I Don't Know How to Write a Big Hit Blog

Perhaps because it's a Wednesday, my mind turned to these guys, as this cut (which I never knew had a promo video before--ah, YouTube) used to kick off my college radio show of the same name, Wed. evenings 11-1 on the late lamented 10-watter WJHU (later I'd do the show through grad school too, at KRUI in so many different time slots I can't recall them all). So these 2 plus minutes mean a boost of adrenalin, an "It's showtime, folks!" call for me to try to put something together out of what others had done. To say something useful about it, about them, but never too much--I liked nothing better than building 30-40 minutes sets without obnoxious me breaking in, despite my efforts to master mellifluous tones. No, the goal was to build a mood, set a scene, take listeners from musical spot A to musical spot Z in a way no alphabet might predict. The joy of making surprising something out of other things. The hopefulness that someone out there you can't see, would probably never meet, to whom you're nothing but a voice, might find it all add up too. What a charming idea.

Of course this is merely a way to make sense out of life aesthetically, to pretend there's control over that getting from A to Z; I know that now at what I hope isn't much more than M. But there I go assuming order. Assuming the fates don't make the signal break, that no weather comes to ice up the antenna. That there's enough in saying "here's what I love" and having others love that too, and assuming that really does make anyone closer. For in the end in those pre-digital days, all a DJ was was a person in a soundproof booth, circles at arm's length spinning their spin, with headphones on and even one's own voice coming from outside, as if even one's self were imaginary, or perhaps I mean created. That humans have this incredible need to think creation must imply intent seems beyond what a DJ can deal with, as he merely clings to hoping to get you to dance, even if at times with tears in your eyes.