On the other side of the radio station's main studio, stuck in between it and the music library (the student office), was another room, another studio. The primary studio had shelves of music, lots of equipment, wall decorations, and, in essence, its own personality; this secondary studio was the complete opposite. The bare walls were fuzzy maroon-colored soundproofing, a mostly empty grey counter top ran the length of one wall, and a four-channel audio board sat on the round table anchored in the middle of the floor. Just like the main studio, there was a large glass window that allowed passersby to look in on all the excitement.
The nameplate outside the door officially designated this as "Studio 2," but it was often named in accordance with whoever was using the room. When I arrived as a freshman it was dubbed "the newsroom," that is, where radio news was broadcast. Radio news – as well as its visually challenged, student-produced television counterpart – was actually gathered and disseminated (and sometime misunderstood) down the hall in another room. Our nascent scripts were typed in this larger room (typed on a real, honest-to-goodness typewriter, no less) and then we trudged down the hall into the studio to share these scripts with the DJ on duty, the university, the citizens of Morra County, and those people passing through town on the Interstate. (Give us a break – we thought big.)
Sometimes we prepared our newscasts in this secondary studio, but only when television staff got overly frumpy about use of the other room; this was not a daily ordeal but it happened more than it should. Occasionally the morning news staff arrived on the scene and the second studio door was locked; we never understood why, since the morning DJ should have had keys to both rooms; but we just bucked up and broadcast from the main control room.
Still, the second studio served a variety of roles. Some of the student-produced public affairs programs required a large room to interview a number of guests at once and thankfully the room was large enough to seat five or six people with mics (microphones) around the round table. A number of B-grade musicians were interviewed here as they passed through town on tour, as well.
It was also home, during my freshmen year, to the station’s sports call-in show. Evidently station management (that is, both the students and the faculty advisors) must have had really stepped out of the box that school year in terms of the varied programming. There was nothing really like the morning shows (which I’ve already said enough about) or the sports call-in show in any of my subsequent semesters as an undergraduate.
Studio 2 was stripped to the floor and walls during my senior year to make way for the first non-linear editing bay, meaning radio news got pushed to closet-sized production room on the other side of the building. Since then the room has been used as office, first for random faculty members and now the new student management office.
So ultimately, that large glass window in the wall rarely revealed anything remotely exciting. I mean, it’s just a room.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Mics of the Roundtable
(A. Carter/Lilndsey, O./Lindsey, O./Massey, T./D. Thompson)
Hieroglyphics
From the album 3rd Eye Vision
1998
Yeah, Hieroglyphics crew, ya don't stop
What? Hieroglyphics crew, ya don't stop
Intro/Chorus: repeat 2X
All nightin, all dayin, crusadin
Invadin, tryin to find out who's Satan
Hieroglyphics on the conquest, move makin
For the holy mic you takin
A man dies once, but a coward dies a thousand deaths
Man you must know how to step with no power left
Those words are words of the prophetess of the powerless
as she professed, we became incensed, set up on a quest
Totally entrenched in every flow that we dispensed
Any foe'll be a cinch, cause we know that we been sent
By the divine, universal mother and father to rhyme
You pre-millenium MC's are far behind
So we off to find, the holy mic it's only right
Hieroglyphics mics of the round table can hold it tight
Keep it stable, collectin, scriptures and secrets
Projectin the cohesive, beam like graviton
with the avalon, Hiero is dope ask God
And evil-doers on the mic you have done your last fraud
This ain't no practical joke, or anti-factual hoax
But something each breath in my avioli sacs'll promote
Opposing MC's will be stomped in the process or taken hostage
until it is accomplished and you can't stop us
Draw down the drawbridge, cross the moat, let's go
Hieroglyphics adventures in the Twilight Zone
Chorus
[A-Plus]
Rumor has it, in a far away land
The enemy's partly a devil and he's partly a man
Now we, on a crusade, and I, got a new blade
from the blacksmith, plus some chainmail that fits my frame well
Three Knights walking, Knights stalkin for the Holy Mic y'all
Sun up to night fall
Despite all efforts from the sacreligious interlopers
Mountains, snows, swamps, even bridges we will venture over
We were amazed it took
only a mere, three hundred sixty days on foot
Now we, better be brave 'fore we enter the cave
If we don't our people will either be dead or be slaves
[Tajai]
I've got a, vague, feeling he's here somewhere
Feeding off rage, villiany, tears and fears
Hob nobbin with Hobgoblins, drinkin blood out of golden goblets
Waitin for us to throw the gauntlet
And start some conscience, so it can locate then squash us
Lest we stay cautious, remembered our spells
Only kept the strongest on parchment
Excellent swordsman and marksmen
Who's souls have been tarnished, but still escaped the demon's harness
Treading intrepantly upon a course
So many mornings, noons and nights no snoozing
Following the Northern Lights
Does this Holy Mic, really exist?
Or is it I'm risking my life, following visions?
The Knights got my back, original is black
I keep thinking that, it strengthens my attack
We blaze the final sack, tribuning, then start up the stone stairs
to the inner sanctum, to do our duty
[Phesto D]
We're prepared to shed blood and die as mortals for the Round Table
If we just happen to get slaughtered, depart our coil deep in soil
Her royal highness was boiled alive in turpentine
Right in line with the serpentine skirt, she died cursed
The whole Oligarch was torn apart before the Dark Ages eclipsed the planet
So the Holy Septum known as the microphone would be in sole control
We'd unfolded the scroll that told us where to go
Through the mongols, the concrete jungles
slipped in The Man From UNKLE, was swashbuckling
beat shuffling, acrobatic attack with titanic force
Back and forth, trading slashes and gashes
The torch dwindled, then rekindled with flashes
Right again, then I put my scimitar right up in em
Venom is like a scorpion sting, retrieve the age old relic
Now, I'm back to the Round Table...
Chorus
Hieroglyphics crew, ya don't stop!
Hieroglyphics crew, ya don't stop!
Yeah, we shall continue!
