This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: If age teaches you anything, it’s that it’s important to stretch before engaging in any type of vigorous physical activity. Oh, this lesson, too: You probably shouldn’t do so many drugs -- which makes those natural highs in life all the more important.
A couple times a year, I’m treated to something akin to a good, old-fashioned trip, purely through enjoyable personal interaction and the underlying need to make some cash for a local organization. We’re talking about the KDHX membership drive, the twice-annual effort undertaken by the hosts and volunteers of KDHX to raise funds for another year of broadcasting, along with all the supplemental activities taken on by the station.
While my last show, Silver Tray, remains in a state of self-imposed hiatus, I’ve been plenty busy filling in on pledge shifts even during this down-time in weekly programming. And you know what? It’s actually much fun.
The spring drive’s currently underway and the tagline “I Drive 25” is in play, celebrating the station’s quarter century at the frequency of 88.1 FM. Having been on the air for fat chunks of that time, I’m going to use today to sift through some odd and quirky memories, in the classic chronological style. No drugs are necessary to enjoy these, but some deep-knee bends are never a bad idea.
25. We’ll start with some disclosure, though. After a million years of volunteering, I started a part-time role at KDHX this very week, signing on as assistant web editor. So that’s out there. Now back to the beginning...
24. My initial show on KDHX came with Latitude Zero, co-hosted by my pal Kurt Groetsch and named after a piece of hilarious sci-fi cinema. Living in Webster at the time, we’d carpool down to the station for a Monday night/Tuesday morning overnight gig, clocking in on the midnight-2 a.m. shift. On air in the early ‘90s, we played a lot of rock acts that never get airplay these days and a few that still do. Wish those old playlists were still around, ‘cause they’d be filled with names like Yo La Tengo, R.E.M., Pylon, Hoodoo Gurus, Let’s Active, plenty of one-shot wonders like Paw. It was a fun show.
23. Or it was, for about eight months. One fateful night, the plug got pulled on us after a shift. The show was done. Finished. Finito.
22. Accepting that decision with my usual sense of easy-does-it grace, I didn’t listen to the station (at least not with regularity) for about five years, firing some occasional, unnecessary zings at Double Helix through the pages of the RFT. But my understanding of the importance of community radio best came into focus when co-hosting a local and regional music show on the brand-new 105.7 The Point. But working even part-time in the commercial side of radio’s always the best way to appreciate the non-com spirit.
21. While on break from KDHX, I wasn’t a complete stranger, occasionally hanging around a few shows, especially those on the dark side of midnight. Doug Morris was breaking new music on the late deejay’s High Anxiety program, and he was always generous with his time and opinions. Meanwhile, The Mad Russian Show was a studio refuge for all kinds of folks, reggae cuts interspersed with wild interviews on a wild variety of topics. This was a freewheeling age on the station and when actually in-studio with those hosts, I broke my self-imposed and pointless ban on listening. What a time!
20. My return to the KDHX airwaves came on the first day of the new year, either in 1998 or 1999. The new show was called Radio Free St. Louis and was a mix of interviews with and cuts from local acts. In time, I learned that WGNU (920 AM) had the same tagline, calling itself “radio free St. Louis,” which was a tad awkward. Having local acts in for discussion gave the show a nice edge to “just” playing tracks and my CD collection’s got a definite cache of early ‘90s STL rock thanks to RFSL.
19. An aside: It’s always odd how a specific memory gets locked into place. On the night I returned to the air, there was a snowstorm. I can recall sliding down city streets in some battered car, or another, as I drove over to the house of Jordan Oakes, our local power-pop expert, either to pick up the host himself, or a piece of music compliments of him. Pretty sure, too, that the trip had me arriving back at the station with about 30-seconds to spare, a trend that would recur late in life.
18. After a year of RFSL, the show morphed into a talk show called The Wire, which predated the famed HBO crime show of the same name. Station manager Bev Hacker was looking to bolster the show’s community programming and the notion of a locally themed talk show seemed an interesting one. After a short time, Amanda Doyle came on co-host, which made those hours go by a bit quicker, relieving the stress of booking, too. Eventually, though, we decided that work on a website (thecommonspace.org), an organization (Metropolis St. Louis) and a radio show became too much of the same weird, two-person echo chamber of non-stop civics talk.
17. So we stopped for a while. DJ Wilson and Fred Hessel were added to the talk lineup with Collateral Damage, initially booked for our hour and focused on local media and their impact on our region. In a half-year, or so, The Wire was back, now splitting that hour with Collateral Damage, which recently celebrated 12 years on the air. At an early point the show was a Friday one, but would shift.
16. So we moved to Monday and eventually became Topic A, a show in which Amanda did the talking and I did the board op work, with monthly themes and guests from around the country, not just around the region. That was fun for a while, too; but a newborn for Amanda and other commitments for both of us caused another cessation in programming.
15. Next up: a shift from talk programming to Silver Tray, a show named after a zine named after a song by the band The Unconscious. A primo timeslot of Friday afternoon was kindly awarded. And my first day’s show instantly brought a caller ripping me a new one for some jibe I made about Chuck Berry in the RFT during the ‘90s. True dis: St. Louisans have long memories.
14. Silver Tray was given all the support I could’ve wanted. Regularly, I booked live acts, like Finn’s Motel, L.O.V.E. and, of course, The Unconscious, proving the show had some long, local memory, too. Producers like staff engineer Andy Coco and volunteer ace Jon Valley were awesome to work with, as bands were booked with increasing frequency.
13. Today, as a fill-in, there’s fun in jumping into unlikely slots. In a week, I’ll be back on with Amanda for Paul Stark’s “Musical Merry Go Round,” a Saturday staple of kids music. The last time I ran the board for the show, I filled the prior night with a trip to Pop’s. Seven a.m. can roll around quickly; why not just stay up?
12. Time for a lightning round!
11. I once complained about a lack of tea in the studio. A listener affiliated with the Republic of Tea company contacted them and a huge shipment of tea arrived the next week. This somehow didn’t seem odd, at all.
10. Overnight shifts draw amazing callers. There’s a remarkable batch of listeners who mostly tune in after midnight and it’s tempting to angle for a show in that slot just to have those interactions again. Alcohol’s not even the main ingredient in these folks’ interestingness, either. They’re just a special lot.
9. My favorite caller would qualify as Kevin “The Mailman” Welby. Since Silver Tray ended, we’ve traded houseplants and concert tickets. It’s cool to get to know folks through the medium.
8. My co-favorite caller would be Brant Sextro, who would call in with a weekly pun and tips about world music.
7. For a time, friends Steven Smith and Jen Gaby answered phones, theoretically to keep me focused and concentrated on programming. It was fun to have company. Lots of show hosts go that route. But there’s something more divine about taking calls, giving out tickets and cueing songs simultaneously. Community radio doesn’t sound the same when the host isn’t a wee bit frazzled.
6. Speaking of which, in three years of hosting a show that lead up to Bob’s Scratchy Records, seldom was there a week in which Bob Reuter didn’t arrive before the broadcast.
5. And Bob Reuter! Working multiple pledge drives with him was always wild, a roller-coaster of shouts, cajoles, high-energy pitches. Hopefully, somebody’s taping these for posterity. They’re unique.
4. So are the phone volunteers during pledge drive. If you ever wondered what St. Louis would be like if you erased all the boring, bland, milquetoast people, well... you’d have the folks in the pledge room.
3. Fave programming memory No. 3: It’s a visceral thrill any time that a song (or conversation) elicits a call, a text, an e-mail, a smoke signal, or other human-to-human transmission, telling you that a broadcast’s being appreciated by someone from south city to northern California.
2. Fave programming memory No. 2: For a time, I hosted every Thanksgiving’s edition of Literature for the Halibut. It was a bit of a lonely shift, for obvious, holiday-related reasons. One year, Mo Costello of nearby MoKaBe’s heard the show, then drove over a heaping bag of vegetarian food. I may’ve shed a sentimental tear, or two, before racing through some tofurkey and potatoes. How nice was that?
1. Fave programming memory No. 1: After the sad and untimely passing of station stalwart Larry Weir, Art Dwyer needed a pitch partner during pledge drives. Not gonna lie, I wheedled and pleaded and coerced my way into the role. I consider being on with a founding programmer like Art Dwyer a genuine privilege. And a challenge; this is unscripted pitching at its best, and you’re sitting across the board from a guy who changes directions on a dime. The money-making aside, I consider the 12 hours a year in the studio with Art among my very favorite dozen hours of the year. They’ll happen again tonight, from 4-7 p.m.
Friends, can you spare us a dime?