Oral History with Bryan Zuraw

CKUT TIME CAPSULE

Bryan Zuraw was at Radio McGill/CKUT from 1983-1997 as a volunteer, music librarian and music coordiantor.

He discusses what was going on musically at the time, musique actuelle, (the beginnings of Ambience Magnetique), college indie rock (pre-Nirvana), hip hop, dancehall reggae (when these genres really started to bloom)… the interest of community members to do radio (given that there isn’t an Urban radio station in Montreal)… establishing an identity and mandate for the station, maintaining a diversity of perspectives and benefiting from this process both personally and intellectually. And of course, conducting all station business (i.e. Steering, Programming, Committee meetings) in the hallway as there was no room to do so at CKUT. All of this was pre-internet. It involved writing to labels, researching magazines such as the Village Voice, OP (Option) Sound Choice, The Wire, newsletters and tape trading networks. He also speaks on picking up the habit of waking up at 3am to make sure that someone is On Air, because if not, he would make his way to the station in the middle of the night.

Bryan now lives in Los Angeles with his wife (ex CKUT programmer Kie Ross Zuraw) and is still finding strange music to vibe to.

https://archive.org/download/InterviewBryanZurawEdited/interview_BryanZuraw%20edited%20.mp3