We're seeking new members for our 2025 Board of Directors, as well as our founding Associate Board for young professionals 35 and under. Details and application at each of the links above.
The CHIRP Blog
Erin Van Ness writesBuilding the Station You Want to Hear
Over the course of our Fall Membership Drive, we’re sharing some of the inspiring stories we receive from our volunteers and members. Today, long-time volunteer, Austin Harvey, describes the impact CHIRP DJs have on the Chicago community.
On the surface, it would seem that someone who DJs for CHIRP would do so for rather selfish reasons. You get to hear new music first, discover scads of new bands, foist your own musical tastes on an unsuspecting public, and hang out with the coolest music enthusiasts in the city.
But there’s actually more to it than that. DJs play a crucial role in the impact CHIRP has on the Chicago community as a whole. We’re playing music from local bands and labels around the clock, not just on a sequestered hour late at night. Chicagoans have a way to stay connected to their music and cultural scene, even if they’re on the other side of the planet. Supporters have a station they can call their own, with a stake in their community as well.
Ultimately, my own involvement with CHIRP is something bigger than the sum of any one volunteer’s contributions. It’s everyone trying, through the medium of radio — a medium that we all thought would be dead and gone in the 21st century — to make their community, their city, and their world a better, more interconnected place. It started with a few rogue music fans trying to build the station they wanted to hear. Thankfully, it’s the sort of thing that a few other folks wanted to hear as well.
—Austin B. Harvey
DJ and Volunteer since 2008
Agree that CHIRP is a vital service worth supporting? You can always:
- Learn about volunteering CHIRP Radio is always accepting new volunteers. No experience in radio required—just an enthusiastic attitude and a willingness to pitch in!
- Become a member CHIRP needs more than just birdseed to run the station. Show your support by becoming a member today!
- Share your story What does CHIRP Radio mean to you? Let us know and we may feature your story in future materials!
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesWeekly Voyages: Friday 9/28 to Thursday 10/04
(Do you have corrections or updates for this list? Send us an e-mail.)
Friday September 28
Young Buffalo
Abbey Pub: 9pm, 21+
Denney and the Jets, Blue Eyed Jesus
Beat Kitchen: 9pm
Freedom Party Chicago
Beauty Bar: 9pm, 21+
The Scissors, Adora, State and Madison, Glendenning
Bottom Lounge: 7:30pm, Other
Vice and National Musuem of Mexican Art Present Hola Indio Chicago with: Dani Shivers Chrissy Murderbot, British Knights
Double Door: 9:30pm, 21+
The Hoyle Brothers
Empty Bottle: 5:30pm, 21+
Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, Bare Mutants
Empty Bottle: 7pm
Steve Vai w/ Beverly McClellan
House of Blues Chicago: 8:30pm
The Devil Makes Three, John Fullbright
Lincoln Hall: 9pm, 18+
Sleigh Bells
Metro: 9pm, 18+
Cherries Records Presents
The Whistler: 9pm, 21+
Erin Van Ness writesFeeding Your Love of Music
Over the course of our Fall Membership Drive, we’re sharing some of the inspiring stories we receive from our volunteers and members. Today, DJ Sherbert explains why volunteering for CHIRP is a perfect fit.
I’ve never been much of a volunteer. At home I never volunteered to take out the trash. In school I never raised my hand to do my presentation first. And at magic shows I was never much for volunteering to be sawed in half. It’s not that I’m selfish. On buses I frequently volunteer my seat to an old fart. It’s just that…well…honestly I don’t really know what it is.
So why then do I volunteer for CHIRP? If I’m doing volunteer work, shouldn’t I be giving my time to cure cancer or end world hunger? Probably. Except I’m not that scientifically savvy, and I know I’m always going to be hungry. So those aren’t great fits for me. But music? I love music. I can’t play it, or even dance to it that well, but I love listening to it. And I love constantly discovering new music and music that’s just new to me. CHIRP is all about feeding my love of music. And yours. So maybe you should volunteer your time to CHIRP too. Or if not, your wallet always works as well.
—DJ Sherbert
Volunteer and DJ since 2009
Agree that CHIRP is a vital service worth supporting? You can always:
- Learn about volunteering CHIRP Radio is always accepting new volunteers. No experience in radio required—just an enthusiastic attitude and a willingness to pitch in!
- Become a member CHIRP needs more than just birdseed to run the station. Show your support by becoming a member today!
- Share your story What does CHIRP Radio mean to you? Let us know and we may feature your story in future materials!
Alli Klein: Family of Noise writesPast Times of Punk Rock: My Riot Fest 2012 Weekend
By Alli Klein (CHIRP Radio DJ every Tuesday 6am-9am)
My leg muscles are still burning from all the jumping around and dancing I did over the weekend. I should have stretched. I would have moshed, but as a bespectacled person I’ve learned that lesson before. Punk rock has been a part of me since age fourteen. I have a Germs tattoo on my right forearm. My friends and I would trade rides to the Tinley Park Bowling Alley, our saving grace of the south-west ‘burbs, to see local punk bands and rid ourselves, or maybe revel in, our teenage angst. I don’t know if I’ve ever grown out of that angst actually, because listening to punk, being immersed in it last Saturday and Sunday in beautiful Humboldt Park, those feelings flooded back. In a good way!
Erin Van Ness writesThere’s No Place Like CHIRP
Over the course of our Fall Membership Drive, we’re sharing some of the inspiring stories we receive from our volunteers and members. Today, one of our inaugural volunteers describes how CHIRP helped make Chicago a place to call home.
I stumbled across CHIRP within a few months of moving to Chicago in 2007 and found out later that I was one of the first volunteers. CHIRP was a lifeline to me when I was new to the city and played a huge role in Chicago gradually becoming home. The fact that those were early days for CHIRP has always amazed me, because right from the start, the organization felt so much bigger than the sum of its parts. I’d been involved in community radio and DJing before, but I was a little intimidated at first by how organized and visionary that initial group was. And yet, at heart it was just a group of music and broadcasting nerds passionate about what they loved and determined to create something great for the city.
My very first job out of public policy school was at Radio Free Europe, and if I’m honest with myself I took that job because of the R.E.M. song, because I wanted to go to Prague (I did), and because I wanted to be on air (I never was). Several years later I’ve accidentally found a broadcasting gig. When people ask me if I would want a career in radio, I say I have one, at CHIRP—ultimately a far more meaningful endeavor to me than commercial radio. And when friends ask me if I plan on staying in Chicago, the CHIRP community is at the very top of the reasons I’ve decided this is home.
The best part about CHIRP to me is the DJs’ desire to share their love and enthusiasm. No matter how obscure or how mainstream your tastes may run, there’s an underlying respect and curiosity about different musical tastes and genres, and I hope that comes across in our programming. No one’s ever laughed at me for liking Falco!
—Elizabeth Ramborger
Volunteer, DJ, Board Member, and Donor since 2007
Agree that CHIRP is a vital service worth supporting? You can always:
- Learn about volunteering CHIRP Radio is always accepting new volunteers. No experience in radio required—just an enthusiastic attitude and a willingness to pitch in!
- Become a member CHIRP needs more than just birdseed to run the station. Show your support by becoming a member today!
- Share your story What does CHIRP Radio mean to you? Let us know and we may feature your story in future materials!