Austin: Are You Prepared To Rock? Spare the Rock Joins KUTX!

As some of you know, I’ve had a monumentally rough week, saying goodbye to a friend who I’ve known since the 10th grade, and with whom I lived for a little over four years.  So I am utterly delighted to have some good news:

As we approach our tenth anniversary (this August!) and our 500th show (April 4), I am beyond thrilled to announce that we have a new flagship station, 98.9 KUTX – The Austin Music Experience.  We’ll launch on Mothers Day, May 10, and will air Sunday evenings at 6:00 p.m.

KUTX is a relatively new station, having launched just over two years ago, but its seeds were planted as far back as 1925, when the first station with the call letters KUT launched in Austin.  (The station disappeared from 1927 to 1958, when it relaunched.)  KUT is Austin’s home for National Public Radio and had eclectic music programming for decades.

When the 98.9 frequency became available a few years ago, KUT acquired it and KUTX was born at the start of 2013.

The new station has what, if you were prone to understatement, you’d call a pretty big signal, as you can see on the map.  Basically, it blankets Austin and much of the surrounding areas.  The station’s playlist is eclectic and diverse, and there just couldn’t be a better fit for us.  It sounds like Austin.

What will change?  Not much.  We’ll identify KUTX as our flagship station during the show.  It’ll still be made available, for free, to any stations that want to air it.  We’ll record it in our same little studio, though we’ll also get to do in-studios at KUTX’s Studio 1A when schedules permit.  (And they get some amazing acts there that we hope to “borrow.”)  Hopefully we’ll get some musical ideas from the hosts there.

We’ve had some initial discussions about doing events with the station, and I definitely have big hopes to do some amazing stuff for the families of Austin beyond what we’re already doing.

But that’ll all come.  For now, I’m obsessing about what to play for those first few shows, as we introduce ourselves to Austin.

I’m just so excited.  I hope you are too.