It’s been a while. A long time, in fact since I’ve written on this website which has been under so many incarnations over the past decade plus. So you may be wondering why, after so long being gone did I decide to come back?
White Port Lemon Juice
Reading that, you may think I’m some kind of old-school alcoholic. Which, honestly isn’t too far off from the truth but I digress. Notice I capitalized each letter…
W P L J
Now, for those of you who know me well know that I am a huge fan of radio and the business behind it. May 31st, almost one month exactly from today since the legendary NYC radio station 95.5 WPLJ left the airwaves forever, to be replaced with a contemporary Christian-based music brand known as ‘K-LOVE’. I’m not here to discuss why WPLJ ceased to be or if they were a shell of the brand they used to be as so many on the Internet are choosing to do.
I’m here to discuss that listening to the final 48 hours of the station brought back my itch that I thought had mostly gone away to return to radio (Internet radio, at least). Listening to the jocks both past and present who had the honor of being on WPLJ over the years reflect on their memories and time being on the air, the connections they’ve made with other jocks, listeners, management and more re-lit my excitement in why I wanted to dabble in radio in the first place. What was that reason?
Connecting with an audience.
A lot of musicians and stage performers say they get a ‘high’ performing in front of a live audience (at least those who love what they do). For the time I did Internet radio (roughly spanning a decade, from 2006-2017) I remember feeling similarly on many occasions. Feeling the adrenaline rush, your heart racing, having sweaty palms and having your mouth go dry as you’re about to unmute your mic and start speaking… I can honestly say that is one of the most exciting feelings. I always believed in doing live radio because of that feeling. That rush, knowing you are truly LIVE with people listening to you with a minimal delay is truly magical. Then to know that your listenership likes and appreciates what you’re doing is just another layer to that. My old radio station site used to have a live chat room where listeners could pile in and interact with our shows live. Juggling that live interactivity (which in 2006/2007 was truly novel) gave me a feeling like I couldn’t get from anything else. It was addictive.
Yes, that project eventually came to an end but the memories and the feelings of that time are things that will never be forgotten and will never be replicated.
HOWEVER…
The itch which I thought was temporary about a month ago is still lingering, so much so that it’s making me type this post. So I figure why the hell not… try to do this one more time after two years of being “retired” from Internet radio. It won’t be the same as it used to be, and I’m not even 100% sure exactly how the ‘show’ will be but I can say that sometime this summer, I will be back doing an Internet radio show of some kind.
Stay tuned. I’m back.
OH! If you’d like to hear the final hour of WPLJ to get an insight into what got me wanting to come back, the audio is below… just press play!
NOTE: It may take a bit to load, this is an hour’s worth of audio!