I have been reunited with my classic rock roots. Perhaps in a few years I will be ready for Pulp Fiction again too?
After placing those issues aside, but before dropping them in the recycling bin, I leafed through the stack: about a dozen issues, all from 1985-1989. This quick skim inspired some MP3 purchases from that era (see below).
Another side-effect of packing? A slew of new music discoveries. Since I hardly ever hear new music on the radio, I tend to find new music on the RCN Music Choice channel: Adult Alternative. And when do I listen to this channel? When packing boxes!
Back when I was a DJ, radio studios had special cassette decks which were wired to record only when the announcer's microphone was on. I could record all my "breaks" over a six-hour shift onto one side of a 60 minute tape. I have literally dozens of "aircheck" tapes of my nights on WMGX. I have listened to a few of these tapes recently, which has brought back a lot of memories of that line of work, and my life in the mid 1990s.
I had fun talking on the radio, and I actually liked the music we played. Deejaying can be a lot of fun, during the daytime, anyway, when the building is full of people. Overnights, however, is a lonely and boring shift. I basically played the music, read magazines, and killed time, between the spots where I actually talked. This was before there was free and easy Internet, so I couldn't sit and browse the Web, update my Facebook, and blog about how bored I was. If I have ever shared with you a mind-bendingly obscure bit of music trivia (did you know Melissa Etheridge is from Leavenworth, Kansas? Did you know Linda Rondstadt sings backup on "Heart of Gold"?), I know this stuff because I literally read every liner note, every music trivia book, and The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits cover to fucking cover.
I actually spent a lot of time making mix tapes in the studio down the hall- I would use my own CDs from home + CDs I borrowed from the enormous collection in the studio. I would start a song in the main studio, leave the studio doors ajar, and crank up the speakers. While working on a mix tape down the hall, I would half-listen to the music from the main studio. When a song I was playing over the air wound down, I would hustle back and press START on the next track, then back to the tape!
I also pilfered a ton of LPs from the station's old vinyl collection, which was literally packed away in a storage closet. I had zero guilt about taking home stacks of LPs that would never be used again, or, in a lot of cases, had never been used in the first place.
So working overnights paralyzed my social life, and crippled my weekends too- I never had a problem sleeping during the day, but on the weekends, I would attempt to switch back to a regular schedule, so I could spend time with my girlfriend, but I ended up staggering about in a zombie-like haze, trying to stay conscious during daylight hours.
Last but not least, all DJs are paid peanuts. If you don't like the pay, there's a dozen people happy to take less to do your job.
Here's a representative sampling of the "easy rockers" I played every night on WMGX, in no particular order.
NOTE: When in the following list I say we played "lots of" or "plenty of" an artist, that means we played the same few songs every day, NOT that we played a wide variety of their songs. I would guess we played no more than 6 or 7 songs by each of these artists, but we played all of these acts at least 4 or 6 times a day.
