Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Some DJs no doubt think I'm an irrelevant geezer - & I am in some
respects, but I least I don't demonstrate that on a weekly basis.
Sometimes I talk too much. I don't play enough rock, or experimental,
or new music, depending on what others want to hear. I'm not an
effervescent radio personality, or an expert in any genre. I have no
connections to business of music anymore, & when I did it was only as
a local piano teacher. Nearly everything I program is presented in a
spirit of equanimity. It's rare when I aim a bright spotlight on a piece of
music, & sometimes it’s for extra-musical reasons. Even the goofy turns
usually make a musical point; I do them because I can but not only
because I can. I'm one of a handful of remaining staffers who actually
did shows out of the Froberg basement studio at Upsala College, & I
was lurking around Upsala for a few years before I joined WFMU. I'm
a bit of WFMU history benignly wandering through the Jersey City
building. That's basically my function.. I’m a comparatively
unexceptional radio vet who stuck around for decades mostly by taking
the space I was given & doing with it what I wanted, & being so
reliable that whoever filled out the schedule penciled me in just to have
three hours that needn’t ever concern them. In my generally
good-natured part-time status on “the bench” I don't have to do much
of anything except remind everyone that WFMU isn't at the top of the
alternative radio world because there's a view of Manhattan outside the
front door, but because it's WFMU, & it's been a pretty elite club for
nearly 40 years. We were winning critic's polls 15 years ago. Everyone
who was associated with the station back in East Orange, in the
basement & later in the house on Springdale Ave, knows WFMU was
a great radio station long before it moved to Jersey City. To do shows
in E.O. DJs were making tediously long treks in from Brooklyn, &
suffering through horrendous traffic jams on the Garden State Parkway.
The challenge is that the station's history, & whatever passes for
tradition there (which is actually a matter of attitude & sensibility
amyway) must not become a weight upon the present or a drag on
the future.
respects, but I least I don't demonstrate that on a weekly basis.
Sometimes I talk too much. I don't play enough rock, or experimental,
or new music, depending on what others want to hear. I'm not an
effervescent radio personality, or an expert in any genre. I have no
connections to business of music anymore, & when I did it was only as
a local piano teacher. Nearly everything I program is presented in a
spirit of equanimity. It's rare when I aim a bright spotlight on a piece of
music, & sometimes it’s for extra-musical reasons. Even the goofy turns
usually make a musical point; I do them because I can but not only
because I can. I'm one of a handful of remaining staffers who actually
did shows out of the Froberg basement studio at Upsala College, & I
was lurking around Upsala for a few years before I joined WFMU. I'm
a bit of WFMU history benignly wandering through the Jersey City
building. That's basically my function.. I’m a comparatively
unexceptional radio vet who stuck around for decades mostly by taking
the space I was given & doing with it what I wanted, & being so
reliable that whoever filled out the schedule penciled me in just to have
three hours that needn’t ever concern them. In my generally
good-natured part-time status on “the bench” I don't have to do much
of anything except remind everyone that WFMU isn't at the top of the
alternative radio world because there's a view of Manhattan outside the
front door, but because it's WFMU, & it's been a pretty elite club for
nearly 40 years. We were winning critic's polls 15 years ago. Everyone
who was associated with the station back in East Orange, in the
basement & later in the house on Springdale Ave, knows WFMU was
a great radio station long before it moved to Jersey City. To do shows
in E.O. DJs were making tediously long treks in from Brooklyn, &
suffering through horrendous traffic jams on the Garden State Parkway.
The challenge is that the station's history, & whatever passes for
tradition there (which is actually a matter of attitude & sensibility
amyway) must not become a weight upon the present or a drag on
the future.
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
I'm either 6th or 7th in seniority on the active staff list, so I'm entitled, & we're so distant from that time & place now that remembering it isn't bothersome to those who weren't there. Anyway, we weren't a typical college radio station even when we were still college. Nobody's nostalgic about the equipment failures or the razor wire fence parking area in E.O.
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