Radio Days

My last music recommendation post got me reflecting on my days as a DJ at ISU's college radio station, KURE. (note: when I was there, the logo was much cooler, I had nothing to do with this current one.) My buddy Chris Charczuk and I got a radio show, mainly because I knew a guy that lived down the hall from me that was in charge of "hiring" new people, so he hooked us up, and got us a decent airtime, lunchtime on Friday. So when people would be packing over lunch, before heading home for the weekend, they'd listen to us. At least, that's the way it worked in my mind. I imagine we had about 7 listeners, all friends. Much like readers for my blog.

Chris and I had similar music tastes, overlapping for the most part, but then around the fringes we'd differ. Which was nice, it added a little variety to our shows. We'd both have some "indie" bands to play, then we would add some harder, heavier stuff (not metal hard and heavy, but more grunge-ish, maybe. Though not quite grunge.) and I would play the punk and ska side of things. There were a few times when one of us couldn't make the show, whether it be a test or just feeling lazy and not wanting to get out of bed (yes, sometimes we'd be sleeping at noon on a Friday, it's college, you're supposed to, right?), so occasionally one of us would have the treat of doing a show on our own. Which was a little daunting at first, but once you got into the flow of things, it would just move right along, the two hours would fly past. Plus, there was a schedule of things we had to do, the public service announcements at :15 and :45 each hour, weather at :30, and station ID at the top of every hour. The promos and station ID's and a few other things were all on DAT, which would be testy most of the time, and wouldn't work correctly. I imagine they've upgraded since. Plus there was a (slow, very old) computer in there, so we'd give sports updates, because that's what all listeners of college radio want: to know how the Royals or Boston Bruins did the previous night.

Eventually, a few semesters later, we branched out and did our own, separate shows. Every once in a while, we'd make special "guest appearances" on the other's show, reuniting our old "Chris and Chris" fame. (yes, we were huge dorks. I guess it's redundant to say that in a post about being a college radio DJ, though.) Eventually, I started reviewing new CD's for the station, which was most excellent. I'd get most of the new indie/punk/random stuff before it came out! Some of my favorites that I got a sneak preview of included Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Now It's Overhead's self-titled album, The Shins' Oh, Inverted World, a few albums from the Mountain Goats, The (International) Noise Conspiracy's A New Morning, Changing Weather, and a host of others that I'm forgetting right now. All in all, a pretty sweet deal. I wasn't paid for it, but listening to the music was good enough.

I'd like to think that I did a decent job at DJ'ing, maybe it's something I should look into doing again. I mean, why not totally switch what I'm doing again? I could get into the glamorous world of radio!