[OutVoice] FCC Bleeping

[Jddoyle1 at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/31/2006 11:17:16 AM Central Standard Time, 
freddy at freddyfreeman.com writes:
Do any of you radio people have any thoughts on this or know what is 
acceptable and not acceptable? 
Would you play a song with a bleeped Fuck in it, have things changed, can you 
now play it unbleeped? 
Just looking for some feedback from Y'all 
Freddy,
   Nothing's changed. A couple of years ago I did several internet-only shows 
(my own way of protesting) and I included a page on the FCC guidelines, as 
compiled by a Pacifica lawyer and presented to us at a meeting. It's at....
http://www.queermusicheritage.com/fccrules.html

Yes, we can play a song with the word completely bleeped, though I personally 
find that very distracting and annoying. Another appoach is to just cut the 
volume for that word, a bit less noticeable. Both are hard to do "on the fly." 
I would never chance it, and I'd want to use an editing program and then burn 
a disc of that song to take to the station. I did that recently with one of 
Kris Landherr's songs. I readily admit, I'm a busy guy and I have to REALLY like 
a song before I would go to that trouble. I'm betting you don't want to 
gamble airplay on a producer's willingness to try to censor your song.

Not all songs can be successfully "bleeped" without ruining the impact or 
rhythm. For example, Saturn has a wonderful song, "I Luv Everything About You," 
that I was not able to doctor in a suitable way, so regrettably I just can't 
play it.

I know money is important to an indy artist, but I often wonder if you have 
that dynamite radio-almost-ready song and you don't want to censor it, if you 
could record two versions of it, and have both on your CD, giving those who 
program for "regular" radio an option. Substitute a safe euphemism 
perhaps....."messin' around" for "fuckin' around" or whatever. Or even have a radio-safe 
version ready to email upon request as an mp3.

My two cents,

JD Doyle

my "Queer Music Heritage" radio show site:
http://www.queermusicheritage.com
my Outradio site:
http://www.outradio.com
and co-producer of Audiofile, the monthly 
radio review of CDs of interest to the GLBT
communities, airing on over 150 stations 
around the world on This Way Out. 
The Audiofile site is at www.Audiofile.org
and all past Audiofile segments are archived
at http://www.queermusicheritage.com/af.html
Also co-host of Queer Voices on KPFT, every
Monday night from 7-9 pm, www.kpft.org
and at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/jddoyle