Original Skin

Manayunk's Skin Radio gambles on AM, HD and local music.

by Will Dean

WHAT I SAY: "We're not playing to a format, but a demographic," says programming director Alvin Clay. "We're playing to 20- to 30-year-olds and what they want." Photo By: Michael T. Regan (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

AM radio is usually the grazing ground of stolid, dull creatures like talk radio, 24-hour news and the odd religious station. Since January Manyunk's Skin Radio, WHAT AM 1340, has unveiled a new, old format to the land of amplitude modulation: modern rock music.

Skin's new, but WHAT has a long history in Philly. A legendary talk station, WHAT was billed as "the voice of the African-American community." Despite that, late in 2006, WHAT owner Inner City Broadcasting sold the station to Tom Kelly of Marconi Broadcasting and Kelly Music Research for $5 million. WHAT officially switched formats on Jan. 18.

Kelly's background in music research told him his first station should play a mixture of '90s "alternative," popular indie, hip-hop, reggae, poetry and local music. "We're not playing to a format, but a demographic," says programming director Alvin Clay, a Philly native. "We're playing to 20- to 30-year-olds and what they want."

Acts like the Counting Crows, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sublime share time with The Killers, Modest Mouse and Talib Kweli.

There are no traditional DJs at Skin. Clay creates the day's playlist every morning on a computer. Short breaks with items of local interest are prerecorded. "We don't have traditional block scheduling or personalities here," says Clay. "The music is the star." The most exciting part of that is a segment called "Local Stage."

With the rise of corporate radio (thank Congress for the Telecommunications Act of 1996) small, local acts have all but disappeared from the airwaves. Skin is helping to reverse that by playing one song from a local group every hour.

Clay encourages local acts to send in their music for a chance to get airtime. "I listen to everything we get," he says, gesturing at the piles of CDs scattered around his office.

Showing up at the studio unannounced is also fine, as Mike Reilly of local band Monster Hands (www.myspace.com/monsterhands) discovered.

"The guy at the desk opened the door, invited us in, showed us around the studios, and introduced us to literally every single person in the building," says Reilly. He handed in his demo, and later that night the song "Rubble and Rain" was played on the air.

Skin Radio's slogan is "We Will Be Different" and in addition to highlighting local noisemakers, one other feature is certainly unusual. Every hour they play a 30-second recording of a local poet in a segment called the "Poetry Slam."

"Airtime is a rare thing for poetry," says Mike Cohen, local poet and host of Big Blue Marble Bookstore's Poetry Aloud and Alive program. "As poets, we have to take it when we can get it. I appreciate what Skin Radio is doing to give poetry a chance to be accessible and even cool again."

No matter what is played, though, an AM music station faces unique challenges. The medium has a reputation for sounding worse than FM, because it does. To combat that, Skin broadcasts in high-definition digital radio. Unlike with high-definition television, the "HD" in HD digital radio does not actually stand for anything, except sort-of clever marketing, but it promises a similar increase in quality.

HD AM radio achieves a clearer sound by piggybacking a digital feed on top of the existing analog signal. The digital signal has less static and lacks all those weird background popping and buzzing sounds common to AM. If you have an HD radio receiver, that is.

Since not that many people have such receivers, around half a million nationwide, Skin offers a $40 rebate coupon on its Web site (www.skinradio.com) to those who buy one. A bunch of different HD radios are on the market with varying prices, although they all license the same technology from iBiquity, which got a monopoly on it from the FCC.

For those unwilling to jump into HD, regular radios can still pick up the analog signal and Skin has a streaming feed from their Web site.

Other Philly radio figures have high hopes for HD radio. "It has the potential to be big," says Jim McGuinn, program director of WXPN's Y-Rock on XPN, which just launched as a 24/7 secondary station on HD radio. "It's a matter of having compelling content to get people to buy receivers."

After five months of operation, Skin is starting to edge its way into the Philly consciousness. They're sponsoring concerts at the Fillmore at the TLA, like the one on May 17 with !!! and Holy F*CK, and the "Skin Radio Poetry Slam LIVE! Plus Music" at the Manayunk Brewery on May 24.

!!! plays with Holy F*CK, Thu., May 17, 8 p.m., $16-$18, Fillmore at the TLA, 334 South St., live-nation.com. Skin Radio Poetry Slam LIVE! Plus Music, Thu., May 24, 7:30 p.m., free, Manayunk Brewery, 4120 Main St., 215-482-8220, www.manayunkbrewery.com/homepage.php.