Firstly come the musings, because I’m a coward on the air and can’t seem to get my tongue to produce commentary. It starts like this. Every Saturday morning, I wake up and stretch and hop in my little Corolla and I drive down River Road surrounded by early morning fog that dissipates faster than my nerves. I swipe my security card because I’m not affiliated with the University, and I go through the motions of preparing the studio for the next eleven shows ahead of mine. The lights embedded into the twenty-foot ceiling flicker on with a low, steady buzz and the dust particles probably wish me a good morning, but I don’t understand them despite being fluent in behavioral residue.
The last minute before my show starts is critical. I'm overcome with a reptilian calculation, suspending both animation and disbelief. I take the station out of prerecorded programming, play our little announcement, and immediately dive into my first track. Those thirty seconds are physical and grounding. Sometimes they're the most analog moments in a world drowning in automation. My heart still thumps in my chest every time it happens, but by the first chorus I'm grinning ear to ear and bouncing around. I trust myself. I trust the process. I breathe in, greet the energy in the atmosphere. The hundreds of machines and components of the studio equipment that are just like me; we're in it together.
And time flies.
I’ll tell you a little secret: I never wanted to be a DJ. Much like I never wanted to be the lead singer. I’ve been enraptured in the chest-swell of music since I discovered Christian grunge. It gripped the collar of my shirt, and it’s never let go. I’m the puny wimp, too aloof to sit at the back of the bus. Tracklists crowd over me, their arrangement a trading card squabble. The history of their production runs like thread, attaching itself to my hip until we’re one and the same. I’m the kid brother in reverent awe—I’ve pretty much always had this relationship to music. Who can blame me?
Sometime, somewhere came live shows and local bands that turned into friends with fancy amps and free merch. I found my footing and learned how to start pits by just a few provocative shoulder nudges. There was one [redacted for future networking] concert during which the guitarist shredded in my face song after song in brutal chemistry, and then pulled me up on stage to play in front of a hundred(?) probably hopefully slightly buzzed people.
I can’t explain the high that came over me. Suddenly, after twenty-one years, I understood Adoration. I couldn’t play a single riff—three strings were broken, and I hadn’t mastered power chords—but I tried to keep up with the band. One by one, they left the stage. It was just me and my flopping fish of a heart. I tried to stop playing, the crowd cheered me on. I tried to be creative and original. Yet I didn’t care if I was bad. The lights were so bright, I should’ve come to my knees. Instead I eventually hopped off the set, got free merch from the boyfriend-turned-tour-manager, and had an awkward post-show smoke break with the guitarist that was obviously looking to score and mistook me for a groupie.
Once more—I couldn’t care. The matter was settled. The seed planted.
Fate had given me a toe-curling taste.
As my confidence grew, I began to explore stepping into the role of creator. Lyrics don’t come easy; even as I attempt to parse my own anger and hopeless pursuits, language fails again and again. Technical skills display an even greater fault and my lack of commitment shines brighter than all my crazy scheming. I call myself a guitarist and drummer, but my hands grow weak at the call to action. I consider myself a ball of fire, but most who know me would consider me the type-A bookish workaholic with a stick up their ass. I revolve my life around music, but I’m afraid to take the plunge.
So when it came to College Radio, I knew I wanted in. It's low stakes, which is a descriptor not often afforded to jobs in the industry.
I sat through four or five months of training and felt not only like the past-expiration milk carton of a college dropout that I am … but also this awkward, growing desire to be broadcast on the air. With each meeting it eroded my resolve until I was feverish with it.
Listen, we all love to hear ourselves talk and propagate. Remember what I said earlier about behavioral residue? I personally gravitate toward long assailing essays detailing the atomic mechanisms of my heart that obviously no one else can relate to because the patent is spelled out on my sleeve. It’s only natural to nurture the idea of subjecting others to not only the AUX that’s been passed to you, but an entire FM radio tower for an entire fucking hour.
The one condition was: I just don’t want to talk. I want to remain silent and aloof and a wallflower, scouring the room with a discerning eye. It doesn’t help that what got me into radio in the first place was the amount of WASP-y mom comments telling me that my voice was fit for radio—a solid up from face. It’s like being cursed with beauty—you’re full of yourself; just shut up already and play the part.
Needless to say (and I’m sparing the gory details) my first radio show commenced with tears and the gnashing of teeth. I remembered everything but my laptop charger and had to improv on the fly. Dead air would have been more pleasant to drown in; instead I floundered with a clinical lack of technical prowess to harness my ideas. My mic bed didn’t contrast with my meek, virginal squeaks. My father slept through the Megadeth track I played specifically for him and so I subjected an indefinite number of people to Gen X metal for no reason.
Ah, fuck, where’s the moral?
I decided to commit to my future in the music industry today. I sent emails (gasp) and took an open time slot so my little show will get two hours instead of one this week. I’m on a committee. I threw together the setlist(s) and they’ve been playing in the background as I type this out. Strangely, this responsibility doesn’t feel so heavy. I want to shoulder it.
I’m already practicing my mic breaks. I have my stack of CDs at the ready. My mind’s the weapon, heart’s the extra clip. It isn’t fun or exciting or rewarding to sit on the bleachers or wait for others to take the leap. So many quips and dad advice, so little time.
Every Saturday morning, I wake up before sunrise and roll out of bed and get to take part in something larger than myself. It’s a privilege I can’t take for granted. I like to play New Jersey hardcore and (sometimes) washed out bands that once played in the same New Brunswick basements that I frequent. During one of my last song introductions, I incorrectly tried to describe the track as “the feeling I get when I go through the Turnpike turnstile” (that would clothesline my car btw). But I described it as a tribute to Exit Nine, because that’s where I heard it for the first time that my best friend and I were coming home from our trip up North.
I like to collect songs like river stones; I like to picture the water parting around my calves. Sometimes I’m chest high in the rush of signals over the air … giving up my blood to put in the radio. If only to skew the genetic makeup, if only to make it mine. There’s an intensity I can’t describe, but sometimes it’s okay to let understanding emerge from silence.
Say less.
So to speak.
xopt
