WCOM hosts candidates in musical debates
by Gregg Found
Carrboro Commons Writer
Carrboro aldermen candidate Katrina Ryan will spend plenty of time focused on campaigns, fliers and policy arguments in these months leading up to the December elections. But on Saturday Sept. 1, she undertook a contest of a different sort – she spun tunes for Carrboro residents as part of WCOM’s “musical debates.”
The brainchild of WCOM disc jockey Tom Arnel, the musical debates feature two alderman candidates who share an hour of airtime – Saturdays from 5 to 6 p.m. – alternating songs or pairs of songs from their favorite artists and albums.
Gregg Found photo
But there is really nothing combative about these debates. Arnel said his idea was simply to get the candidates to play the music that’s special to them.
“I don’t want to make it into a political forum,” Arnel said. “Its more of what do you listen to, what do you enjoy?”
Ryan and candidate Chuck Morton kicked off the guest DJ series on Sept. 1, and although the focus wasn’t entirely musical – “Between songs they talked about local political issues,” Arnel said – the format was a success.
Ryan joked, “I had never met Chuck Morton before, and all anybody knew about him from my neighborhood was that he was in a band, and I was like, ‘Oh just my luck.’”
As for after the first impression, Ryan said, “It was really nice to meet him and he had some interesting local music.”
Morton played a lot of local artists and bluesy selections while Ryan delved into ’80s music, oldies and classic rock.
” I thought I brought a very diverse mix,” she said. “I brought Depeche Mode, Willie Nelson and Peter Gabriel.”
But arriving at that diverse mix, and keeping it all in half an hour of airtime, was a lot harder than she planned.
“It took me forever to get down to 30 minutes!” she said. “To sort of encapsulate an entire 40 years worth of music is very hard.”
So she pored through her iTunes library and solicited advice from her husband – Willie Nelson was too country, he said, but she played Nelson’s “City of New Orleans” anyway because, as a former New Orleans resident, it held a special place in her collection.
Next up on the musical debate docket are candidates Joal Hall Broun and Sharon Cook, who will take the microphone on Saturday, Sept. 15.
For Cook, the idea of a musical debate “just makes sense.”
“It’s Carrboro, that’s kind of how Carrboro is,” she said.
She too said she struggled to come up with between six and eight songs to play during her allotted space. The only selection she was sure she would find space for is “Kaliponi Slack Key” by Keola and Kapono Beamer. The song takes her back to her life as a college student at the University of Hawaii.
She pinged song ideas off of her three teenagers and said that she would end up with an eclectic mix. Of course, she said the idea is about enjoying the opportunity.
“It’s going to be the most fun forum that we face,” Cook said.
That’s how Lydia Lavelle – who will be featured on Sept. 29 with Frank Abernathy – felt about Arnel’s light-hearted creation.
“It actually kind of struck me as, ‘I think it’s kind of a fun idea,’” Lavelle said. “It’s a chance to not have to think about the heavy issues or topics.”
Lavelle has “lots of favorite songs across different genres of music,” but has the urge to play some music from her youth as well. She said she’s leaning toward playing a song by McGuffey Lane, an Ohio band that specializes in high-energy rock and country.
And that was precisely Arnel’s hope – that the music each candidate chooses would reflect something about his or her background.
He said he’s liked what he’s seen so far and that maybe the musical debates would be a trend he could continue for the next elections.
“If I’m still doing the show in two years, I would do it,” he said.
Then he added a word of prudence.
“I hope the Chapel Hill candidates aren’t too jealous.”
For streaming radio and WCOM’s schedule, tune your radio to 103.5 FM or visit http://communityradio.coop/
