John Dixon is up against some pretty staggering competition.
There are more than 50 radio stations, AM and FM, in the Charleston area, and the majority of them are backed by piped-in Internet feeds and big national communications companies.
Dixon, though, is just one man in the back room of a West Ashley office located behind an IHOP, on one computer set on one of four desks sharing a divided cubicle, programming his booty off.
A few weeks ago, Dixon convinced his boss at Kirkman Broadcasting to let him take a shot at modified classic hits format on a smaller bandwidth FM station that has a twin on AM.
102.1 FM theCITY features a top-40 format with songs from the ’60s, ’70s, and early ’80s, with a bigger emphasis on spots #40-#21 on the Billboard charts and more rhythm and blues than you’d hear on more traditional local “oldies” stations.
Dixon said many of the “classic hits” stations in town, and there are several, use audio streams from national companies who aren’t in tune with the specific tastes of the Lowcountry.
That means more Southern soul that emanated from studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, on up to Stax Studios in Memphis.
So, theCITY will not be the average run-of-the-mill “50,000 kilowatt flamethrower,” says Dixon, but still can be heard from Folly Beach to Awendaw.
As a result listeners will get to hear “bubblegum” pop tunes that predate punk and disco that’s been missing for years from local airwaves, like “Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies, or “Yummy Yummy Yummy” by The Ohio Express.
A few minutes later, listeners can be treated to a tune from the early days of The Police, back when they were still just becoming a big act and before people figured out that reggae’s influence, in Dixon’s words, “extended past the Marley family”.
Why? “Because we don’t have music streamed in for us. We don’t have consultants. We don’t have focus groups,” says Dixon.
What theCITY does have is a 63-year-old longtime radio man in Dixon who wants to give listeners what they want, especially deeper cuts served without a hint of embarrassment or irony.
This is “small media” in much the same way West Of delivers hyper-local coverage. (There: that’s our bias on this story – we like small.)
Dixon stressed that he’s not doing this alone. Joining him from his former Kirkman talk radio format is Jay Harper, as well as longtime Lowcountry radio workhorse Janet Walsh.
Ballard Lesemann likenes Dixon’s efforts with theCITY to the heyday of 96Wave two decades ago, when Woody Bartlett pushed that station to abandon schmaltzy, over-produced hair metal and the like and began broadcasting “good” music that has since influenced many Charleston area music lovers and musicians.
Lesemann is both. A musician who still gigs with party bands throughout the area where first started playing, he moved to Athens, Ga., and got the opportunity to play with a host of famous musicians, like REM’s Michael Stipe.
Lesemann, a graduate of Porter Gaud, toured internationally playing drums and bass for different outfits, and performing on national television. All the while he fostered a writing career focused on music, and to this day contributes to the Post & Courier.
“I really like the idea of an independent mash-up, combining styles and genres,” says Lesemann, who sees the attraction to theCITY as a “generational one.”
He also likened the format to that of Chuck FM, which would also play a wide-ranging swath of music, in a seemingly random order.
“Dixon knows his music,” praises Lesemann and that theCITY could find a niche between the growing number of local “stations putting out crappy oldies, and crappy modern hip-hop.”
“This is the kind of station that could inspire people to dig into their record collection, or go to the record store.”
