Q&A with WRFL’s past and current leaders

Before the festivities of the three-day music festival Boomslang began, the Kernel sat down with current WRFL general manager Ainsley Wagoner and one of the founders of WRFL, Kakie Urch, to hear their thoughts on the upcoming events, the goals behind the student radio station and just how far they’ve come over the past 20 years.

Kernel: So Ainsley, what are you trying to accomplish with Boomslang?

Ainsley: Saraya Brewer (the director of Boomslang) went to a festival … in Tennessee, and she remembered back to Freeky Fest, and she came back with the impression of like ‘we can do this, too, in Lexington.’ … So if we put that investment out there, it’s something that people will really respond to and really put Lexington on the map in the same way that Big Ears puts Knoxville on map as a place to go see good music and for a stop on a band’s tour list.

Kernel: So how do you think this festival is important to Lexington as a whole, not just campus?

Ainsley: I can only speak to my range of growing up in Lexington … but it seems to me that we’re experiencing a real cultural renaissance, and a lot of things are starting to happen … something that Lexington is unique in is that it’s a big enough city that you have all kinds of resources, but it’s a small enough city that people aren’t tearing at each other’s throats to make it. So Lexington is really receptive to this kind of thing.

Kernel: Kakie, what are some of the main differences you see in WRFL now from its formation?

Kakie: The beautiful thing is the similarity. That of course the music is different. You know we have tons of programming now and we have everyone from 18-year-olds on to guys in their 40s and 50s embracing bluegrass as well as noise. Honoring our community music and taking this seriously and treating art and each other with a great deal of respect. And they’ve done it. So it’s the similarity that I like. You know, fewer people have mohawks. We had people with actual mohawks.

Kernel: So Ainsley, what do you think about this program you’ve inherited?

Ainsley: I mean I wish that I could say that I had something to do with it being the way it is, but I’m incredibly lucky because I think it is somewhat mystical that it has remained so true to what it was founded on. Because you know we are run by students, and people graduate, and there’s a high turnover, and so there’s a really strong spirit of kind of what our mission is and that I think is what has been able to carry it through.

Kernel: Kakie, what are some of the traditions and standards the founders were hoping to create?

Kakie: Well, I think the notion of diversity – and that’s a very flexible definition – that different generations have been able to work with. Did I think that vaudeville music was going to be part of musical diversity in 1988? No, but we have vaudeville acts, and it’s a big strain, and the average alternative rock band now consists of an accordion and a tuba. And when people like Mission of Burma started out, it was guitar, bass and drums … We had the Christian rock show, we were playing hip-hop when actually every radio station was advertising ‘no rap.’

Kernel: How do you think Boomslang is going to affect WRFL as far as getting your name out there and maybe becoming a more credible source, and put a stamp on the Lexington music scene?

Ainsley: This raises the bar for the future because now this is the biggest thing we have done. So maybe two years from now if they decide they want to do something bigger, it’s going to be huge, because you know this is huge … This is what we’ve been capable of all along.

For more about Boomslang, check out the other Kernel article’s on the event. No boundaries at Boomslang and Revealing Lexington’s hidden gems and Sight, sound showcased in festival art .