Name: Maddie Higgins
Hometown: Orinda, CA
Year: Junior
Major: Cognitive Science, IMC Certificate
Minor: Gender Studies
Meet junior Maddie Higgins, a DJ for WNUR, Northwestern’s local radio station. As the educational director of Streetbeat and producer of the Rock Show, two of the station’s programs, Higgins spends a lot of her time in the Louis Hall studios. Tune into 89.3 FM Tuesday nights to hear her music!
How did you become interested in DJ’ing?
Music has been an integral part of my life, and my taste has become more exploratory over time. I started listening to electronic music around sophomore year of high school. I loved burning CDs and making playlists for my friends, so I always thought I might be a good DJ. But because you have to have access to equipment, there’s a high cost of entry to the practice, so I never had the opportunity to learn until I got to Northwestern.
Describe your role on WNUR.
For Streetbeat, I’m the Educational Director, which means that I organize and plan genre presentations that we have for staff and apprentices at every meeting. The presentations are given by our student DJs and occasionally community DJs from Chicago. We’re working on teaching apprentices how to use equipment and possibly taking a field trip to Gramaphone Records (the owner is a Streetbeat DJ, Michael Serafini, on Monday nights). I also have a two hour show with my friend Chu on Tuesday nights. On the Rock Show, I’m one of two producers, which means I help our music directors run apprentice meetings, manage logistics, plan events (like our annual spring collaboration with the Block Museum, Sonic Celluloid) and keep the stacks organized. I also have a two hour show on Wednesday afternoon with my friend/music director Stephen.
How did you get involved with the club?
I was heartbroken when I didn’t get accepted by A&O my freshman year. I loved music and I thought I would be a great curator; I didn’t know what other musical opportunities there were at Northwestern and I thought I was destined to be a part of that organization. I also didn’t realize how much of A&O selection is politics. In the winter of 2013, a friend of mine was going to check out a Rock Show meeting for the first time and she invited me to come with her (who knew we had a radio station?). My friend ended up deciding it wasn’t her thing, but I stayed on as an apprentice. I realized how much equipment was at my fingers when I started working as a DJ for Rock Show, so I finally got around to practicing DJing. I joined Streetbeat sophomore year winter & I’ve never looked back. WNUR has turned out to be far more suited to my musical tastes than A&O anyway, and I’m forever grateful that I got rejected from A&O. I never would have found my favorite thing about Northwestern otherwise.
What kinds of changes have you implemented at the radio station so far?
I think the biggest change I’ve implemented is demonstrating that Rock Show and Streetbeat can not only coexist, but be friends. As the two biggest shows on WNUR (that attract people with very different music tastes), RS and SB have always been somewhat at odds. I was the first person to do both programs in a long time. It’s also been a while since a girl has had a consistent show and executive role on Streetbeat. There are about 30 male DJs on Streetbeat and only two or three committed females (excluding apprentices).
Any big plans for WNUR’s future?
We try to constantly work on reaching a wider audience both inside and outside of the Northwestern community. Despite WNUR’s history and achievements, few students at Northwestern are aware that we exist. Even people who have heard of Streetbeat will ask me, “Wait, so, wait really is Streetbeat? Do you just throw parties?” When I explain that we’re just one program on WNUR, and further, that Northwestern has radio station, people sometimes still have trouble understanding what I mean. We’ve really been working on the NU community in the past couple years, and I think it’s finally paying off. We also try to expand farther into Chicago to promote shows with labels & bring in artists for guest shows and live Airplay sets. Also, one future plan that is always the most pressing and anxiety-provoking is keeping the station volunteer-run and commercial-free, and keeping the content we play aligned with our stated mission. A lot of college radio stations are being bought out and commercialized, and some of them are really big stations….WNUR has been bringing underrepresented music to the airwaves for over 60 years, and we’re the largest student-run radio station in the country, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe from commercialization. The only thing that allows us to play the music we play now is staying commercial-free; if we get bought out, we’ll be playing “Timber” as many times a day as any other radio station.
How has the work you’ve done at WNUR and Northwestern in general influenced your professional aspirations?
I always thought I might want to work somewhere in the music industry, but I didn’t know how to break into it. It’s all about networking, connections, friends; I also never thought I’d be able to make a productive living out of it. But simply being a DJ on Streetbeat has allowed me to meet a lot of people in the Chicago community and build some of those relationships. The best part about is that it doesn’t really feel like networking, just making friends, so I’ll have some grounding if I do decide to try to work in the industry. Working at WNUR has also given me experience managing responsibility in an organization that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, with a group of people keeping it running who have no incentive other than their love for music and the community–which is a pretty cool experience. Being at Northwestern in general has influenced my professional aspirations a lot just because I’m so close to Chicago, which is such a dope city. I’m not sure what I want to do yet, though…if I keep doing what I enjoy, I figure I can’t go wrong.
Are there any other fun facts you want people to know about you?
I identify with the queer community, so shouts out to them. & If you love music and are interested in pushing your conception of what music is or can be, swing by the station! It’s so easy to get involved at WNUR. Nobody knows we exist, so we don’t have to be political or selective.
Photo Credit: Facebook