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UPDATED: Sept. 2, 2021 at 4:15 p.m.

John Lewis Aldridge pushed past expectations. No matter the field, Aldridge went farther than others around him could initially see. 

“He seemed like somebody who would never accept that things as they are have to be the way they are,” Grant Stewart, a friend of Aldridge, said of his work and life.

Aldridge was a graduate student in Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies pursuing a master’s degree in library and information sciences. Aldridge died on July 8 at age 28 after being struck by a car in his home state of North Carolina.

Aldridge’s lack of acceptance for things as they were manifested itself largely in his music and art. During his time at University of North Carolina Wilmington, Aldridge involved himself in the school’s student radio station: Hawkstream Radio.

Bill DiNome served in an advisory role for the station while Aldridge was a member. Hawkstream, though, had a problem. 

“We don’t have a broadcast curriculum here,” DiNome said of UNC Wilmington. 

A lack of funding, a lack of expert advice and a lack of overall support did not seem to deter Aldridge. In his second year with the program, he was nominated to be the station’s president.

While every member of Hawkstream Radio was pushing past the expected by producing content without support, Aldridge led the group. 

“Some of the first initiatives that he put in place was to get Hawkstream not only better recognized by the campus community, but off campus as well,” DiNome said. “He started recording at first for some of the live bands on campus, and then he started sending live DJs to off-campus venues like clubs and restaurants.”

Like any other student organization, Hawkstream had difficulties.

“We were just having constant challenges with making sure the signal got out correctly,” DiNome said. “He just tackled those again and again.”

Hawkstream is still in operation today, now largely as a podcast studio. Aldridge’s love of radio and expansion of what the platform could be would continue even after Hawkstream.

Stewart once witnessed this expansion with his own eyes.

“He started playing selections as you would in a radio program, just like different blocks of tracks,” Stewart said.

Stewart’s experience at the station so far was normal, albeit for Aldridge’s standards.

“I think by about 40 minutes into the show, he had a record on a turntable, and he was just piling objects onto the turntable and onto the spinning record,” Stewart said.

Live on air, Aldridge was warping and distorting the music of the turntable, essentially making his own music for the audience tuned in. What Aldridge’s audience was hearing would be virtually impossible to replicate. They had a front row seat for the first and only time those specific sounds would be heard. 

“I just thought that was brilliant, to sort of create sound art right there live on air as part of a DJ broadcast,” Stewart said.

While Aldridge’s work may have been shocking, breathtaking or an odd mixture of the two for the general public, it’s a bit harder to get that reaction from those in the experimental music community.

“It was always nice seeing him, as his enthusiasm for sub-underground DIY music/noise was always there,” Carl Kruger, a member of North Carolina’s music scene, said in a Facebook message. 

In a place where harsh noise is not an insult but a respected subgenre, the outlandish is the accepted. Wilmington, North Carolina, was one of the experimental music scenes Aldridge called home.

“Wilmington, I guess, is just such a small community, all of the kinds of experimental was accepted,” Stewart said.

But even a community with a wide-range of acceptance, “(John’s) stuff was pretty abstract,” Stewart said.

Stewart remembers one night at the Barzarre, a local venue that held experimental music nights. Aldridge came in with a collection of bags filled with sand and dirt for his act. Then during his time on stage, he would drop the bags, timing their explosions.

“I don’t even know if I would call that music,” Stewart said. “It was sort of like he was questioning what performance is or what music is.”

Even in a group based on the idea of pushing the boundaries, Aldridge was a trailblazer. The people who knew Aldridge remember his leadership, music and willingness to push the boundaries of acceptance.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, Bill DiNome’s name was misspelled. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on September 2, 2021 at 12:07 am

Contact Kyle: [email protected] | @Kyle_Chouinard