In 6 hours, we will advance into the Final Four of Soundtap’s Madness College Radio Showdown. We need your help to advance to the finals! Basically, Soundtap created a competition modeled after College Basketball’s NCAA Tournament. They chose 64 college radio stations to go head to head. We have made it through to the Elite Eight and it looks like we will be moving into the Final Four. You advance to the next round by having more hours of people streaming your station through their website. Rutgers University and Carnegie Mellon University have been battling it out hard and we will face the winner starting at 3 am. We need your help to beat them to move on for the chance to win it all. Here is what you need to do:

1. Go to http://soundtap.com/madness. They also have a free iPhone app that you can find by searching Soundtap.
2. Click on WKNC and hit Listen Live!
3. YOU HAVE TO LOG IN IN ORDER FOR IT TO COUNT. You can log in with either your Facebook or email address.
4. LISTEN ENDLESSLY! Remember to check the page about every hour or so. While the stream will not stop playing, it will stop counting towards our total time. A message will pop up and ask: “ARE YOU STILL LISTENING?” Once you click “YES I AM!!!!” it will start counting the time you have spent streaming again.

Thank you so much for helping us out with this competition and don’t forget to vote for us in Indy’s Best of 2013!

We just released the new NC State Student Media App today!  We are really excited about this great new feature.  It is easy to use and looks incredible.  The app is available to download for free to both your Apple and Android devices.  This app gives you the ability to stream WKNC, check out recently played songs, and request songs easily from your mobile device!   It also features amazing content content from the Technician, the Agromeck, the Windhover, and the Nubian Message.  Be sure to download the app for another easy way to listen to WKNC.

Back in September you may have seen WKNC featured for a week on mtvU‘s College Radio Countdown. We had some of our wonderful staff put together a video and more, that can be found here. mtvU shared on Twitter that they would be having an encore feature of the most loved college radio station (who we think is us, duh).

But we need your help!

So, if you’d like to see WKNC featured again, tell the Twitter world! Make sure you use the hashtag #CRC to get your vote in.

Thanks everyone!

On Saturday, Nov. 17, Mystery Roach will be celebrating its 5th anniversary. The show began on Nov. 17, 2007 as a study of 1960s and 1970s Progressive, Garage, Fusion, Psychedelic, and noise on Saturday mornings.  As the things evolved, guests became a part of the show.  I’ve welcomed an eclectic mix of  interesting people from around NCSU’s campus and the Triangle over the past 5 years. We’ve had conversations about beer, insects, bee keeping, educational films, movie soundtracks, ultra-cold neutrons, the suburbs, the roots of punk music, the Mellotron, roller derby, fungus, hot peppers, comic books, oysters, citizen science, censorship, and more. Frank Stasio has even stopped by as part of his parole agreement.

I will be celebrating the 5th anniversary quietly.  No guests in the studio.  I’ll play some of my favorite songs from over the years and read some emails.  Be a part of the show by calling the Mystery Roach Hotline (919-322-8863), posting on the Facebook Fan Page, or sending an email. What do you like about the show? What do you hate about it? What do you do whilst listening to the show? Is it part of your Saturday ritual? Do you have ideas for themes or guests?  Have you noticed any trends over the years?

Thanks for listening. I’m still amazed when I meet excited fans around town.

Hey Everyone,

I know that I’m a bit behind in the Podcasts currently, but no worries, we will be completely up to date tonight. All of our great shows in past few weeks will be accessible through iTunes within 12 hours.

Thanks for bearing with me,

Deondre’ Jones

Public Affairs Assistant Director

EDIT: Might take a little bit longer, technical difficulties.

WKNC AND WUAG HAVE JOINED FORCES TO BRING YOU A SHOW YOU WILL NOT SLEEP THROUGH!  Come hang out with us Thursday, September 5^th  12pm at White Collar Crime on W. Davie St. to enjoy some kick-ass local music and beer!!! See y’all realllllll soon.

CASUAL CURIOUS – Greensboro (1:00pm)

DASH – Wilmington/Raleigh (2:00pm)

THE BIG PICTURE – Raleigh (3:00pm)

TRIOSCAPES – Greensboro (4:00pm)

The Fifth Annual Mystery Roach Covers Show is here! On Saturday, August 25, I’ll be playing original tracks from the 50s, 60s or 70s along with a cover version from any decade and style.

If you have any requests or suggestions, post them here, on the Facebook fan page, or email them to me.

Below are the playlists from the previous four years to give you an idea of what this year’s show will be like.

Tune in to Mystery Roach every Saturday from 8-10am on WKNC for Progressive, Fusion, Psychedelic, Garage and noise from the 60s and 70s. (The 50s are fair game for the cover show as well.)

Cheers.

-La Barba Rossa

2011 Show

2010 Show

2009 Show

2008 Show

Furry, colorful and industrious bees radiate a charisma that people are naturally drawn to. After all, they produce the celebrated product, honey, and pollinate crops and gardens. Like most people, I knew there were three kinds of bees: the honey bee, the bumblebee and the carpenter bee. What I did not realize until I started studying bees, is that there are over 20,000 species of bees world wide and that these represent only a small portion of the bee diversity out there. There are over 3,500 species in the United States!

Bees are in the order Hymenoptera which also includes wasps, ants and sawflies. Bees and wasps are commonly confused with one another or perceived as names that are interchangeable. Bees and wasps share some attributes; like a similar body plan and they are both holometabolous insects. (A much cuter explanation of metamorphosis) There is one very big thing that sets them apart, their diets! Bees are strictly vegan, preferring to forage on pollen and nectar, whereas most wasps mix other arthropods into their diets.

Common Misconceptions:

1. Bees bite: Well, not usually. Bees have mandibles but they do not typically use them in defense. The main mode of defense is the stinger, a modified egg-laying structure, found only in females. Males are largely defenseless.
2. Bees and Wasps are the same thing: It’s true that they are related and very similar anatomically, but there are some major differences. As mentioned above, their diet. Most bees are much fuzzier than wasps, having branched hairs that help them collect pollen.
3. All bees live in hives: Honey bees do, but most bees are solitary which means they live on their own provisioning their brood cells with pollen and nectar. They typically rest on the backs of leaves, in crevices, or in their unfinished brood cell.
4. Bees attack people: When a honey bee hive is disturbed the bees may give chase, but most bees will not. In this instance the bees are defending their hive and are attempting to scare off a perceived danger to the colony. Typically bees, including foraging honey bees, are quite docile and are unlikely to react to your presence. In my studies working with bees, I have petted a bee on it abdomen while it foraged and it responded by simply flying away.
5. Bees are only black and yellow: So not true!! Many are black with some hue of yellow, but they come in a rainbow of colors. Check out this beautiful metallic green sweat bee. Gorgeous!

photo by bob in swamp

Transcript of Insect Minute 1 – Bees:
Hi this is Heather with your Insect Minute brought to you by WKNC and the NC State Insect Museum.
When you think of bees you may immediately think honey bee or perhaps the fuzzy bumble bee or a wood loving carpenter bee that is boring holes into your back porch as I speak.
BUT BEES ARE SO MUCH MORE DIVERSE!
You may be surprised to find out that there are over 20,000 different species of bees in the world! and that there are over 3500 here in the United States. Most bees are not social like honey bees. They may live as solitary insects or in small groups with a queen and a handful of female offspring to assist in collecting pollen and nectar for the next generation.
Bees also come in a myriad of colors…
We are all familiar with yellow and black bees, but they also come in green, blue, purple, and even rainbow! It is their diversity that makes them able to occupy many different habitats and act as effective pollinators!
If you’d like to learn more about the diverse world of bees visit the museum’s website at insectmuseum.org where you find out about our museum and read our blog where we talk about interesting stuff going on in the world of entomology.

Podcast to come soon!

The Spring 2012 Shakori Hills Grassroots Music and Dance Festival is only three days away, which means we will begin our ascent onto FestivalMountain. Tickets are on sale at a discounted price today ONLY, and can be found here. A wonderful lineup is in store for this spring’s festival, including Leftover Salmon, Donna the Buffalo, The Red Clay Ramblers, BeauSoleil avec Michale Doucet, Curtis Eller and many more. The complete lineup can be found here.

WKNC will have a table setup where we will be selling merchandise and raffling off prizes. Come by and say hello, and you may get a sticker! We will be reporting all of the exciting festivities via Facebook and Twitter during the festival. Hope to see all you festival goers out there! Looks like we will be getting some rain, so be sure and come prepared!

For the latest news on the festival check out their webpage or Facebook page.

As you know, this week’s Eye on the Triangle had to be canceled. Luckily, we found a new time for next week’s show. It will air on Monday, March 19, at 7 p.m. as opposed to Tuesday. This is for next week only; we will be back to our normal schedule after that. Be sure and tune in for your weekly dose of Eye on the Triangle. See you then!

It’s finally time for round two of Hopscotch Music Festival, coming up this weekend, September 8-10 in downtown Raleigh.

Free Electric State at Local Band Local Beer, March 25, 2010. Photo by Karen Mann of Mann's World. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

This year offers a special free day party sponsored by Port Merch - College Radio Showcase, presented by WUAG, WKNC, WXYC and WXDU. The four college radio stations are part of UNC-Greensboro, N.C. State University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University, respectively. The stations have collaborated to create an awesome lineup of local music from the Triangle (and slightly beyond) by each choosing one band to represent them: Nests (WKNC), Whatever Brains (WXYC), Free Electric State (WXDU) and The Bronzed Chorus (WUAG).  These bands cover the genres of post-country, shoegaze, punk, experimental and indie rock.

The day party will be at White Collar Crime on Saturday, September 10, noon until five.

All Hopscotch day parties are free and require no ticket for entry. For a full list of Hopscotch’s day parties, refer to their day party schedule.