8:26 is when I Sit Down

This is my second to last Radio Free Current shift before I move on to become host at KBEM Jazz88 in Minneapolis. I thought I’d lift the hood on Radio Free Current and my emotions right now.

I like to stand up when I DJ. But right around 8:26 most Saturday nights I sit down for about five minutes and get re-centered. They’ll be another rush of calls maybe at 9:15 but between 8:30 and 9:15 it’s more of an email affair and a little more mellow. I look at how the show is going so far. . .am I going down a rabbit hole? Am I stuck in an era? Are the rotation songs fitting with the theme songs? Are there songs I’m skipping for no good reason?

I feel emotional tonight cause it’s the second to last night I’ll be the host on Radio Free Current. This is a gig I slid into unexpectedly. Dave Campbell (dear friend, broadcast legend, someone who stuck is neck out for me at The Current and showed me the ropes, I’ve tried to do the same for folks walking in the door since I got a couple years under my belt), he quit fast and within maybe six weeks I was behind the boards on Saturday night. It’s quite possible in the mind of most staff that the two hardest shifts to pull off from the technical view of things at the Current are the Morning Show and Radio Free Current. Granted, Jill and Jade were doing the heavy lifting during my early era on the Morning Show, but that’s high pressure cause Morning Radio is a big deal.

There’s nothing better than getting tossed into the fire. You learn fast, you fail loudly. In my early years at the Current friends would go “it’s great to get to listen to you learning how to do radio”. I knew it was serious, but I knew it wasn’t a compliment. It hurt cause I wanted to be good right away, but I wasn’t. But I kept on getting better. I accepted a whole bunch of critiques. I had made the mistake of my 20s for confusing success with talent. Heiruspecs was doing good, in fact by some measures we were doing great. . .but I didn’t have my fundamentals down as a bassist. I didn’t grind hard to improve the shortcomings. I thought if the formula was working, the formula was right. I haven’t made that mistake with radio. I’ve practiced styles I would never use, formats I wouldn’t excel at. I took every shot they gave me at MPR. And I’ve gained better radio muscles than I’ve ever possessed on the bass.

And the crucible was Radio Free Current. The crucible was faking it til I made it on artists I didn’t know, front-selling a set of music that I had already played, reading all the underwriting for the 7am-10am hours instead of the PM. I made all the mistakes and now the show rules. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. That doesn’t mean the next person who takes this shift won’t blow me out of the water, but I know good radio and I know shit radio. I’ve made both. This is good radio.

And I’m scared to leave it because I feel so connected to this shift. I love talking to the folks who request songs. I know there’s plenty of people who listen and don’t request, but I just feel this energy different from a regular shift on The Current. When I’m pressing play on songs I know we’re sharing the adventure together. There are people who think in the Spotify era request radio makes no sense. . .you can play what you want immediately who cares about the radio? I understand that those people have never looked at a sunrise and had a song just appear that they hadn’t heard in twenty years. I know the people who don’t understand request radio have never smiled for no reason. Request radio isn’t for logical people, it’s for the magic people and I love the magic people.

I broke one of the good rules today and played Heiruspecs. That’s the band I play in, can’t really imagine you reading this blog and not knowing that but here I am talking too much. It’s good that people can’t play their own music on the radio. It’s tacky. But I’m one week away from moving on from this gig. I’m ready for tacky. But playing Heiruspecs tonight on the radio, it made my night and I know it at least made Andy Holmaas’s night too. He’s the friend who requested it. I’ve lived a small, magical life making cool indelible memories for a shockingly small amount of people. Regional and magical. And now I’m past the age where you’re supposed to be cool, but I’m cool. I get some love from the younger generation of movers and shakers. Part of that is because I have been entrusted with a platform. But the other thing is that I have used that platform well, I have supported promising artists and found new avenues to get more music to potential listeners. And I’m a joy to be around. So back to my head in my hand and Heiruspecs on the speakers. I feel good about life. I have a wonderful family. I work a job that is cooler than I can possibly imagine and I am leaving that job for one that feels even better to me for my career goals and my musical proclivities. God damn I love that word proclivity. And it’s like I just see little windows of the joy I feel overall about my life. Because everyday there are things to do. Today I bought a car, I drove it home fast, to eat lunch, to start naps, to go to Target, to get a gift card for the family that let us borrow the car, to come home, to marinate the chicken, to warm the pitas, to empty the recycling, to empty the garbage, to load the dishes, to park downstairs, to forget your charger, to pick the music, to read the underwriting. And then at some point you are hearing music you worked really hard on about 19 years ago blast out of speakers at a station you grew up listening to and you breathe different.

For the past 48 hours people I know and don’t know have been saying really nice things to me. They say they’ll miss hearing me on the Current, they say they’re excited to hear me on KBEM. I can’t address every person on social media, not because I don’t have time, god I will cancel anything on my calendar to read nice things about me on the internet, but it gets so vomitty when you see a person who has decided to every person who reaches them. It just gets annoying. But I’m responding to every email. It means so much that people care. I care about who is on the radio. I was there losing my shit when Bob Collins signed off with Mary Lucia. I remember hearing Jade crack the mic for the first time at 10am after The Current let Barb Abney go. A great DJ becomes your friend who you don’t know, that’s pretty amazing. Getting all this positive feedback is amazing, and it’s why people stay on social media forever, hoping they’ll hit a vein and find a sea of people who love them. I’ve tried to stay off of these sites, and as the praise and enthusiasm dries up I’m left with deciding if I love myself. When Heiruspecs’ song played tonight I was able to realize I can tell myself I’ll miss me at this station. I’m proud of the work I’ve done on the Current. I’m proud of the way I connected The Current, YourClassical and MPR News socially. I am proud of the work I did with The Current unionizing (we are unionized and I am soon to be a former member of the Union bargaining committee). I was hear for a significant chunk of time and I made a significant contribution.

I remember being in the photos for the Current’s Ten Year Anniversary and holiday card. A lot of the folks marking the tenth anniversary had been around from very close to day one. It was on that day that I said I would throw myself into my work at the Current and my life at MPR. I served on committees, I volunteered for things. I studied our output even if I wasn’t purely involved. I wanted to make sure that I was putting in the work that I could be proud of on the day that I leave. I wanted to make sure I had helped the station be even better in my opinion. I’m proud and I’ll miss me at this station. And being able to really say that to myself feels amazing.

It’s time to go home. It’s 12:12am and it’s been a long week and right around now I head home and crash.