An old-timer asks, where are the real disc jockeys?

By Jeff Orvis

Could commercial radio be the next victim of technology? Could there come a time when finding a radio station that plays music be as tough as finding a printed version of your favorite news magazine or newspaper?

Thanks to the internet and information storage devices, more and more folks who listen to music choose to make their own play lists without the talk or commercials. More and more radio is being taken over by talk radio. Seems like anybody with access to a microphone and a telephone line can get a radio show.

Some of my friends already know that before I decided to work for newspapers, I had a notion that I would go into radio. I had a taste of the airwaves on college radio stints at Central College and then later at St. Ambrose. But when the realization hit that radio folks often have to work on major holidays and at all hours of the day or night, the newspaper field seemed to be a more sensible route for me.

Back to the state of radio today. There's not enough variety. The dwindling number of stations that are still playing music have fewer and fewer radio personalities, disc jockeys we called them, that separates one station from the next.

If you listened to pop radio in the 1960s or 1970s, you probably had your favorites. Cruising the streets of Davenport in the summertime with the windows down, you could probably hear Guttenberger or Rich on KSTT. The station was on River Drive and if you were driving toward Bettendorf, you had the double treat of smelling fresh-baked bread from the Wonder Bread bakery on the left, followed by a chance at a glimpse at the radio guys at work in their studio by looking in the big plate glass window in their building on the right.

When I left home for my freshman year at Central, 150 miles away, the natural freshman homesickness was intensified when I found out that the KSTT signal didn't carry that far. Maybe that's why I decided to try my hand at hosting a campus radio show. I even took the Saturday night shift and played what I wanted, including some jazz cuts from albums I brought from home.

On my rare trips home, before we were in range of KSTT, once we reached Interstate 80, we could pick up WLS-Chicago. I can still remember it like it was yesterday: “John “Records” Landecker here at 89-WLS, the ROCK OF CHICAGO!”

Naturally, since three of my college friends who also worked at the campus station were from the Chicago area, it wasn't long before we tried to copy that slogan. But somehow the “Rock of Pella” lacked something.

We learned how to cue up records (those vinyl things that came long before cassettes, CDs or MP3s) so that we had time to introduce the cut before the vocals started. If you had a long introduction, such as some song by Chicago, you often had time to do a short weather report or promo for the next show.

Those days are gone. Luckily, we have several stations that play great oldies music. But there's no energy displayed in the radio studio. I've proven to myself that I probably could never make a living as a media ad salesman. But I'd be willing to bet my collection of Blood, Sweat and Tears albums that a format with high-energy, where's the coffee or Mountain Dew disc jockeys would be such a novel concept, clients would stumble all over each other to buy commercial time.