Radio KAOS resurrected
RADIO KAOS·FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2018·
Hey everyone, ok Facebook keeps adding all these new things I can either do or totally fu***ng ignore, of which most I do. For example I can boost every post which COSTS MONEY...why the f**k would I do that? Anyway...this is called our story or my story for that matter. Back when I was a teenager I had all the music and everyone wanted me to
come to their parties and bring my tunes, I guess I kind of became the defacto DJ. I never looked at it that way. I just looked at it as hey I have the tunes, I should score with some girls. The parties were always rockin. During this same time I became friends with a guy who became like my older brother his name was Dave Boyd, he was my mentor as it ended up being. He used to DJ at a local place called the Swiftwater Inn. When I was 18 or so he used to ask me if I wanted to come down and help out on Saturday nights and he showed me the ropes and expanded my taste in music which was already quite vast due to the fact that during the mid 70’s my folks owned a bar restaurant called Nobody’s Inn and they always had bands on Friday and Saturday nights. I used to sneak down stairs and hide i the kitchen and listen to the bands play Peter Frampton, The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles etc etc. At this same time I was going to college at East Stroudsburg University. My longtime friend Bill Carson was Djing on the college station WESS 90.3 FM. He did a show on Friday nights playing movie soundtrack music, definitely a unique show choice, but if you’re into movies and love music, it was actually a pretty fu***ng cool show. I used to listen to him as I was driving around town. Every so often I would stop in and sit in on a show or two with him and we always had a blast. He started saying ya know YOU should do a show. It would be killer so after some prodding I said yeah ok what the hell. At this time there was only ONE real metal show in WESS and that belonged to the one and only Michael Lama (Sargent D). He was on Sunday nights 7-10. So I took the slot right before him 4-7. So on Sundays you got 6 hours of non stop metal from the two of us, and at that time METAL was still king. My very first night Bill sat in with me and I was a nervous wreck, I stuttered talking on the mic when I opened my show. About 10 mins in the phone started ringing off the hook with requests. I remember it like it was yesterday Bill standing in the back of the studio looked up and said you’re a hit. I had a huge fan following at the local prison lol....I still have some of the fan mail. One guy was a convicted devil worshipper lol. Anyway Mike graduated and I moved into his slot on Sunday nights 7-10. At this point Sunday was the METAL day a young kid took my old slot and played metal punk and then after me was a guy named Jim H, he played all the glam metal. He comes into this mess much later. I decided to name the show after Roger Waters album RADIO KAOS...I know its about as non metal as it gets but face it the title is fu***ng cool as s**t. I also used the main theme from Halloween II to open my show. When you heard that you knew I was coming....gave me another couple minutes to take a call or two and set things up. As my show grew I ended up taking over the metal program director and had contacts with all the record companies a lot of great people. I had access to any show or band I wanted to see. At one point someone broke into the station and stole a ton of s**t. Equipment music etc. rumors abound I was the culprit. Sorry folks not this kid I had all my own equipment at home. I got promoted to full music director mainly because I was the only one with any contact to record companies. During the summer break the then station manager and myself talked and he begged me to call and get as much music as possible. Now one major problem we had was music was still being stolen before it could ever be locked up. So we agreed the best way to prevent this was to have ti sent directly to me over the summer. I cant even tell you how much stuff came over the summer HUGE boxes of cds of every band known to man. I would bring it down to the station and lock it up in the cabinet we had in the office. When the Fall session was near to starting I made call after call on my HOME phone all over the country racking up a huge bill and had all the companies change the address back to the station. Everything began to flow back to the station rather fast. Later that semester I was called to the dean of students office. I was accused of stealing music and abusing my position. I went in with a letter from the former station manager explaining the situation. This is where Jim H comes into play, he had been voted station manager and had it in for me from the get go because. I had all the contacts and felt I wouldn’t share. Well when he asked for tickets to see GWAR I hooked him right up. So you tell me. Anyway long story short I got suspended from the station for the Spring 93 semester. The Dean did say to me she commended me for my efforts but ends don’t justify the means. Ok I can’t really argue why. BUT what I had a problem with was the station manager Jim never confronted me directly about the whole thing. He went on a witch hunt to find something and apparently he did. In a letter provided to the Dean a company called Century Media Record who were brand new at the time. Said they had sent materials to my home address. I told the Dean I never denied this happened. But again the ends....needless to say Jim got what he wanted but it wouldn’t have really mattered anyway I was doing my student teaching and most likely would have not had near enough time for the show. Years later here on Facebook he and I went back and forth and he ended up disappearing heard he died I don’t know. I was told at one point by a former station manager that prisoners were calling his show after I went off the air and were telling him to kill himself and give up his time to me. I was asked to go on the air and ask them to go easy on him. I doubt it worked those guys were pretty loyal and vicious. I tried to go back and pick up my old show but it had passed away at that point. Music had changed Nirvana was the big thing. So I moved on. I had my own business DJing weddings etc and was alsot he house DJ at Shenanigans in Lake Harmony in the late 90’s. One of the best compliment I ever got working there came from a group that came in from Hoboken. They came in and said ya know we can go to any club in Manhattan but we like coming here because we never know what you will do or play. The spontaneity is awesome he said. Hoboken is home of the Chairman of the Board who passed away while i was working there. I got do do an hour tribute playing Sinatra tracks there and the crowd of all young people in there 20’s really embraced it. The owner and I had a serious difference on my worth and I walked after New Years in 99
So that leads to today......a few years back on a New Years eve I found myself posting youtube clips of songs on my wall and people were enjoying it. So it became something of a tradition and when my mentor Dave took ill with ALS. It became a labor of love on New Years Eve to plays stuff for him. A Swiftwater inn set I called it, 10 or so songs from back in the day. He has since passed away. So one year I thought how can I expand on what I was doing New years Eve. Facebook Live debuted and I thought wow I could resurrect my old show RADIO KAOS. Which I did. Now as many of you know I am NOT able to lay music live due to copyright restrictions. If I EVER hit the lottery I will be going FULL OUT. But in the meantime I post news, music clips and do live videos every so often. etc etc etc. At 49 years old now I miss djing the old show and at the Swifty and Shenanigans. So thank you to everyone who checks in and let’s me be a kid for a little while every so often. This is for Dave Boyd, my mom, my dad and all my metal head friends.....
Mike
