Curve's the words, spin's the verbs

"Sandman" was the name of a student – I think a freshman – that ended up as DJ for one of our Saturday night hip-hop programs. Freshmen did not get first choice of air shifts, as it was the upper-level courses that required upperclassmen putting in hours at the station. On rare occasions, usually if we were short staffed or needed some short-term fill in hosts, the Introduction to Broadcasting instructor would refer one or two students our way and we'd go from there. No diggity, no doubt.

He comes to mind for the simple fact that another student did not come to work the first Saturday night shift. Weekend evenings were always a chore to fill since most college kids wanted out of any sort of work commitments. I was Program Director and knew going into the weekend that we really weren't sure if the 9pm DJ would show. Knowing this, on the Thursday or Friday before I asked the 6pm DJ if he'd like to gain some extra experience in the event this other person never showed. Guess who got the extra experience? Who indeed: we were both there, as I had to be there to show him how to sign-off the transmitter at midnight. No diggity, no doubt.

I was told the next week to expect someone at 9pm. And although he was told to be there about 8:45, to pull your music and as a courtesy to the DJ on his or her way home, Sandman didn't make an appearance until 9pm. Training this short, whiny, cocky white kid with the accent – maybe Welsh, maybe South African – I soon realized two things. The first was I think that by "DJ" he thought this would be like a club – mixing and shoutouts and a lot of the stuff we didn't do. Sandman dually noted many times that evening he worked at club back in the town he was from, but I picked up on this early on when he went off in search of the other turntable. I also determined he really didn't want me around, pointing out playlists and public service announcements; I picked up on this fairly early, too, and I never was convinced he knew I was the program director. No diggity, no doubt.

In conclusion, Sandman made the cut and actually fleshed out the rest of the semester nicely. His only other memorable moment was his second or third week on the air when I caught him going off about his air name. Surely by now you know "Sandman" wasn’t his given name – and I don't remember what it was. Scott? Bruce? Whatever. Anyway, Sandman was apologizing to "all his fans" that he had used the name Sandman the prior week, not knowing another student was already using that name. So here was Sandman #2 giving shoutouts and "much love" to Sandman #1 (who I never knew) and tellin' stories 'bout his playin' and mixin' at tha club. I called him on the "magic phone" and told him to knock it off. No diggity, no doubt.

And in case you're not sure where this is going, or you're asking what's with all the "no diggities" and "no doubts," Sandman was a BLACKstreet fan and oft quoted the chorus of No Diggity. Likewise, he made a point of playing it at least once a shift, even when we knew it was not turning up on the weekly playlist. BLACKstreet consisted of Teddy Riley, Chauncey Hannibal, Eric Williams, and Terrell Philips who had a few minor hits in the early 1990s but garnered big attention with this popular track featuring Dr. Dre. While the group fell apart in the late 1990's, I have no clue about Sandman and if he stuck around at the radio station after I graduated.

For his sake, I hope he bagged up some radio experience (bag it up).

- - - - - - - - - - - -

No Diggity
( Dre/Hannibal/Riley/Stewart/Walters)
BLACKstreet
From the album Another Level
1996

You know what
I like the playettes
No diggity, no doubt
Play on playette
Play on playette
Yo Dre, drop the verse

[Dr. Dre]
It's going down, fade to Blackstreet
The homies got RB, collab' creations
Bump like Acne, no doubt
I put it down, never slouch
As long as my credit can vouch
A dog couldn't catch me ass out
Tell me who can stop when Dre making moves
Attracting honeys like a magnet
Giving em eargasms with my mellow accent
Still moving this flavour
With the homies Blackstreet and Teddy
The original rump shakers

Shorty in down, good Lord
Baby got em up open all over town
Strictly biz, she don't play around
Cover much ground, got game by the pound
Getting paid is a forte
Each and every day, true player way
I can't get her out of my mind
(what)
I think about the girl all the time

East side to the west side
Pushing phat rides, it's no surprise
She got tricks in the stash
Stacking up the cash
Fast when it comes to the gas
By no means average
As long as she's got to have it
Baby, you're a perfect ten, I wanna get in
Can I get down, so I can win

[1] - I like the way you work it
No diggity, I try to bag it up, bag it up
[Repeat 1 (3x)]

She's got class and style
She's managed by the town,
Baby never act wild
Very low key on the profile
Catching catichin' vilians is a no,
Let me tell you how it goes
Curve's the words, spin's the verbs
Lovers it curves so freak what you heard
Rolin' with the phatness
You don't even know what the half is
You gotta pay to play
Just for shorty, bang-bang, to look your way
I like the way you work it
Trumped tight, all day, every day
You're blowing my mind, maybe in time
Baby, I can get you in my ride

[Repeat 1 (4x)]

[2] - Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo, hey yo
Hey yo, that girl looks good
Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo, hey yo
Play on, play on playette
Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo, hey yo
You're my kind of girl, no diggity
Hey yo, hey yo, hey yo, hey yo
Hey

[Queen Pen]
Cause thats my peeps and we row G
Flying first class from New York City to Blackstreet
What you know about me, not a motherf.. thing
Cartier wooded frames sported by my shortie
As for me, icy gleaming pinky diamond ring
We be's the baddest clique up on the scene
Ain't you getting bored with these fake ass broads
I shows and proves, no doubt, I be takin you, so
Please excuse, if I come across rude
That's just me and that's how the playettes got to be
Stay kicking game with a capital G
Axe the peoples on my block, I'm as real as can be
Word is bond, faking jacks never been my flava
So, Teddy, pass the word to your nigga Chauncy
I be sitting in car, let's say around 3:30
Queen Pen and Blackstreet, it's no diggity
[Repeat 1 (4x)]

[Repeat 2]

Boy, you can't play me that way

Show-prep, as it was referred to at my undergraduate station, was research the DJ did before arriving for the three-hour shift and consisted of items that he or she could use to sound more interesting or knowledgeable during their stop sets. A lot of people were not the best at thinking off the top of their head and so we encouraged them to find something in the campus or local newspaper – or that fledging online vehicle called the Internet – to give them some sort of edge. We weren't asking for the DJ to talk twenty minutes on a subject - more like twenty seconds, a little chit-chat in between songs as opposed to the stodgy and bland, "I just played these songs, I will play these songs next, it's 8:20 and now here is a recorded public service announcement" type of breaks students tended to blanch their way through.

There was little celebration when the White Town song Your Woman showed up on a weekly preview disc one Tuesday afternoon. Nobody had heard of the group up to this point and the song probably snuck into our playlists because of our desire to add at least one track from each preview disc. No sooner did it waft over the transmitter did we realize that this was going to be one of those grandiose one-hit wonders. Why? Easy: not only did it come out of nowhere in the early months of 1997 but we never ever saw another track by White Town show up at the station. That is, another "new" track - at some point, the original track was supplemented by the less-interesting but not-as-annoying-sounding remix that appeared on a preview disc a month of so later. Oh, hooray: a remix.

It wasn't until years later I discovered that, besides fulfilling its destiny as a one-hit wonder as many on staff prognosticated, but White Town was a one-man band operation led by technophile Jyoti Mishra, a native of India living in England during the late 1990s. Also of interest is that the opening synthesized trumpet sounds are actually samples from the trumpet intro to the song My Woman by the popular British singer Al Bowlly. These tidbits would have been good candidates for any DJ in terms of show-prep. Don't I sound informative and like I know what I'm talking about...?

Boy, I'm finding out all these interesting facts about this song a decade later, when they are of no use to me. Also of no use to me is the fact Mishra released a follow-up album in 2000 and has been recording various singles since his late-90s chart debut.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Your Woman
(Jyoti Mishra)
White Town
From the album Women in Technology
1997

Just tell me what you've got to say to me
I've been waiting for so long to hear the truth
It comes as no surprise at all you see
So cut the crap and tell me that we're through

Now I know your heart, I know your mind
You don't even know you're bein' unkind
So much for all your highbrow Marxist ways
Just use me up and then you walk away
Boy, you can't play me that way

Well I guess what you say is true
I could never be the right kind of girl for you

CHORUS:

I could never be your woman
I could never be your woman
I could never be your woman
I could never be your woman

When I saw my best friend yesterday
She said she never liked you from the start
Well me, I wish that I could claim the same
But you always knew you held my heart

And you're such a charming, handsome man
Now I think I finally understand
Is it in your genes? I don't know
But I'll soon find out, that's for sure
Why did you play me this way

Well I guess what you say is true
I could never be the right kind of girl for you

(CHORUS)


Well I guess what they say is true
I could never spend my life with a man like you

(CHORUS)

Today I am a voyeur, I cannot let go

Our Saturday morning folk show (see Jesse James behind the wheel) 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 considered contemporary folk music, a man or woman singing along with his or her stringed instrument and sometimes a backing band. I note "contemporary" because these songs were released recently, as opposed to "traditional folk" songs that were nearing three decades old. We originally had some traditional songs in rotation but they soon fell by the wayside.

One of the early highlights of the program was a quartet of women known as the Four Bitchin' Babes, consisting of founder Christine Lavin and a rotating roster of other women. By the time I was familiar with the group, the quartet consisted of Lavin, Debi Smith, Megon McDonough, and Sally Fingerett. It was on their third album that I heard the song I remember most: TV Talk. This was to be the song I used to grab the attention of fellow students who were weary about listening to a "folk show." You must realize that for years my undergraduate station apparently had little interest in branching out into other formats. And of all the formats to add, we decided upon something that I think many students didn't listen to and thought was nothing more than longhaired freaky people strumming guitars. However we quickly learned that what the students were missing out on was something the public loved. On weekends where I guest-hosted there would be calls for requests or questions about the albums. It was something I enjoyed being part of.

I also enjoyed trying to convince students to listen - like Sarah Smile. I forget the occasion but I recall being involved in some project with the campus television station a year or so later, with Sarah being one of the students who oversaw television programming. There was a project meeting one evening of the four or five students involved and afterwards, as we stood talking in the hall out front of the radio station, a promotional spot for the folk show was played. Unaware I was by this time the full-time host, Sarah made some sort of disparaging comment - not mean, but something along the lines that she couldn't imagine four hours of longhaired freaky people. I told her not to write off the music without listening and to give it a shot that coming weekend. She did. That Saturday after playing the Bitchin' Babes the phone rang. Her call was brief, but Sarah was hooked.

By the way, we lost the bitchin' privilege to use the word "bitch" on air about the same time Meredith Brooks became a dorm-and-household name (see I'm a little bit of everything all rolled into one) and I resorted to identify the four women by name or just calling them "the Babes" - which I thought then and still think is a bit silly. Fortunately, in my later years as program director and when other students were doing the folk shifts, these people didn't see anything wrong with saying, "bitch" and went ahead and did.

And I don't think anyone bitched about it.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

TV Talk
(Sally Fingerett)
The Four Bitchin' Babes
From the album Fax It! Charge It! Don't Ask Me What's For Dinner!
1995

I heard about this man, wanted a wife and some children
The problem with this man is he used to be a woman
Now he wants a family, someone to understand
There she is sitting with him, wants a husband and some children
The situation here is she's not a real woman
There they are together the man who was a woman
The woman who was a man
How do I know? I've seen it on the . . .

Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show
Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show

Then there was this woman, who had a quirky daughter
Forty times a day the kid sticks her hands in water
Doctors say the young girl is trying just to cleanse her soul
She's a prisoner in the bathroom,
Stuck inside the bathroom,
Compulsive in the bathroom,
They film her from the bathroom
Mom would like to use the bathroom now and then you know!
Where does she go? On the . . .

Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show
Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show

One day Oprah's heavy,
Next day Oprah's skinny,
Next day Oprah's heavy,
Next day Oprah's skinny,
Jenny Jones had big boobs,
Now Jenny's big boobs are gone
Where'd they go? (I don't know)
One day Oprah's heavy,
Next day Oprah's skinny,
Next day Oprah's heavy,
Next day Oprah's skinny,
I'm checking in with Donahue,
He's got a nice dress on.
What's going on? On the . . .

Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show
Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show

They've got mothers who are dating daughters' boyfriends
Mothers who are dating daughters' girlfriends
Mothers who are dating guys who like to dress like priests
There are ninety-year-old bikers
With the rings in their noses
Then there's the bulimic eating up the roses
The anorexic brought along her feeding hoses
Oh, the things they show.
On the . . .

Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show
Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show

I'm just a simple woman with simple complications
I can be lazy, lacking motivation
Today I am a voyeur,
I cannot let go
I view the TV for holistic meditation
Compared to some, my life, it is perfection
Does anybody understand our attraction to people who suffer so?
Hope I never know or you'll see me on the . . .

Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show
Talk, Talk, TV Talk, Talk Show

So much for the days...tribal life

One thing with this retrospective that I'm trying to do is not always dwell so much on those tried-and-true musicians that you'd expect to see as part of a list like this. I want there to be some lesser-known talent as well – stuff no one knows about except, apparently, for me.

With that in mind let's discuss Bitter Son. The only thing that comes to mind about this local band is that they were one of a few groups that came out of the woodwork when it was announced we were starting What's New Wednesday (WNW) at my undergraduate station (see I think it's worth it for you to stay awake).

Bitter Son stands out for two reasons, the first of which was that the band had given us a copy of either their album, or the "good" portion of it, on audio cassette. True, we had both analog and digital tape players in our midst and could have played it on the air more than we did – but that would have meant we would have had to listen to the song. There's the second reason, then: while the song wasn't terrible, the pops and clicks from the tape coupled with the lower-than-low-fi attempt of the musicians made it a waste of time to even bother to cue up and spin, so to speak, much less convert to some other format for easier playback.

The host of WNW, John Fletcher, was good to his word and played the song, but I think he was a bit dissatisfied with the tape as well; it soon found its way into the Music Library and probably would have been forgotten had it not been for an asinine idea of mine one Friday night the next year. I was Program Director then and had gotten stuck at the station for most of the day but called back that night when the 9pm host didn't show. I trudged back to the building, still mentally asleep and trying to awaken for something I hadn't planed to do. The Music Director stopped by about 10:30, surprised I was on the air and offered to stick around. Over the next twenty minutes, one thing led to another and we both decided to shed the 11pm playlist and do our own version of What's New Wednesday for no reason other than we could get by with it.

At the top of the hour, we ran the WNW intro and legal ID and started in on the music you normally heard on Wednesday. The two of us co-hosted the hour – dual shifts were frowned upon because they usual turned into mindless banter – but we made a point to not talk too much and played well off each other, each noting at every chance "you're listening to What's New Wednesday...on a Friday." The gimmick must have squeaked by all the right ears as no one called to point out it wasn't Wednesday and the faculty advisor didn't call to say we were breaking rules that we, as program and music director, had been known to call others out about.

The last thirty minutes of the hour I tried to get out of the same standard regional fare that usually got played, and remembering the Bitter Son tape, I ran into the office and recovered it from its certain doom. Neither the Music Director nor I had heard the song recently (if at all), something blatantly obvious over the air: the song opened with almost a minute of sparse drumbeats that we introduced the song over (we eventually faded out our clueless stuttering as the beats droned onward). It wasn't but a few seconds into the song we realized neither of us knew how it ended, either – just that we hoped soon. Minutes later, when the heavy guitar and shaky vocals came to a standstill, we got back on the microphone and started to explain what had just happened. Surprisingly we were caught off guard with even more faint drumbeats and bells that faded into obscurity. Did we care? No, we just cut 'em off.

That surely was the end of Bitter Son after that. And the tape, too.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Tribal Life
(unknown)
Bitter Son
From their independently self-released cassette
1997

Nervous children making millions: you owe it all to them

. . . little ditty 'bout Rachel and Brad
Two pretend kids in a story that's really sad
Rachel's gonna be a girl that's depressed
Brad's callin' round radio stations makin' requests . . . .

Sometime during my final year or so at my undergraduate station I found a copy of the Posies's Amazing Disgrace, featuring the Hüsker Dü tribute song, Grant Hart. I added the short two-and-half minute song back into rotation, occasionally playing it when I found myself substituting on the rock shifts. I think I may have added some other tracks as well but the song about the Minnesota trio always stuck out.

Fast forward a year or so to my stint as a graduate student serving as a manager of completely different college station. Much like my undergraduate station, they too played their fair share of modern rock-ish music, though there here there was a much wider selection of lesser known artists and full albums I had never seen. Just as before, rock was regulated to the evening hours, usually from 8pm until sign-off, which was 2am the next morning.

As station manager, it was my responsibility to train the staff, listen and critique the students and make sure operations ran smoothly. This meant listening to the radio, usually in an office on campus, in the car, or, more likely, at home. And it was at home where I had the most fun, many times calling up whoever was on the air, with me attempting to disguise my voice, to test them about station policies or guidelines. Usually I'd start off discussing something music related before switching gears and asking them what that weird chirping noise was that was heard once a week. If the DJ were paying attention, he or she would spout off some accrued knowledge that the noise was weekly Emergency Alert System test. I would then make sure they knew who was calling and ask them to run a test themselves. Grades could be – and were – affected by not knowing what to do.

One night I decided I wanted to hear the Poises and, not wanting to call and flat out request the song, I decided to have a little fun with the DJ, a not-too bright guy named Todd. I never knew much about the kid except he came across as slightly muddled in life, not really sure where he was or where he going. When Todd answered the phone, I began a long-winded ramble about how my name was Brad and my girlfriend, Rachel, and I were on the fritz and that if he could play "our song," it would mean a lot to us. Todd didn't immediately jump on the bandwagon – he was hesitant at first and tried the ol' "I'll see what I can do" response, something I felt I could worm my way out of if I kept him on the line long enough. In the end, he promised he'd play Grant Hart – which I have to admit is a pretty odd song to reunite a couple, even an imaginary one.

The thing that cracked me up, and that I still remember all these years later, was that when he did get a chance to play the song, he prefaced it with a ramble of his own. Hemming and hawing about the story he'd just heard, he said something along the lines that he'd "go ahead and break format" to play the song for the lovebirds. Break format? I never got that one. The Posies are rock, you're in the middle of a rock shift, the song is named for a member of one of the great American rock bands – what the hell do you mean, "break format?"

I don't think Todd really knew what was going on and since he seemed to fully believe the Brad/Rachel saga, I never bothered to reveal who they really were.

Oh, yeah. Life goes on.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Grant Hart
(Jon Auer/Ken Stringfellow)
The Posies
From the album Amazing Disgrace
1996

I can't cry, I can't apply a word to sum it up
Under stress I can't repress the moment it erupts
Hear the sound of paper drums and shredded paper voice
Got to turn up 'Keep Hanging On' as if I had a choice

Prairie fires and pitchfork choirs inspire as they create
Turn it up, It's too far down, until we can relate
Minnesota New Day Rising first day in the store
Take the couch at someone's house and wait around to score

Nervous children making millions: you owe it all to them
Power trios with big-ass deals: you opened for it then
I can see, I can see, I can see it all with my one good eye
For a start take two Grant Harts and call me when you die