Ben Rupe and Adam Burnemann love good music. Every Sunday at 11 p.m. the bartending duo meet in the KDIC studio to air their show and share their lust for music with the Grinnell community. With Rupe working at Rabbits and Burnemann at Lonnskis, the two men have been part of the community of the town of Grinnell since birth.
The radio hosts realized their mutual passion and decided to collaborate on a project through KDIC called “Evil Free Radio.”
“Through myriad discussions we realized that we were very like-minded musically. We’re both music lovers. We’re both musicians,” Burneman said. “It occurred to me that we should have a radio program together and that it would be a ball.”
Studio director Daniel Kisslinger ’14 was excited to have the guys start their show this semester, especially because of their efforts to be a presence outside of the College.
Both men have experience in radio programming. In high school and even after graduating, Burnemann and Rupe hosted multiple KDIC shows separately. Rupe was also a professional on-air personality for seven years at KGRN in Grinnell.
With a mission of exposing more people to creative and original music, the hosts claim that Clear Channel Communications, a mass media corporation, is ‘evil.’ Their show aims to play music for the sake of music and not for money. Free from evil commercial music, KDIC’s 11 p.m. – 2 a.m. time slot on Sundays is an eclectic mix of anything from Beethoven to The Beatles.
“Being musicians ourselves, we have a great deal of respect for other musicians. We know what kind of work goes into it,” Rupe said. “I respect that a lot and I will do what I can do get them heard.”
During sets, Rupe and Burnemann share their extensive knowledge of music with listeners.
“Ben’s very good about the history of what he’s been playing out of his own collection,” Burnemann said. “Usually there’s a lot of back story where he’ll play a common theme for two or three songs and give you a story line that might spread over two or three albums or years with the same musicians.”
Upon hearing their first show on air, Kisslinger was also impressed by Rupe’s immense knowledge of history of the songs he played.
“He just explained all the background information about every part of the song that could possibly be of interest,” Kisslinger said. “He just knew it, and it wasn’t like he read it off of some Wikipedia page. It’s cool to have people who just really have that knowledge base.”
As for Bernemann, he plays what he would listen to on his own, hoping to share new sounds with his listeners.
“I would listen to anything personally, and/or play on KDIC, anything from classical all the way up to modern-day neopunk,” Burnemann said. “Basically, non Top 40 music that is influenced by anything else I’ve heard in my life.”
If studying has you down on Sunday nights, tune or click to KDIC to hear some good, original music and the two guys who know everything about it. They would even appreciate it if you call to put in your own musical voice.
