Weekend America 2005.08.27 – "Pass the CD"
“Pass the CD” is a portrait of a New York City CD Club, called the Bobcats. The idea behind CD Clubs is simple: 12 people get together, each gets a month. When it’s your month, make a mix CD, burn 11 copies and mail them out. We learn about the personalities of the Bobcat CD Club through their musical tastes. Then we are there when the club members meet each other for the first time. At the end of the show, the host, Bill Radke, issued this invitation to listeners:
“To join Gideon D’Arcangelo’s CD club, send an email to mycdclub at yahoo dot com. The first eleven to respond are in the club.”
Hundreds of listeners responded. I decided to launch two clubs, the Penguins and the Owls. That accomodated 22 listeners. To everyone else, I wrote back and asked if they would like to put in touch with 11 other listeners so they could form their own clubs. Yes, was the overwhelming response.
At the time of this submission, I know of at least 9 CD clubs launched by this program that are still going strong. The self-organizing clubs have given themselves names like the Gecko’s, MIXMOO, 24 Ears and my favorite, Gideon’s 13. Many have set up blogs to track their progress and playlists:
