My Journey Through Radio

7/27/2019 My Journey Through Radio

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**Authors Note: The following story is one I have told a least two-thousand times during timesof drunken loudness whenever I was lucky enough to catch the attention of some poor soul I hadcornered. This is my first shot at actually writing it down. This is in essence the very story of mylife so you can consider it a very personal message to those who take the time to read it. Ofcourse I will change names wherever I find it appropriate to keep myself from any kind of legalbacklash from former employers. This is the story of the death of a national icon. Reporting to

you LIVE from the scene of the death of radio.Dr. Higgason 10.30.2008. **

Chapter One: The Rats Are in the Trash

When I was 16 I was savagely attacked by a rat while scrubbing the con-crete around the bottom of the grease catcher thing when I worked a summer atthe local McArches. I more or less enjoyed my job as a night shift grill employee.

Thats right; I made your burgers, fries and all that good stuff. I might have actu-ally caused you a heart attack and for that I apologize. We had an important in-spection coming up in the morning. We had to be spotlessthey had a running

patrol workin the parking lot, it was nuts. All of it seemed to stem from fear. Fearof being lashed in front of the crew by the immediate captains of the corpora-tion. So being in a panicked state of mind and to UP the cleanliness bar, my stu-pid ass was sent outside to sweep and hose out the dumpster area and then cleanoff the excess grease from the base of that huge vomit bucket. I bent downarmed with my scrub brush teeming with this degreaser solution that would burnyour hands if you came in contact with in its concentrated state, in a terror I seetwo little beady eyes looking at me with a scowl. I stepped back in a startle andthe loathsome varmint charged at me. With a couple of rapid thrusts of the hugescrub brush I caught him on the second shot with a pop fly over the concrete

wall. I went back inside and announced that I had just taken on a rat. I washushed and rushed to the back of the building. I was informed that it was one,bad manners to loudly scream that there was a possible pissed off rat on thepremises, and two that the restaurant receives a new batch of vermin with everytruck load. The Corporation knows about itits something we cant help.

My Childhood In Radio: The Radio Saga

Parts I through III

By Jeff Higgason


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Yeah, I know its a little hard to handle a story like that. I am afraid if I em-bellished even more I could face some sort of legal action by the company. Thereare dirty dark secrets masked in the mass-produced burger. That rat taught me alesson. The truth, that it being, the truth is alwayshidden like a rat waiting in

the garbage.In early October of 1995 I was tapped by a father of a friend and he ex-

plained there was a job open at our local FM station. All I had to do was mentionhis name in the interview and it was a sure thing. And so I hung up my apron, gaveup my thriving fast food career to join another cookie cutter industry. This is mytale.

The first night I worked at our local radio station WNOI-FM in my smallIllinois hometown was Friday, October 13th 1995. The girl I was to replace wasleaving after that weekend. I was schooled in the fine routine that was the program-ming in a matter of 2 and half days. My main job was to run commercials. I was

rarely expected to play live music and was warned that if I did have to spin songslive that this isnt Nine Inch Nails country. I understood. I ran commercialsthrough NASCAR broadcasts, during local sporting events, during remote broad-casts. That was the job. Of course I got to read the news and the weather live. Ihad to come in before dawn every Sunday to start Heavens Jubilee which startedat six. Heavens Jubilee was a cheaply produced syndicate gospel program featur-ing the always vivacious host Jim Loudermilk. At certain spots during the programol Jim would try to sell a buffet of products made from beeswax or aluminum freeunderarm deodorant. BUY MY SNAKE OIL!

The rest of the shift included live news and obituaries at 7:05am and the restwere cut ins for weather forecasts or to announce the next program. The Sundayshift was a drag during the NASCAR season because I couldnt leave until the race

was over. During one particular Coca Cola 600 I had to stay until well past mid-night. The race had entered a rain delay and there were five laps short of half way.In order to make the race official the race had to be run until midway. Finallyaround 11:30 that night it stopped raining and they hit the raceway. I then was wit-ness to the fastest five laps in NASCAR history. When I look back and rememberall the Saturday nights that I shewed away my friends and parties so that I could beup early for the Sunday swing all I really see is a schmuck. When I started there all

of our pre-recorded programming (commercials, news and weather music) wereplayed off these horrible things called carts, short for cartridge. They were basedon the same principal of the 8 track-cassette.Most of the carts were over 20 yearsold; it was the ultimate recycling program. You recorded on one of these thingsand when the commercial spot had expired you erased the tape and recorded on itagain.


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The problem was that after being ran through the cartridge player for 20years and then used again the tape inside became worn and thin resulting in cartsthat hissed or sounded like a warped record. I hated those goddamn things. Thestudio console was a very simple set up; there were 3 CD players, 2 cassette decks,

two turntables and a microphone. A majority of the music I played came off of45rpm records.

And coming up next we have The Cutting Crew

The first thing I was taught was how to cue up a record. Find the beginningof the song, pull the record a quarter turn around the opposite way and BOOMyou hit the remote start on the broadcast console and you are Sailing with Chris-topher Cross.

It was a very frustrating gig at first. I mean, on the surface it was a very dif-

ferent job than most of my friends worked. I now had a seriously public job, thetype of job where the community can talk an awful mess about you. I know be-cause my father was a very vocal when it came to crap on the radio. When I did myfirst live newscast it was down right embarrassing to listen to. I found a tape re-cently of my first newscast and it will go to the grave with me. All the things thatappear natural of a basic air-shifters on-air personality came later and within thefirst couple of months I loved coming in for my shift. Around Christmas time wehad a ton of holiday commercials to play so I was allowed to run a full shiftmeaning I was on the air live for about 4 to 6 hours playing songs, running holidaycommercials and giving the weather.

It was a very taxing job time wise. The first early Sunday shift I did was themorning after a school dance. So socially I was tethered to the station. If a badsnow came along and forced the schools to shutdown I was expected at the radiostation to read all of the closings and cancellations that were called in to our officeand believe me those lists were huge ongoing tasks. There was no sledding andplaying in the snow with girls, drinking Zima and an occasional finger bang forHiggason. I was a savage company man at 16-years-old. If the snow hit on a

Wednesday night or a Sunday morning because all of the area churches would haveto call in service cancellations, winter was a stressful time. What, with all the kids

calling in asking about school closings.

You annoying bastards I just read that on the air.


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PART TWO:The Platinum Rollercoaster

After about a year working there I sold the station manager on having my

own show. He stipulated that in order to get the show I would have to sell it to thesponsors. We sold our hundred dollars worth of sponsorships within the first hourof trying.

The show became the Platinum Rollercoaster, cute title; we had a contestto name the show, thats the best the audience could come up with. It was a mixedformat music program, I handled the alternative rock side and my buddy Aaroncovered the hip hop side. It was fun. I still say that we were the first to play a lot ofhip hop hits before they hit, namely, No Diggity by Blackstreet and Da Dip byFreak Nasty. We were ahead of our time, but only about 25 minutes.

We had some wonderful guests. The Olney, Illinois punk legends Toucan Slamgraced our show with a performance once, all the way direct from Detroit, Michi-gan The Schugars and had various comedy sketches we had recorded. We inter-

viewed royalty, the Clay County Fair Queen came on the show one time and we gother to name all of the nicknames she had for her vagina, my favorite being thebunny hole. That was a wacky show from what I remember. We had another fe-male guest that was tying red Twizzlers into knots with her tongue. I think the con-test was she had to empty the bag and tie all of them into a knot and she got a freetanning certificate. We did a spoof on the local cops; we had the Bad Boys thememusic. Out of all that, we were reprimanded for the jokes about the police. My co-

hosts and I were starting to get a good listenership. We were receiving free CDsand T-shirts and posters and concert passeswe had a deal worked out with Mis-sissippi Nights in St Louis for passes to shows to give away. We sent people to seeHelmet, Silverchair and Rancid shows. We gave out hundreds of free CDs andstickers. We learned early that listeners like free stuff, heh!

When the new Burger King opened we did a bit where I we would call up the man-ager of McDonalds and told them we were starting a pool about when the burger

wars were going to start. I asked if there was any truth to the rumors thatMcDonalds employees were going show up incognito at the Burger King drivethrough window and hurl bagfuls of putrid McDonald hamburgers into the restau-

rant. We added variety to the local airwaves and all of our audience was in the agerange of 15 to 21. It was a rare opportunity to listen to a group of local goof offsact like idiots in a full range stereo signal.

As goods things do, the show peaked and the sales staff blatantly robbed allof my sponsors and put them onto a local oldies show. It wasnt very much longerafter that I was offered a better job.


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WFIW-AM/FM WOKZ-FM is located just east of the metroplex of thetown of Fairfield. WFIW was a revered station due to their razor-sharp take on lo-cal news events and their very popular Morning Show with Woody and Murvis.

The station manager called me under the recommendation of one of my profes-

sors at the college I was attending. WFIW was my first look at the inner workingsof a very professional local radio station and the many loveable characters. WFIW

was the only station where I absolutely adored all my co-workers. There were themorning guys, my boss Dave oh yeah, I still dig Dave. While mentioning names Icant forget my best dude in the world Marilyn. It was a very WKRP atmosphereand it was like home. I got a hell of a lot more air time. I had two regular shifts on

weeknights and a regular Saturday morning shift on the AM station. I got to runmusic, gab and situate the AM station to simulcast with the FM station at noon. Ilearned radio at WFIW and recall many fond memories of the place. I learned myradio voice.

There are multitudes of radio voices. You have guys that are hyper, like a lit-tle dog about to piss on your shoe; you got the guys that have the nice deep rumbly

voice, the raspy crowd and the obligatory radio voice. Me I try to talk sexy, likeBilly Dee Williams, when I read the news. What can I say; I learned a lot fromBarry White growing up. I was very precise on punctuation and lost my SouthernIllinois drawl I also learned some of the arts of being a reporter and Newscaster.

Exciting things happened around the Fairfield area and there was rarely a drynews day. The news director Len Wells could get information most other area sta-tions werent even privy too. The station prided itself on total local area coverageand they gave the listeners pounds of it. This is the man that taught me aboutnews.

One fine Spring night I was loafin around a bit waiting for my next news-cast to come up at the top of the hour and the phone rings. It was a reporter froman Evansville Indiana TV station wanting some information about the killingspree. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about and I would have to getback with him. I phoned up Wells at home and he said he would monitor the policescanner. After about ten minutes he shows up at the station, grabs the mobilephone pack and tells me he is going to follow the police around. All that eveninghe was calling in little reports from out in the field. With each report the details

got gorier than the last set of particulars. The radio station was located about twomiles east of the town of Fairfield and was very remote to say the least. The storywas these two goons started killing people in Indiana earlier that day and had madetheir way in the eastern edge of Illinois. So I locked all the doors and hunkereddown with a corkscrew I found.


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According to these phoned in reports from Wells this man hunt for thesetwo meth heads from Indiana was basically concentrated in the area of the radiostation and about 4 miles southeast. So that put these desperate crazy cranked upmurderers in my neck of the woods. About 10:30 that night there was a banging on

the front door. I thought to myself, Dammit! Theyre here. I knew it. I had neverbeen so happy to see a policeman in my life. They said they were out to check onme and they would be about a mile west up the highway.

Early the next morning I was making the curves to Mt Carmel for schooland I heard the whole story. After a search that had lasted the night, the two fugi-tives we spotted with a nightscope hiding in a large field. When the police had as-cended to the scene they noticed upon their arrival one of the suspects was deadfrom a single gun shot wound to the back of the head, as you can guess, the plotthickens.

This story stretched out for several newscasts. The police were charging the

living suspect with the murder of his accomplice. According to the suspect he shothis accomplice in hopes of ending the fracas. What he failed to realize that afteryou and your friend leave a wake of murders across two states the opportunity forheroism had passed after the first person died. BOOM! He was charged with mur-dering his friend. The trial itself was hopelessly tabloid in manner. I believe eventu-ally the trial venue was switched to Jefferson County because of too much pre-trialpublicity, and the man was given the long ride at one of Illinois prisons.

In my first run at WFIW I was witness to two more such incidents. Onewhere a woman had stabbed her husband to death on a rural Wayne County roadand the other was a horrible story about a young man in western Richland Countyhacking his family to death in their home. First rule in broadcast journalism: If itbleeds, it leads. The first time I was told this little nugget I was horrified. But thesad certainty is that is what the public wants, they crave the naughty little detailsand dignity is damned.

So after a about a year and a half of working the boards and phones atWFIW I started looking around for a change of scenery and an excuse to go backto college. In the spring of 1999 I enrolled at Vincennes University in Vincennes,Indiana and signed up to major in broadcasting. After weeks of sweating it out I

was able to find at job at the Vincennes radio station. I took my application to the

top floor of the Executive Inn to the business office. I thought it was cool that webroadcast from high atop the once grandest hotel in Vincennes and there was astrong chance of fresh pastries on Sunday morning.


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PART TWO:THE SHEEP ENTERS THE SLAUGTERHOUSE

Or HIGGASON STEPS INTOTHE CORPORATION.

About a week before I was set to move I was contacted by one of my manybosses to remind that the station had moved. The new location was the historicBreevoort house. Apparently the man that owned the company sunk a huge wadof cash into the restoration and renovation of this Gothic Mansion that was builtaround 1865. The first time I drove by it I thought it looked like a mad scientistslair it was a huge brick monument to the Victorian era and was definitely not serv-ing pastries on Sunday.

Being employed by The New Corporation was a definite change. First ofall it was the best and worst case scenario of automated broadcasting. The build-

ing housed three radio stations all for the most part were ran by computers. Themain computer interface beeped and buzzed like something off of Star Trek. Ihave obsessive life long habit of randomly pushing buttons, so the fear of fudgingsomething up kept me out of their but, just barely. The weather forecasts were allpre-recorded and so was a majority of the newscasts. The company owned aboutfourteen different stations in central and southern Indiana. Many of the stations

were in danger of tanking financially and The New Corporation would step in andpurchase the stations, stream line the operations and pocket as much coin as theycould squeeze out of them.

We had a very rigid sports broadcasting schedule that began the first Friday

in August after school started. This was the symbolic beginning of the rollercoaster ride. I considered just a few of the full time on air people to be friendly.However, the sports broadcasters were complete asses. Among the handful ofsportscasters we had was the big boss of the company, I will call him Mr.Crazyass.

The first time I met Mr. Crazyass I was running spots for the Rush Lim-baugh show and this little snippy, pale balding bastard came in and jumped my assabout having a weather forecast for Evansville and not Vincennes. I jokingly said

well Evansville isnt that far away. His response was, Print me out a Vincennesweather forecast, smart ass. My fists clinched at my side and I took a couple ofbreaths, because the Clay County Illinois hillbilly in my head was telling me to hangthis fucker from the flagpole by his tighty whiteys. I composed myself and cor-dially printed out his forecast. Dan, the fellow that hired me came in about 10 min-utes later and I asked, Who is the little man with the moustache that is runningaround.


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Oh, he says, Did he get on to you? I am sorry but that is Mr. Crazyass.I am sorry I forgot to warn you that he was here. So not only, is the guy the mostunfriendly sack of shit to be processed but he is also the boss, oh great! Dan reas-sured me that Crazyass was usually there just during the morning. I decided that

since my contact with this guy was going to minimal I could deal with it.Over the next month I was also hired to work at The Cool One 103.1 FM

WAKO in Lawrenceville, Illinois just over the river from Vincennes. It was verywelcomed break from the horseshit that I put with in Vincennes. Back to the ba-sics, small-town radio, intimate and humming out soft rock. The station was a tripback in time. The call letters beam a bright red WAKO, very nostalgic. Very classi-cally decorated, musty old radio station, which smells a little like farts and coffee.My job at WAKO was very much cool and relaxing. I did the audio engineering forthe Cubs games and inserted commercials. I was allowed to be on live if neededuntil 6pm and then it was Dick Clarks Rock Roll and Remember all the way until

sign off at 10pm. And I would be a liar if I didnt say I tipped a many bottles in theparking lot at WAKO. Sorry Kent, much love man.

The Corporation was very tightly run by Mr. Crazyass and he was rude andcrude to all the part-timers based on the fact we were all expendable. This man wasno broadcaster, he was a slick businessman that figured out he could gut the soulout of smalltown radio and then feast on the cold hard cash he charged businessesper commercial. Come to think of it I think he was an ass to pretty much everyone.My operations manager said that his day usually started with a bitch session byCrazyass concerning the reasons our stations suck. Paperwork was dutifullychecked and if there was a discrepancy in the commercials that wasnt noted that

was an almost unforgivable offense. The equipment was always screwing up for meand if the big brass happened to catch a commercial playing over a song he wouldcall and vaporize you on the phone. Wanting the best on air presentation is not abad thing. I wish more radio stations would focus in on their programming. But myboss in Vincennes was scary and it was foolish to try his patience.

I was amazed of the things they would sell. Things like time checks. Thistime check is brought to you Bongs and Dildoesit is now 3:02. What! Or the

weather sponsorsyou were expected to read a full forecast which normally takesabout thirty seconds, you also had to read a little clip about the sponsor of that

particular weather forecast. Still with me?All the while my classes were suffering. I would totally hate to sound dra-matic but up until that point broadcasting was a passion of mine. I took enormouspride in my job and it seemed like the more I stayed on board the more Mr.Crazyass was digging further and further into my skin. I begin to blow off classes, Icouldnt take working in radio and going to school for radio and have no time tosleep on the weekends because of radio.


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I got to feeling a little crazy. In January I informed the head office that I wasto quit. I wasnt sleeping well; I was pale, losing weight, drinking more. About anhour after I submitted my resignation, the head office called back. It was Dan, MrHiggason, Mr. Crazyass has decided to offer you a full time operations manage-

ment position at another station just south of Vincennes and with the job came acheap apartment to rent in the back half of another Victorian mansion. Being anoperations manager made me the immediate manager of the station they wanted tosend me to. I told them that I had to think about it. So I mulled for about an hourand eventually called my dad. He told me that it was what I wanted to do aftergraduation. Here was an instance were my experience overweighed my schooling. Ithought fuck it. Here is my chance to make a real impact on a station.

I found out that the company had recently acquired this station. You see thatwas the corporations m.o., find radio stations that were treading water financiallyand then snatch them up and re-vamp and retool the station. This particular sta-

tion had been bought and operated by the town back in the 1980s as a communitycooperative. The mayor in fact had been an interested party at one time. He stillcame in once a week to record his Chat with the Mayor program. In fact the cor-poration was kind enough to let one of the former owners stay on as the secretary.Eventually this lady resigned in tears.

When I arrived to take over duties I came to find that the stations files werein horrible shape. It was part of my job to straighten up the stations filing cabinets.

Almost immediately the head sales lady started trying to passive-aggressively sabo-tage me here and there. In good faith I made a fair run at the job. I reorganizedthe files and even fixed a computer glitch that had bugged them for a while.During my first meeting as operation manager with the head prick things did notgo well at all. Apparently I had forgotten to write down a commercial that didntget played. I told them that in the course of my morning and all the tasks I was ex-pected to I forgot to write it down. However that particular spot was played laterthen scheduled. Crazyass says, In the time it took you to come up with that excuseyou could have written it down. I was then informed that out of all the station inthe company my station was ahead $20,000 and everyone else was in the red. They

were going to take that money and devote it to the flagship station. So my stationreceived nothing. So needless to say things were not looking up. So one afternoon I

was sitting my office and the phone rings, its the corporation operations manager.He tells me that the corporation was planning on my moving my station to anempty studio about 45 minutes north of the town it was already in. I was told thatmum was the word. The plan would be announced after the final financials weresussed out.


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You know its true what they say about small towns, shit gets around. Aweek later I get phone calls from concerned area residents about the possible re-location. My answer was usually, Buh? I can assure you the station will never blah,blah, blah Finally, I was approached the mayor about the situation unraveling in

front of me. He asked that I be straight with him and personally I felt I owed it tohim to tell him the truth. By this time the sale was complete. Zero hour had comeand went. I told him that the physical broadcasting facility would in time be rippedout of this building and installed at a different location. In order to keep the stationlicense the shell of the former station would be maintained as a sales office. Hetold me he understood and wished me luck. I was thumbing through some oldpamphlets in my office and found a tourism guide for Pike County and pictured asa point of pride was the radio station. The picture showed at least 45 to 50 peo-ple all standing out in front of the radio station. For Petersburg, Indiana it wasntlong before their point of pride would be moved and that what would be left

would be a silent regular old building.About a month before the big move I officially turned in my resignation.

That afternoon when I returned from my shift I had bill from my boss taped to mydoor stating that if I wasnt out by Thursday that I would owe him $500, because I

was no longer an employee. If you havent been booted from The New Corpora-tion you havent been anywhere.

So I gathered as much stuff into my 92 Dodge Shadow and headed back tomy hometown. I spent the rest of the night making trips back and forth with theaide of a buddy that had a truck. We were drinking a fifth of Calverts and were lis-tening to Merle Haggard all night. About midnight, we cleared out the rest of myjunk. I threw my key, and my pager on the kitchen table, locked the door and left.

The next morning instead of training my replacement I spent it sleeping off a hor-rible whiskey drunk. The rats had beaten me. I had cast myself outside the gates.

Part Three: Splendid Isolation

It was March 6th, 2000. Devin and I finished the Calverts the next morningsitting in the truck, jammed it in gear and proceeded to make way. As we blewacross the Lincoln Memorial Bridge out of Vincennes and we hit the Illinois state

line I tossed a mental wad of dynamite out the passengers side window and imag-ined the structure crumbling. My desperation to get away was such that when mybed sheets blew out of the back of the truck I told Devin to drive faster. Seriously,I was certainly fucked, busted and broken. The experience, I felt had more or less

wrung me dry. That spring and summer was full of odd jobs. I managed to swing aposition at a local company that ran a lawn mowing crew.


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It was like rehab, I was outside everyday. I didnt have to be on time about everylittle detail. Of course I DO mean to be melodramatic here, it was very serene. Myfavorite day was when the crew, when I say crew I mean myself and hillbilly namedMurl, well every Wednesday we would get to mow the high school football field.

All day on the mower, tanning and just turning little circles. All that corporate mad-ness was a state away.

I was once told by a professor in broadcasting school that once you get ra-dio in your blood its hard to shake. I found this to be true. For me it was an addic-tion that lay dormant. Around September 2000 I was contacted by my former bossLil K from WAKO, he also owned a station in Newton Illinois called WIKK-FM.This he said, is exactly where you need to be Jeff. This is real radio. All live pro-gramming. Yes, being the arrogant prick I was/am, bought it. I bought it all. I wasthe 6 to midnight guy. This was perfect for me at the time, living by the rock and

roll all night, party every paycheck standard I did.Firstly, the station itself was weird. It had a strange vibe about it I could

never put my finger on. My office in the basement reminded me of porno set, fakeplants, bad furniture. The job was every thing Lil K said it would be. It was eve-rything I expected. Stinky egos, two low level functioners trying to run the station,the immediate station manager being very laissez faire about everything, she wasthe owners sister. These are the aspects of the job that they dont teach you aboutin broadcasting school.

The second thing I found a little odd but at the same time intriguing was thestations music format. I had a music log that I was to follow. The procedure was tomark out songs that got played. If you had someone phone in a request you simplyscratched out a song and wrote the request in its place and put a check mark by it.

The format was supposed to be what they call middle of the road, which meansthey are hitting every popular genre and putting it in heavy rotate. It was amazingthis station was more like weaving back and forth across the middle of the roadafter drinking a fifth of Rebel Yell. I would play Sometimes by Britney Spearsand have to follow it up by Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revivaland then some horrid thing by Celine Dion and then FOGHATIve made mypoint.

I was able to follow the playlist rule for about 2 weeks. I begin making myown requests. And you know I noticed that no one seemed to care! Soon I beganaveraging about 7 or 8 listener calls an hour. Hell, I had a lady come to the stationand MAKE me a fresh margarita for playing Jessies Girl! After about 5 months onthe job I began hearing rumors that the company was looking to sell the station.


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A sell that smelled a lot like the masterfully stinking horseshit The New Corpora-tion had been peddling in Indiana. Instinctive I knew the fun was coming to an endso I packed my stuff (my coffee mug that said WORLDS BEST DUDE) and hitthe road.

WDBX I CALL IT THE PROMISED LAND

I spent about three years in different jobs. Nothing to grand, those typicallow wages, low self esteem positions we all have to do. I soon migrated to Carbon-dale Illinois. I didnt go to enroll at SIU I went with my wife to get out of the ClayCounty area. I had spent my entire life in the place and it was dry, I would liken itsorganic flow through to that of Styrofoam. I wanted to go someplace where things

were going on. Maybe go sit on the pulse of a city with a defined heartbeat forawhile. Carbondale offered culture you dont get on the rusty buckle of the Bible

belt. In the time my wife and I lived in Carbondale we attended lectures and sum-mer concerts in the parkhippiesalbeit charge card hippiesbut hippies none-theless.

Our first night in our first apartment was primitive. Whoever had justmoved out decided to take the light bulbsso we had candles. The only entertain-ment we had apart from my hand puppet show was a crappy AM/FM radio. So Istarted dialing up stations. I zeroed in on a very, very amateurish sounding radioshow. The station ID was played and the program was coming from Carbondale.

WDBX-FM. Community Radio for Southern Illinois.

As my wife and I passed the last bit of pot we had back and forth we lis-tened on. It was a local hip hop show and the guests were apparently a local rapgroup. These guys were beyond fucked up for radio. It was the most interesting ra-dio I had really every heard. This was the first non-corporate station I had everheard.

I picked up a WDBX program guide at a local business and began checkingout different shows. There were Heavy Metal shows, punk shows, local interestnews type programs, socially informative shows, organic gardening tips there was a

fantastic variety and it was all community owned and operated. To me it was veryhumbling. It was a totally new concept to me. Community radio affords the aver-age listener the experience to become a programmer. All the Disk Jockeys were

volunteers, the station was solely owned by a very heavily community supportednon-profit organization. It belongs to the people.


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It took me about a year and a half to get the balls to walk in the WDBX of-fice and sign up for a show. The station manager was a very hip ol fellow by thename of Brian. I had to go through a simple application process and I had to do

what they called The Random Show. It was sort of a demonstration program. They

wanted to know exactly what a potential on air volunteer wanted to do.After my Random Show I was told that there was a lengthy waiting list for

primetime slots on the schedule, but he did however need to fill a 2am to 4am spoton Fridays. In light of my previous experience he offered it to me.

THE LATE NIGHT MUSIC THING

Now normally in your typical small Southern Illinois town at two o clock inthe morning there aint a creature stirring so to speak. But in a hopping collegehamlet like Carbondale some people are usually just getting started. The bars

closed at 2am. My hope was to catch these late night revelers as they were filinginto smoky, crowded living rooms to pass around a bong or a bottle and sit and re-lax and enjoy each others company after a long night at the bar. My hope was toalso catch them off guard. Hit them left and right with a carefullyOVERBLENDED amount of different music. The only rule was NO TOP 40,really nothing after 1999. The idea of the WIKK format stuck with me and I

wanted my listeners to be saying to themselves WHATis he going to playnext.

My first show at WDBX started with Compared To What by Les McCannand Eddie Harris.

GODDAMNITTRYING TO MAKE IT REAL COMPARED TO

WHAT?

When I kicked off that song it was like bringing a Boeing 747 up to fullthrust. There is an esoteric command one feels at the helm of a broadcasting con-sole. I cant describe it. Only those that have been there can relate. You feel power-ful, thousands of watts of you being spilled throughout the atmosphere. Someone

is always listening. My format was very Jackson Pollack. I would grab songs at ran-dom and try to figure out how to shift the mood unexpectedly. For example Iwould play some Hank William Sr and back it up with Hell Bent For Leather byJudas Priest, Deep Purple and follow up with The Fat Boys, scientifically.Backwhen I was horrifically abused by piped in satellite soft rock at a commercial sta-tion I complained to a station manager about the music and he said Remember

Jeff, every song is someones favorite song.


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So I was to play, more of everyones favorite songs. Being a fan of the manyshows on WDBX it was very endearing to know that the person had constructedtheir program for you, the interested listener.

After dragging myself to the station at 1:30 in the morning for two months I

was offered the Midnight to 2am slot. Hey, now this was primetime!In the meantime I ran into a very kindred musical spirit by the name of Joe. Now

Joe was a man of few words. But he had a very expanded musical vocabulary. Iasked to join up and there he was. I would talk and he would mumble. Joe is whatcould be best described as a philosopher. No matter what the situation he has wis-dom for you. I made up a segment on the show where every week we would fea-ture one of Joes deep thoughts. He drove himself crazy that week, running around

with a little notebook jotting down thoughts. The night of the show we talked itup. I found some very Olympian sounding orchestra music, I said, Ladies andGentlemen Philosophy Joe I ran down the music, pointed at Joe and Joe froze.

I started a song and said You said it all buddy.WDBX was a great time; it was a great thing for me. Everything local radio

should be. It showed me that some that amazing could exist. To me it was a livingbreathing organism and it had a good heart.

I drifted back up home after about two years in Carbondale. I landed a parttime job at the local corporate owned station. The station manager seemed to tryand talk me out of the job. I told him I just wanted to operate the equipment. Inessence I was back to square one. I was engineering local sports, major league base-ball. The station seemed to be a ghost town. It had all these offices but no one wasin them. We had an on air staff of five or six. Totally computerized. It wasntalive. Eventually I had my hours cut severely and I had to resign. I took a jobmanaging a local bait shop.

OLNEY FREE RADIO

In April of 2007 a group of interested citizens took the initiative andplanned the Olney Free Radio Project which was basically a group of interestedcitizens committed to bringing a non-profit community owned Low Power FM(LPFM) station to Olney Illinois. Our organization promoted the idea of commu-

nity radio; we formed a board of directors and began planning our radio station.At the time the OFRP started the federal window for applying for a LPFMstation license was closed and closed for an indeterminate amount of time. Thequestion I was most asked when promoting the idea was Why do we need anotherradio station? We had the facts, we had the figures, what we lacked was interest.

The Olney Free Radio Project folded due to lack of community interest.


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In the time since the OFRP disbanded I have taken more and more notice of sto-ries in the news about community radio activism, specifically Low Power FM radio.People have started taking notice that in small towns around America communitygroups have awaken to the possibly of solidifying the notion that local radio can

indeed be local radio.A normal FM radio station usually transmits thousands of watts; the highest

I have ever worked with was 50,000 watts. Radio stations with that much power be-hind them require expensive equipment and obviously use a lot of electricity. Basedon my experience general operating costs can run uncomfortably near a milliondollars annually.

Low Power Stations are relatively inexpensive to set up. LPFM stationstransmit at 10 to 100 watts; with this amount of power a station can cover a radiusof about 3 to 4 miles. Now with the case of LPFM the basic broadcasting equip-ment that consists of the transmitter and the antenna can generally cost about

$5000. The monthly operating costs can be compared to that of a single house-hold. The real trick is finding a building, honestly.

In December of 2009 the House Of Representatives approved the Commu-nity Radio Act and it brought new hope to many people across our country who

want to take that step to make community radio a possibility in their hometowns.Since then the Community Radio act has added literally hundreds of new stationsto hometowns across America. The fun part is that you can get involved. The ideaof tuning into a radio station whose newscast isnt the same a the newscasts youhear on other commercial stations. It is truly humbling. All programming on LPFMis designed by people you know.

For those interested in radio activism and wish to play by the rules (believeme I know, rules sucks, but read on), simply form a group of interested people inyour town, and make a nonprofit organization that will own the station. Put to-gether a board of directors and prepare for some fundraising. In other words, you

will become a non-profit corporation (or if that word is too icky, a communitypartnership) that is the owner/operator of a low power non-commercial radio sta-tion. There will be a lot of little hoops to jump through, but dont worry little dog-gie, itll be the best biscuit you ever ate. Those people you elect for your board ofdirectors have to be local residents and they have to be the kind of people that can

handle business situations well. Getting a person that knows something about grantwriting is a very big plus. 99.9 percent of getting your organization up and aboutwill be the cash flow. Fundraising will be your watchword and your mantra. Afteryou establish yourself as a legal non-profit organization, you can not only holdevents in town to raise money, you can apply for federal grants.


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Depending on your plans for the station after you cover your costs of the licensesand fees (which isnt much in the grand scheme of things), you can start off bybuilding a very low rent studio (as I like to call it). As you organization builds mo-mentum by community support and ongoing fundraising initiatives such as on air

telethons, you can build the station of your dreams.

Documents

My Journey Through Radio