Tips for college radio DJing

after a while, i found a drink or two before (or during) my show always helped the cause.

Try to strike a balance between professionalism and college dudeness. I hate it when college djs take the not-trying thing too far and do nothing but say "uh" and "yeah" breathe heavily into the microphone. On the other hand, don't try to sound like a "pro" DJ cause you'll just sound like an ass "AllRIIIIIGHT that was the SHINNNNNNNNS off their new album!"

Also, don't bring your "friends" on the show unless they also know a thing or two about radio. And ESPECIALLY don't have them in the studio off mic and then talk to them on air so that we can only hear you and not your friend.

one thing i think is important is not using your show to showcase your taste (good or bad) in artists or genres. those freeform shows are indistinguishable from pop shows. instead, develop an aesthetic instead.

if you aren't excited and surprised by what you are doing, reconsider it.

talk should be applied minimally and patterned.

freeform is the best

This is the most awesomely representative mid-2000's schmindie song title ever. I never want to hear it and spoil the perfect impression I already have in my head of it.

Do this:
"That was 'Sky Saw' by Brian Eno off his classic Another Green World. Y'know Phil Collins plays drums on that track. Up next is some brand new stuff by Wolf Parade, it's called "In The Frown" on WBTZ."

Not this:
"That was Mission Of Burma with "Acadamy Fight Song." I just saw their reuinion show, it was pretty good. I mean, they had the Shellac guy doing tapes, so you get what you pay for. I had a good time though. I met this girl there who said that Moby did a Mission Of Burma cover, and i didn't believe her. So I downloaded it last night, and it's a pretty solid cover of 'That's When I Reach For My Revolver.' I mean, solid for Moby. He's been pretty weak as of late. But whatever, it was pretty cool. Apparantly the label made him do a clean version too, and his favorit fan suggestion was "That's When I Reach For My Chihuahua." I meant to bring a copy of the CD to play tonight, but I left it at home. But anyway. Mission Of Burma. Good live. Go see them. If you have the chance. Up next is a new one from Airborn Audio, which is two of the guys from the late, great Antipop Consortium. I'm not sure of their names, but it's not Beans, who I just saw opening for Tortoise in between shows they were doing for Daniel Lanois. This is their first CD. And it's self-titled. And I really like this song. It's called... [fumbling]... what is it called? [fumbling] Oh yeah, "Inside The Globe." So here it is. "Inside The Globe" by Airborn Audio. And hopefully after that, my pizza will come, because I'm really hungry. Airborn Audio. On WBTZ."

Some things to think about:

Record your show. Listen back to your microphone breaks to hear how you sound, and to critique your delivery. That's most important from my point of view. Also, listen to your transitions between songs. Think about whether you like them or not. May I ask, are you just gonna stick this in as an MP3 playlist or are you actually mixing sources? Does your station have a library that you can play stuff from when insomniacs call you up and request stuff?

Also, just play what you like. That's what freeforem is about. Although if there are a lot of other DJ's playing the same things as on your playlist (which I like, BTW) you might want to devote a whole show to playing stuff you've never heard.

2. Yep, record the show. You really want to get a sense of how you sound- both your voice and your flow.

3. Yep, make the sets 3 to 5 tracks and let the listeners know what you played without going on to long. Find old John Peel recordings- He tell the next track, plays two more, then tells you the last three tracks and a factoid about the most obscure of them. Repeat. Free form radio listeners really what to know what they're hearing, and really want to hear something they know nothing about.

OTM. You'll be amazed at how doing this once every month or two even will dramatically improve yr presentation. Other than that, have fun. Remember that the station is doing you as much a service by giving you airtime as you're doing the station a service by filling said airtime.
Unless you have something important to say, try to keep your in-between song banter to 45 seconds or less. If people are tuning in between 4 and 6:30 a.m. (and probably that last hour will get a healthy amount of early-risers), they're tuning in for the music, not because they want to join your cult of personality.

Also if you can find some good hour long tracks==nap time!

Also, review this if you have not done so already:

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail120.html

They were basically an earlier incarnation of Antibalas, which is a bunch of New York guys -- one or two of whom may originally be from Nigeria. A lot of them were also on other Desco (now defunct) releases and I think a lot of that stuff got picked up/switched over to Daptone.

otm. it can be comforting at first, but after a while a pre-written playlist will stress you out.

i did a lot of slots in the 12 - 6am timeframe, and while it's true that you probably won't have many listeners you've also got a significant amount of responsibility in that you're going to be the only person at the station. show up on time to relieve the previous dj, and always wait around for the next one or his/her sub to show up no matter how late it is and no matter how tired you are and no matter how many finals you've got later that day. also, do some training with a senior staff person on emergency situations. it probably won't happen, but i found it increased my general confidence to know that if something went on the fritz i'd know what to do.

I am a vocoder, a synthetic voice...

Put a record on a turntable, then stick a CD player on top of that, making the record skip at specific moments. Mix music in and out of that. It's called AUDIO COLLAGE and is a staple of college radio. If the DJ after you doesn't show up, turn everything off or put on a long compilation or mix CD. Don't make a record skip on purpose then go home.

Lauren, are/were you on WMBR by any chance?

1. find out what your station's rules are regarding obscenity. this is important because your songs might have swears in them or somehow violate FCC rules. some stations are so lax that it leaves me dumbstruck, but at WPRB we are very strict about what can be played and when.

2. decide on how long you want your sets to be. short sets are usually 3-4 songs, longer ones are 4-6.

3. don't forget to read your playlist back at the break. i usually start from the most recently played song to the first, but some folks like to do it the other way around. its up to you.

4. always get to the station 30 minutes to 1 hour before your scheduled to go on, so that you will have ample time to pull records, check the logs for any ids/commericals you may have to do; in general, use this time to get prepared.

5. don't play a band's station id unless you are playing the band doing the id right after you play their station id.

6. if there are friends or visitors in the studio, keep them quiet during your breaks. ask them to keep quiet before you go on mic. nothing sounds lamer than chairs squeaking or people having extraneous conversations in the background while the dj is talking. i like i give my friends a one minute warning before going on-air.

7. do not use radio/station jargon like "psa", "new emph", etc on the air. no one listening has any clue as to what you're talking about.

8. dont mention your classes or school on the air. your station may be part of the university, but not all listeners are students and they couldn't care less about your schoolwork.

9. avoid dead air. don't say um. never apologize for anything on-air.

10. always record your show. this will help you only become a better dj.

as for your playlist, play whatever you want, freeform be damned!

that said, here's my tip: DON'T TAKE ANY EXECUTIVE STAFF POSITIONS OTHER THAN PROGRAM MANAGER BECAUSE IT'S THE ONLY FUN ONE. Well, music director's all right because industry plankton have to kiss your undergraduate geeky wuss ass, which is tragicomic for a whole host of reasons. However, under no circumstances should you become General Manager because it's at that exact point that you realize - you know all those things you like about your station? They're precisely why it's unmanageable! And soon you want to die.

Maybe it's a regulation at your radio station, but the FCC hasn't said anything about it.

5. don't play a band's station id unless you are playing the band doing the id right after you play their station id.

I don't get this one either.

if i worked at a radio station i think the publicity & promotions gig would be the best.

The playlist you posted is a good start, but don't lash yourself to it. Pull those records, but after a few songs in, you'll get ideas for what you'll want to play next.

Learn to program for vibe & flow. Learn to mix and transition between songs.

I was a DJ at WCBN in Ann Arbor, a freeform station, and some of the djs thought it the height of hilarity to do as much wacky head-yanking as possible. Others played 3 hours of jam bands.

and New Order is fine anytime.

(does anyone else have anxiety dreams about dead air? I've long gotten over my "it's midterms and you never went to class" type dreams but for some reason "you're still rummaging the album stacks and the last song ended five minutes ago" is still in rotation ... )

"program director never sounded like fun"

might be differences in terminology here, at the station I worked at (KCOU at university of missouri) the program director was the head of the music directors, who had final say on what went into and out of rotation (we weren't 100% freeform, more like 75%). the nuts and bolts of scheduling and subbing was a different job, operations director I think.

Chief Announcer hired and scheduled the DJs. We called the Operations Director anytime that lightening hit the transmitter.

- KCOU alum, 1992-94!

I figured someone would come out of the woodwork but I thought it would take more than 2 responses ....

ha! constantly. And it's been 10 years since I did a radio show. Sad.

don't say um.
don't say um.
don't say um.
don't say um.
don't say um.
don't say um.
don't say um.
don't say um.
don't say um.

Damn, I think I break this rule every week.

I did play plenty of loud music, but I would have plenty of longer sets of dreampop/shoegazer/dark americana/etc

Tho i've heard that my station has gone even more to shit since after I left, so there's that.

Also, if your radio station is on a dry campus, hide your bottles. one of my friends had the habit of chucking his empty booze containers into the drop ceiling and behind the wall.

wwwwhat is a dry campus?

http://www.alamoflag.com/alamoflag/Images/SportFlags/ncaa/printed_flags/tulane_full.jpg

Don't be intimidated by the microphone. Lots of new DJ's freeze when they get that thing stick near their face or start to sound like the teacher in Peanuts Cartoons (blahblahblahBLAH blah),try to talk like your having a fun conversation with friends (sans obsenities)and keep your voice as clear as possible.

And for all you jocks on the Eastern side of the US doing top of the hour live station IDs

SAY "DOUBLE-U" NOT "DUBYA"

The station I DJed at is pretty free-form, in that you can play whatever you want and don't really have to stick to any themes. Often you'd hear the same stuff all the time, over and over. It seemed like the people who had shows often aren't into music as much as they are into having a radio show. There was a lot of repetion and not a lot of interesting stuff - lots of "this is what I heard on my local 'alternative' station a few years ago when I was in high school".

I'm not saying I was all that good at it, but I'd try to roughly plan out an hour or so, often on a particular genre that I felt wasn't represented that well on other shows. I'd leave the other hour for spur-of-the-moment stuff, things from the new bin, and things I was interested in hearing but hadn't heard before.

band station id's: the reasoning behind this is obvious. why play a specific band id then a song by a completely different band? im sure that somehow you could argue its false advertising but deep down, we just know you're screwing with the listener. and thats never cool.

three song plays: pleasant plains, as long as your classic rock station isnt simultaneously streaming over the internet, sure, they can play as many songs as they want. the ruling is relatively new and not well known -- we only heard about it a couple months ago. i used to throw on compilation records if i needed a break during marathon shows [ie, where i covered for 3+ hours], now im just gonna have to be more clever about it.

drinking: if you feel like getting yourself fined and putting the station in trouble, go ahead. but that just seems really irresponsible and selfish. isnt half the fun of being on the air the rush you get from knowing its happening live? thats why i cant latch onto podcasts. being drunk on the air would dull that rush for me, plus there's the chance that id unexpectedly drop a swear or say something mean about someone on the air.

talking: i second keeping the long pointless stories off the air. unless you're doing talk radio, just read through the playlist, do your commericals and public service announcement and get back to the music.

picking out music: i have a method for this that helps eliminate a lot of anxiety over not knowing what to play yet preserve the spontaneity that a radio show should have. i feel overwhelmed when i look at 40-50 records at once, so i break my records down into groups of six [1 group per 30 minutes on the air]. rather than deal with a huge amount of records, im dealing with 6-8 and then just try to figure out what i want to play from that.

each group has my show requirements [ie, new stuff, local musc, etc.] so i can get them done in an efficient manner. also, i dont wind up blowing my load by playing all the good stuff at the beginning of a show or forget to play a bunch of things. considering that i take a train ride that's nearly two hours to do my show, i dont get a lot of time to hang out with the collection in the way student djs can, a little advance planning makes the time worthwhile.

Wrong. That's like saying that running a LeBron James "I Love This Game on TNT!" i.d. during a Lakers/Heat game would be unethical.

three song plays: pleasant plains, as long as your classic rock station isnt simultaneously streaming over the internet, sure, they can play as many songs as they want. the ruling is relatively new and not well known -- we only heard about it a couple months ago. i used to throw on compilation records if i needed a break during marathon shows [ie, where i covered for 3+ hours], now im just gonna have to be more clever about it.

Post a copy of that ruling on here, if you'd like. That would be news to the station PD, who's so meticulous that he excised all the curse words from the songs and won't play Bob Dylan songs because they're published by someone outside of ASCAP/BMI.

Otherwise, it's gonna be Minute by Minute by the Doobie Bros tonight at eleven.

what kind of defense is this? you're making me laugh over here, pal.

if your station wants to run any old band id they want, good for them. but most people run band id's that match the upcoming song.

Two hour commute! That is some dedication.

if i owned a car, its only 45 minutes away.

lets see, i did a morning show for a semester and it was banned from being broadcast in the library and cafeteria. the school paper called my show the howard stern of college radio...my morning show was canned for the next semester. next sememster i did the 12-2am alternative show...it wasn't freeform but i made it freeform...that lasted one sememster too. third semester i called the professor a bald fuck...that was the end of Johnny Bravo as we knew it.

awesome.

that was the term i found i couldn't sleep in my car too well. things have since changed.

also, it's helpful to have a hand in booking a local performance space. I got more than a few shows together by emailing some bands who'd sent stuff, then having them open for locals.

if you really want to maximize things, have a show, booking control, and a byline in the local rag. You can book a fave band, interview them for later(or live) broadcast, then write up a preview bit from the tape for cash. hooray!

-- ZR (teenagequie...), December 15th, 2005.

OMG this is exactly what happened to me!

DJ to Program Director to General Manager to Nervous Breakdown....

You cannot go wrong playing any of the following bands on college radio, ever:

Jesus Lizard
Spacemen 3
Os Mutantes
The Smiths
Bad Brains
My Bloody Valentine
something laying around the station you've never heard (I agree with posts upthread)

Led Zeppelin, "In My Time of Dying"
John Coltrane, "Greensleeves"
Clay Allison (Opal), "Fell From the Sun"

17 U.S.C. 114(j)(13) defines the "sound recording complement," a/k/a maximum number of "sound recordings" that can be played by a single artist (or from a single LP/CD/CS or compilation/box set) during specified periods in webcasts that qualify for an automatic copyright license to use those recordings.

It gets pretty murky, but you're generally safe if you stick to no more than two tracks in a row by the same artist (or three in a row off the same compilation set) during a three hour period, with no further repeats of the same bands during your show. That means each DJ should be checking the playlist of the preceding DJ or two to avoid repeating artists -- but that's also a good DJ practice (in addition to a legal requirement for webcasting).

grumpy by birth, DJ by choice, attorney by training
http://murphy.blogs.com/

damn i am blessed since college radio in the boston area is generally pretty good and i appreciate it so much but FUCK some of these djs need some lessons. this shit annoys me to no end:

-concert reports that are like 30 fucking minutes long. "band a is playing at venue x, band b at venue y, band c at venue z.........." just fucking say the concert report is on your goddman website.
-playlists that are like 45 minutes long and when you finally read off the playlist it is basically meaningless because nobody remembers what was played 45 minutes ago
-djs that are like "um.....this...was off...um...a 7-inch......um.....from.....band x.....um......um......i'm going to play...um.....a song...umm....from......their...um....first album"
-playlists that have utterly no continuity, like some gorgeous obscure disco track from 1980 followed by cloud nothings

that is all, otherwise i have mad respect for turning me on to a lot of good music.

i wasn't very good at radio DJing when i was 18. it takes practice

I'm in the Boston area, what were you listening to? Breakfast Of Champions on WMBR is the most consistent show for me. But then they have non-student DJs.

yea breakfast of champions is pretty professional, though i don't always care about the music they play