I should have been a rock star- The DJ years

Radio Radio

At Sterling, I heard the news that one of my classmates, Lyman Bowling, intended to resurrect the old, campus radio station. I was excited about the news. It was the era of the AOR (album oriented rock) and the FM DJ’s were a laid back collection of long hairs and stoners, or so it seemed as you listened to their quiet announcements and musical wanderings.
AM radio had dominated most of my youth, but in 1974 a couple of local FM stations opened just in time for the spring of my senior year in high school. The AM jocks were personalities who talked over the music, inetrrupted songs, and seemed to be more interested in the commercials they played than the tunes they spun.
I had grown up listening to the AM stations KAKC and KELI. The one great thing about those stations was that they played a wide variety of music. You were just as likely to hear Diana Ross and the Supremes, as you were Steppenwolf. The only separation of genres was that country stations had their own stations, but even a song like “Little Green Apples” “A Boy Named Sue” or a selection of others. The bad thing was that the DJ might just come yapping in as the chorus for “hey Jude” was rising to its peak, or blast his personality across the last few lyrics of a new song.
Now, that bugged the hell out of me.
The FM stations that had at one time been reserved for talk shows and classical music had found a new direction. When the Tulsa FM stations began cranking out tunes, we were in the middle of the progressive rock explosion. I lay in bed late at night, the radio on the windowsill next to my bed with long, layered songs drifting across the room, as a lullaby for my sleep. Songs by “Yes,” “Emerson, Lake and Palmer,” “The Moody Blues” and even more mystical pieces like “White Bird” by David Laflame wove eerie medieval type images into this new musical style. Some songs such as Bloodrock’s “D.O.A.” and “Nights In White satin” by the Moody Blues crept over me in the dark like gray light from a full moon leaving me slightly chilled and ready for something cheerier.
The FM DJ was somewhat of a new breed. They were eventually captured as if in their natural habitat by the movie “FM.” In that show, the program director named Jeff Dugan tries to save the AOR format from becoming just another commercial station. Man, what if Jeff Dugan could see the state of radio today? Packaged, sanitized and separated by genre like separating the white from the yolk. He’d be stunned. No wonder bands like Queen (radio Gaga), Rush (Spirit of the Radio) and Elvis Costello (Radio Radio) bemoaned the direction of what was once everyone’s musical lifeblood.


Lyman was determined. He worked the administration, gained a budget and set out to restore the station. Several of us volunteered to work there, including myself and Stick ( Dave Brigden). They decided to make the radio station one of variety, dividing up the day by musical styles. Stick and I scored the late night rock shows. Just where we wanted to be.
We were given a pretty free hand at our playlist. Stick and I choose discs from the station’s collection and added lots form our own. I carried a collection of over a thousand LPs at school and then depended on friends and roommates for even more. I decided to have a feature LP every night and fill in the rest of the scheduled time with miscellaneous tracks and rock and roll history. Stick and I made posters to feature our feature LPs and times that we posted in the student union.

It was the ultimate rush.

Think about it. How many times have you made a playlist on an IPOD, or a collection on a cassette or 8-track or mix-tape for a friend, sweetheart or a person you wanted to make into a sweetheart? How often have you given some music to a person because of not just the music itself, but what it says about you to that person?
Like the John Cusak character says in the movie “High Fidelity,’ there is an art to making a mix-tape, just as there is an art to putting together a collection of songs to keep the public interested. That collection of songs, along with the banter between the songs, is a reflection of you… the person who sits spinning discs. You sit alone, but surrounded by the people you hope are listening.

I worked at the station for two years. It was always a wonderful time. I still have one recording of a show I did when the feature LP was the double live “Wings Across America.” It was saved on an old 8-track tape that just 2 years ago Ashley took to Tulsa and had made into a CD. What a strange thing to hear my voice from across 30 years, quietly announcing the songs and artists, filling in the time between cuts with trivia and McCartney and Wings, and reading bits of campus news and commercials with lines like ‘I think you might be able to get into that, man.”

I did get my commercial radio license, but never used it after college. Lyman went on to work in radio at Hutchinson, Kansas and I think even the Wichita market. Stick became an air traffic controller and eventually learned enough on musical instruments to be involved in church music (after a complete turn around from his anti-Christ years). We had one soul DJ named Jackie Steppes. He was from Detroit and hosted the afternoon soul, and R and B slot. Jackie, like myself, also played football, but had an unforgettable radio persona unlike my FM jock-like laid back murmurings. “I’m the master blaster, the soul broadcaster!” Jackie would wail over the air.

To quote Steely Dan and the theme song to “FM”

“Give her some funked up music, she treats you nice
Feed her some hungry reggae, she'll love you twice
The girls don't seem to care tonight
As long as the mood is right

FM - no static at all”