that if we’re broke. We’re teaching people good skills, and we’re giving our members good skills. I’ve learned a lot about music and music history and all that stuff being in KANM, but more importantly, being an officer, I’ve learned a lot of communication and management skills, and community, that’s my favorite part. It’s really important to me.”
College radio stations, as a medium, are decreasing in popularity because of streaming services, Howerton said, so KANM and the “Save the Music” event is more important than ever because it shows the campus community that college radio can be a hub for people who share a passion for music.
“We don’t just do this to listen to ourselves talk,” Howerton said. “We’re here to provide programming for people who don’t like what’s on the radio here, to spotlight artists locally from other parts of the country and in the world that might not get a fair share on other radio stations. This is an important event because eventually we’d like to do this more than once a semester and pretty regularly. And we’d like local artists to know that if they can’t get booked anywhere else in town, that KANM is going to get them booked a show. We want people to think, ‘I need something to do on a Friday night, KANM is probably doing something.’”
