Plaza Midwood Community Radio makes waves 

Rocker Bruce Hazel conjures up Springsteen with an anthem about Detroit. Then Nicole Atkins breezes in, sweetly singing her moody,'50s-infused orchestral pop. Lucky Five shakes things up with its funk-rock mix before Appalucia introduces its edgy, front-porch folk. After Aqualads serve up twangy surf rock, Grids hammer things home with slam-bang hardcore. An eclectic concert featuring notable Charlotte artists? No, you're listening to Plaza Midwood Community Radio ...

On a Wednesday morning in November, Jason Michel shows off his new radio studio in a small salmon-colored building tucked behind Intermezzo Pizza at the edge of Plaza Midwood. As he talks, the faint scent of cooked cereal wafts from the nearby Kellogg's factory. Farther down, across the railroad tracks, city garbage trucks sit waiting for trash pick-up day. It's the perfect, hidden-away, industrial area for a modern-day pirate radio set-up. Only, Michel's station isn't forced to broadcast over airwaves from a ship off the California coast or a suburban bedroom in Phoenix. It's available to anyone via UStream at www.pmcradio.org.

"That was totally the spirit of this whole thing," Michel says, referring to the '80s pirate stations that came to mainstream attention in the 1990 movie Pump Up the Volume. He laughs. "We've already gotten our share of Christian Slater jokes."

Plaza Midwood Community Radio, which Michel and partner Scott Slagle soft-launched in January, is a commercial-free station that's evolved from a Frankenstein computer in Michel's living room into brand-new equipment inside this 10-by-11 studio. The place has a rich history: countless artists have recorded here over the past two decades. On the walls are gold records and pictures of regional acts such as Southern Culture on the Skids. In addition to PMCR, the building currently houses recording businesses like Studio B Mastering.

Michel and Slagle just moved in, and they say being in a proper studio will enable them to broadcast live and offer a place — other than some dude's living room — where aspiring hosts and DJs can put together a range of quality shows.

"This whole year, until now, has been a beta mode," says Michel, who plans to officially launch in early 2012. "We have to figure out who wants to do live shows and who can produce them. We hope to have a set schedule by the first of the year. We're looking at different ways for people to interact, too, so listeners can chime in or have a dialogue with us through Skype or a chatroom."

When it's up and running at 100 percent, listeners will hear a variety of sounds, from local acts played on shuffle to shows such as a recent Wu Tang Clan special to music from the farthest reaches of the avant garde. You'll find rebroadcasts of local performances including Find Your Muse Open Mic night at The Evening Muse and my own Off the Record series, which combines stripped-down performances with on-stage interviews.

It's been a lot of work for 38-year-old Michel, a manager at Snug Harbor, and Slagle, the 39-year-old owner of Electric Mountain Recording Studio. Michel handles the legal and software end of things, while Slagle designed the initial website and works on the audio. If all goes as planned, the station won't be exclusively about music. Michel dreams of opening air time for citizens to discuss and offer opinions on all manner of community issues.

"I'd like it to become a place where there could be a live show or someone can call in to talk about local news or politics," Michel says. "The doors are open. Anyone who has an idea or wants to share something, bring it. We'll figure out a way to make it happen."

He envisions an all-ages format for the station: in addition to hipster music and issues, he hopes to find long-time residents willing to tell old stories about the neighborhood as well as a morning children's show. Although there's no censorship at PMCR, Michel and Slagle are cognizant of the kinds of shows they run during particular times of the day. "There are people in the community who won't be cool with the f-bomb in the middle of the day," he says. "We might have a safe-for-work period and a kids playlist in the morning that would feature bands like the Plaza Family Band. Right now though, it's the wild west, which is kind of exciting."

Most importantly to Michel, PMCR should be a forum for "traditionally excluded voices. I think people have become disenfranchised by commercial radio, which seems to occupy a bubble that has nothing to do with anybody's lives. It's so contrived and so paid for. I think there's a longing for something that feels more genuine."

Michel and Slagle already have a database of more than 1,500 songs. Right now, the station plays on shuffle when no show is on the schedule, but the new studio means more opportunities for DJs and hosts to experiment. The station's software creates schedules and is capable of generating a local playlist that ensures an artist isn't heard more than once in a four-hour period. Michel admits the station is still missing some homegrown talent. That's why he and Slagle are inviting area musicians to submit their works, either by e-mail or physical CD. And Michel adds that just because the station is called Plaza Midwood Radio doesn't mean contributors must live in the neighborhood.

"It's only named that because this is where it's coming from," Michel says. "But this is something for anyone in the city or region. I've always had a longing for a community space that showcases the creative output, the social-activist output, and the way we look at things that are happening in the world."

Souvlaki Space Station rolls into Gregory Isaacs during Jason Herring's Wednesday afternoon "Fizzy Pop Rivers" show. Jeff Rehnlund's "Medieval Arab Lesbians" on Wednesday nights features a range of experimental music. DJs spin live from Snug Harbor on Monday nights ...

Charlotte doesn't currently have much radio that offers local musicians opportunities to get their music heard. Radio personality Divakar, at 106.5 FM, is the lone beacon at corporate radio to broadcast regional rock during his weekly show "90 Minutes" on Sundays. Gastonia's 90.7 FM, WSGE, mixes a few locals into its Americana and rock offerings. You can hear some (but not much) local hip-hop and R&B on Power 98 and on 103.3 FM, WGIV. And some Spanish-language AM stations give time to area acts that play norteño and rock en español.

PMCR is different, in that it welcomes all kinds of music. Within a week after the station went live, more than a dozen local musicians and potential hosts contacted Slagle and Michel.

"I got involved because PMCR is a rare opportunity in Charlotte to get music out that people wouldn't normally hear," says folk yowler Andy "The Doorbum" Fenstermaker. "I collect obscure ethnic/indigenous records and [PMCR] is a perfect format to share these with my peers. Plus, it's insanely fun." Fenstermaker's wildly eclectic show, which he calls "The Weird World of Traditionally Unconventional Music," runs on Mondays at 6 p.m.

Among the other 20 to 25 people currently hosting shows are DJ and nightlife personality Scott Weaver ("Hotel Chaka"), Tara Flanagan ("My Period," which focuses on punk and sometimes women's issues), Justin Aswell ("The Loop Hole," eclectic sets of hip-hop), Corey Zeigler ("Corey's Hours of Powers," his self-proclaimed "best recordings in history"), Flock ("The Other Side of This," mixes of funk and psychedelia), and Dirty Drummer ("The Zap Pow Sound System," featuring, among other flights of fancy, dub and Afrobeat). Michel and Slagle host shows, too.

"The more vocal the host is and the more they promote, the more popular a show is," Michel says. "The most we've had is 20 listeners at once and we get more than 100 unique listeners each day. As we go into a live format and someone is sitting here picking the songs, the hosts can play what they want, but in general we want to have it be a mixture of local with underground, regional and mainstream. Would peppering it with more national stuff be a more engaging draw? I have to wonder, if it's local only, will people give it a chance?"

Along with PMCR's new studio comes new bills, says Michel. Two fundraising concerts in 2011 paid for the station's application for nonprofit status and for royalties through Sound Exchange — roughly $500 a year to keep the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) off their backs. PMCR now has to worry about rent and the purchase of any new equipment or computer servers.

"There are a lot of free services out there with servers and ways to set it up. It's easy in that sense," Michel says. "It's harder to be legitimate as far as paying royalties and taking it to another level from just doing it in my living room."

Moving to the new location was timed with the station's redesigned website that includes an updated playlist. Michel and Slagle plan to create a database on which artists can link their songs to their websites and places to purchase music. The site also will include sponsors, and those in the top tier will get on-air mentions.

"The way I look at it, we'll find out really quickly if people give a shit," Michel says. "We just need to find 12 sponsors — one for each month, ideally — which doesn't seem too far out of the realm of possibility. We could also do a fundraiser show every three months to help keep it alive if we need to."

Broadcasting online via UStream also helps keep costs down. Michel says it costs less than $10,000 a year right now. Online radio also eliminates the hassle of FCC censorship. "The only thing I don't want is hate speech or anything that is negative about the oppressed in society," Michel says. "You can talk shit about the oppressors though."

Having lived in Charlotte since the late 1980s, Michel watched the adventurous DIY era give way to today's soulless corporate management of music. But he and Slagle say they hope Plaza Midwood Community Radio isn't just a relic for a generation who misses old-school college radio — they want their station to be a true sounding board for the community. So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

"I started up PMCR and shared it with some friends and the reaction has been great," Michel says. "It spread really quickly, as far as people wanting to hear it. People want to produce content and be a part of it in any way they can be. We're just trying to see it through."