The Underground Velvet Show with DJ Greer, September 2009 to May 2010

To Whom It May Concern:

When I joined the staff of Claremont's radio station, 88.7 FM KSPC "The Space," I was interested in working in the promotions department because I had previously worked promotions for a classic rock station over the summer in Seattle, 102.5 FM KZOK. At the time, I had no interest in becoming a DJ because I was intimidated by it, and would have rather participated behind the scenes than have to be directly in the spotlight. However, I had always enjoyed being in charge of the music at parties or road trips - I would plan in my head what songs and in what order I wanted to play songs off of my ipod in the car, or I would make playlists on itunes with various themes ("songs for summer", "songs for when it rains", "songs about traveling", "anti-love songs") and continuously re-organize the order in which they appeared until I felt like it was absolutely perfect. I secretly envied those at the station who were brave enough to have a live radio show, so finally I decided I was going to make myself become one of them too.

When I became a DJ for KSPC, I wanted to devote my show to 1960's garage and psychedelic rock, calling my show "The Underground Velvet Show", an underground/indie show playing off of the name of the 1960's band lead by Lou Reed and produced by Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground. However, one of the most important guidelines of the station was that it was necessary to play 50% new music on each show. The KSPC library has thousands of records and CDs to choose from, and you had to pick music from its library and not bring your own music into the station to play.

What I decided to do, then, was still devote half of my two-hour show to the 1960s by playing whatever music from that era that I could find, and then for the second hour, play "new" music (music that had come out in the last year or so) that sounded like it could have come right out of the 1960s. Now, it's probably true that the 1960's were the most influential time for music and pop culture, and anything you listen to today is in some way connected to the music from 40 to 50 years ago. However, the music I chose would either have a reference to the 1960's in their band or album name (i.e. the band Harlem's album "Hippies" directly references the culture of that era) or would sound very distinctly like a band from the 1960's (the band Dr. Dog doesn't just sound like it was influenced by the Beatles, since pretty much any band is, but their songs sound like a modern day interpretation of anything that could potentially appear on "Rubber Soul"). I also found many modern day artists singing covers of 1960's songs (Cat Power's covers album called The Covers Record has both songs by the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground, and the Japanese band Shonen Knife has a version of Paul McCartney and Wing's song "Jet" on their album named Super Group.) I also found cover albums of The Troggs (of "Love is All Around Me" and "Wild Thing" fame) and The Shaggs (an all-girl group of sisters whose dad took them out of school and made them start a band, paying for voice and instrument lessons, so that they could self-fulfill what a psychic told him, that his daughters would find fame in a band. "Philosophy of the World" was their most popular song, but it was never actually popular. Frank Zappa dubbed them, hopefully jokingly, "better than the Beatles.")

However, I also found that it was important to play music that influenced the music of the 1960's. I discovered in the KSPC library a lot of Americana bands to play, from country to bluegrass to blues, folk, and mountain music. Bob Dylan so openly discussed his love for his idol Woody Guthrie, so I found several Woody Guthrie albums I played weekly, as well as versions of the song "Rain and Snow" (a mountain song the Grateful Dead often covered) and the original recordings of songs otherwise heard in the film "O Brother Where Art Thou", like Dick Burnett's song "Man of Constant Sorrow." Many of these Americana songs could be found on compilation albums put out by labels like Smithsonian Folkways (the non-profit label of the Smithsonian Institute) or Putomayo, a label known for finding songs from around the world and putting them together for compilations.

An important aspect of having a radio show is learning how to successfully make each song flow into the next - it would be too startling to a listener for the DJ to play a quiet, harmonica-filled folk song, and then all of a sudden blast a punk song heavy on the drums and amps. Thus, I would start my radio show each week with a Velvet Underground song, continue with 1960's garage and psychedelic rock, end that section with a Johnny Cash song, flow into Americana, end that section with a song by a band like She & Him, which is heavily influenced by 1940's and 1950's music (made up of the actress Zooey Deschenal and the solo artist Matt Ward, who also plays as M. Ward and joined up with Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes and Jim James of My Morning Jacket to form Monsters of Folk). Because She & Him is a modern Americana-type band, from there I could easily flow into the "new" artist section of my show.

Because I wanted to maintain the Velvet Underground theme of my show, I would play three VU songs each show (the maximum number of songs you could play from a single band each show), one at the very beginning of the show, one at the top of the next hour, and one long song to close my show. The Velvet Underground has always been an interesting band to me in that they had various types of songs, some sounding psychedelic, some sounding like early electronic, some sounding extremely poppy, and others sounding very brash, fast, loud and heavy, like garage rock (For examples, see "Heroin" from the album The Velvet Underground and Nico, "White Light/White Heat" off of the album of the same name, "Sweet Jane" from Loaded, and "The Murder Mystery" from The Velvet Underground self titled, respectively.) Thus, it was relatively easy to find a Velvet Underground song to mix into the genre of music I was playing at any given moment.

Recently I had the KSPC program director, Erica Tyron, send me four of my shows so I could use them as samples in case needed for my resume in the future. These serve as good examples of how I was able to make the songs flow. One can also hear how I had to think quickly in certain instances when a record or CD would skip, or I would unknowingly play a song with explicit content and then have to fade out. These types of mistakes were more prominent in my earlier radio shows (September to December 2009) than in my later ones (January to May 2010), yet even an expert DJ has to deal with these types of problems from time to time. I always made sure that I had three songs set up to play, so that if I had to fade out on one, I could right away play the next one without being too obvious about the mistake I made. I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't learn how to play a record until I became a DJ for the station. It always intimidated me, for whatever reason, and I was proud to be able to experiment with vinyl on my show, mimicking the  DJs actually from the 1960's (today's mainstream DJ's use mp3's on a computer. It was exceptional that KSPC required CDs and vinyl.)

Having some idea of the type of music I wanted to play each week did help, otherwise it would be hard to navigate through the thousands of options available at the station. I would first go to the older music, all alphabetical, and search under "V" for Velvet Underground. From there, I would go to the compilation section and pick albums with a blue sticker, blue standing for "Americana." Then I would move to the "new" music section and look at the album covers and read the review of the artist. I would normally get to the station an hour before my show came on to give me plenty of time to pick out all the music I wanted to play. I didn't always sample the songs before I played them, sometimes leading to songs I wasn't fond of, but after a few months of practice, I had a good idea of what the music sounded like, and I would also go by listeners' requests. I would recommend, if ever becoming a DJ, to definitely listen to the music you are considering playing, unlike what I did.

I loved being a DJ, and I wish I could find a station that would so openly accept me in the same fashion that KSPC did. Unfortunately, it's difficult to become a DJ outside of college, although I would love to do it if given the chance. My only regret is that I didn't become a DJ sooner, so that I would have more than one year of experience to show for myself. That one year, my senior year of college, will always be one of my fondest memories. Thankfully music will always live on.

Sincerely,

DJ Greer of the Underground Velvet Show