By Dylan Miracle

From city to city, radio now sounds the same. Whether it is classic rock, Top 40 or soft favorites, you'll always find this homogenous fare somewhere on the dial, served up with the platitudes of a highly compressed (the effect that makes deejays on big stations not sound like humans), pre-recorded deejay. Community radio, however, varies wildly, flaunting its independence from radio conglomerate hegemony.

In Austin, KOOP radio offers listeners a respite from focus-grouped playlists and gives deejays creative control over the music they broadcast. This antiquated style of radio brings many eclectic varieties to the airwaves. Shows like "Adventures in Sound," deejayed by UT staff member Dennis Campa, are exemplary of the variety available from community radio.

Campa's house is a tribute to his passion for eclectic music. His record collection takes up two rooms and feeds an understated 1950s tiki theme echoed in the decor. The music he was listening to when The Daily Texan visited him cinched the feel.

"This is The Three Suns," Campa said. "They are sort of easy listening and some of their albums get a little spacey, in a good way."

Fun in the Sun by The Three Suns meandered from his speakers while he pointed out some of his more than 10,000 records.

"I've been collecting music for about 20 years," Campa said. "When I was a teenager, I listened to the Beatles and Stones and some of the Doors. Then I got into Dr. Demento right before I graduated in '88. I thought 'Wow, this is interesting. There's got to be all this other weird stuff.'"

Weird is a large part of what Campa is into. He showed Myron Floren's Disco Polka and, with a deadpan delivery that would impress Bill Hicks, explained its importance.

"You can talk about records before it or records after it," Campa said. "Kind of like you can talk about painting before and after Picasso or music before and after the Rite of Spring."

Maintaining a constant influx of unknown titles, however, takes work.

"Whenever I'm at a party or meeting with friends, especially if they are into older stuff or something kind of oddball, I'll talk with them," Campa said. "Also I tend to be the type that will look through the dollar section, or the stack of 78s that are a quarter, and take chances. When it's only a dollar or a quarter, you can take chances. I've gotten some real shit that way, but I've also picked up a lot of great gems." flected in his radio show. His preference is for music from the 1910s to the 1970s, but he has no problem throwing in recordings from the 1890s or something recorded last year by a friend. The one thing he has a hard time doing is putting a qualifier on his radio show.

"There are too many genres and too many time periods that can confine it," Campa said. "Originally it was a lot more ramshackle and helter-skelter than it is now. I would just grab records and try to make something of it. Now it's very well planned out. Sometimes they are thematic, or I've done whole shows devoted to one artist. Sometimes one genre or time period. Like a couple of months ago I did one on '20s and '30s blues records."

Simple descriptions like classic rock and easy listening are useless when trying to describe "Adventures in Sound." The show is Campa's own creation, infused with his personality and his years at record store bargain bins.

"I think when I started collecting records 20 years ago I was trying to find the answer, what answer I have no idea, but at 18, I was like, 'There's got to be an answer, this is something weird.' It continues; I haven't found it yet."

"Adventures in Sound" airs every Saturday from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on KOOP radio, 91.7 FM.

via DailyTexanOnline.com