CJSW Funding Drive 2023 - BTT results!

Not long ago, I got the final results for Breaking The Tethers from the 2023 CJSW Funding Drive. There were 11 kind folks who pledged for the show, bringing a fantastic total of nearly $1300! If this is not the best-ever total for BTT, it's certainly the best for many years! And it hits my goal of making 4 digits during the Drive! Many thanks to everyone who pledged to the station during the Drive and, more specifically, many thanks to everyone who pledged for Breaking The Tethers; here's who deserves all the praise:

Amy 

Erin

Helen

Janine

Laurie

Matthew

Miguel

Mirella

Reilly

Steven

Stewart

Thanks again!

Andrew

November 20, 2023

My description for this edition of BTT on the show site was "Just a good show, packed with music!". This is a fine way of putting it. The program worked well and several tunes, mostly of some length, were  played. I strongly recommend giving it a listen 😁; to do this go here. 

The next BTT episode will be on Monday, November 27, usual time, usual place (that is, 10 to 11 am MT at cjsw.com or 90.9 FM). I suspect it'll be a lot like the November 20 program; fine music played.

Thanks.

Andrew

October 23, 2023

This was the 2023 CJSW Funding Drive Breaking The Tethers show. Lots of good things happened. Let's make a list. In no particular order...

*The station reached the $70,000 level during the program! That was a really wonderful thing to happen.

*I don't have a final total for the number of people who pledged during BTT (I'll have that in the coming weeks) but there were a bunch of folks who did. Money-wise, again, I don't have a final figure but it's somewhere in the hundreds. Many, many thanks to everyone who donated during the program!

*Many thanks also to CJSW station manager, Adam Kamis, who joined me on air for most of the show. It's always good to hear his perspective on the funding drive and CJSW.

*This week's edition of BTT was mostly talk but, interestingly, I did manage play more music than I expected I would play. All of the tracks came from the Breaking The Tethers 2023 Funding Drive mix (available at the $100 donation level). You can see a list of everything played and listen to the show (again) here. 

I am a lucky man. I get to host my show during this year's funding drive AND I get to guest-host another CJSW program, Alternative To What, this week. The regular host, Kerry Clarke, is away so she has kindly handed me the reigns for this important edition of ATW. We will track Kerry down and give her a call during the show. Everyone is welcome to join me on Thursday, October 27, from 4 to 6 pm MT, at cjsw.com or 90.9 FM. There'll be some great tunes played and there will be many fantastic incentives available for pledging. 

On the subject of pledging, you can definitely still donate. You can call 403-220-5000 or go to csjw.com/donate.

I'll be back next week with a more regular edition of Breaking The Tethers. I will have an interview with one or two of the guys from Peripheral Vision, who have a new record out. We'll chat and play some of their new tunes. Go to cjsw.com or 90.9 FM on Monday, October 30, from 10 to 11 am MT.

Many thanks.

Andrew

CJSW Funding Drive 2023

So, CJSW Funding Drive 2023 is upon us. This is a vitally important time for Calgary's campus and community radio station, when we call upon our fine listeners to help support the station, to enable CJSW to continue to offer the fantastic, amazing programs that it does and to help it grow, develop, and more! If you'd like to donate, you can do so online here. Alternately, you can call 403-220-5000 through 6 pm on Thursday, October 28 and pledge over the phone. You can pay right away or there is a monthly instalment option. There are incentives at various donation levels; these can be seen here.

The Breaking The Tethers 2023 Funding Drive show will take place tomorrow, Monday, October 23, from 10 to 11 am MT, at cjsw.com or 90.9 FM. I’ll be spinning some tracks for the BTT digital mix o’ tunes, which will be available as a pledge incentive. All the tracks in the mix have been played on BTT since the 2022 Funding Drive. Here's a list of what's in the mix:

Astrocolor - "Singularity"

Association P.C. - "Totemism"

The Muffins - "Three days that won't soon fade"

Chet Doxas - "House of Ypres"

Ksawery Wojcinski - "1st impression"

Pete McCann - "Trifecta"

Miriodor - "Boomerang"

Soft Machine - "Backwards"

Jason Dole - "Of being disturbed"

Patricia Brennan - "El nahualli (the shadow soul)"

Noah Howard - "This place called earth"

Raoul Bjorkenheim & Krakatau - "Foot talk"

Joe Henderson - "Current events"

Todd Marcus - "Ground zero (at Penn. & North)"

Delvon Lamar Organ Trio - "Move on up"

There will be other incentives during the live show as well. I’m hoping everyone can join me. 

I should also note that I’ll be hosting the Funding Drive edition of another fine CJSW program, the long-running Alternative To What? (cjsw.com/program/alternative-to-what/). The host, Kerry Clarke, will be away (though we’ll track her down by phone and chat with her during the broadcast) and has deputized me to fill in. You can hang with me on ATW on Thursday, October 27, 4 to 6 pm, at cjsw.com or 90.9 FM.

I’ll be posting updates on social media. My Twitter handle is @01Waller and I’m on Facebook at www.facebook.com/andrew.waller.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at wallersmooth@gmail.com.

Many thanks.

Andrew

July 17, 2023

Gonna note three items about this BTT show (I could make many more, of course, but I'll stick with three, for brevity's sake 😁):

*I really dug the starting tune, the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio's version of Curtis Mayfield's "Move on up". It's a fairly well covered song but the Delvon Lamarr group do it in a particularly hard and funky style. Move on up and dance!

*I haven't played Miles Davis in a while (maybe quite a while) so I rectified that situation by playing some Miles Davis, specifically "Lonely fire". "Lonely fire" comes off the odds and ends album released in 1974, Big fun. 

*A new Frank Zappa album has recently been released, Funky nothingness, which documents 1970 recordings made just post-Hot rats. There's some jazzy stuff on this record so I figured it would be appropriate to feature a track or two on Breaking The Tethers. This week, I played "Halos and arrows". I think I'll play a version of "Chunga's revenge" from Funky nothingness in a few weeks.

I'll be around for the next BTT episode, on Monday, July 24 (10 to 11 am MT, cjsw.com or 90.9 FM) and then I'll be gone for the July 31 program (more on this soon). I'll be back for the August 7 show.

Thanks.

Andrew

July 10, 2023

Mostly new material played this week with some older stuff tucked in. Some notes:

*On the July 3 program, I featured a fair amount of jazz-rock and fusion. I thought I’d make a connection to that program by starting off with some Return To Forever.

*The present-day line-up of Soft Machine put out a new album, Other voices, at the end of June. I picked it up, of course, and played a track today, a new version of the classic piece from Third, “Backwards” (it’s the latter section of “Slightly all the time” on Third).

*I’m not big on vocal jazz (to say the least, some would say) but I did play some today, a song called “Reverie” by Nicole Zuratis from her recent release, How love begins.

*Apart from Soft Machine, I managed to squeeze in some more Canterbury sound music, at the end of the show, “Waltz for Nobby” by Hugh Hopper & Alan Gowan. 

Listen here for the full show.

Next show: Monday, July 17, at the usual time, 10 to 11 am MT, at the usual place, cjsw.com or 90.9 FM.

Thanks.

Andrew

June 19, 2023

While there was no shortage of notable musical selections in this episode of BTT, perhaps the one that caught my ear the most was Jazz Sabbath’s version of the Black Sabbath classic “N.I.B.”. I knew there was a first Jazz Sabbath album, released in 2020, but I hadn’t heard about the second one, which came out in 2022. Anyway, I always love playing their stuff; it’s fun. Check out Jazz Sabbath and much more from this show here. 

Thanks.

Andrew