I did that for a few years and it was a great way to start the week. I was really into ska and punk at that time and did a show just on that for a while too. I think the best was the general college radio format and getting to play all types of music. The community was great, and I still stay in touch with a lot of people from there.
I had been there for a year when one of the DJ's, who did a 4 hour jazz program on Sundays, asked for people to help him expand the show to 12 hours from 6AM to 6PM. He already had a guy who was a jazz saxophone player from the area, who had a remarkable baritone voice like Isaac Hayes to do the early morning show, and he was going to do the afternoon slot. Nobody took him up on it, so I volunteered, even though I knew diddly squat about Jazz music. So I've got this Jazz performer with an amazing voice before me, and a Jazz geek following me. I basically grabbed a record (This is how long ago this was), put it on the turntable, listened to a few seconds of each track, and picked the one I thought sounded the best. I did this for 4 hours every week until I started to learn about the different styles of Jazz. And lo and behold, after a couple of months, my show was more popular than either of the other two guys' shows. The guy before me only played gospel and traditional Jazz, while the guy who followed me was a little too cerebral in his musical formatting. But by playing what I thought sounded good, mixed with an ample amount of requests played, I blew them away.
In my second year there, I was made Training Director for the newbies. This was 1981, and I was heavily into partying, and never did a show without some kind of stimulant. My friend, who was also a DJ and had gotten me in there, had turned me on to Jack Daniels and Coke when you're on air, and the shows just breezed by effortlessly. Well, the interns learned that if you came up to my show and brought Jack Daniels and got me drunk, I'd turn over the mike to them. Those last few months I was there are pretty much a blur to me.
On Thanksgiving night in 1981, there was a surprise blizzard that hit the northeast. Now all of the students have gone home for the holidays, and only local students were around to continue programming. The next day, Black Friday, I'm scheduled from 10AM to 2PM, I don't know if they got anyone for the 2-6 slot, my other friend Skip is on 6PM - 10PM and the guy who got me into the station, Bob, is on from 10PM to 2AM. At around 11:30 the next morning, while I'm in the middle of my show, Skip calls me and asks me if he's heard from the DJ who's suppose to do the slot after mine. With the amount of snow that had fallen the previous night, we figured that person wouldn't show up. Skip decides that he'll come in early, bring a shitload of supplies (Pizza, Weed, Cocaine, Beer and Booze) and we'll go straight through to 2AM with my buddy Bob's show. I'm psyched and about an hour later he shows up with a huge box full of all kinds of goodies. He breaks out an 8 ball, we do a few lines and I'm pumped to do marathon radio for the next 14 hours.
All of a sudden, at 1:40PM, one of the female DJ's shows up and says that she slotted for the next shift. We tell her that we'll do the show, if she would rather go shopping, but she insists that because she drove the snow covered streets, that she was going to do it. We wouldn't have minded her response if she had been a decent DJ, but she played pretty awful music and had the personality of a piece of white bread. We tell her about our plans to go through to the last show and we've bought all these supplies, but she's adamant. My show ends, and Skip and I go into the Radio Station office and continue partying. After about an hour of coke, beer and joints, we get bored. We had contemplated giving her a couple of beers and when she went to the bathroom, lock her in until 6PM, but we decided against it. We decided to go back to the studio and sit on the couch that was in there (It was a pretty big studio). We're smoking cigars, which were also part of the goodie box, when we notice this huge poster of Rex Smith between the record stacks. We start destroying this poster, while the girl is on the air. We're laughing uncontrollably because of all the stuff we've been ingesting and finally, she decides that she's had enough. She gets up, turns to us and says,
You win, I'm leaving. Skip jumps behind the console and we're back on track.
At 4:30PM, Bob calls us because we've been announcing that we're going non-stop. He's cool with the idea and decides that he's going to come in at 7PM to join the festivities. At 7PM, he arrives with another box of goodies, and three hot girls who had been listening in the dorms (They lived too far away to go home), were coming back from dinner at the cafeteria and met Bob as he was going in. He invited them to our little party, and with nothing going on on campus, were delighted to join us. For the next 7 hours, Bob, Skip and myself alternated hours behind the console, while the other two went back to the offices with the girls. I hit it off with this girl named Linda, and during one of my hours on air, I'm sitting behind the console spinning records, I've got a Jack and Coke in one hand, a mirror of cocaine on the table next to the turntable, a Cheech and Chong stogie in the ashtray and this hot girl doing unspeakable things to my nether regions during Traffic's seminal song
Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, which runs for a good 11 minutes.
I wouldn't trade in that day for any other in my whole life!
And I know I'm rambling on and on, but this was a great time in my life, so just one more...
In the summer of 1981, we're were on a skeleton staff, with most of the students back home for the summer. I decided to pick up the Tuesday night 10PM - 2AM slot. The DJ before me had been a DJ at the station for over 10 years and was actually one of the first DJ's when they started the station back in the early 70's. He was a huge Dead head and had the best weed on campus. His name was also Bobby, and we had become good friends over the last few months and we both anticipated having a good time on Tuesday nights during the summer. I had helped another student during the school year by giving him answers during tests in my biology class, and he showed his appreciation by holding out a garbage bag filled halfway with Christmas Tree speed, and telling me to take a couple of handfuls. I've got good sized hands and I grabbed close to 450 of them. I was set for the summer!
Each Tuesday I would show up just after Bobby's show had started and toss him a couple of Christmas Trees. He would put on a twenty minute song and we'd go sit out on one of the balconies that ringed the campus outside our studio and light up a joint. We'd bring a transistor radio (No Ipods in those days) so we could monitor the progress of the song. After a few weeks, all of our friends knew that if they heard a twenty minute starting, we would be on the balcony partying, and they'd show up. One Tuesday we put on Pink Floyd's
Wish You Were Here and go to our usual spot. About a dozen friends show up and the joints are doing the dosey-do around the circle. I notice that the song is about two minutes from the end and offer to go inside and make the change. Bobby asks me what I'm going to play and I tell him that I'm going to give all the Floyd fans a treat by flipping it over and finishing the album. A couple of girls come inside with me, with joint in hand, and I sit behind the console. I noticed that it's coming up on 8 o'clock and when the song ends, I've have to do the ID. I put my headphones on, and figure out what I'm going to say while I'm flipping the record. The song ends, I hit the mike and while I'm flipping the disc, I say,
A perfect song from a perfect album from a perfect band. Now who am I to mess with perfection, so I'm just going to play the whole second side for you too. You're listening to 91.1 WUSM, and as I'm saying this, one of the girls taps me on the shoulder and hands me the joint. I inhale a lung and a halfs worth of sweet cannabinol and trying to hold it in, blurt out
Nooorrrttthhh Daaarrrtttmmmooouuuttthh. I kill the mike and exhale a cumulos cloud in the studio. I turned to the girls and they're both standing there with mouths agape.
Do you realize that you just took a hit off a joint on the air. I responded,
I Did? and turned around and looked out the picture window in the studio and over at the balcony where everyone was sitting. Half were staring in shock, while the other half were laughing hysterically, and there's Bobby giving me the thumbs up in his best Jerry Garcia impression. Priceless