The donations were the result of a spirited social media campaign that galvanized alumni and listeners with the hashtag battlecry “#saveWMUC.” Still, the events of last week prompted an important question: Is a college radio station worth saving?

WMUC’s situation was not just a battle over university politics—it was one more example of how many schools believe college radio to be an obsolete format. Texas Tech and Augustana College recently did away with their student-run stations, and Vanderbilt University’s administration is looking to sell WRVU, a 57-year-old institution. Last December, The New York Times reported on the struggles of these stations, including Rice University’s KTRU, and their fights to stay afloat. Just a few months later, clicking the article’s link to saveKTRU.org reveals its most recent blog post to be a sobering bummer: “KTRU student management has received word that KTRU’s broadcast on 91.7 FM will go off the air at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, April 28, 2011.”

Today, many stations are not only fighting for the funding they once had, but they’re also grappling with attempts to reorient themselves in a digital landscape—and, on a more fundamental level, trying prove that there’s still a need for what they do.

These days, the term "college rock" is an anachronism, conjuring connotations of indie rock as a genuine countercultural expression and visions of Michael Stipe's long, flowing locks—in short, a time long since past. The Internet now does most of the things that college radio once did: It breaks new bands, exposes listeners to their favorite artists’ new releases, and it links up like-minded fans through message boards and niche music blogs. Plenty of people have nostalgia for college radio, but is it still a viable format in the digital age?

I fielded questions like that all the time when I was the general manager at WVAU, American University’s student-run radio station. Our frequency had been sold a few years earlier, and with each semester that passed it became increasingly more difficult to convince people to listen to our Internet-only stream, as opposed to downloading the iTunes library of everyone connected to their dorm’s network and putting it on shuffle. When people questioned college radio’s continuing relevance, I would defend its role in fostering local, independent scenes and creating communities for music lovers. But sometimes I doubted my own argument. Occasionally, when people would ask about my work-study job, I would tell them I was the head custodian aboard a sinking ship.

In the years since, though, and in light of WMUC’s recent troubles, I’ve come to believe that there’s a need for college radio now more than ever.

These days, we experience music in a way that’s increasingly isolated and individual. You know that this is true because some iPod zombie probably already bumped into you in the supermarket today. It’s great to have your entire library at your fingertips, in the way we listen to music today, but serendipity is now all but extinct. We drill deep into our own niches, meaning that we don’t give the time of day to things we don’t already anticipate that we’ll like. Half the fun of college radio is being exposed to things outside your perspective, or even your comfort zone.

Anyone who’s worked in college radio in the past decade will probably tell you that while being able to send your friend a mix via email or arguing about music with people on message boards is awesome, there’s no substitute for arguing with somebody about music in person.

Ironically, college radio’s best strategy for remaining vital in the digital age might be to look backward, and to focus once again on its terrestrial stations. Not all student-run stations can compete in a landscape flooded with an infinite pool of podcasts and blogs, but maybe this will make them once again embrace that unfortunate casualty of the Internet age: regionalism. College stations’ limited reach has always forced them to spotlight what’s going on in their own communities. Beyond just music programming, this is also true of college talk and sports programming, also an important part of WMUC’s lineup.

WMUC can’t exactly rejoice: It's still about $12,000 shy of its original proposed budget, and the station’s business director told the university's newspaper, The Diamondback, that students working at the station will have to pay for some equipment out of their own pockets. Plus, who knows what this means for the station in the long term: Is it only a matter of time before student-run stations vanish from universities altogether? At least for now WMUC showed it's not going anywhere without a fight.

With the 2008 release of Ice Cream Spiritual!, Ponytail experienced a textbook case of Web-launched ascendancy: They've gotten plugs everywhere. But singer Molly Siegel's erratic pulsations and escapist chanting make the Baltimore foursome bigger than the Stereogum hype.

Along with drummer Jeremy Hyman's roto tom lightening speed shredding and the crafty, conversant guitar work of both Dustin Wong and Ken Seeno, Ponytail brought curious back-of-the-crowd dwellers up front and moved the Tenleytown spiritual basement to cathartic gyrations.

The no-stage floor setup was a good fit for Siegel, as she pushed through the arm-to-arm crowd and grabbed on to kids in the front row, almost as if she were christening them.

The songs transitioned with bouts of dizzying guitar loops and crescendoing delay bleeps. Siegel was laconic when she wasn't singing, saving her weeping/screaming non sequiturs for Ponytail's anthems.

The set was a part of American University's Capitol Punishment series, a semester-long group of free shows orchestrated by AU's student-run radio station, WVAU.

D.C.'s Mittenfields opened the night with Radiohead-influenced indie alt-pop (including a cover of "Bones") and the Screaming Females turned up the volume with one screaming female's howling vibrato and classic rock soloing. Instrumentally, the trio's stoner bass trilling and slow tempo pacing draws from late '60s Black Sabbath projects, but they break out of low-tempo with high-energy, in-your-face riot girl/poppy punk rock hooks. The band is currently on tour backing new LP, Power Move, and in May they'll play Big Bear Cafe.

Photos by Andrew Merrill

Critics have praised the Baltimore-based quartet's live show, most recently at SXSW 2009. Vocalist Molly Siegel's chords pack a primal punch that belies her pixie frame, and when backed by Ken Seeno and Dustin Wong's frenetic fret work and Jeremy Hyman's relentless assault on the skins, the result is a Dionysian dance-off. Suffice to say, you'll get your money's worth–and then some.

The show is the sixth of its kind organized by the student-run internet radio station in an effort to bolster AU's presence–and that of independent bands–in D.C.'s musical milieu. Past line-ups have included True Womanhood, These United States and The Subjects.

Saturday, March 28. Kay Spiritual Life Center at American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Metro: Tenleytown-AU. Doors open 6:30 p.m., show starts at 7 p.m. Open to the public, all ages.

*Photo by Frank Hamilton