from willamette week:
On a plush couch in the back of Northeast Portland bar Tiga, Jeff Hylton Simmons asks if I know what time it is. “About 10 till 10,” I tell him. He opens his laptop. “All I’ve got to do is turn this thing off,” he explains, waiting for a five-second countdown to finish. “OK, now Tiga is live.” DJ Mang Mang, the man casually spinning vinyl 30 feet away at the front of the bar, just went live to the entire world.
Hylton Simmons isn’t the most likely candidate to change the face of regional radio. He grew up in the Midwest, where he studied theater before moving to Portland in 1998 (“It was either Portland or Austin, and I can’t stand the heat”). But before long, he’d become enchanted by the local music scene and slipped into radio, first DJ-ing, then station managing local pirate-turned-Internet station Portland Radio Authority. Later he’d help would-be terrestrial station KZME - slated to go live at 107.1 in Portland later this year - to successfully secure an FM transmitter. And for the past year, Hylton Simmons has run his own 24-hour-a-day Internet station, Radio23.org, which boasts a crew of DJs from Japan to New Zealand to right here in Portland. “We’re already on the ground in Islamabad,” he says proudly. “I don’t know any other radio station in town that’s on the ground in Islamabad.”
media monarchy was recently invited to join a roundtable discussion on the future of community radio in the pacific northwest. the talk was part of the 1st birthday party for radio23 which featured live local music, dj's, drinks & the launch of cascade community radio! ... amongst all the great radio folks i met from kpsu, knrk, kboo & more - i also rambled on-mic to cherie from vox pop pdx, a talk radio adventure... congratulations to jeff of radio23 & thanks to everyone involved: we are the future of community radio!