Oompah Hour #23

Even if you, personally, are not a polka fan, consider the chance that some of your listeners might love polka music.

Polka music is happy, cheerful, uplifting, mood-enhancing, just plain fun.

Here at Worldround Radio from the Center of North America I want very much to somehow employ The Ooompah Hour, without running afoul of the copyright responsibility.

There may be a way.

Since FAIR USE is a special allowance for educational and news based broadcasts, and since KDX is non-commercial and educational, I am wondering whether a simple Intro and End-of-show-Tag would enable a positive outcome...

My announcer, who happens to be me, would say, "If an excellent polka hour were produced for radio, it would sound like this."

Then we'd run the full Ooompah Hour, followed by another announcement: That was an example of a perfectly produced polka program for radio.

Opinions?

Probably 90% of the songs played in the Oompah Hour are songs in the public domain.  Songs that either predate 1922, or songs that are considered "traditional" and have no known writer or copyright!  Of course, the performances and recordings are copyrighted, but remember adio doesn't pay performers, only writers, but also consider that probably 90% of the songs in the Oompah Hour are by small independent musicians and bands, who simply popped into a small studio, or made their own, recorded their tunes, and sent them out to be pressed!  Tons of the records played are in teeny tiny record labels that are long definct, performed mostly by bands and musicians that are also "defunct".  Further, I can assure you, as someone who worked alongside on stage and on the air with many of the bands 40 years ago, that NONE of them paid the required mechanical royalties before recording songs written by someone else! They simply pressed up records to sell at their performances. Not that it would be legal to the letter of the law, but I suspect that getting in any sort of trouble broadcasting old polka records would be extremely unlikely.  And if you're broadcasting only on the air, radio doesn't pay royalties to performers anyway -- ASCAP, BMI, SESAC ONLY pay song WRITERS. So they'd have to first hear the broadcast, second recognize the song, thirdly be able to determine if their agency covers the song, and fourth be able to show that the song is in fact copyrighted after 1922. 

Naturally there are some major acts on major labels on the show too, like Frankie Yankovic, Whoopee John, Six Fat Dutchmen -- these are all major label artists (Columbia, Decca and RCA respectively) but still even then, most of their songs (especially the 6 Fat Dutchmen and Whoppee) are all old traditional tunes where copyright wouldn't be an issue.

Interesting isn't it that to be legal you have to pay to broadcast the whole library of a given performing rights organization, even though you may only broadcast 4 songs out of half a million in the catalog?

Being legal for broadcasting music on the air isn't hard. BMI has a form, now up to a couple hundred bucks a year.  ASCAP STILL refuses to answer my requests for a license.  I've now written to them monthly for 14 months with NO reply -- both email, regular mail, and certified mail.  The certified mail is received and picked up and signed for, but replies never come.  I've received email replies from people there who refer me to a license department, but no replies.  I've saved all this paperwork, and if EVER they darken my door, or send me a violation notice, I can hand them a folder of letters and emails that I have gone above and beyond in showing good faith and my attempt to secure a license.  SESAC sent me a waiver saying I didn't need a license.  So, I'm good far as I'm concerned. It's a whole different deal if you're streaming, although you can use one of many many streaming services that charge a monthly fee which INCLUDES ALL necessary licensing for all music, which is probably the way I'll go if I ever decide to stream.  So far I've found it not to be necessary as I'm easily covering my intended coverage area. 

So, at this point, I'm not worrying about it!

Now, I'm off to drive in the Bovey Farmers Day Parade!

Oompah Tim in Bovey

NOTICE -- The mp3 download link supplied by Tim in the opening post accidentally swept the word "Always" into the address string, which produces an error.

Remove the word "always" from the link string and it will work.

Tonight KDX Worldround Radio will celebrate Tim's Labor by airing Oompah Hour # 23! Beer is being trucked in.

I've created a Drawer labeled "Part15Programs" which will be dedicated to programs produced by our Part 15 Radio Stations.

Part 15 Radio in Support of Part 15 Radio.

About Farmers Events...

Downtown St. Louis has Soulard Farmers Market where we became friendly with several farm families who brought their goods to town for Friday and Saturday.

One family brought their turkey, an amazingly large, fat, proud bird that strolled right out with the public!

If we had a farmers parade I'd love to walk side-by-side with that turkey, each of us wearing a KDX Worldround Radio bib.

The time has come and Tim's Oompah Hour is blaring out from KDX Worldround Radio on 3-streams and at 1670 AM to the brain dead neighborhood staring at their wide screens.

This is more fun than should ever be allowed in the Homeland, where everybody is equally suspicious.

Well, looking back, Germany held more beer festivals during the Nazi era than anytime before or since.

Tim, you are something else. Compared to what I'm not sure.

The beer truck is still parked here because the driver needs to "rest" before returning the truck.

All this reminds me of an experience when I became hooked on a German lady's show on a 500 Watt station where she'd go wild with German music. My feedback as her fan lead to a friendship which went sour, but before that happened, she moved to a 1 kW station and appointed me her vacation replacement.

Doing the "Gertrude Show" (name changed to protect reality) was a blast, me in place of Gertrude.

But on a holiday I played a record that wasn't from her library and one of her spy listeners reported on me and Gertrude declared me a phoney, fraud and crook for breaking her rule of only using records from  her library.

Despite my failure with Gertrude I still love the good polka music.

Oh, and hey, on the show Tim mentions that Myron Floren was once one of the Buckeye Four, so I went searching, and found...

archive.org has nothing. The general internet search leads in way too many directions with no early returns, and Wikipedia doesn't know.

And yet, in my radio career I know I've heard of the Buckeye Four.

How about Rem Wall and the Green Valley Boys?

Hate to scare ya'll, but I've got a couple tunes from Rem Wall and the Green Valley Boys in the regular playlist here at Iron Range Country.

Tim in Bovey

A huge argument broke out today in the KDX control room, when board operator Ned Steddy totally lost it in a disagreement about doing his own "Oompah Hour."

It all began when Ned declared that he was so impressed by Tim's Oompah Hour that he also wanted to produce an Oompah Hour.

Speaking as Carl Blare I was not favorable toward the idea because I thought it would seem like a rip-off.

Ned threw papers up in the air and yelled, "That Tim Bovey doesn't own polka music! Anybody can do oompah!"

The entire argument will be featured on Low Power Hour No. 96 now in production.

Tim: That is scarey! Rem Wall was a regular on then WKZO TV in Kalamazoo. I also think he worked at the Gibson factory also in K-Zoo.