For many years, a weekend ritual was to listen to Dr. Jazz's Dixieland radio show on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Then he (Bill Fetsch) died (ref). A local legend. How would he be replaced? I was among those who hoped against hope that the radio station KMHD would have the good sense to play tapes and keep the show alive. Fetsch had one of those warm radio personalities that made you think he was sitting across the breakfast table. Obviously he couldn't be replaced.
But the radio station tried. It's a college station, and they replaced Dr. Jazz with a series of earnest young men. What they had in common were wooden personalities. Everything they said sounded like a poor reading -- and they talked to much, trying to be informative and personable, which in fact just made it worse. They were as wooden as any DJs in America. This was at a college, for Chrissake, couldn't they send these young men off to take an acting class?
Today the Saturday DJ who settled into the job, young and earnest and very wooden, called himself Dr. Jazz. What bad taste. Sacrilegious, in fact, an insult to the memory of the "real" Dr. Jazz.
The show now depends on how much these wooden DJs talk. The less, the better. Unfortunately, in their earnestness, they talk a hell of a lot.
1 comment:
I've found that true of other college radio DJs, for example WPRB in Princeton, Charles.
They seem to think they need to talk a lot. Maybe it is ego.
They don't seem to realize, we are there for the MUSIC!
Best,
eric
Post a Comment