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Telekon
was founded in 1987 in Bloomington,
IN The name is taken from the title of a Gary Numan album. Gary is one of the pioneers of early electronic, avant-garde pop music. It all started because 1) I am a music addict 2) all my friends at I.U. were really into interesting worldwide popular music. You see, we lived in a very interesting dorm, then known as FILLC (Foster International Living/Learning Center). Now they abreviate it Foster International. They are still going strong and have contacted TeleKon to tell us about it. Anyway...it was sort of like a fraternity for freaks who loved all things non-American. Many of the residents were, in fact, non-American. Most everyone spoke more than one language, and generally wanted to listen to music from around the planet. So, I started to make a Song of the Week. SOTW quickly mushroomed into a chart, which I dubbed NEW CHART FIVE (NC5). In the beginning, NC5 only came out once a month. This was primarily due to lack of funding for new music. Also because of the fund deficiency, we would scour used record shops, and I would chart even the crustiest old song if it was interesting enough. Moreover, NC5 was only published while IU was in session for Spring and Fall. Eventually, I was publishing the chart weekly. At present, it is updated every two weeks, and only songs released in the current year or one year before are eligible to be charted. We also had another tradition. We loved to drink tea, at around 11 pm at night. The music that we played at these sessions was a very important part of the tradition. As I remember it, there was quite a lot of Kate Bush and Celtic things. The tea thing was undoubtedly a worshipping the British sort of a thing. From this tradition sprang the TEA TIME TAPES division of Telekon. Tea Time tapes was launched in 1989 with the Anti-Hype Mix tape. Also around 1989, House music was permeating the walls of FILLC. As I said before, many of the residents were from other countries, and pretty much everyone traveled to other countries. While on these travels, the most culturally astute FILLCers realised that the next big thing was the club music that was coming out of London: ACID HOUSE, DEEP HOUSE, and all other matters of HOUSE! It was at this time that the followers of NC5 became the Children of House, although the actual term was not coined until about 5 years later. "Drop that ghetto blasta!" After graduation from IU in December of 1991, there was a moratorium on New Chart Five until we could establish new studios in St. Petersburg, FL. New Chart Five restarted operations in May of 1992 with new equipment and facilities. Much to our dismay, 1992 was a complete economic disaster which resulted in a lack of material in which to place on the charts. Consequently, a new program had to be implemented. That program was ECONOCHART, and it entailed going from two charts a month to only one. This continued from December 1992 through August 1996. In 1996, things were prospering once again; and from that time on, New Chart Five has been published regularly two times a month. For some interesting chart facts you can click here. In February 2003, the COOP retired the Radio Telekon show and replaced it with Studio NC5. In all there were 26 Radio Telekon shows. Let's hope that Studio NC5 has a long successful run, as well. We have already released 12 editions. Two Thousand and Seven has been quite a year for Studio NC5 as we have gone totally digital. In 2006, we began mastering the show directly to CD, but we were still using an analog mixer. I know, I know, we are behind, but hey, we're a small operation. Now in 2007, beginning with edition twelve, we starting mixing on the old PC. Well... This is our story as it unfolds. Check back on this page every now and again. We're always changing. By the way, that is me, the host and founder at the top of the page, some things never change....
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