Anchorage Daily News

TALKEETNA -- In the real world, Jim Kloss lives a secluded life on 20 acres off Talkeetna Spur Road.

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But in the virtual world, he is baron of the Wheat Palace, a renovated log saloon that is the home of Whole Wheat Radio.

The webcast, which Kloss started six years ago to share his love of folk and indie music, is now a user-driven site, or wiki. Through posted photos, chat rooms and Kloss' daily rants, a worldwide virtual community of 60 or so dedicated listeners keeps tabs on him and one another.

They followed the frustrating 18-month renovation of the Olde Tyme Saloon into the Wheat Palace and the ups and downs of Kloss' relationship with longtime love Esther Golton.

They sometimes know when he needs to take a bathroom break, which he can now do with the luxury of indoor plumbing, a big step up from the outhouse behind the cabin in east Talkeetna, where Whole Wheat Radio was based until late last year.

No matter what he's doing, there's a steady background of alternative, independent music. It streams through computer speakers, lifts Kloss' spirit and fires his soul.

"If independent music is a ho-hum thing for you, if you're not a little bit passionate about it," Kloss, 52, told his listeners recently, "you'll get tired or (angry) at me and wonder when I'll shut up about the music."

And that, he says, is never going to happen.

For this semireformed computer programmer, who fled the Lower 48 nine years ago in search of the simple life, promoting folk musicians is his lifeblood. Kloss would never have guessed that his computer expertise would come in handy. But life is weird.

Weird works for him.

GUITAR GUESTS

The walls of the refurbished Wheat Palace are lined with publicity shots of various indie artists. Some you've heard of, like Tim Easton or Antje Duvekot, but most you haven't.

With names like the Rocco John Quartet or 3 Blind Mice, these musicians float in tiny tributaries off the mainstream. Many of them are acoustic solo musicians performing in coffee shops and festivals or on sidewalks.

A good-sized crowd for them is 50, and that's what Kloss hopes to provide in several "house concerts" -- the term for informal, sit-where-you-can concerts at the Wheat Palace -- he has planned for the next few months.

In September, Golton was the first to perform in a house concert at the Palace. In the early years, she was a full-time partner with Kloss at Whole Wheat. An accomplished musician, Golton just released a CD and is currently touring Outside to promote it. Her fans have grown to include online listeners, her performances often in their living rooms.

Performing last weekend was Randall Williams, a classically trained acoustic guitarist who lives a vagabond existence as a couch-surfing, van-dwelling musician and a virtual guitar instructor. He counts Whole Wheat Radio as a room in his online home.

Williams believes user-driven wikis are the future of music. With CD sales taking a dive as downloads increase, musicians need other ways to make money, he said. Live performance is one way, but so are free downloads, which Williams said generate new fans.

"Whole Wheat Radio is something unique in that it's Web-cast and then archived so people can listen forever," said Williams, whose CD was heard about 1,000 times after a promoter submitted it to Whole Wheat. "As long as you're turning people on to your music, the numbers will work."

WHEATIE MEETINGS

Fifty people is a tiny audience for mainstream bands, but it's a high-enough number to worry Kloss.

"It's the scariest thing I've done," he says of the house concerts, which will be webcast live. "But (musicians) write and say they'll be here, and I can't say no."

To raise interest in his work, Kloss shed his privacy-oriented inhibitions and threw open the doors of the Wheat Palace to fellow Talkeetnans in the hope his real and virtual communities will merge.

Sue DuMond is a Wheathead from Washington's San Juan Islands. Like other avid Wheaties, DuMond used vacation time to volunteer for Kloss, moving his vast CD collection to its new home at the Wheat Palace.

"My first real trip to Talkeetna was in September 2006 and was specifically to meet Jim and Esther and visit WWR. Through (listening and interacting) on the site and private e-mails with Jim and Esther, I was pretty sure we would be friends in real life and not just virtual life," DuMond wrote via e-mail from her Lopez Island home. "Making friends while listening to music online was not something I had expected."

Although DuMond has started her own house-concert webcast, she stays active at Whole Wheat Radio. She helps organize the annual Secret Wheatie gift exchange, in which names are exchanged, gifts sent and opened together thousands of miles apart.

The photos of those gifts and their happy owners are posted online, along with those of a recent felting class or community dance lesson.

Then there's WheatStalk, now in its third incarnation as a folk concert/Wheatie gathering on the Wheat Palace grounds. In past years, it's been held during summer solstice, but this year Kloss is planning it for September. He'll make calls to local businesses, maybe arrange for some flightseeing, hook up his community to these Outsiders with a yen for funky folk.

The more everyone knows one another, the better chance the locals will show up for a concert. Plus:

"It's fun," Kloss said with a shrug. "I gotta admit it."

Find Melodie Wright online at adn.com/contact/mwright or call 1-907-352-6721.

Whole Wheat Radio house concerts

• 7 p.m. Friday, Radoslav Lorkovic and Andy White

• 7 p.m. April 5, Larry Zarella

• 7 p.m. April 19, Marian Call

To get to Whole Wheat Radio from the Parks Highway, take the Talkeetna Spur Road about 7.5 miles to East Birch Boulevard and turn right -- the only direction you can go. There are blue highway signs for Paradise Lodge and Talkeeak Cabins right before the turn. Drive about a half-mile to the Whole Wheat Radio sign, right across from Blair Hills Road. The parking lot is huge, so park anywhere you'd like. Call 1-907-733-2452 if you need additional information. A $10 donation is suggested.

Go online to learn more about house concerts

www.wholewheatradio.org

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