Alternative Famous Firsts
Jeff Morad
Operations Manager / On-Air Host
WEQX/Manchester, VT-Albany, NY
WKPE (104.7)/Cape Cod.
My first concert as a human was with my parents - they took me to see The Beach Boys. My first concert as a human without parents was Beastie Boys. I guess I like boys. Wait...that sounds wrong. I have parents, I just meant my first concert that they let me go to by myself.
I believe my first record purchased actually consists of 18 records that I received for 1 penny...oh those silly record clubs. But really, who didn't use aliases to set up numerous accounts that you'd never pay for???
Frickin' Tommy Lee and I was told not to mention the whole "Pam Anderson thing". There was some sort of technical issue which was causing me to hear myself and him in delay so it took me 7 sweaty seconds to realize he told me to "f**k off" as he hung up.
This happened at Gannon University's WERG - FM 90. I was the morning show host, and as a starving college student, I also had a job as a flower delivery guy. One morning my boss at the flower shop asked me to make some emergency deliveries to like a funeral or something. Not wanting to miss out on the pay, I popped in Phish - A Live One side one and hit the road to make the deliveries, figuring I was fine for the next hour plus. About 20 minutes into my delivery the CD began skipping. That was a frantic drive back to the studio to remedy the issue. I still wonder to this day if anybody realized that the CD was skipping...I mean, after all, it WAS Phish.
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.
