Alternative Famous Firsts
Theresa aka TheresaRockFace
National On-Air Talent for iHeartRadio
KTBZ (94.5 The Buzz)/Houston Afternoon Drive and National Alt Rock Talent in Dallas, Indy, The Carolinas, Salt Lake City and beyond
I was an intern turned promo kid for Z95 in my hometown of Kansas City.
New Kids On The Block as a child! My first fangirl experience.
I did the BMG "12 CDs for a penny” thing not knowing it would charge my parents later. I racked up a $300 bill. Nirvana - Nevermind was the only one I listened to on repeat.
I THINK it was Seether after I got my first real airshift. It was over the phone and I remember sweating profusely because I was so nervous. I had never done this on my own before. Shaun was so kind and I couldn't even tell you what we talked about. I never listened to it later. To this day, I don't listen to my interviews. I will always find a million flaws and pick it apart to the death. I choose to put them out there and let it ride.
I was on Saturday nights as a part-timer. I had to pipe in our midday jock who was at a club doing call ins. The song faded out and I blanked on how to get him to come up through the board. I watched the Green Day song countdown to zero and DEAD AIR. Then the hotline started ringing and I slowly died inside. It was a disaster. I still have "dead air" nightmares. It's not the best.
Clifford
Host of Underexposed w/ Clifford & Director of Technical Operations
WRXL (ALT 102.1) & Audacy Richmond
I started off as a part-time phone screener for an afternoon talk show in Richmond, VA on 9/18/01. I went on to become a board op, a producer, an APD for our talk stations, and then a PD for the sports talk station - and then I bugged the heck out of Dustin Matthews (WRXL PD at the time) for me to host a new music show. I'm one of the anomalies of radio where (so far) I've stayed in one market and worked for the same cluster of stations for my entire industry career.
For my birthday, my sister got me a ticket to see LIVE live for their Throwing Copper tour with Catherine Wheel and Buffalo Tom opening up at the Richmond Classic Amphitheater.
If memory serves (and it might not), there was a Radio Shack in my hometown that sold tapes. I remember buying 2 tapes with my own money one time there: One was the Batman Soundtrack and the other ...the Ghostbusters II Soundtrack. I remember buying them before seeing the movies because if I had seen the movies first, I might have only made one purchase that day. But then I would have missed out on putting Bobby Brown's "On Our Own" on repeat and having that 3rd verse stuck in my head forever.
Underexposed w/ Clifford started in 2014 and the first interview I did for the show was a phoner with Matt Sharp (formerly of Weezer, currently of The Rentals). Rob Wilcox (formerly at The Syndicate, currently at Polyvinyl) set it up for me to have 5 ish minutes with Matt to talk about the first new The Rentals album in 15 years. Matt was so accommodating, we ended up talking for 45+ minutes.
1st Dead Air Experience: I was still a board op at the time and for some reason, we had to run a NASCAR race on tape delay on the sports station. It was recorded into the system fine and started playing fine...and then it wasn't fine. There was 3 hours of nothing on the file and there was nothing else in the log to go to. I had to call the APD who was at a Cher concert that night and he had to keep leaving the show to talk me through what to play next. When I heard the faint sounds of "If I Could Turn Back Time" and then "Believe", I knew I had ruined his night.
Kiernan Tuohy
Promotions Strategist/Part Time On Air Nights
WRIS (The Resistance 106.7)/Madison
Started in sales, learned how to record during the pandemic when we were airing local business updates, and asked to be a fill-in for our night show so technically I am still at my first industry job :)
First official concert was The Academy Is, Teagan & Sara, Gym Class Heroes, and Boys Like Girls at Six Flags! But I was at a lot of local concerts growing up since my dad was a DJ.
Britney Spears Baby One More Time.
Royel Otis last year, we had a blast! Asked them my favorite dumb interview question which is if you were a vegetable what kind would you be? Otis was quick to say carrot while Roy is more of a broccoli guy. They played an acoustic version of Til The Morning which quickly became one of my favorite songs from them.
My very first time going live where my first words were also "are we live?" we indeed were live!
