No hats or sweaters for my Q102 publicity shot. This hung in the lobby! Nice mullet.
This is NOT one of those “what were you like in the 90s?” posts, but it IS about something that happened in the 90s. Thirty years ago today, March 18, 1996, I did my very first show at Q102 in Philadelphia. OK, so technically it was my second show since I did a warm-up over the weekend prior, but let’s forget about that. Everyone else has! There have been so many first shows throughout my career… almost more than I can count, however this one was different. It marked a milestone!
For five years, I stumbled around the bottom of the “radio ladder,” trying to grab hold of the next rung. I’d get to a station, pretend I knew what I was doing, eventually figure out what I was doing, and then butt heads with management over what I was doing when, all of a sudden, someone would call (no e-mail yet) with a job offer. Finally! This would fix EVERYTHING. Except it didn’t. I’d just repeat the process over and over… moving to slightly bigger radio stations in slightly bigger markets where things were exactly the same.
1995 was, by far, the most chaotic year of my career. The station where I worked in Harrisburg, PA filed for bankruptcy. Not sure why. We never spent a dime! As usual, the next opportunity presented itself in the nick of time. That March, I moved to Greenville, SC to be part of a brand new station. And, as usual, that ultimately turned out to be a nightmare. So four months later, I found the courage to walk… WITHOUT a new job! This was different. Thankfully, within a few weeks, I was offered a part-time position in Charlotte. It wasn’t enough to pay the bills, but then came a full-time offer in Roanoke, VA. This was a HUUUUUGE drop in market size, which was antithetical to each of my previous moves. The reason I took it was the station’s reputation of being a “launching pad.” Through the years, an abnormally high number of DJs left Roanoke for jobs in major markets like New York and LA. That rarely ever happened with a station in market 105! Must be something magical there, so I decided to place my bet.
I worked with no days off for most of October doing my show and helping to cover for a jock who had recently been let go. (This station was a mess just like the rest.) I was beyond exhausted and not doing what I’d call good radio. So imagine my shock when I came to work on a Monday and found a pink “while you were out” message. (Very few had email at this point.) A program director with EZ Communications was driving to the World Series in Atlanta, happened to hear me that Sunday, and liked what they heard! My bet paid off… and started a whole new adventure.
EZ owned a bunch of big market stations at the time, most notably in Philly, Pittsburgh, Seattle, St. Louis, and New Orleans. All of a sudden, they wanted to hire ME… small market radio boy. Honestly, I didn’t care where they sent me. Just get me the hell out of Roanoke! Who knew the wheel would land on Q102 in Philadelphia?!? This was a station I had listened to all through high school. A station that very heavily inspired me to get into radio! What a small world. The position was commercial production director. I’d be off air mainly, but might fill in when other jocks were sick or on vacation. So that was the deal and I was all in! But then came a phone call early one morning. I was still in bed in Roanoke. Hadn’t even quit my current job yet. It was Dave Allan, one of my new bosses in Philly. He said, “there’s been a change of plans.” You know where my mind immediately went. The imposter syndrome kicked in and I just knew the deal had fallen apart. Wrong! Their morning show, Eddie & Jobo decided to go back to Chicago and the program director, Glenn Kalina was moving from middays to mornings. “Would you still be interested if the job included middays on-air…or is that a dealbreaker?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The ONLY hesitation I had before taking this job was that I wouldn’t be on the air each day. And now I WOULD be? Deal deal deal!
So let’s do the math: Harrisburg, Greenville, Charlotte, Roanoke, and Philly (plus some earlier part time stuff I didn’t mention in Scranton, Atlantic City, and Wilmington, DE) ALL in ONE year? No wonder I had a reputation… not to mention a forest’s worth of W2 forms! It was all part of the plan: get way up that ladder into the big leagues as quickly as possible. And guess what I found out when I arrived? So many of the big egos and petty BS I dealt with on those lower rungs were nowhere to be found at this new altitude! Was it perfect? Of course not. That doesn’t exist, but it was nothing short of amazing.
On this 30th anniversary of my first day at Q102, I want to thank Dave Allan, Glenn Kalina, and Gil Rozzo for taking a chance on this 20 year-old punk kid with a shaky (at best) reputation. You changed my life!