Learning the back-story of “Random Acts of Radio”

David Beard Nov 14, 2023 5 Comments

I am sorting through items found at the College of St. Scholastica book sale, and I ran into this CD from the 1990s.

It feels like an argument could be made to submit this to the archives and special collections at the University of Minnesota Duluth as a significant artifact of the Duluth music scene.

Help me make that argument below. I’m hoping for a bullet-pointed list of ten reasons:

… why the artists on this album are significant.

… why the songs on this album are significant.

… why the recording of these songs by these artists for this collection is significant.

… why the pirate radio backstory for this collection remains significant.

… why the art of the sleeve is significant

… and so on. Please help!

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History, Music

5 Comments

Ghist1

about 1 year ago 

Absolutely it should be kept somewhere in an archive. The Duluth Public Library was keeping up with locally produced CDs pretty well until about 10-15 years ago, and they have many in their Duluth Collection, but that effort hasn't been active lately. There were patrons who would come use those CDs because some are very hard to find in the world these days. Community archives and community materials are very important. If UMD won't take it, maybe DPL would?

Ghist1

about 1 year ago 

For instance, here is Starfire's first Homegrown Mix CD, still well represented at the Duluth Public Library.

Paul Lundgren

about 1 year ago 

This album is indeed a significant part of the Duluth music-scene boom. The history of the Homegrown Music Festival explains in detail how the low-power station Random Radio led to the album, which led to Scott Lunt approaching Rick Boo about having the CD release party at the NorShor Theatre, which led to the inaugural Homegrown Music Festival being held at the NorShor.

David Beard

about 1 year ago 

Excellent -- but I want to know more about the contents of the disc -- the artists, especially!  

HBH the rock and roll star?

hbh1

about 1 year ago 

No, it was just one of two recordings of me doing spoken word.

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