the Music

I played a wide variety of music, but never straying too far from the “new music” core of the time. I didn’t really have any agenda as far as trying to get some kind of message across with what I played. The only exception was when I would do a Fat Mike set.

Several DJ’s had their favorite song they would play often. Keith played Kraftwerk’s Tour de France nearly every shift. Ben played Bill Nelson’s Flaming Desire every other week. Abby played Palais Schaumburg’s Beat of Two often. I played one tune by the Residents per shift on average, as I had plenty of favorites by them.

It was a hobby. I did it because I liked it. So for the most part I had to like what I played, and if there was only unappealing stuff up in rotation I would just dig a little farther or skip it altogether. Same with requests. If I didn’t like the request, I wouldn’t play it. But requests were a good way to learn about unfamiliar songs.

I saved nearly all of my music logs. I don’t know why. After tracking they were returned and they just kind of piled up.

Here are just a few examples:

3/4/84


6/17/84


7/2/84


9/23/84


1/26/85


3/23/85


4/25/85


6/22/85


8/10/85


12/8/85


3/8/86


4/16/86


6/14/86


9/13/86


11/1/86


What the codes mean (near as I can recall):
H = Heavy rotation – play it every fours, industry standard
N = New – we were encouraged to explore that bin
O = Other – for whatever reason it was different
C = Current – later replaced with more conventional M and L
LIB = Library – the collection in general
REG = Reggae – I avoided this as best I could
R = Rotation – replaced C for a short time
45 = 7" single
M = Medium rotation – eight hour rotation
L = Light rotation – 24 hour rotation
7"LOC = Local artist or 7" single – we had tapes sent in by bands
W.DOT = White dot – if a song got too much airplay, it would get a white dot next to the title

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