CHAPTER 2 THE HISTORY OF RADIO RANDY : THE LOWEST FORM OF SHOW BUSINESS?

 

Rushford Central School, Rushford NY

Radio is show business. Maybe the lowest form of show business, but nonetheless it is in fact show business. All the familiar tropes about show business apply to building a career in radio. Getting discovered! Timing is everything! Right place right time and so on. It is true you need a little bit of luck to get into radio. Or at least you did when I started.

 

You also need support from your friends and family. Deciding to have a career in radio is not a common choice and is met with skepticism from some and outright disdain from others. My fascination with radio was well known in my High School, which was exceedingly small. In fact, I attended a K-12 School which had less than 500 students’ total. My graduating class was about 30 kids. My fake radio station and radio show tapes were known to many kids and even some teachers. I also gained some notoriety for my comedy bits that were played back by some on tape players in study hall.

 

One episode landed me in hot water. I was inspired by Dickie Goodman, who created novelty songs using clips from current songs as answers to his on the street report questions. Mr. Jaws from 1975 was probably one of his most famous.

 

So, I decided to conduct interviews with various members of the Staff around Rushford Central School. I asked questions and used songs for the reply. I asked the Librarian for comment and she said, "Hush Hush" (by Deep Purple) and so on. I lampooned several of the teachers and the principle Mr. Kwak. I took glee in including him in my creation. I asked Mr. Kwak what he looked for in a secretary and used the lyrics to the Big boppers Chantilly Lace song for his reply: "Chantilly Lace and a pretty face, and a pony tail hanging down, that wiggle in the walk and giggle in the talk" As you can imagine this section of the tape received much attention from me fellow students and eventually resulted in tense meeting with Mr. Kwak who banned my tape recorder from school.

 

I must give credit to an early supporter on the faculty of the school. It was not Principal Kwak. The guidance counselor Mr. Shaner became aware of my interest in radio and he helped me along the way to letting me represent the school on a local radio station on a regular basis. WLSV in Wellsville NY had a Saturday morning show called "teen time". High School students from around the county came in to play music and requests and talk about school events for an hour at 9am.

 

Our school came up in rotation a couple of times each year, and Mr. Shaner made sure I got the chance to represent the school when it was our turn.  For that I will always be grateful.

 

Those Saturday morning experiences were terrifying at first but after a few times I started to feel comfortable. The DJ who had the chore of running the board, while the students sat in the next room eventually let me run the control board myself. He turned the station over to me and went outside to smoke. Those few times as an actual DJ, as a teen solidified my passion for radio and consumed my thoughts. Did I get discovered as a result of those teen time shows? Find out in the next chapter.