Iowa State: KUSR 91+

I write these, put them aside to edit…or to have something to post on a rainy day. This is context–I was prompted to write this because of a phone call yesterday from Ron Silverio, one of the legends of Foster House at Iowa State.

Related but not related–over the years, I’ve done a lot of things that leave people looking at me funny. “Really?” They never believe the varity of things I’ve had the opportunity to do–I’ve had the opportunity to do TV color commentary for Ohio State volleyball, I’ve done VB on the radio, and I did a season of basketball play by play…and with all that, I got to spend a year being the PA Announcer for Ohio State’s WBB team and the alternate PA guy for the MBB team…and it IS a big ego rush to hear your voice boom across a Big 10 arena…ain’t gonna lie about that.

But really–that chain of my employment history owes quite a bit to Mr. Silverio. Our sophomore year, when we were still in the Holy Land of Westgate, Ron got a job at KUSR 91+ “Ames’ BEST choice”. I went over a couple times while he did his show and learned how to operate all the equipment–none of that stuff is necessary now in the 21st century really…I learned to cue up records, run the carts, handle equalizers and a sound board…even how to operate the new-fangled CD players (which you had to be careful with because they’d overheat…always needed a backup ready–just in case)

And so the following year, I applied and got my own show–2am to 6am. What a blast. One of the great things about small stations at that time was that you had a great deal of choice about what went out–you could take requests, pick stuff you liked, whatever. At KUSR, all you had to do was make sure that you played three specific songs each hour…since KUSR was non-profit, those plays were how the station got albums (and WOOOOO new-fangled CDs!!!!) donated to the collection.

It was awesome going through the albums–the collection there went back 20+ years with some of them…with some that you couldn’t play any more–with “Stairway to Heaven”, it had been played so much that the needle-track was totally worn out. Others like Ted Nugent had had selections scratched out with a knife or painted over with white-out…obscenity on the air was a massive bozo no-no…nothing like listening to SiriusXM or watching cable TV in the 21st century.

Basically, this is an explanation of why/how I can recognize so much rock and roll from 1960-1988 or so. After leaving KUSR (summer of ’88), I lose that ability….though given the quality of rock after 1990, it’s not a great loss.

*The great request would be the Thursday night 230am call from Wal-Mart. In the 80s, Wal-Mart was never 24/7. It was always closed for one hour nightly to restock and clean. The cleaning crew would call and make the same request EVERY time. After a month or so, I asked why–which is how I found out they were at Wal-Mart and it was closed. They’d take the radio and turn it up as soon as their request came through. The request?

It ALWAYS had to be the live version that I played…and once I knew why–I made sure that every Thursday, right around 245am, I would play the song. They’d call and say thanks but in the end, I never met any of them–but my imagination of what it had to sound like with BOC blasting across an entire Wal-Mart with guys jamming out to it still warms my heart.

I enjoyed helping Ron with “KQ” (after a side mission to Des Moines…) and then once I was working for KUSR, us doing a couple shifts. KQ was a radio quiz contest where questions and quests were done over a 24hr period on a Friday and Saturday. Prizes were given–and Foster finished 3rd once. For most of the teams, their answers grew sporadic overnight, either due to people choosing sleep OR because they’d chosen beer earlier and were no longer conscious. KQ is still held–but the advent of the internet must have radically changed it…how can you ask a trivia question over the air and not have everyone instantly able to look it up?

I miss having access to a production room–nevermind that in the modern world you can drop/drag songs into the order you want, etc. Back then, I had access to an entire album library and a private room where I could record songs as I wanted them in the order I wanted them. Ahh, good days. Somewhere I still have those tapes, I think…though I know I’ll never put them in a cassette player ever again.

No friendship with Ron, no KUSR. No KUSR, no announcing sports.

And with that, one other advantage…the confidence to speak in public. It’s nerve-wracking and REALLY cool to know people are out there listening to you–voluntarily because they could change the station…it means they like what you are doing, the songs you are selecting. That confidence didn’t come over night for me; indeed, it remains a work-in-progress…so many days where I feel like people will figure out I’m a charlatan and don’t know jack…which is why I work so hard at things.

None of this is important enough to appear on a gravestone or be written in an obituary. How do you explain something relatively trivial like this and its importance in your long-term growth as a person, how it affected who I am? What does this tell you about my friendship with Ron–how could that really be explained? I mean, I had not talked to Ron in a decade (Ron’s a Luddite with technology post-1995) …and it was like we picked up a conversation from the day before. I am thankful for friends I can do that with, thankful for what they’ve brought to my life and the doors I’ve walked through because of them.

Jeebus–what a sappy ending to this!