hobo fm

Fuck music right? Wrong, fuck you. The music literate may ejaculate to the “sounds like” function on iTunes or “best new music” on Pitchfork, but technological progress is for the birds. Lets get retro for a second. First forgive the resurgence of vintage floral prints and start-up vinyl stores. Forgive those for whom the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, or 80’s are indelible. Their clench on culture’s past is well fought: however, the object of their nostalgia is often misplaced.

Things that appear antiquated like 7-inches, 70’s clothes or even moped scooters have, in fact, been scratching at the surface of mainstream for decades. These are not items which society has cast out, only cast aside. Radio, rather, has been successfully murdered, only to be Weekend At Bernied into an unrecognizable mass for rummy politicos and pop-culture ideologues. If you consider yourself a music aficionado or blog snob, the Internet serves as the sole refuge from the refuse available on television, radio and even the counter at Starbucks. LA natives no doubt lament the loss of Indie 103.1—the last vestige of listenable independent music on the airwaves. Some will listen to that BOOM BOOM POW! on 97.1 Amp Radio as an ironic indulgence to distract themselves from their repetitive On-The-Go playlists. There is hope.

At the top of an undisclosed hill in Echo Park there sits an old sober-living home for women turned over-priced two-bedroom rental. Constructed in the style of a Jamaican Preschool

and held together with ladies detox sweat, the abode serves as HoboFm’s hub. The station’s transmitter, amplifier, mixer, and computer expel unsafe amounts of heat in the house’s attic, while the 75-foot coax cable and antenna run up through the ceiling, across the roof and into a precariously hanging tree. The whole affair is JV at best, but the antenna is perfectly calibrated. From the Association to Jeremy Jay, music is religiously added to the house computer, providing playlist fodder to fill the air. It transmits on 101.7fm.

Broadcast sporadically and with a modest reach, the station survives as a respite from the re-circulating garbage on the radio dial. Hobo expels a wave of lo-fi, post-punk, dancy sounds, previously allocated for the morbidly obese music hoarders of yesteryear. Unfortunately, Hobo resorts to notifying their public through twitter (Hobofm)—an undeniable contradiction to its prehistoric approach. Maybe one day Ashton Kutcher will tweet about getting dome in a mini-cooper while listening to 101.7.
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Hobo FM
www.hobofm.com
hobofm + superhumanoids mix: ‘expedition’