Living the Disc Jockey Dream on
Anarchy from the Archives
This summer marks the tenth anniversary of the end of my brief one-year avocation as a disc jockey on Virginia Commonwealth University's Internet-only radio station, WVCW. While my show, entitled "Anarchy from the Archives", never seemed to have many listeners, it was great fun nonetheless. Not only did I get to inflict my unusual musical tastes on my mostly unseen audience, but the show afforded me a chance to get to know some really nice folks in VCU Student Media and to bring in several great local musicians to perform live in the WVCW studio.
Having been greatly influenced by the musical tastes of AM radio, and later, FM radio disc jockeys during my formative years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it had long been a fantasy to try out that role of disc jockey myself.
In the first decade of the 2000's I got the chance to serve as the VCU Faculty Senate's representative on the Student Media Committee, which oversaw VCU's student newspaper, various magazines, and its Internet radio station, WVCW. Through that, I got to meet Lauren Katchuk, who at the time worked as a staff member in student media and also hosted a weekly music radio show on WVCW. When Lauren learned that I was both a Christmas music and Halloween music collector, she invited me to bring my favorite songs to play on her Halloween and Christmas shows.
That led to an invitation to host my own weekly show, which I named "Anarchy from the Archives", a reference to the fact that I worked at the VCU Libraries and that my show would play all types of music, not just rap or blues or any other single style. I was also inspired by Matt Ruland, a VCU police officer, who at the time, hosted his own show on the station under the name "DJ 5-0" and who gave campus safety tips during breaks between songs. I borrowed Matt's idea and used my between-song times to offer public service announcements about services and programs at the VCU Libraries.
Now, as I am reaching ten years since the show ended, I have begun archiving the show (so to speak) here on the Internet Archive. I've started by posting the three shows from June and July, 2012 that featured live performances by my favorite local musicians: Scott Brookman, Jonathan and Antonia Vassar , and Susan Greenbaum. Eventually, other episodes of Anarchy, if not all of them, will be added to the Internet Archive over the months ahead. The posted episodes are available free for streaming or download at no cost, without any registration, as usual with Internet Archive recordings.
Anarchy from the Archives ran for only one year, from the summer of 2011 through July, 2012, when I left VCU to take a job elsewhere. Despite its brief life, the show provides many fond memories. There was one time that I was called into the office by one of the station's student managers and warned not to play any more songs with bad language in them. The offending song, by the band Eels, for those curious about it, can be found here. Pretty mild, I thought, for a station that played what I thought of as way too much rap music, with even more "objectionable" lyrics. In any case, I swore not to repeat my offense and managed to keep my show on the air.
The beautiful Anarchy from the Archives poster artwork at the top of this posting was contributed by one of my most faithful listeners, Gary Garbett, and was posted in rotation on electronic signs all over campus during the short reign of the show. Along with Lauren Katchuk (mentioned above) , Student Station Manager Claire Morra (who was not the supervisor who warned me to stop playing filthy music) , and Greg Weatherford, who headed Student Media Services at the time, were also greatly supportive.
Thanks to all of the folks above for this great experience!
posted by Dan Ream @ 11:58 AM
