Glaskarten

Don't you want to ask what's in the box?  We can answer that but let's begin at the beginning. Glaskarten was a goth and industrial radio program that ran from 2000-2005 on KAOS 89.FM. It aired Monday nights 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM. It's host Kait Moon eventuality became music director at the mighty KAOS. She has a Kickstarter project going right now with the goal of digitizing 80 hours of archived programs and scanning show ephemera like playists. It's goal is less than $6k USD. I really respect the goals of this project. I wish more college radio shows would archive their tapes and papers. It's a cultural trove that is more ephemeral than it should be.

So that chest is the Glaskarten archive as it stands today. All that stands between you and over 3 solid days of goth & industrial radio is a donation to this Kickstarter. But I'll let Kait more eloquently make her case in the interview below:

1. What led up to the creation of Glaskarten? Was it your first radio program? 

 Yes, it was my first radio show, however, when I was 14 I was being mentored by two teachers for broadcasting. I was in an alternative program due to my depression and anxiety and the teacher (Trevor Gloor) asked me what I loved and I said radio, so he talked with Robert Force in the Video Productions program and I started voice instruction. Within the first few months, Robert had sent away for applications to broadcasting school threatening to fill them out for me if I didn't do it myself, and they eventually gave me more responsibility in the voice production and I produced a few TV programs for the local station. My teacher began acquiring gear to refit the closet of our portable to build a studio so I could record shows and demos. It never panned out. When I was 16 I left the region suddenly so I had to give up that goal.

Seven years later I landed at Evergreen State College and there happened to be a radio station on campus (KAOS). I got an assignment in one of my classes to do an informational interview, which then led me to KAOS, and to my music director position which also simultaneously was priming me to become a programmer and DJ.

2. Glaskarten debuted 20 years after the first wave of goth bands, at the peak of the second wave. What inspired you to this deep dive and include so many earlier artists? 

I think what inspired me was my own musical background, I grew up surrounded by all kinds of music bluegrass, classical, pop, Jazz, show tunes, opera. My family was very musical, My mother was studying opera in high school, and I played clarinet stemming from a love of Big band music, which only deepened later. So many genres cross over or are woven together and the more you expose yourself to different music the more you see the connections. This is part of the fun of DJing for me. Another aspect was other DJs and the bands that we were playing.  The scene in the '00s in Seattle was really flexible and in general, didn't take itself too seriously. I was part of the Rivethead subset and our crowds loved hearing Sesame street disco or Xanadu remixes beat-matched to Covenant or Wumpscut or Claire Voyant. Covers were also hugely popular so the scene, in general, was being exposed to new versions and to the original bands who had recorded the songs. This encouraged me to explore the genealogy of the music and to share that with the people that were listening too. So much of it is interconnected or inspired by other bands, to really experience the musical side of the scene I think it helps to see the roots.

3. What led to the reboot in June after a 15-year hiatus? 

I’ve had all these CDs and tapes for a long time and I’ve wanted to back them up but they just sat there. I moved recently and unearthed them while sorting and started listening to them again, we were in Isolation still because of COVID, so it was a perfect time to explore this stash of stuff.

I’ve had opportunities to DJ in the last 15 years and I was scheduled to DJ a couple of times and I did in fact guest-DJ at KPSU on "What's this called" with Ricardo Wang in Portland while promoting one of my books in 2014, but it was only after listening to a couple of shows and trying to see what it would take to back them up or even make them available publicly I fell in love again with the process.

I’ve always made myself playlists, and I had this one sitting around that really spoke to me it was the “Beginning of the end” show which is up now on Mixcloud. I decided to just see what it would take, so I asked some old friends of mine from KAOS who are still DJing radio and online what it would take My friend Melissa Suther (of "Cottlestone pie" and "I'm not here to make friends", which aired on KAOS - now on Mixcloud) helped me by writing out some instructions for audacity and explaining the process.  And here we are.

4. In the new format you state that Glaskarten now spans a broader range of music. What kind of bands now make the cut? 

As I mentioned I have such a wide range of music I enjoy there isn’t any specific genre that I’ll be pulling in in addition to the general oontz. The first show is a good template for what I want people to expect, in that it explores a number of different genres while still maintaining a cohesive show. I have been relying much more heavily on electronic music in my next few shows but I like the opportunity to bring in whatever feels right. The goal is not to play specific genres, it’s to explore feelings and experiences, and how we cope with those feelings. I have everything from Fleetwood Mac to Fever Ray To Front Line Assembly in the first few shows, and my hope is that the way I spin it will help people connect to new music they may not have known they liked before and help them hear the music that opens them to deeper connections.

5. Are there bands that have stuck with you since the shows inception in 2000? 

Yes, absolutely! The Cure has been on every show I've ever recorded. Robert Smith saved my life as a teenager with every album he put out, and so when I got my show I felt it was appropriate to dedicate the first song to them and play one of their songs. Then I decided I was going to do that every show, and so every single one of my Glaskarten show starts with a Cure song. Other bands still spinning on the reboot include VNV nation, Depeche Mode, Peter Murphy/Bauhaus, Covenant, Apoptygma Berserk, and Beborn Beton.

6. What can you tell me about Samsara, your all ages dance night? 

That is a whole other interview! Briefly, it began as a contract at Evergreen for credit. It lasted two years and was the only recurring all-ages night in Washington at the time because they were underage drinking laws and most people did not want to provide a space that was non-alcoholic. So I rented spaces every Friday night or every other Friday night and made sure the kids could come and hear the oontz. A lot of them came from hearing the show. About half each week came down from Seattle or Tacoma. Sometimes people came from as far as Canada and PDX. The cover was cheap and we sold water and Redbull and danced our assess off for about 5-6 hours. It was amazing and done all with volunteers. Even the gear was donated by a local musician/audio guy. The crew was really dedicated and showed up every week and worked hard to make sure the dancing never stopped.

A big portion of that project was actually part of my formal education at the Evergreen State College in fact the contracts on Samsara as a production earned me credit and ultimately contributed to my degree. We also had several live performances over the life of Samsara including H.A.T.E Department, Xeno volcano, P.S. I love you, and a number of well-known Seattle DJs. Ultimately that ended when I moved to Seattle.

7. Most goth & industrial programs were hosted by men. How did you break that trend? 

First I want to say I love this question, second, the answer is other People who respect women and gender non-conforming people and see them as equals. As I mentioned, when I was a teenager two amazing male teachers tried to help prime for me into a career in Radio Broadcasting. I returned to College and the main players in my success at KAOS were NJ Progar (Programming)  and Julie Kellen (Acting General Manager) at KAOS who became my mentors, as well as my faculty supervisors Kate Crow And Dave Higgins who believed in all these different projects including Samsara, and wanted me to reach my highest potential.

When I began club DJing it really was my good friend Steve Saunders (DJ Menshrek) who now is also an electronic performer (Mr. Zoth and the Warespiders, Klubovader), as well. He heavily influenced my musical tastes by sending me tapes he affectionately titled “Kait’s conditioning” that had dozens and dozens of beautiful Noisy, harsh, oontzy beats. When he would DJ in clubs I frequented, he'd invite me to come to hang out in the booth. It was around this time I began DJing at KAOS so it was just a matter of figuring out how a club environment worked and hanging back there and throwing music at him to play, which gave me the additional training I needed. Eventually, he and DJ Mistress Catharina, and DJ Hana solo (three well-known Seattle scene DJs) gave me opportunities to DJ at shows, festivals, special club nights, and CD release parties. They were exceptionally supportive.

To be quite honest the West Coast scene from Vancouver BC to Portland was pretty welcoming to female DJs. I mean it was still predominately male but there were a fair number of female DJs in Seattle and BC that were really well-known and very well regarded and respected, and they often really supported each other, myself included. Ultimately, without the influence of other women already there doing the work, it would’ve been really difficult for me to even try. I think probably that’s why I didn’t go to broadcasting school in high school because I would have been the only woman there and I didn’t really feel comfortable with that. But that was not the scene in the 00s in Seattle it was very welcoming of female-presenting DJs, at least in my experience.

So, short answer: Community. I had people telling me “you not only love this, but you're also good, you need to do this” from the time I was quite young. I had other people like me - other women and gender non-conforming people - in the scene and, in the radio business showing me that there was a place for me there. Remarkably some of those people that first mentored and encouraged me are still here supporting my work, like my friend Steve.

8. Were you at all influenced by other contemporary goth/industrial programs like "On the Edge" at KNHC? 

This question made me so happy because yes absolutely! I lived in Belfair, Washington for a short time when I was 14 and I could get “On The Edge“ just barely in the corner of the living room if I tried really hard, and I used to tape the shows late at night. I probably even have a Nitzer Ebb/Depeche Mode marathon around somewhere on tape. I was really honored to be able to actually go on “On The Edge” in Seattle In 2002 with another local DJ, and with my friend Nathan who was helping to start Samsara, for an interview about that and also Glaskarten, it was amazing. So yes, totally influential. I respect and admire the work that has been done over the decades it’s been on the air.

9. Did the format of the original Glaskarten change over time? 

The format stayed pretty consistent over the course of the show.  I was really involved in the industrial scene up in Seattle between 2000 and 2005 and so I was connected to the pulse of the music, I worked at Music Werks which was the goth industrial record store, and the owner was the one that booked all the shows. As a music director for a radio station at the same time, I was able to get a lot of demos and pre-release music. I was constantly being fed amazing stuff and working at KAOS was extraordinary because I had access to every label in the world, and we were indie so bands were handing me their stuff directly at shows and clubs. I was being fed so much great music all the time and had no need to change the format because I had so much to choose from that fit it. That said shows at KAOS had very very flexible format so you were given free rein to do whatever you wanted because this wasn’t commercial radio, you weren’t having to make sure that the advertisers get what they want, as long as the format was passably the same as your statement no one really bothered you, we just were trying to get the music to the people. 

10. Tell me about your Kickstarter project. You're only trying to raise $5,915 USD. What will that accomplish? 

The Kickstarter project is about 80 hours of shows (apx 40 discs) that I will be converting to digital and putting online. I also have a similar number of paper playlists that will be digitized.

The start goal is small.  I want these CDs and playlists backed up, and I need a new computer and some software because my equipment is 7 to 12 years old and I’ve been trying to do this project with it and it’s not feasible. My personal situation (raising four kids solo, while running a small business in the Netherlands) doesn’t allow for me to finance this independently, so I started the Kickstarter and here we are. The wee goal is the bare minimum needed to cover the equipment and the hours it’ll take to archive, upload, and catalog the CDs and playlists.

I do have stretch goals including adding the shows on cassette tapes to the archive, which would include buying more equipment to get tapes converted to digital, and ultimately also archiving all of the extent other media I have (Minidiscs of interviews, photographs, posters, playlists backstage passes and other ephemera.) Ultimately I would like to see all of it preserved.