NOTE: The interviewer s questions and comments appear in parentheses. Added material appears in brackets.

Transcription

1 FORSTER, NICK. TRANSCRIPT of OH 1905 This radio program was recorded for KGNU and aired in 2012 on the program A Public Affair. It later was donated to the Maria Rogers Oral History Program for archiving. The interviewer is Richard Kiefer. The interview was transcribed by Joan Nagel. ABSTRACT: Nick Forster, founder and host of the radio show etown, talks about the program, which is produced in Boulder and broadcast on many public radio stations. He discusses the history of etown, including its inception; how it got its name; and its mission, both in the Boulder community and beyond. He also talks about its new venue, etown Hall, which was under construction at the time of the interview, delving into the architectural history of the building and the changes made, such as acoustical treatments, to outfit it for its new use. The interview also includes a brief appearance by Helen Forster, Nick s wife and partner in producing etown. NOTE: The interviewer s questions and comments appear in parentheses. Added material appears in brackets. [A]. 00:00 [Music] The etown Radio Program orginates in Boulder, Colorado, and is heard weekly on over 300 AM and FM stations across the country. etown presents a wide variety of music and conversation connecting people with common interests and values. For the past 21 years the show has been recorded in the historic Boulder Theater in downtown Boulder, but starting in June 2012 etown will have its own permanent home with a recording center and music hall. etown Hall will open with a 200-seat auditorium, a recording studio and radio production facilities. Nick Forster, etown s founder, producer, and host, tells us about etown Hall and the etown mission. (We re at the corner of 16 th and Spruce in downtown Boulder at the location of the new etown Hall and I m with Nick Forster. Nick, this is quite a project. This is a big deal.) Yeah, it s a bigger deal than I think anybody who got involved with this anticipated actually. (How long you been under way on this?) Well, it depends on what you mean by under way. (Well, let s say construction planning was probably quite a bit more than just construction.) OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 1 of 12

2 Yeah. I think construction s been going on now for a little more than two years, two-anda-half years. (This is a very attractive building right now. I m looking at a nice glass foyer, metal work, stucco finish. What was this building before you bought it?) Well, it went through a funny evolution. It was originally constructed in 1922 by the First Church of the Nazarene and it was, what I would call, [a] rustic Romanesque stone church. And then in the 40s they kind of changed their whole program and they added cement block and modern building materials. They covered the whole thing with stucco and it sort of lost a lot of its original character. (From the pictures on your website, I think it looked better as a stone building. Didn t it?) It looked pretty good as a stone building. (Did you consider going down to the stone?) Not really, because all the way around the perimeter of the building there was about five feet of cement block that wouldn t have been you know, had we revealed the stone, we would have also revealed that. And it got so significantly altered that the original charm was gone. (So at this point how many square feet is the building all together?) Well, all together it s 17,000 square feet. (When do you think the main performance hall will be open?) We re hoping late June. (And so this becomes the new home, permanent home, of etown radio program, right?) Yeah, not an exclusive home. I think one of the great things about our history is that we ve got such a deep connection to the Boulder Theater and it s a resource that I can almost I can just about see the corner of from here. (In fact, we re just down the street from the Boulder Theater about two blocks away.) Yeah, a block-and-a-half from the stage door. So the reality is our shows will still we ll still do a lot of shows from the Boulder Theater. But what s interesting is etown Hall represents a new era for not just for etown but I think for the music community in Boulder, too. (So, you re going to be able to seat how many people in this hall?) OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 2 of 12

3 Around 200. (And how many can you seat at the Boulder Theater?) 864. (Oh, okay, so a much larger crowd. So some shows you ll want to do over there anyway, just because the capacity won t handle it here.) That s right, but curiously it s not just because we ll have either better known or more famous artists. What the smaller venue does is it gives us flexibility. Sometimes it enables us to use artists you know to put artists on etown who are less well-known, less famous either emerging artists or older artists from other countries or, you know, we can be a little more adventurous programmatically. And secondly, some of the higher profile artists, when they re playing in Denver anyway, have a hard time convincing everybody that they can do an etown at the Boulder Theater and that it won t affect their ticket sales. So in reality, etown Hall will be also more attractive to some of the bigger names because it kinda keeps them below the radar of commerce. (With a crowd of just, say, 200 people or something.) Yeah, a couple hundred people in an old church is not something that s going to scare a promoter away from saying, Oh sure, you can do an etown. (Well, let s walk around inside a little bit and see what s happening.) Yeah, let s take a look. [Music] (So we ve just walked into the main performance hall in the new etown Hall building and we re really under construction in here.) Yeah. This is a (We got plastic all over. We got workmen.) The stage, you can see, is the original stone from the original stone structure. We added a lot of steel, so we made the stage aperture I don t know if you remember that photograph of the old small stage. (Yeah, much smaller than what we see here. This stage is what twenty-five feet across or so, right?) 05:06 OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 3 of 12

4 Yeah. It s a good-size stage and it s nice and deep, and so we actually have the capacity to put on basically any show we can. You know, we can put any kind of band on that stage. (And what s the size of this room?) Oh, I d say including the stage, it s about 3200 square feet. (Have you designed this with acoustics in mind?) Absolutely. We spent a lot of time and effort and energy. Basically we defined failure as raising the money, completing the building, and having it not sound good. (Yeah, I see for example a concave ceiling here. Is that part of the acoustic design?) Well, that was the original ceiling when they did the remodel in the 40s. It included these curved bottom trusses and except this was covered with plaster and lath, which was an acoustical problem so by removing the plaster and lath we can actually just reveal the structure, which is what we re going to leave as our ceiling. And then we can do acoustical treatment above it. And the back wall, we ve built a custom diffuser out of salvaged lumber. These are the old floor joists from this floor that we took out, and we ve built a whole series of acoustical diffusers to cut down on slapback from the stage to the back wall. So this is all acoustical treatment up there. This asymmetry around the front-of-house mix position and the lighting control is designed by our acoustical engineer. So we ve spent a lot of time we re standing on a floor sandwich that s about six inches thick that includes all kinds of acoustical materials to make sure that there s no vibrations. (So we have sound isolation in basically all directions?) In every direction. That s right. I think the goal is you want a balance of reflection and absorption. You don t want a room to sound too dead or too live. You know, if it was completely covered in ceramic tile, you get that feeling, and if it was completely blanketed in foam, you would feel like you re inside of you know sort of a dead space. So it s a balance that we hope we are going to achieve. We ll know in a little while. (So a balance intended for acoustic performance, not so much amplified performance then, right?) I think that actually, the science works for whatever kind of music you re going to perform with the possible exception our first show that we ve scheduled is a chamber music performance in conjunction with the Colorado Music Festival and typically they OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 4 of 12

5 like a nice bright room and nice reflective surfaces. But for the most part, anytime the PA is on, the acoustical science is going to work well with the building we ve created. (Is that classical performance going to be on etown?) I don t think so. (That s just to test the hall.) Well, it s really it s a community relationship we re building and we re cultivating and it s one of the many uses we hope happens here at etown Hall regularly. [Music] (Our tour of etown Hall includes a look at the production studios where we find Helen Forster at work editing last week s live performance for next week s radio broadcast.) (We re in the stereo mix-down studio I think, aren t we? This is where the final edit for etown is produced?) [Helen Forster:] Yes, this is where we take the raw materials from the live show that we all get to enjoy here locally and then this is Ryan White, my associate and he and I create the broadcast for the air, so we take what we get live and kind of squish it down into an hour, and that s what we re doing right now. (How long does the editing process take?) It takes about a week between maybe a little longer than that but I would say probably six, seven days between two days of mixing music, two days of working at this end and then about three days on my end, compiling notes and such, so yeah it s a lengthy process. (So you re busy all week editing last week s program and as soon as the next one has been recorded, you re back to work again down here?) Pretty much, yeah. Sometimes we get backed up and behind, but we do try to stay on top of that. And of course we don t have a show every week, so in between I do things like learn songs for the next show, I produce the awards segments, so it s all about research and writing for that, and so that s how I fill the rest of the time. (When do you guys take vacations?) I think we ve had about three since we started. We had our honeymoon and then maybe two or three others. (This sounds like more than a full-time job, isn t it?) OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 5 of 12

6 [Nick:] It s a lot of time, and you know of course people see us on stage and then they say, Hey, so what else do you do? That s such a fun job. I wish I had your job. (So they don t know everything that goes on behind the scenes.) No. [Music] [Helen with music in background delivering the introduction to the etown radio show]: From the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, it s etown with this week s musical guests from Nashville, Tennessee, Full Light recording artist Darrell Scott, and from Boulder, Colorado, Leftover Salmon. I m Helen Forster. Right now please join me in welcoming Nick Forster. [applause]. 10:00 (Nick, tell us a little bit about the radio program and how long have you been doing etown. You re on a lot of radio stations across the country.) [Nick:] We ve been at this actually a little more than 21 years. Our first show was on Earth Day But the genesis and the background that led to the creation of etown has really been sort of a part of who I ve been as a musician for literally since I was a little kid. I grew up near Pete Seeger, and I watched him use music to try to affect social change and environmental change in the Hudson River Valley. And then, I had a lot of fun playing with Hot Rize, and we got to do a lot of live radio-- Grand Ole Opry, the WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia. Did a lot of television Garrison Keeler s show, early versions at Mountain State and so on. So I loved that feeling of live radio and I looked for ways of combining these kinds of things a little live music, a little education, a little social awareness and mixing it all with media. (For what purpose?) Well, there s a feeling that I got when I used to go to bluegrass festivals that on the Sunday evening, there is a kind of a wistfulness that settles in over the entire festival that over the course of the preceding few days, regardless of background, regardless of education or income levels, everyone there found a way to connect. They were aiming single-mindedly at the stage. They were having a shared experience of music. If it rained, it rained on everybody. There was a sense of community that happened whether you were standing in line for food or the restroom or whatever, that on Sunday evenings, as these festivals would unwind and there would sometimes be the big collaborative jam on stage, there s that sense of loss that this community that was created around music is now going to be dispersed. And in some cases people have to wait a whole year until they can get that feeling again. And so this was an opportunity to try to capture some of that same feeling OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 6 of 12

7 (And make it last a little longer?) Well, make it happen more often. You know, make it happen every week where there is a little bit of that we re all in this together, we re all sort of talking to each other, we re listening to music, we re producing something unique in real time. (So how would you describe the mission of etown? I notice on your website you say, We build community through music. ) I think music is a great connector, and as a performer who s been lucky enough to play in all kinds of different countries and you know, I ve just been very fortunate in that way to see firsthand how music cuts across every boundary, every border, every obstacle and enables people who might not otherwise get along to have a shared experience. So I m a huge believer in the power of music in bringing people together. We live in a pretty divisive time, so I don t know of anything more universally unifying than a good song. (And so this is your objective with every program then?) Yeah and it sounds very sort of insidious that we re, The music is the Trojan Horse and we re sneaking into people s minds and into their cars and into their houses to (With some kind of social agenda.) With a social agenda. Yeah, and I think to some degree that s true because we have a purpose. We have a reason. We re not particularly interested in just being in the music business, because I know that we get a lot of mail and response and we hear from a lot of people who listen to etown around the country. And they talk about it in very serious terms as something that s important to them. It s important to their week. It s important to their family. It s important to (So your listeners describe to you how they feel better and act more responsibly in their community in part as a result of listening to etown?) We hear that. We hear that people feel that etown gives them hope, that etown informs them. It educates them about different kinds of music that they might not have heard otherwise. It, as I mentioned before, in some cases it really does stimulate dialogue and conversation and curiosity. And there s always this combination of live music sort of getting backstage a little bit because of the interviews with the artists. So we re not just playing records or performances. I think we re giving some insight as to who these performers are, and how they got where they are, and what their creative process is like. We also have the echievement Award on every show which is a homegrown, listenergenerated segment. People just tell us stories about folks who have inspired them in their communities. And I think there s something really beautiful about that that does translate. (How did you choose the name etown?) OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 7 of 12

8 Well, it was funny. I was on the (Has the program always been called etown?) It s always been called etown. I was on the phone to NPR in 1991 pitching my concept for the show and probably filled with hubris and a little arrogance thinking, Hey, I m from Hot Rize, and I ve got all this experience, and I ve done all this stuff, and I called them up and said, Hey, I ve got this program. 15:12 And they said, Well, what s the working title for your program? And I went, Oh, uh [pause] etown. It was on the phone with NPR when I made the decision to call it etown. I was looking for something that could be almost like a synonym for global village and e was intentionally ambiguous so that it could reference entertainment, education (Environment.) Environment, energy, all kinds of things that were hopefully going to be ingredients in this new show. And town speaks to that community, that connection that happens on sort of a household to household basis. (How do you locate your music groups? How do you find performers for etown?) Well, since we ve started (You must be scouting all the time for performers who will fit into the etown format.) Yeah, that s a very good question, and it s hard to answer exactly because etown format is intentionally vague. You know, we like to mix it up. We like to have things that are disparate styles. (For example?) Well, I mean Willie Nelson, when he was last on etown, was on with Angelique Kidjo who is the West African pop singer two completely different styles, two artists who had never met each other and yet fell in love with each other and made a great song, a Jimmy Cliff song, as the finale at the end of that show. And so the collision, the mash-up of these artists is part of what we do, and in some ways is part of that a reflection of that community-building through music expanding Willie Nelson s fans definition of what kind of music they like, because they d never heard this before but when they heard it, they went, Wow, that s pretty good. And the same thing happened with Angelique s fans. OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 8 of 12

9 So, having said that, etown s really almost always been about helping artists tell the story of their newest record. So we ve been part of a promotional cycle. And in the earliest days of etown, record companies were much more powerful than they are now and so they would often bring artists out on tour to promote their new records. And that doesn t happen so much anymore but typically the artists who come to etown have a new record. And there are so few opportunities for artists these days to reach 300 radio stations with one stop that we get an awful lot of interest from a wide variety of talent. (Of course, we re sitting right now as we speak, we re in one of the production studios at etown Hall, which is the new facility here in Boulder. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about the educational component you see etown Hall providing and its function in the Boulder community.) In terms of etown Hall, one of the things we ve always done is bring some of the most amazing performers to Boulder to be on the radio. So with etown Hall our hope is that we can have an opportunity to really give those visitors a deeper connection with our hometown and open up to the community that kind of dialogue with these people we bring in. You know, whether or not it s a musician who comes in, and then either the day before or the next day does a master class, or brings in high school music students to talk about composition or song-writing or particular skills on an instrument, or an author, or a policy-maker, or a scientist, or even our echievement Award winners talking about how they did what they did and whether those things are replicable. Bear in mind also that this facility is not exclusively for etown s use, so we fully expect the performance hall to be well-utilized by all kinds of different groups. (For example, what do you have in mind?) Well, I think one of our first shows is a chamber music performance in conjunction with the Colorado Music Festival. We ve talked about partnering with Planet Bluegrass, with Swallow Hill, with the music school at CU, with Naropa, with Chautauqua because I think there is, for better or worse, there s kind of a line of demarcation between the university and downtown Boulder, and there s a line of demarcation between Chautauqua and downtown Boulder. And our hope is that etown Hall can bridge those gaps a little bit. For example, during Colorado Music Festival when there s all these great soloists who come in from all over the world to be in Boulder, if you know about it and if you re part of that routine, you ll partake, and if you don t, you probably won t because the for some reason there s a disconnect. What I ve been speaking with the CMF about is the possibility of bringing their soloist down and doing lunchtime concerts, like a brown bag lunch at etown Hall for people who work downtown, who have a lunch hour and they can go and find a way to be exposed to some music, have lunch, and if they re interested, the full program happens that night or the next day, and they can find out about tickets and so on. 20:01 OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 9 of 12

10 And that s just one example or dozens and dozens of ideas we ve had about ways to enrich the cultural climate here in town and really make etown Hall an interesting hub of the wheel, not just because of our location but because of our technology. (How is etown funded?) Well we re funded by a combination of things, and we sort of always have been. It s a certain percentage from ticket sales, a certain percentage from our national sponsors and our advertisers, and a certain percentage from what s called contributor revenue. We re a non-profit organization, so we have some support from donors and foundations. Typically, etown has been a very entrepreneurially non-profit with roughly 70 percent of our revenue on an annual basis earned income and 30 percent contributed revenue. So if 70 percent is usually comprised of ticket sales and sponsorship and advertising. (What about etown Hall? This is a pretty big project.) Yeah. ([laughter] How have you been funding etown Hall?) Through contributions and through donations and through foundation support and (How s all that going?) It s going okay. You know, we don t have a development director on our staff, so that s part of my responsibility is raising money, and it actually has been for 21 years. I ve sold all of our advertising and secured all our sponsors for the show since its inception. In this case, this is a huge undertaking way bigger than I anticipated and more expensive than I was expecting, but because it s such a unique space, there was really no way to know exactly how it was going to come out. In very broad strokes, it s about a 7 million dollar project, and so far I ve been really fortunate and able to raise a little bit less than 5 million dollars. So I ve got 2.1 or something like that or 2.2 left to raise in order to complete the project. (And you re planning to have etown Hall open in June ) End of June. (End of June 2012) A few months from now, yeah. I ve got my work cut out for me. [laughs] (Well, based on the amount of construction I see, you re 90 percent of the way there it looks like.) OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 10 of 12

11 Yeah. (Eighty to 90 percent.) I think we re easily 90 percent of the way, because the nature of the construction has been so much about what s behind the walls. So I would say we re 96 percent of the way there really when you think about all the work that we ve done, having to basically completely rebuild the structure and redesign it with acoustics and other things in mind. (Tell us about the website. You re at etown.org, is that right?) That s right. (And what can people learn from the website?) Well, they can learn about upcoming shows. They can see pictures and videos of what s going on with etown Hall. They can listen to shows that have already been produced. They can see now over 200 short form videos that have been produced in-house of our shows over the last couple of years. And you can learn a lot about some of the people; you can learn more about our guests. There s hyperlinks to different sites about our guests. (Can we buy tickets? To the Boulder performances.) You can buy tickets to the Boulder performances, yeah. You can make a secure contribution to etown Hall. (To etown Hall?) Yeah, absolutely. [laughs] (To help with that extra 2 million dollars.) Especially soon would be great. [laughter] (Would be nice so you can get open by the end of June then.) That s right. (And we should remind everybody that etown is heard on KGNU at 11:00, I think it is, on Sunday mornings in Boulder.) That s right. That s right. (Well, Nick Forster, thanks so much for talking with us.) OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 11 of 12

12 Thanks a lot, Rich. I really appreciate it. [Extended music followed by applause] [announcer:] Helen joining there and Nick Forster on the pedal steel.) [Applause and cheering]. 25:38 [end of recording] OH 1905, Interview with Nick Forster about etown, page 12 of 12