I'd be inclined to slap you in the mouth

This was a favorite song of the Program Director who had a short-lived tenure before me. I know the station surely never received any sort of promotional copy of the single, much less album, leaving me to assume Diane, the briefly-serving program director, brought in her own copy.

The practice of bringing in outside music was generally frowned upon by the faculty advisor and thus usually championed by the leading student managers. Our issue was that people who brought in outside music usually played only their music – and the prepared playlist went by the wayside. Management's concerns was that it wasn't fair to other DJs that they didn't have the option to play those songs; also, since these outside songs had not been cleared by the music director, the music might not have fit the format or that prerequisite "sound of the station" ideology, or there could be a potential issue with lyrical content. Already short a number of then-popular songs, to suddenly have something popular in rotation, like Merril Bainbridge, meant you wanted to have the option to play it at any time, not just when Someone Special was spinning discs for three hours. In short, management said if you wanted to play your music you had to donate your music. Few people were that generous; those that did usually passed along a compilation or greatest hits disc, only to remove it from rotation at the end of the semester. Hence why we had the Doobie Brothers for only one semester of classic rock.

Anyway, I really never had anything against Merril Bainbridge, but her mouth – and the words she sang from it - seemed to garner airplay only on Diane's shifts and, more so, during those first three hours of the rock format (again, the historically lightweight pop hours). I guess it wouldn’t have given me such a problem but Merril Bainbridge seemed to come out of nowhere and then as quickly as she opened her mouth, she was gone. Poof. Just like Kiser Sosa. If anything, I'm always reminded of Diane when I hear this song – which isn’t that often anymore.

For those keeping score at home, Bainbridge's The Garden featured another popular single, "Under the Water," in her native Australia. Her second, and to date, last album, was Between the Days in 1998; she has since spent her time writing and composing music for other musicians in her native country.

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Mouth
(Bainbridge)
Merril Bainbridge
From the album The Garden
1996

I feel like I've been blown apart
There are pieces here
I don't know where they go
I don't know where they go

Kiss me on my salty lips
I bet you feel a little crazy
But for me
We'll be famous on TV

Chorus
Would it be my fault if I could turn you on?
Would I be so bad if I could turn you on?
When I kiss your mouth, I wanna taste it
Turn you upside down, don't wanna waste it

I jump on you, you jump on me
You push me out and
Even though you know I love you
I'd be inclined to slap you in the mouth

When I kiss your salty lips
You will feel a little crazy
But for me
I'll be famous on TV

Chorus x2

Now, will it be my fault if I
Take your love and throw it wide
You might restrain me
But could you really blame me

And you will feel you're blown apart
All the pieces there
Will fit to make you whole
And I know where they go

Chorus

When I kiss your mouth, I wanna taste it
Turn you upside down, don't wanna waste it
x2

I see you dancing on the stage of memory

At both stations I worked at – as well as most every station I didn't – the programming was scheduled by what was called a program clock (or "wheel") that was nothing more than a circular diagram indicating the order of the various items played each hour, be it music or otherwise. The concept was simply to show what aired at a given time, such that a DJ, unsure of what to do at about 18-20 minutes after the hour, could look at the clock and know that it was time to take a stop set, or live break, and not play music (or, conversely, the DJ could have paid more attention during training and already known). Most of the clocks were universally identical and only fine-tuned to the specific formats (meaning, the "rock clock" instructed the DJ to play a "rock liner," while the "jazz clock" demanded a "jazz liner").

The radio station I worked at in graduate school had very simple clocks because they had no sub-genres of music and the scant instructions on the diagram were but reminders: a stop set at quarter-after and quarter-till, a live PSA here, a live promo there, and some liners every so often.

Things were a bit more complex at my undergraduate radio station because of music categories that were arbitrarily created and assigned by student management. Most of these categories came into play during the modern rock format, where we had the most music, the most DJ shifts, and, in turn, where the student staff spent most of their time. Depending on an individual song's style, sound, and speed, a lot of these categories emulated the type of thing you'd hear at a commercial station...which means Syd ("the Kid") probably pushed these categories during his reign as program director.

Let's see...at the top of the hour was a "power cut" – something popular, strong, and loud to shoot us out of the starting gate and grab your attention and then keep it (see I'm not listening when you say good-bye); these were assigned the abbreviation of P. The N category was "new release" and we designated one song each hour as a new song, based on when we got a copy off a weekly preview disc. Harkening back to the mid-1980s were the "flashbacks" – type F – that also got (thankfully) one spin an hour. "Currents" were the popular songs that didn't make it into the P category, with "Recurrents," if memory serves correctly, one-time C-category songs. All these categories – plus the other scheduled elements – made the clock look like a large pie with many, many slices; but in a linear fashion, this clock diagram might look like this:

(Legal ID)-P-(Live break)-C-C-(liner)-R-(stop set at 0:20 after)-C-F-(weather break at 0:30 after)-R-N-C-(stop set at 0:50 after)-R-R

These recurrent songs were mostly once-upon-a-big-time bands – like the Nixons. I know our station, as well as others out there, probably played Sister to death in the years after Foma was released. I know it appeared on a few of our preview discs, most likely an attempt to make sure that every station had a few copies on hand so no one could claim ignorant. Then came the acoustic version, which we entered into rotation for no real good reason. It's not a bad song by any stretch and I recently within the past year found the song again (as well as the acoustic version) and was reminded of how things were a decade ago. As for the band, I think they're still out there, believe it or not. The foursome that composed this song lasted only this album before switching out some members for their self-titled album in 1997. An album in 1999 and another in 2000 shows that the four are still hard at work, no doubt searching for another hit. Best of luck boys.

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Sister
(Brooks, Davis, Humphrey, Maloy)
The Nixons
From the album Foma
1995

Here I am again, again ... overwhelming feelings
Thousand miles away from your ocean home.
Part of me is near
Thoughts of what we were invade
The miles that stand between, can't separate
Your all I hoped you'd become
Sister I see you - dancing on the stage of memory
Sister I miss you
Fleeting visits pass still they satisfy
Reminders of the next overshadow good-bye
Our flames burn as one

Sister I see you - dancing on the stage of memory
Sister I miss you
All I am begins with you, thoughts of hope understood
Half of me breathes in you, thoughts of love remain true
Here we are again saying good-bye
Still we fall asleep underneath the same sky
You're all I knew you'd become

Sister I see you - dancing on the stage of memory
Sister I miss you
Entwined, you and I, our souls speak from across the miles
Intertwined, you and I, our blood flows from the same inside
I see you walking there....
See you walking in my mind...

Dawganova

Our Saturday morning folk show (see Jesse James behind the wheel) at the undergraduate station was a hybrid of music, a juxtaposition of sounds that didn't always sound the best together but we made them work the best we could. One of the types of music featured was what might be thought of as "acoustic music" – instrumental tracks featuring guitars, banjos, mandolins, or some other sort of stringed instrument.

When the format was launched, I think its creator (Brad Phasner) wasn't sure what sort of music we were going to wind up with. He had his own private stash of music that he started off with but we would need more to make this new endeavor work. I had become interested in the new format early on and assisted Brad with promotion, including notifying record labels, magazines and online portals that the station was looking to start a new format that was sort of an "anything goes." Easily, more than half of what we ended up with was the contemporary folk music, with the discs of acoustic music probably made up another quarter percent. The remainder of the folk show's library was...was...well, that's another story. Looking back, I always found it odd how it all fit together.

Our library of acoustic music was probably the second largest category of the folk show; a lot of the discs were compilation albums, usually samplers from an all-acoustic label – like David Grisman's Acoustic Disc label. Grisman is a renowned mandolin player, whose nickname "Dawg" features into many of his album that are of a bluegrass/acoustic jazz variety. Grisman, or at least his label's promotional department, unloaded a number of complimentary discs on our station (and continued to provide an occasional compilation from time to time). Listeners seemed to like the sound, as calls asked for further album information. Brad was so impressed with listeners' reactions that he soon began announcing all album titles and labels and release year, along with song title and artist. Dawganova was one such album that got a lot of airtime, notably for its leadoff track.

In the pursuing years, and under my brief leadership, the format expanded the number of acoustic tracks in rotation and the number of times they were played each hour. Since the program was initially four hours and usually favored the contemporary folk singers, we sort of "flipped" the format – two hours would be 60-40 favoring the acoustic, instrumental tracks, the other two for everything else. And to add whatever variety we could to the format that semester, we always switched around the hours: one week the first and third hours would be acoustic, the next week the second and third, and maybe the week after that just the first and fourth.

Grisman continues recording music (recent album titles – Dawgnation and Dwag's Groove – suggest you can't keep a good dawg down), with his most recent work titled DGBX, the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience (2006).

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Dawganova
(Grisman)
David Grisman Quintet
From the album Dawganova
1995

Let's flip the track, bring the old school back

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