Thursday, October 07, 2004

SwanShadow on the air!

SSTOL fans can enjoy (if "enjoy" is the word) listening to my triumphant (if "triumphant" is the word) return to my radio roots this Friday night, October 8, from 8 to 10 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. I'll be cohosting with my good friend, vocal coach and a cappella legend Phil DeBar, on our local PBS station, KRCB 91.1 FM. Those of you outside central Sonoma County, California (which is pretty much all of you, last time I checked) can catch the streaming audio feed at this link:

http://www.krcb.org/listen/listen.html

Phil's putting together a stellar mix of a cappella, gospel, doowop, and various and sundry other vocal musics for this commercial-free joy ride. For my part, I will chip in with the occasional "You're right, Phil," "That's interesting, Phil," or "You're the greatest, Phil." (I'm kidding, but only a little. This is really Phil's gig, and he was kind enough to invite me along. We're hoping that a successful tryout might turn into a regular feature at KRCB.)

Phil has hosted a cappella radio shows on Bay Area public broadcasting stations for more than 15 years. He's also the cohost of the annual webcast from the Barbershop Harmony Society's International convention. He knows everybody who's anybody in the a cappella music world and its barbershop subgenre, and was the producer of the SING! vocal music festival in Nashville in July 2001.

If you're wondering about my radio credentials, here's the skinny — and I do mean skinny, given the paucity of my airwave resume next to Phil's. For two years in the early '80s, I was a member (some might even go so far as to say a key member) of the staff of KMBU-FM in Malibu, California. I hosted weekly music shows, read news and sports, co-produced the public affairs program, co-managed the music department, directed the traffic department, was the chief studio engineer for remote sports broadcasts, and broadcast baseball play-by-play. Later, when I transferred from Pepperdine University to San Francisco State, I hosted another weekly music program on KSFS-FM.

And, at the bottom of a sock drawer somewhere, I own a real live Bachelor of Arts degree in Radio and Television Broadcasting that got me my first job out of college, selling ads for a country station in Modesto. A job from which I was unceremoniously dumped after two months in the wake of an ownership change. Thus ended my brilliant nascent broadcasting career.

As Robert Blake used to say before he got his battered mug plastered on the post office wall, that's the name of that tune.

So if you're at your computer on Friday night with nothing more pressing to emanate from your speakers, hop the feed and check out the show. The music will make you tap your toes, the witty banter will sparkle, and you'll be a better human being (assuming you're a human being already) for having listened. I guarantee it.

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