The Hits Keep Coming

I've been thinking about the way I put my shows together. Generally, before I head to the studio, I pick out 5 or 6 albums from home (often what I've been listening to in the past week) to bring in for the show. Sometimes this sets the tone for the program, but more often than not, it becomes bail-out material when I can't find anything else. I started DJing in college at KCAT in Ellensburg, WA. We were only broadcasting on the cable system at the time, and I believe my entire training lasted about 20 minutes. We had a fairly strict (by KAOS standards) rotation system, which only afforded the DJs about 3 or 4 picks an hour. It was cool, as we had good music directors - or at least ones whose taste matched up with my own. In any event, the rotation system was loosened up, and we only had to play 6 tracks of rotation an hour, and we could pick which ones. This gave me lots more time to fill, and I adopted the attitude that I wanted my show to be very immediate, and I would rarely pick out much music ahead of time. Instead, I opted to grab CDs as I went in an effort to maintain spontaneity. This was pretty easy, since I was quite familiar with the library by then. It also helped that the library was essentially the walls of the broadcast booth, and were in arms reach. After I started on KAOS, I had to start doing more planning, since we have an entire separate room for our library, and no rotation tracks to fill. I've adjusted by usually pulling about twice as many CDs as I can play in my shift. I also focus heavily on the new (past 3 months) releases. I get to hear lots of new music this way, but at the same time I tend to neglect stuff that I've played in the past. So I'm making an effort to mix up the playlists a little more. The new time slot helps, as I'm more awake, and I have a little more time to prepare. The challenge for me is to not rely too heavily on my favorites and to remember music I've been neglecting. The other tricky part is to remember that my memory of what I've played is a lot longer than the listeners.

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Not much new music this week, though I'm still listening to some of the other recent releases. I rescued the Irving cd from the crypt pile this week. I must have forgotten to mark that I had played it several times, since I had only initialed it once. I also am enjoying the new Black Heart Procession album "The Spell", but I still need to listen to it all the way through. I also got the Yo La Tengo album, "Yo La Tengo Is Murdering the Classics." I ordered the CD off of their website and I really like it. It's a collections of cover songs they performed on WFMU for people who pledged during their membership drive. Some of the songs are great, and some are hilarious. I thought the show went well, and I had a lot of fun with my rock set. That was one of those times where the songs clicked with my mood and I went with it. It seems really corny when I write that, but that's how it goes.