Radio Station 88.3 FM, WXOU, held its 58th Birthday Bash at Oakland University. The middle-aged station invited artists of all kinds to perform, local vendors and students to participate in a night of festivities.
WXOU is “Oakland University’s campus radio station, providing an important voice for students and the surrounding community. WXOU offers a unique opportunity to learn about college radio, become involved in the operation of a student station and make a distinctive contribution to what is done ‘behind the scenes’ and ‘on-the-air,’” The WXOU official university page states.
The Birthday Bash event ran from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. “We are celebrating the 58th birthday of WXOU, it’s been around a long time,” Joey Hayes, WXOU’s Promotions Director, said. “We got great bands playing. We got, you know, live performers. We got little games, and we got a giveaway going on so yeah, you know, it’s fun just to come here and eat cake with us.”
Local vendors lined the entrance to the Habitat where bands and musicians like Darkhawk, Rickidd CJ, LiViNG AI and Moravian played. Most of them family owned and student led, the vendors sold all kinds of arts and crafts, jewelry and art.
“I like, I’ve been doing art for a long time, so I’ll hop from one medium to another and just do a little bit of everything,” Guadalupe Abalo, an artist and student, said. “So this is just a pile of what I’ve made throughout the years.”
“I’ve been in a lot of group shows, I exhibited at the Detroit Artists Market downtown before, I recently had an art show at the Brandon mansion,” Daniele Pagano, another OU student and artist said. “This is my first time selling my art here at OU.”
After getting a portrait from Pagano, students could enjoy mini games in between music sets as well as cake to celebrate the radio station.
“We have about 30 radio shows that run throughout the day and night. I run one called Wise Words with Mr. Weed, [Hayes] runs one called Street Scholars,” Matt Weed, the radio’s News Director, said. “Pretty much it’s fair game for everybody. I mean, some people just play music, I interview professors, and I talk with my friends.”
Hayes explained that radio is experiencing a revival, with lots of student-led stations broadcasting local or independent radio shows.
“So Street Scholars is a hip hop R&B radio show where, you know, my main goal is to show people music they may not have heard or music that they may not have heard in a long time, or just underground artist’s music,” Hayes said. “I do interviews with underground artists and people who reach out to me and, you know, give them more exposure.”
Although radio is no longer the prominent media form, these participants and organizers remain hopeful in the world of radio.
“I mean, you can say the same thing about jazz, for example, but it’s like there’s always gonna be those core fans of any given form of media that are just gonna keep it alive for eons to come,” Eli Sepulveda, Assistant Program Director, said. “People are still writing the same structure of poetry that they’re writing 1000s of years ago. So it’ll be like that, I imagine.”
“Personally, I don’t think radio is dead. I think we as WXOU, we’re trying to keep it alive, as I said out there, we’re gonna keep on chugging for 58 more years, and we’re gonna try and keep OU’s radio station in line,” Weed said. “I want other college radio stations to succeed, because radio is something that’s been around for so long, it can’t just simply die out. We need to keep that alive, and every college radio station needs to do their part.”
For more information about working for WXOU Radio, check out their website and social media. Also, hiring postings have been added on Handshake.
