But we are not without options to protest. Next month, I look forward to going out and meeting with other radio stations like ours at a NFCB conference in New Orleans. DCMA will be one of the main topics there.

KBC: What else is happening at WDVX?

Tony Lawson: Well, one of the things that we are looking at doing: we formed a foundation called the Knoxville Americana Music Foundation.

It consists of several people who were on our board of directors, and some other individuals who are here in Knoxville who are excited about a better quality of life for people in Knoxville where we work and play.

We formed this organization, and one of the main missions is to make Knoxville the home of Americana music.

One of our very first projects will be a live radio show out of the Bijou Theatre on a monthly basis. Right now we're targeting September as a launch date. We need some support for it – money support, and we're out there trying to do that right now.

KBC: How do you raise money for this foundation and for WDVX at the same time?

Tony Lawson: Our largest percentage of funding comes from our listeners. Underwriting is also a big part of what we do, plus grants and events. So we use those four methods to raise money for WDVX.

The foundation has its own structure that allows us to contract out event production for raising money. That takes a lot of pressure off of us.

This year, WDVX didn't to Camper Fest, but we are doing a series at the Shed in Maryville, next to Smoky Mountain Harley Davidson. It's billed the Americana Classics series. And we're going to have a great lineup: it kicks off May 5^th with James McMurtry, Todd Snider, Jr. Brown and Mic Harrison.

And we are going to do a two day show on Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day weekend with Jr. Brown headlining on Saturday night, Jim Lauderdale bluegrass band, the Every body Fields, the Earl Brothers, and more acts that were building on.

But the foundation will basically be responsible for raising the funds for the Bijou radio show. And our plans are to have a guest host, a house band and two or three special guests during the course of the show.

This is good stuff! And you're the first one to get it!

KBC: Awesome! A scoop!

Let's talk some about people in the Knoxville music scene. Are there people who you think are most important to its growth right now?

Tony Lawson: The thing is, I wouldn't know how to answer that question. I intermingle with so many different people – musicians, promoters, radio people, retail people - and I think the number one thing is that there is not a most important person.

It's more about how we all work together. That's what it takes to make a great music scene.

KBC: You mentioned the last time we spoke that there might be a big music festival in downtown Knoxville. Is anything happening with that?

Tony Lawson: Right. That's what the foundation is doing. We tried to pull that off this year, but it was too early. We are hoping to do a four-day festival that utilizes the World's Fair Park, the Tennessee and Bijou Theatres, Downtown, and also the Blue Plate Special. But we need some time to put all that together.

Rather than just going out there and throwing something together, we want to try to get it right the first time around and make it very appealing. Not just to our home folks, but to where it rings a loud bell outside of the Knoxville area, and really draws people in to Knoxville to experience this music event.

So I'm very excited about the team who is working on it, and so glad that WDVX is a part of making it happen.

KBC: You mentioned Mic Harrison and the High Score. What do you think of their new album?

Tony Lawson: I like it! We've been playing it. It's a short record - just a little over 30 minutes - like a ZZ Top album in the early days. It's done well and I'm really happy for them.

KBC: I'm a fan of Scott McMahan's, and I noticed you've had him on the Blue Plate Special several times lately. Will he be getting his own blue plate displayed?

Tony Lawson: Yes, we have a backlog of Blue Plates to display because that's done through the Visitor Center. We have a great photographer who volunteers his talent; his name is Jack Goodwin. We're working on getting some fresh plates up there.

But Scott McMahan is another Knoxville artist who has really started to shine over the last year or two.

KBC: So what's most important to WDVX and the foundation right now? Where do you need the most help?

Tony Lawson: Well, we've got great volunteers working with the radio station, and we have a volunteer coordinator to help us work with them.

What we really need for the foundation is money to make our two major projects happen – the festival and the radio series at the Bijou. Hopefully grants and corporate supporters will be a big part of that.

It's all so positive for bringing people to this region to visit and for making Knoxville more attractive to people who might move here. And we're really hoping that it resounds among our community that 'Yes, we can support this!'

All we can do is put it out there and have people choose to support it.

KBC: I heard a great story about when you first started broadcasting over the Internet. Someone did a story about WDVX, and you are able to watch hits come in to your website as the story was broadcast at different times around the world.

Can you retell that for our readers?

Tony Lawson: We've been very fortunate that we were featured on PBS, but I guess the biggest hit that we ever got was when a writer in Atlanta from the Atlanta Journal Constitution named Drew Jubera did a story on us.

He just really loved WDVX, and listened to us when he was traveling through the area. Back when we were still in the camper in the early days. But he got beneath the novelty of the camper - he really loved the product.

One day he called and asked if he could come up and spend a couple days with us to interview myself and our engineer Don Burggraf, without whom WDVX would not have come together.

So he came up and began his interview with the morning show with Red, and he spent the day with us, then went back that evening and wrote the story, which wound up on the front page.

The headline read, "Radio Station RV on the Cutting Edge," and a producer for ABC news read that article and called us up in next week asking if he could come to East Tennessee and do a story on WDVX for ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

And I said, I have no problem with that!

They did this great story on us, and every time it aired in a new time zone around the world, it was just amazing. I remember sitting at the computer at 3 a.m. watching two e-mails a second roll in from New Zealand and Australia. It really established our webcast around the world.

But our webcast is a means of exposing and promoting what I feel is over all an underserved music – including our local and regional music. And that is something that can't be stated enough.

Especially when considering what the attorneys for Sound Exchange are trying to do in controlling web streaming and charging for streaming music.

That's the main issue that we're addressing right now, and we are going to address it more aggressively – hopefully – with Representative Duncan and Senator Alexander. Because I feel that the RIAA, which is basically the five major record labels, have all this money and power that they can throw into lobbying for charging for streaming.

We rarely play any of the major record labels' music, that they're trying to dictate to us what we can and can't do and prohibit our growth. And they really have the power to be on Capitol Hill, all the time promoting their case.

We just don't have that money and power. We are just small radio stations sprinkled all across the United States. And I think our job is to get together and speak with one voice and present our case.

KBC: What is your platform for presenting that to the public?

Tony Lawson: Well,NPR (National Public Radio) has done a story on it, and last week they were the first to file an appeal to this. NPR is really leading the way because they deal with community and public radio stations all across the country.

I think what Sound Exchange is trying to get to is they are dealing with the major broadcast companies like Clear Channel, who are starting to do streaming. So they're trying to get things set right so they can definitely get their share of the pie.

But as broadcasters/webcasters, we have to pay licensing fees to BMI, ASCAP and CSAC twice – once for broadcast, once for webcast. And now for Sound Exchange on top of that. So they're double dipping to begin with, and now they want to triple dip.

Sound Exchange presents the argument, the poor musicians, they're finally getting what they deserve, getting paid for all their hard work.

Well, what if your music never gets heard? What if you are from an underserved genre of music that doesn't get played by the major broadcasting corporations? If small independent radio stations can no longer afford to play that music, what happens then?

The voice of the independent radio stations really needs to be heard, and we haven't had the ability to speak very loudly, because we can't afford the big lobbyists on Capitol Hill.

I'm really looking forward to meeting with my coworkers in similar radio stations in New Orleans to discuss this - how we are going to move forward.

We are really just scratching the surface of digital broadcasting right now, and we all know this is how things are going to go -- the digital transmission of music through the airwaves, over the Internet, through digital television -- that's definitely where we are going.

I think satellite radio and Internet radio are going to merge. You won't be going down the road listening to 89.9; you'll be going down the road listening to WDVX.com. And we've got a have a level playing field before that happens.

So we're jockeying for position right now. We've been very passive, and now it's time that we try to get the attention of the people who make these decisions.

KBC: When is your meeting in New Orleans?

Tony Lawson: Our NFCB meeting is April 13 and 14^th. And a great New Orleans radio station is hosting the conference, WWOZ.

KBC: I'd like to do a follow up with you in April to see how that goes.

Tony Lawson: We'll definitely have some information to share. This is a new frontier. The musicians who we serve depend on our broadcast to get heard. I hear from people from all over the world about the music we stream over our website, and they just don't hear it in other places.

So for us to no longer be able to play this music, to stream this music, would have a major ripple effect in the music community that we serve. And that's true not only for the music and for the musicians, but also for the community and economic development of Knoxville.

So it's very important to make everyone aware of it here and in Washington, and all over the world, because we feel it's unfair.

KBC: Is there anything else that I didn't ask about that you'd like to talk about?

Tony Lawson: It's just a continuing saga. It's a continuing trail. That's what makes it interesting. It's all about the journey, and we're 10 years into it now since we've been on the air.

Overall, I'm incredibly pleased and very grateful for everything that's happened with WDVX. I consider ourselves stewards of the music, and of this radio station.

And that's one of the beauties of being an independent radio station, and of having a good board of directors. If it were to be sold, it would be sold by us, not by some university that owns us.

We're very fortunate to have that power so that our community will not lose this radio station just because some college is short on money. Lexington, Kentucky lost a great radio station a couple years ago for that very reason. It was all because the college fell on hard times. They got $1 million for it and the station immediately changed format.

So as long as we continue to have the support of our community and people who come out to see the shows, we will continue to be here. Like I said earlier, it all works hand-in-hand to create a great music scene. The live shows, the radio, the retail, the recording studios. We all have to work together.

KBC: How can people find out more about the web streaming issues that independent radio stations like WDVX are facing?

Tony Lawson: There's a guy namedKurt Hanson who writes the RAIN Newsletter, and he's right on top of everything that's happening in digital webcasting. And www.saveourstreams.org is another website that will plug you into what's going on with it.

KBC: Thank you very much for sharing this with us.

Tony Lawson: I look forward to continuing the conversation.