My So-Called Radio Career or Why I Won't Be PodCasting Anytime Soon

This post from 4F: (welcome them to our Blogroll) about that thar' new-fangled trend called Podcasting got me thinking about my short radio career on an obscure college radio station in Baltimore. After all, I imagine if I did do a Podcast, it would probably end up sounding like my old radio show.

So... I had the 2:30-4AM Saturday morning shift which usually meant I came in a few sheets to the wind, (and/or) stoned, full of lots of ideas (usually bad), a box of records & tapes and an occasional pal to keep me company (whom you can sometimes hear snickering in the background). Although friends were banned from the studios, there was usually no one there but the engineer who really didn't care. I probably had about five listeners at that time (it wasn't a big college) and I don't think the broadcast area covered more than a few miles.

Anyway, no one wanted the timeslot and jeebuz, I was barely enrolled in this school & had no illusions about a career... but I loved it .... even if it lasted only a semester. I kept a small box full of my semester's tapes but it got lost in my '98 cross-country Move From Hell. This lone tape survived somehow.

My radio show was called Nihilius Fillilius - get it? Well, it seemed cool back then and I remember looking with pride at the yellow xerox calendar they handed out at the student center. Since blogs are apparently part vanity, part revealing embarassing stuff about yourself, I thought perhaps somebody might get a kick out of my stumbling delivery and my occasional loss for words. The sound is well... its taped off radio and I didn't encode it at a high bit rate. Well, for the one or two of you who do download it, feel free to delete after you've had a good laugh (hello Rhetoricpig).

Here's a ~5Mb excerpt of me going through the second set's playlist and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry's "Talk About the Weather" which I'll have to post for real somtimes - it's still a great song ... It will be up for about two weeks...

For you masochists, here's the entire set from which this came (25 Mb, 35 minutes) via yousendit - it will only be available for a week. Woo-hoo. Again, my apologies for the sound quality but its... y'know... college radio. I think its a great playlist for late 1986 if I say so myself (although I'd drop the Hitchhiker's Guide crap). I remember the hippie-ish engineer getting a bit testy when the Happy Flowers song rounded into minute 3. What was his name? Scuz? Spaz? Schizz? something like that...

Playlist, 6 Dec 1986 (2nd set) Nihilius Fililius:

Poison Idea - Didn’t See the Picture - Kings of Punk
Execute - Nasty Nasty Nasty
Scratch Acid - Crazy Dan - Keep on Eating
Butthole Surfers - Unknown cut - Soundboard tape, Live at Staches, Columbus Ohio 1985
Flipper - There’s No Place As Bad As Southern California - Flipper, Live
Sonic Youth - Now I Wanna Be Your Dog - Confusion is Sex
Big Black - Every Man For Himself - God's Favorite Dog
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - BBC Radio show excerpt that goes on for too long
Happy Flowers - All I Got For Christmas Was Clothes - God’s Favorite Dog

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Talk About the Weather
Yoko Kill John - Mistress for All Seasons (short clip into commercials)

The 1st set had a full "women of punk" theme that included Nina Hagen singing "White Punks on Dope in German" (which hasn't aged well), Wendy O'Williams' "Sex Junkie (live)", The Avengers ("Cheap Tragedies"), Pussy Galore and the Dils (live). There's also a short rant on Pere Ubu after which I play one of my favorite songs of theirs: "Humor Me"... but its even too embarassing for a blog.

Oh, the closing track for this show was "I Want Everything" by The Godfathers...