101.9 K-rock Cuts Staff, Flips to Country a.k.a. How the FCC is Killing Local Radio

by | Oct 2, 2012 | 13 comments

New England-based Great Eastern Radio has flipped Keene rocker 101.9 K-Rock (WKKN) to a simulcast of KIXX Country 100.5 (WXXK) out of Lebanon and also cut staff dramatically, to where Elise Valentine is the only member remaining. Valentine will still be heard during 3-7p afternoon drive on the “new” country 101.9 in afternoon drive.

With at least three country stations broadcasting from the area already, is another one really necessary? Apparently Great Eastern thinks so.

Great Eastern’s other transmitter in the market, their sports talk station, “WEEI” 93.5 (WEEY) is a simulcast of Boston sports talker WEEI. It has zero local content and doesn’t even have its own website.

This means Great Eastern Radio’s stations “in Keene” are now being run by a skeleton crew of Elise Valentine and maybe a contract engineer. It’s sad, but that’s what’s become of corporate radio – constant cuts and consolidation.

National radio operator Saga does deserve credit for doing a decent job with their station cluster in town, the Monadnock Radio Group. If Great Eastern thinks they’re going to make compelling local radio by cutting costs and staff to the bone, they will probably learn their mistake hard and fast and possibly end up failing and sell the stations.

Meanwhile, local current-rock listeners are screwed as far as on-air options are concerned. Of course, they could always start up their own radio station with all the open channels on the radio dial in this area. All they have to do is apply for and receive a license from the FCC…

Oh wait – no, they can’t. The FCC, according to local newsman Brad Ryder, has been sitting on a couple of station applications for nearly a decade! Ryder reports that he and the Monadnock Radio Group had applied for the same open frequency and the FCC has yet to decide to whom it should be granted.

You may be asking, “Why did they both apply for the same frequency?” (more…)

Pushy Bureaucrat Crashes Chalk the Police Day

by | Oct 1, 2012 | 3 comments

I have gotten so used to having my camera groped at by authoritative busybodies that I am beginning to feel as though I should question my relative comfort with it. The first article featured on this blog was about a police officer who couldn’t keep his hands off of my phone when it was acting as an audio streaming device. Since then, I’ve had a previous camera clutched so firmly that it automatically powered off, in an escapade that traveled the blogosphere during the first annual lemonade freedom day. My Canon Vixia’s design is much more rugged and durable than the previous Nikon Coolpix I used to utilize for Free Concord videos. And I appreciate the upgraded zoom capabilities and high definition 16:9 widescreen frame. Today, as I celebrated International Chalk the Police day with others, my camera withstained a push from a Keene city parks and recreation director Andrew Bohannon, as he fumbled to conceal his identity from chalkers. After activists had covered most of the central square park in liberty oriented slogans and quotes, a man driving around the rotary yelled from his vehicle at the chalkers to stop. Myself and others waved and invited the person to join us for Chalk the Police day. Moments later, I noticed a man with a phone who had walked up onto the square and begun speaking with people, phone in hand, and an identification swinging from his neck. (more…)

Wiretapped Manchester Principal Suspended Without Explanation

by | Sep 29, 2012 | 1 comment

Maryellen McGorry, principal of Manchester West High School, was suspended some time last week. The story was broken earlier today by the Union Leader, which provided no explanation for the former prosecutor turned administrator’s sudden suspension. The UL quotes Manchester mayor Ted Gatsas, who publicly announced the penalty. McGorry has been the principal at West since 2007. Jason Talley is keeping tabs on the latest developments over at talley.tv. Free Concord readers may recognize Maryellen McGorry from her role as a witness for the prosecution in prosecutor Michael Valentine’s theatrical performance State v Adam Mueller.

Oct 1 2012: Another speculative article by the Union Leader.

Adam Vs The DerrickJ Interview

by | Sep 24, 2012 | 0 comments

From LiveFreeOrDance.com:

Today I will be the first-ever Skype call-in guest on the Adam Vs The Man Podcast. This is more or less a practice for Adam with using the equipment and making sure that everything will work when “real guests” come on. But for the meantime, I’m happy to get the exposure. I expect it will be a good interview. Folks can watch live on uStream from 12 noon to 12:15pm.

I will be discussing my documentary, Derrick J’s Victimless Crime Spree and about my self-imposed Exile Tour. As I travel the continent with my video camera and microphone, I’ll be documenting individuals who are achieving freedom today and blogging about them on LibertyOnTour.com and also my website, LiveFreeOrDance.com. I’ll be reporting on individuals who have declared their independence from a man who created his own independent local silver-backed currency to a woman who is creating life-sustaining gardens in city flats.

Currently I am working as the Producer of the Adam Vs The Man Newscast. As part of that job, I am assembling a team of comedy writers to report on the days’ news. I am running auditions currently and can’t wait to work with the writers to produce the pilot episode which will be September 27th, 2012. We go live October 8th, 2012.

DerrickJ Ends the Fed DC 2012

by | Sep 23, 2012 | 0 comments

Protesters burn bills in front of the Fed as helplessly outnumbered security observes.


From DerrickJ’s blog at LiveFreeOrDance.com:

Today I went with the Adam Vs The Man crew to Washington, D.C. (Mordor). I went in order to take video of a rally. Adam Kokesh went to speak on a megaphone and help MC the event. He led a march down from the Treasury Building to the Federal Reserve, where about 60 people marched and chanted, “END THE FED, END THE DEBT, END THE WARS.” Upon arrival at the Federal Reserve building, activists lined up to face the building along its front and symbolically turned their backs in an “about face.” Some activists burned dollar bills in front of the building as security guards watched, hopelessly outnumbered by a crowd of peaceful people armed to the teeth with video cameras.

Here’s some video of a speech I gave about living freer by moving to the Shire today (From Fr33manTV):

Here’s all of the raw video I shot that day (from the Activist Raw Video Youtube Channel):

(more…)