I Was Fired...
For having an opinion.
I'm cross posting this from my "myspace." Which you can check out if you want:
www.myspace.com/distortedsociety
So before I even start here, I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'm not sad I lost my job, I'm actually quite happy.
2. I'm not bitter towards anyone at the radio station.
3. This is a blessing in disguise for me.
When I started in radio, WAY back in 1999 at Green River Community College's station KGRG, I was immediately sucked in. I spent the better part of the fall and winter cutting my teeth, learning how to use the audio-editing program in the (small) production room and working on-air getting over being nervous in front of the microphone.
I was SO immersed in radio, I knew I had to turn it into a career, because I fell in love when I first cracked the mic and realized the influence and pull I had over even our small audience. KGRG was complete radio freedom. Sure, we had music logs(telling us what to play), but did I ever follow them? Hell no...I started searching the booth for older CD's and music that I liked and thought everyone should hear. Maybe a little selfish, but I never got complaints from any listeners and I never got in any trouble from the programming department. By the time I was doing this I had already started putting together promos and sweepers and working on anything I could in the production department. My first shift was a "drive-time" weekend shift, then it became a weekday afternoon shift and eventually I got to host a Morning Show with my best friend Paul. I fell in love with radio over and over again while I was at KGRG. I learned my shit, and loved the variety and freedom. I thought about moving on to "real" radio and thought(ignorantly) that it would be the same way, or at least similar.
Boy, was I wrong.
I moved on to The End in the spring of 2002. I started as an intern for Joey, one of the production guys at the End. I learned about how commercials and promos were made in the "big leagues." I was hired in October and had my first overnight shift on Halloween '02. I just sat around loaded commercials into the system, played X-Box and waited for Andy, Jodi and Steve to show up for the morning show...I was still enchanted with radio, but noticed, through mistakes that I made, that time = money in radio and money is, in the end(no pun intended) the bottom line. Not the listeners, not the music...the money, that came from ads.
This is jaded me a little, but soon, I was in love once again because Jim Keller and Phil Manning took a chance on a local college radio DJ and gave me a couple overnight shifts a week on the weekends. I LOVED IT, my life couldn't get much better, but in the back of my mind, I felt dirty...I felt like I was living, somewhat, of a lie. Telling people I'd "try to get their request on" when I knew I wouldn't. I noticed air-tight playlists that weren't to be tampered with because, "it's what the "listeners" want to hear."
My progress at the station was fast, which left little time for me to stew on anything that was going on around me, I went from doing part-time over-night production and on-air work on the weekends, to doing full time work and imaging/production for The End and moving into the mornings/afternoons on the air on weekends. I was content and something inside me wouldn't let me see what was really going down around me.
"Ch...Ch...Ch...Ch...Changes"
The End went through 3 changes while I was there...When I first started, it was the classic End, the End that I had grown up with. Then they fired Bill Reed and Dick Rosetti and moved into "New Rock First," They dumped Andy Savage and his show and brought in The Marconi Show, that bombed, so we moved right along to "Seattle's Original Alternative" in response to KROCK coming to town. It was great, we played a WIDE variety of alternative music from the 70's, 80's, 90's and some newer stuff(but not too much)...soon enough KROCK really presented no threat to us, so we started playing more new music and shifting back to a younger demographic. We put out alternative declarations and said it was "All About The Music," which it was, for the most part. Soon enough we dropped the "original" in the name to just become "Seattle's Alternative," KROCK folded and that brings you to present day.
They still claim to be "About the music," and that they "respect their listeners." but I saw more changes coming. The playlists were tightening back up, we were repeating songs more often(something the Alternative Declaration promises not to do) and virtually ignoring, or laughing off any complaints about people hearing too much Green Day or Killers or Franz Ferdinand or Foo Fighters or Weezer...we had gone back to destroying the first single from a record by playing it a bazillion times, every couple hours.
I got complaints, I forwarded complaints and while I truely don't know what happened to those e-mails(I'm imagining most of them were responded to by the higher-ups), it seemed like they were being ignored. I'd bring up complaints and basically was told to forward them along to our program director and he would diffuse the situation. I can't say that I dis-agreed with any of the complaints I got, I LISTENED TO THE STATION, I WAS A LISTENER...
and I had the same complaints.
Then came the music that just, in my honest opinion, didn't fit. My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, O.A.R...
I was getting more and more jaded.
I was told that these bands focused on a "younger demo," that we needed to play them because there was a demand for them. Really? I never saw any demand for these bands, in fact instead of people offering praise for playing them, they called and complained, and e-mailed more and complained...Most of the time I didn't even forward the e-mails to my boss...I responded and told them that I agreed, but couldn't do anything about it since I was too low on the coporate ladder.
This brought about a change in my style of DJing, I knew it was a risk, but I had had never heard of anyone doing it. I was gonna be the "cynical dj," cynical about the world, politics and especially the music we were playing.
I started off making fun of Audioslave, because frankly, I thought their new album sucked. I jokingly took jabs at Tom Morello and Chis Cornell and people were responding, telling me to keep saying what I thought...people love opinions, even if they don't share the same one, they appreciate honesty and would rather have someone make fun of something they didn't like rather than act like a clone and continue to say "ohh, this new Audioslave is AWESOME, god Chris Cornell really took it to a new level on this one," FUCK THAT, I wasn't about that AT ALL. Next I took on Green Day, The Killers, The Bravery and so on and so forth...I got away with giving my opinion, and thought, wow, maybe this is working, maybe I'm creating a little buzz...
People were e-mailing me with regularity thanking me for "being real" and breaking the mold of what a DJ should do on the air. Someone even told me it was refreshing to hear a DJ give their opinion rather than just shilling the shitty corporate music on the audience.
"The Straw That Broke The Camels Back...So To Speak"
I continued to state my opinion on the air and got more adventureous with my "sells"(what it's called to tell people about the music)...Recently I was asked by numerous people, including Harms(Music Director) and Phil(Program Director) at the radio station what I thought about the band "Fall Out Boy." I told them I thought it was complete trash. I didn't think that it deserved a spot on Alternative radio since it had ALREADY BECOME MAINSTREAM(it was/is played on KISS 106).
I had the dis-pleasure of playing FOB's "smash hit"...,"Sugar, We're Going Down...", one weekend afternoon and decided, after recieving an e-mail and around 7 calls wondering why I was playing this horrible music,SO I decied to go on the air and be the sounding board for my listeners. I said something to the affect of:
"Ahhh(yelling kind of) it's SO poppy, make it stop! New Music On The End from Chicago's Fall Out Boy, Sugar We're going down, those guys came out of the Chicago hardcore scene...what happened to their anger?? Imagine that...a bunch of hardcore kids turned into whiny emo-boys...I know some people like it...but...uhhggg"
Obviously a lot more blunt, but still, it was neccisary for me to let the listeners know, I wasn't a clone and that I had my own opinion.
The other "instance" that Phil brought up when he fired me was the band O.A.R. very Dave Matthew-ish, Ohio frat/folk rock band and their song "Love and Memories." That one went down something like this:
"Wow......I have to apologize for the last 3 minutes and 15 seconds of that song...new music from OAR on 1077 The End...Love and Memories...that was bad...I can say with all honesty that I am not a fan...some people may like it and hey, to each ihs own...I'm not a fan...but if you wanna let me know what you thought give me a call (gave the #'s and e-mail)..."
That one was a bit harsh...but have you heard the song?
It's complete shit.
Again, I felt like I needed to give my opinion.
Apparantly this is un-acceptable, thus, I'm un-employed.
But really what is un-accpetable about that? I was a DJ, I thought it was my job to give my opinion of music.
Apparantly not, if that opinion differs from that of the music or programming department, even if I'm just expressing the opinion of a GOOD CHUNK of listeners, THAT is apparantly what is un-acceptable.
Fuck it.
My hands feel clean, I don't feel like such a clone anymore. If I got fired for anything, I'm glad it was for giving my opinion and being "real." That's all I ever wanted to be on the air. Myself. I didn't ever like talking up the shitty bands, I liked talking with the listeners and telling them I felt the same way, but until I activly started giving my opinion and parodying on what everyone thought an "alternative" DJ should be, I never felt really "free" at The End.
Now I'm free. I'm no longer stuck in the coporate machine.
Something you need to know is that "Alternative Radio" is no longer "alternative," it's mainstream music, forced down your throat as Alternative, there's nothing "alternative" about it...
The music that is played is decided by a maximum of 200 people who are ushered in to the conference room at the studios, sat down, given compensation for their gas and free pizza and asked what they think of the station. Mostly about what music they wanna hear. They let 200 people decide the direction of a radio station that serves hundereds of thousands, if not millions of people. The music is beat to death to serve the record companies who make more money when they...gasp!...sell records...and if anyone says they don't like the music or the way things are going, they are "taken care of."
It's a sick cycle that the music and radio industries have fallen into, just look at the payola scandal in New York, record compaines and radio stations are in bed together to achieve the bottom line, which I stated before is:
MONEY, dollars, duckets, dolla dolla bills y'all, green-backs, paper, ends...whatever you call them.
You are not a "listener"...you are really nothing to radio stations...you are a demographic. You have been reduced to "a 26 year old male/female who loves music, goes to shows, shops at local/indie record stores, occasionally goes to movies, loves bars and clubs and plays video games."
That's you. I was trying to show you that I didn't think you were stupid. I didn't think of you as just a demographic, I didn't care about the "bottom line", I cared about being real, about being myself, and what do I get?
Fired.
I don't blame anyone at the radio station for this, they are all caught up in the coporate scheme, protecting the "bottom line", making sure the record companies and advertisers are happy.
I'm not bitter either, though it may not seem like it, this is great. I'm free, I can do what I want for a while.
I wish everyone at the radio station well. I had fun while I was there, I made lots of friends, but I wasn't gonna sacrifice my integrity and what I stood for, just to get a paycheck.
If you take anything from this, I want you to know that there are good people at the End, most of them are, most of the DJ's are honestly some of the most straight forward, stand up people I know...
BUT always remember.
They(the corporation) are ALWAYS protecting the bottom line, you represent money to them.
YOU ARE A DEMOGRAPHIC.
BTW since I was fired matt@1077theend.com doesn't work anymore.
My new e-mail is Distorted_Society@hotmail.com
I'm cross posting this from my "myspace." Which you can check out if you want:
www.myspace.com/distortedsociety
So before I even start here, I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'm not sad I lost my job, I'm actually quite happy.
2. I'm not bitter towards anyone at the radio station.
3. This is a blessing in disguise for me.
When I started in radio, WAY back in 1999 at Green River Community College's station KGRG, I was immediately sucked in. I spent the better part of the fall and winter cutting my teeth, learning how to use the audio-editing program in the (small) production room and working on-air getting over being nervous in front of the microphone.
I was SO immersed in radio, I knew I had to turn it into a career, because I fell in love when I first cracked the mic and realized the influence and pull I had over even our small audience. KGRG was complete radio freedom. Sure, we had music logs(telling us what to play), but did I ever follow them? Hell no...I started searching the booth for older CD's and music that I liked and thought everyone should hear. Maybe a little selfish, but I never got complaints from any listeners and I never got in any trouble from the programming department. By the time I was doing this I had already started putting together promos and sweepers and working on anything I could in the production department. My first shift was a "drive-time" weekend shift, then it became a weekday afternoon shift and eventually I got to host a Morning Show with my best friend Paul. I fell in love with radio over and over again while I was at KGRG. I learned my shit, and loved the variety and freedom. I thought about moving on to "real" radio and thought(ignorantly) that it would be the same way, or at least similar.
Boy, was I wrong.
I moved on to The End in the spring of 2002. I started as an intern for Joey, one of the production guys at the End. I learned about how commercials and promos were made in the "big leagues." I was hired in October and had my first overnight shift on Halloween '02. I just sat around loaded commercials into the system, played X-Box and waited for Andy, Jodi and Steve to show up for the morning show...I was still enchanted with radio, but noticed, through mistakes that I made, that time = money in radio and money is, in the end(no pun intended) the bottom line. Not the listeners, not the music...the money, that came from ads.
This is jaded me a little, but soon, I was in love once again because Jim Keller and Phil Manning took a chance on a local college radio DJ and gave me a couple overnight shifts a week on the weekends. I LOVED IT, my life couldn't get much better, but in the back of my mind, I felt dirty...I felt like I was living, somewhat, of a lie. Telling people I'd "try to get their request on" when I knew I wouldn't. I noticed air-tight playlists that weren't to be tampered with because, "it's what the "listeners" want to hear."
My progress at the station was fast, which left little time for me to stew on anything that was going on around me, I went from doing part-time over-night production and on-air work on the weekends, to doing full time work and imaging/production for The End and moving into the mornings/afternoons on the air on weekends. I was content and something inside me wouldn't let me see what was really going down around me.
"Ch...Ch...Ch...Ch...Changes"
The End went through 3 changes while I was there...When I first started, it was the classic End, the End that I had grown up with. Then they fired Bill Reed and Dick Rosetti and moved into "New Rock First," They dumped Andy Savage and his show and brought in The Marconi Show, that bombed, so we moved right along to "Seattle's Original Alternative" in response to KROCK coming to town. It was great, we played a WIDE variety of alternative music from the 70's, 80's, 90's and some newer stuff(but not too much)...soon enough KROCK really presented no threat to us, so we started playing more new music and shifting back to a younger demographic. We put out alternative declarations and said it was "All About The Music," which it was, for the most part. Soon enough we dropped the "original" in the name to just become "Seattle's Alternative," KROCK folded and that brings you to present day.
They still claim to be "About the music," and that they "respect their listeners." but I saw more changes coming. The playlists were tightening back up, we were repeating songs more often(something the Alternative Declaration promises not to do) and virtually ignoring, or laughing off any complaints about people hearing too much Green Day or Killers or Franz Ferdinand or Foo Fighters or Weezer...we had gone back to destroying the first single from a record by playing it a bazillion times, every couple hours.
I got complaints, I forwarded complaints and while I truely don't know what happened to those e-mails(I'm imagining most of them were responded to by the higher-ups), it seemed like they were being ignored. I'd bring up complaints and basically was told to forward them along to our program director and he would diffuse the situation. I can't say that I dis-agreed with any of the complaints I got, I LISTENED TO THE STATION, I WAS A LISTENER...
and I had the same complaints.
Then came the music that just, in my honest opinion, didn't fit. My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, O.A.R...
I was getting more and more jaded.
I was told that these bands focused on a "younger demo," that we needed to play them because there was a demand for them. Really? I never saw any demand for these bands, in fact instead of people offering praise for playing them, they called and complained, and e-mailed more and complained...Most of the time I didn't even forward the e-mails to my boss...I responded and told them that I agreed, but couldn't do anything about it since I was too low on the coporate ladder.
This brought about a change in my style of DJing, I knew it was a risk, but I had had never heard of anyone doing it. I was gonna be the "cynical dj," cynical about the world, politics and especially the music we were playing.
I started off making fun of Audioslave, because frankly, I thought their new album sucked. I jokingly took jabs at Tom Morello and Chis Cornell and people were responding, telling me to keep saying what I thought...people love opinions, even if they don't share the same one, they appreciate honesty and would rather have someone make fun of something they didn't like rather than act like a clone and continue to say "ohh, this new Audioslave is AWESOME, god Chris Cornell really took it to a new level on this one," FUCK THAT, I wasn't about that AT ALL. Next I took on Green Day, The Killers, The Bravery and so on and so forth...I got away with giving my opinion, and thought, wow, maybe this is working, maybe I'm creating a little buzz...
People were e-mailing me with regularity thanking me for "being real" and breaking the mold of what a DJ should do on the air. Someone even told me it was refreshing to hear a DJ give their opinion rather than just shilling the shitty corporate music on the audience.
"The Straw That Broke The Camels Back...So To Speak"
I continued to state my opinion on the air and got more adventureous with my "sells"(what it's called to tell people about the music)...Recently I was asked by numerous people, including Harms(Music Director) and Phil(Program Director) at the radio station what I thought about the band "Fall Out Boy." I told them I thought it was complete trash. I didn't think that it deserved a spot on Alternative radio since it had ALREADY BECOME MAINSTREAM(it was/is played on KISS 106).
I had the dis-pleasure of playing FOB's "smash hit"...,"Sugar, We're Going Down...", one weekend afternoon and decided, after recieving an e-mail and around 7 calls wondering why I was playing this horrible music,SO I decied to go on the air and be the sounding board for my listeners. I said something to the affect of:
"Ahhh(yelling kind of) it's SO poppy, make it stop! New Music On The End from Chicago's Fall Out Boy, Sugar We're going down, those guys came out of the Chicago hardcore scene...what happened to their anger?? Imagine that...a bunch of hardcore kids turned into whiny emo-boys...I know some people like it...but...uhhggg"
Obviously a lot more blunt, but still, it was neccisary for me to let the listeners know, I wasn't a clone and that I had my own opinion.
The other "instance" that Phil brought up when he fired me was the band O.A.R. very Dave Matthew-ish, Ohio frat/folk rock band and their song "Love and Memories." That one went down something like this:
"Wow......I have to apologize for the last 3 minutes and 15 seconds of that song...new music from OAR on 1077 The End...Love and Memories...that was bad...I can say with all honesty that I am not a fan...some people may like it and hey, to each ihs own...I'm not a fan...but if you wanna let me know what you thought give me a call (gave the #'s and e-mail)..."
That one was a bit harsh...but have you heard the song?
It's complete shit.
Again, I felt like I needed to give my opinion.
Apparantly this is un-acceptable, thus, I'm un-employed.
But really what is un-accpetable about that? I was a DJ, I thought it was my job to give my opinion of music.
Apparantly not, if that opinion differs from that of the music or programming department, even if I'm just expressing the opinion of a GOOD CHUNK of listeners, THAT is apparantly what is un-acceptable.
Fuck it.
My hands feel clean, I don't feel like such a clone anymore. If I got fired for anything, I'm glad it was for giving my opinion and being "real." That's all I ever wanted to be on the air. Myself. I didn't ever like talking up the shitty bands, I liked talking with the listeners and telling them I felt the same way, but until I activly started giving my opinion and parodying on what everyone thought an "alternative" DJ should be, I never felt really "free" at The End.
Now I'm free. I'm no longer stuck in the coporate machine.
Something you need to know is that "Alternative Radio" is no longer "alternative," it's mainstream music, forced down your throat as Alternative, there's nothing "alternative" about it...
The music that is played is decided by a maximum of 200 people who are ushered in to the conference room at the studios, sat down, given compensation for their gas and free pizza and asked what they think of the station. Mostly about what music they wanna hear. They let 200 people decide the direction of a radio station that serves hundereds of thousands, if not millions of people. The music is beat to death to serve the record companies who make more money when they...gasp!...sell records...and if anyone says they don't like the music or the way things are going, they are "taken care of."
It's a sick cycle that the music and radio industries have fallen into, just look at the payola scandal in New York, record compaines and radio stations are in bed together to achieve the bottom line, which I stated before is:
MONEY, dollars, duckets, dolla dolla bills y'all, green-backs, paper, ends...whatever you call them.
You are not a "listener"...you are really nothing to radio stations...you are a demographic. You have been reduced to "a 26 year old male/female who loves music, goes to shows, shops at local/indie record stores, occasionally goes to movies, loves bars and clubs and plays video games."
That's you. I was trying to show you that I didn't think you were stupid. I didn't think of you as just a demographic, I didn't care about the "bottom line", I cared about being real, about being myself, and what do I get?
Fired.
I don't blame anyone at the radio station for this, they are all caught up in the coporate scheme, protecting the "bottom line", making sure the record companies and advertisers are happy.
I'm not bitter either, though it may not seem like it, this is great. I'm free, I can do what I want for a while.
I wish everyone at the radio station well. I had fun while I was there, I made lots of friends, but I wasn't gonna sacrifice my integrity and what I stood for, just to get a paycheck.
If you take anything from this, I want you to know that there are good people at the End, most of them are, most of the DJ's are honestly some of the most straight forward, stand up people I know...
BUT always remember.
They(the corporation) are ALWAYS protecting the bottom line, you represent money to them.
YOU ARE A DEMOGRAPHIC.
BTW since I was fired matt@1077theend.com doesn't work anymore.
My new e-mail is Distorted_Society@hotmail.com