The DJ Days
My college radio show remains dearly missed.
For two semesters, and seventeen episodes, I got to live that age-old music junkie’s dream and disc jockey on my own college radio show.
Loyola Marymount University’s station, KXLU 88.9 FM, was and is quite the enterprise. Countless bands that alternative kids flocked to had played on our airwave, from Jane’s Addiction to, yes, Nirvana. In fact, Kurt Cobain sketched out a prototype for the Nevermind cover on site, around the time the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” music video got filmed nearby. More on that in a bit.
I named my show II11 (“to eleven”), partially as a reference to the ever-hilarious This Is Spinal Tap. I threw around some clunkier ideas before, like “Any Air Is Good Air” or “Patience Is a Virtue.” II11 didn’t just refer to the film; “II” served as a nod towards much of the music I played, which could require more than one listen to “get it” (hence the earlier ideas). I was so enamored with the “anything goes” nature of college radio, and I tried to exploit those wide boundaries each week.
My show was on KLMU, the online sister station to 88.9. If you stayed online long enough, you could graduate to the big leagues; alas, I joined a little too late to make the leap, and vacated the campus during my final semester to write a book.
Nevertheless, what a hell of a time! In the moments before I went on, I would sit on the black couch outside the control room, taking a quick pic to post on my Instagram story (along with a livestream link). Mild anxiety pumped me up. Moments later, genre whiplash began.
I tried to throw everything in my show. Not the kind of “everything” the kids who say “I listen to everything!” mean, where “everything” amounts to Kendrick Lamar, Tame Impala, Pink Floyd, Travis Scott, and Morgan Wallen. Just have a look at this list of every single song I aired (alphabetized by artist). The general rule was 3-5 genres a night, and my aim was to play one track which would elicit a “what the fuck is this?” Fear not; the dissonance would be resolved with one track which would be the “sweet,” something an average listener would know and love. During my 1.5-hour blocks, I might play something like Speed Dealer Moms’ “March_Three-3” (the former) or that ubiquitous Doobie Brothers single “What a Fool Believes” (you can guess).
The latter song came about, in part, because my dad (who always tuned in) got all huffy and puffy at one point — he didn’t really understand the concept of college radio. “When are you gonna play something I know?,” he bitched over the phone.
Truth be told, his criticism occurred early on, when I hadn’t quite found my “groove” yet and stuck almost exclusively to more obscure, abrasive fodder. While the curveball-to-softball ratio improved over time, that formative ethos never left. I even aired a comedy clip of a fake college radio bumper on one episode, boasting fictional underground acts like Throat Vomit and songs such as “Heroin-Flavored Potato Chips.”
Despite the “genre whiplash” mantra, my show would be nothing without the bumpers I came up with on my own, to ease the “pain.” I would think of them on the fly, more or less, and try to connect these disparate choices of music. After every other song (or each song), I’d deliver a mini-lesson on what the hell was what. A lot of my radio peers would keep their bumpers to a minimum, and sort of half-ass them. I felt it was common courtesy to inject context on the regular, since the listeners eavesdropping had likely never heard this shit.
Since college radio stations get so few tuners-in, I just imagined that I was bringing my mom and dad up to speed on these songs, which never failed to work. In fact, my mom was in the studio with me once — on Mother’s Day, no less! (I played her “Heaven or Las Vegas” by Cocteau Twins.)
When my final show came to a close (I chose Nine Inch Nails’ 11:44 “The Background World” as the ender, since it concludes with over seven minutes of deteriorating static), the air around me felt heavy. I walked out into the desolate, near-empty studio; the night had dampened any hustle and bustle. As a parting shot, I asked for a pic with the Cobain sketch.
You rocked it Tyler. The DJing and the reminiscing.
I didn't know about the sketch!