The Loss of Woxy.com
Since I’m involved in the Southwest Ohio Gathering of Gamers (FB Page here)and I am a huge music fan, it seemed like a no brainer to get reprint rights for this piece about the beloved WOXY by one of my personal favorite game designers – Monte Cook. If you don’t know who that it take a look at “Monte Who? ” I’d like to thank him now for his generosity in allowing me to reprint it here. So here you go, trust me- it’s a natural 20! – Loki
The shutdown of the Internet radio station woxy.com came as a shock. I saw the announcement on Facebook just as I was getting up from my computer to go out to dinner with Sue. It didn’t seem real to me until I tuned my Sonos to listen to woxy.com last night and got only sorrowful silence.
For the last couple of years, woxy.com has been my conduit to new music. I thought, for a moment, of listing the bands that I love discovered thanks to woxy.com, but it only took me a few moments to realize that to do so would be ridiculous. The list would be hundreds of bands long. Hundreds and hundreds. I listened to woxy.com virtually every day.
I can’t help but think that there will be a significant ripple effect here. I mean, not only did I and thousands of listeners like me get exposed to new music thanks to woxy.com, but then I–and I assume many others–spread the word ourselves. I know I mentioned many, many bands here with each blog post, and I likely sent out a hundred more recommendations for great bands I discovered there on Twitter.
Woxy.com was a fire hose of creativity and freshness putting out the flames of mediocrity. There’s a real danger of being fooled into believing that the only new music anymore is the corporate, manufactured music of pop. It’s like forgetting that there are other restaurants in the world besides McDonalds or Applebees.
But I’m a guy in my 40s, and there’s another–probably greater–danger for me. It’s all too easy for someone like me to give up on new music (perhaps in response to the first danger) and fill my iPod with 1000s of songs from when I was a teenager or in my twenties and just tune out. For me, this would mean a weird mix of British New Wave and a lot of prog rock that was already old when I was young. The lure of that comfortable nostalgia is strong. With just a few exceptions, the entire city of Milwaukee seems to have succumbed to that trap, for nearly every station, it seems, is Classic Rock or “All the Hits” (which is code for top 40 from the 70s and 80s).
But with woxy.com, I found a way to stay in touch with what’s happening creatively in music right now. Andrew Bird, Phoenix, Animal Collective, St. Vincent, Minus the Bear, Glasvegas, Band of Horses, Editors, DeVotchKa, the Answering Machine, the Jaguar Club, and hundreds more bands are out there making great music. And now I know about all of them, thanks to woxy.com. I can still listen to all of them. But now, how will I find out about tomorrow’s new music?
-Monte Cook, author and game designer
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keeping fingers crossed for the end of this week. Post this morning on the boards by Bill Nguyen:
http://www.woxy.com/boards/showpost.php?p=1566217&postcount=525
“Quick update, John from Future Sounds is working on plans that should come to some resolution by end of week. I’m preparing my own plans in case that does not work out.
I’m reviewing the comments again, and would be happy to help anyone putting together a wiki. There are some gems in here.
Regards,
bill”
classicgrrl
I grew up listening to WOXY when they were 97X in Oxford. Dr. Demento and Massive Metal for the Masses! Definitely the end of an era.