During the mid to late 90's, I was a dj on the super-cool Santa Monica public radio station, KCRW. I filled in hosting a number of shows, most frequently Metropolis, Jason Bentley's show. In 1999, I finally got my very own overnight show, Wednesday nights, which I named The Other Side.
For about a year and a half I hosted this program on Wednesday nights, midnight to 3 am. It's some of the best radio work I've done, outside of my 8 to midnight slot on KERA 90.1 at night in Dallas in the early 90's.
"Real" djs who pick their own music are virtually extinct in today's corporate radio soundscape. At KERA (in Dallas), I fell in love with public radio and the freedom it brought---to talk like a human being instead of an Announcer, with all the weird announcer inflections commercial radio demands; and to string together music of every type, from alternative and indie pop to jazz, folk, classical, soundtrack, electronica, world music, gospel, and good old rock and roll. There's shamefully little of this kind of creative mix on the radio anywhere in the country. I came to KCRW specifically because of the music. As a reformed commercial radio person, I loved every minute in public radio.
In 2000, my afternoon announcer gig at the station expanded to include news, traffic, and a higher-profile local host spot. This meant I began spending a huge amount of time in the KCRW basement, and something had to go. I was really liking the news, and it was my bread and butter; so I did something not many people on KCRW do----resigned voluntarily if regretfully from the Wednesday night show. I loved all parts of my job, but needed a life outside of the basement.
After that, I plunged into the afternoon hosting position and never did dj again. But I have many of these shows on tape, and I _will_ do a music show on radio again. Not sure where when or how. Maybe when I get a home studio set up....what a fabulous fantasy! As Vinx said on 'Rooms in My Father's House,'
"in the night...the DJ is the law."
There's nothing like the feeling of playing music knowing that out there in the night, in the lighted windows and in cars shooting along the lonely highways, YOU are playing the music.
It felt almost shamanic and amounted, for me, to entering a state of grace at times. At no time on the radio have I ever felt more like I was contributing more to the world, through sound.
I named my show "The Other Side" with the thought of it being the other side of midnight, the flip side of a daytime vibe----dark, moody, otherworldly, with plenty of open spaces and room to think or dream or sleep or talk.
In the fall of 2000, radio dramatist and storyteller Joe Frank came back to KCRW to do a show. He wanted the name "The Other Side" for his new series; the boss had told him he would have to ask me about that, because then I would have to change the name of my show.
So I changed the name of my program. I was flattered, because Joe was a mentor who shaped my thinking about sound possibly more than any other single radio personality. He never gets anywhere near enough credit for his influence, and he was one of the reasons KCRW was such an amazing and phenomenal place. Anyway, I knew Joe listened to my show at night, and he would often call to ask what I was playing. Or we would just talk. The reason Joe Frank is completely unlike any other radio storyteller is that he knows how to listen in a way that radio people often do not shut up enough to do. That was maybe the most important lesson he taught me. I used to live on Pt. Dume in Malibu, and I would walk the beaches, or the streets, or sit on the beach drawing, watching the surfers bobbing in the swells, and listening to Frank's shows on headphones. I must have copied almost all of them to cassette in the mid to late 90's. I still have most of them, though I haven't listened in so long, and really should again sometime. Music has been helping most lately, at this writing November 2009. I am thinking a lot about the station this past week. Last Saturday evening, I took out an Olympus recorder and spontaneously (well, after a few puffs of the peace pipe) started talking about KCRW. I haven't done that before. Then, on Tuesday I think, I learned my former boss, Ruth Seymour, was stepping down after 32 years as Dominatrix of KCRW. I've thought about the station more than I really wanted to, this week. So, regarding the name of my program, people asked me, "Why would you let him take the name of your show?" Because I got so much from his, and it was the least I could do.
So from then on my show was called "The Signal" and the aesthetic of it changed to something different, more upbeat and less moody. It really became a different show.
I have many of these shows on tape and I think they are some of the best work I've ever been able to do on radio, so I'm proud of them. You will see in my show archives both "The Other Side" and "The Signal" depending on the date of the program.
The other radio job that I remember fondly was the nighttime d.j. slot (8 to mid) at KERA 90.1 in Dallas, in the early 90's.
Radio stations are controlled by corporate interests, with profit and stock price the main consideration---not creativity and community spirit. KCRW is one of those rare public radio stations that gives djs latitude to play what they want, and as a result has some of the greatest and the only "real" djs on the planet. They stream live through the night and you can also podcast the late-night shows anytime online. KCRW.com.
I left KCRW's airwaves in 2005 due to a little disagreement with management. These shows are long over, but maybe the music can live on here, just a little bit. There's so much good music that should be heard somehow, somewhere. So here's my contribution.
-Cindi Burkey
the Show With No Name (fill-in host to unassigned airshift) approx. 90 minutes
(KERA 90.1 fans will like this one...virtually no electronica)
circa 1999