New Adventures in Radio

In the early spring of 1987, I moved into the most charming 1 bedroom apartment, paying the whopping sum of $175 in rent. It was right above the coffee shop that I worked at, The Beanery, on the edge of campus. I was starting my final year of University, DJing regularly, Music Director of KBVR, taking classes in Asian literature, Beat Poetry, and 20th Century Culture. I'd long ago finished my Anthropology classes, and was now just having fun taking classes in anything that caught my imagination. Most of my energy was going into the radio station though, spending hours there communicating with labels, bands, and booking agents, and listening to music. My living room was filled with records waiting to be listened to, added to the station library or rejected. I had started inviting bands to play live in the studio with me during my show, and interviewing them in between sets. The Square Roots, featuring Jerry and Tim from Berkeley CA became one of the first bands I had in. They were an intoxicating blend of harmony and melody, passionately painful, yet beautiful lyrics, Jerry on acoustic guitar and Tim on stand up base. Shortly after them, I had the Flaming Lips in the studio with me. Wayne was delightful, honest, funny and charming. They talked about drugs, Norman OK, writing music. I just went with it, and let them take the ball and run. They played the basement of Eugene's WOW Hall that night, and blew out the lights in the place with their smoke and light machines. After the show, we headed back to my cute little apartment above the coffee shop, and I made them spaghetti which they devoured as if starving. The next morning, I went downstairs and got us coffee and pastries for breakfast, and when they finally woke up around noon, they were groggy but grateful for the caffeine and sweets. They thanked me for letting them crash on my floor in their sleeping bags. Nothing fancy, but a place to sleep, food to eat, and if they wanted a shower to wash off the grime of weeks on the road. They gave me two t shirts to say thanks, hugged me, and headed to Portland, to play the Satyricon. That spring was a haze of music, alcohol, more music, meeting bands, and passionately writing about each and everyone I met or interviewed. I have no idea what happened to most of those tapes and articles. I still have some of them though, plus all the playlists I put together to report to Gavin , CMJ, and the other music magazines. KBVR and Corvallis, OR was rapidly gaining a reputation as a stop along the route between California and Washington, and countless bands came through. The rest of the year is pretty foggy for me. I wasn't spending alot of time studying. In fact, while I was indeed showing up for class, I was just coasting on the fact that I could pretty much pull and A or a B out of my behind without too much problem. The classes I loved, like 20th Century Culture with Dan Armstrong, American Film Studies with John Lewis and Beat Poetry and Literature with  Linc Kesler, those were classes that I would just absorb the information. It was incredibly easy for me to write the essays necessary, because I just inhaled the information in class, no extra studying necessary. I was also teaching Botany classes, plant ID and cultural uses of plants for my Anthropology professor and independent study credits. The rest of 1987 passed quickly: DJing, going to shows, interviewing bands, hanging out with my friends after work at Squirrels drinking beer, talking music, and when I came up for air, school work. I was also still working full time as I had done all through University, first the library, then between the radio station, The Beanery, and the deli. Winter came and 1988 rolled around, and then the spring again. I graduated Cum Laude that March 1988 with a degree in Cultural Anthropology with an Emphasis in Ethonobotany, specifically medicinal uses of native plants. I loved my degree, but my passion was music and underground culture. I wasn't sure what I was going to do after graduating, thinking I'd probably go to graduate school, but then I got the opportunity to move to SF and I jumped at it. One of my customers had grown up in San Francisco's Sunset District, and his parents had both just died, leaving a fully furnished home with no one to take care of it. He offered me the chance to rent the whole place for $200 a month, provided I didn't get a room mate so he could come to the city to use the room whenever he wanted. I grabbed it, and in September of 1988, packed up my little yellow pickup truck Amarillo with all my worldly possessions which consisted of 10 crates of records, some magazines and some clothing. I sold off my few pieces of furniture, rented my cute little apartment out to my friend Terry who also worked at The Beanery, had one last drink with my friends to say goodbye, and with $100 in my pocket, no job lined up but faith that I wouldn't have any trouble finding one, and a head full of dreams and adventure I headed for San Francisco, and my new life. I totally got what the pilgrims felt about striking out for a new life. I was just 24 years old, I didn't know a soul where I was going, and my whole life lay ahead of me.