Letter to the editor


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Programs must publicize 

Karla Chavez and Mellissa Linton’s “Free concerts deserve greater publicity” (Nov. 7) diagnoses one of USC’s most unfortunate cultural ailments: Most students attend very few musical events on campus besides Program Board’s “big three.”

That the average $5 house party — bound as it is these days to be broken up promptly at midnight — is much more widely attended than any free concert is unfortunate.

The benefits of all-you-can-drink jungle juice aside, our community would benefit from a little more “cultural enrichment,” to use Chavez and Linton’s words.

But I disagree with the columnists’ argument that the university should promote free events on campus.

In reality, it is not the university but student organizations, including USG’s Program Board, that put on the shows and should promote them.

Yet, Chavez and Linton’s point demonstrates that the organizations that host concerts and the students who want to see them are not connecting.

I’m the Music Director at KXSC, the student radio station, which hosts regular concerts on and off campus. The station hosts a show every Friday at 1 p.m. in Tommy’s Place in the Ronald Tutor Campus Center that is free and open to the public and broadcasts over the air. KXSC is also preparing to put on its fourth annual music festival next semester.

Last year’s free KXSC Fest, which featured Flying Lotus, Abe Vigoda and Puro Instinct, among others, was our best-attended event in recent memory, but unfortunately, most of the visitors were not USC students. The station also hosts other events, like the free screening of the new film Nirvana: Live at the Paramount on Wednesday.

That Chavez and Linton did not come across KXSC in their research for Tuesday’s article is proof that we have not managed to reach the student body as well as we want to, and we’ve been working hard lately to change that.

I would also like to take this moment on the soap box to mention a university policy that harms a student organization’s ability to publicize themselves: the systematic removal of bulletin boards for the purpose of campus beautification. The International Plaza by the campus center is the most heavily trafficked area of campus, but there is not a single place to post flyers or other community messages.

Thanks to Chavez and Linton for bringing this issue forward. We hope to see them and many other students at our festival next semester.

Philip Meyer

Senior, international relations

Music director, KXSC