KSCU-The Underground Sound Tom Kruller
I recently started a radio
show with my good friend Paul at a local college station called
KSCU, Santa Clara University's very own. I had listened
to the station on and off for the past few years (because it made
me feel hip, and the music could actually be quite good at times),
and Paul and I found out fairly quickly that it would be no trouble
to get a show there (one quarter of light volunteer work and one
quarter of basic training is all it takes, folks--SCU student
or not). When we started out, we decided on a basic musical
format of surf and punk rock, and we dedicated ourselves to never
settle for poor quality, something that most KSCU DJ's seemed
to have given up on long ago.
The vast majority of KSCU DJ's
are, as a matter of fact, shitty. Shittier than shitty.
Any given show you might listen to seems never to have more than
one thing going right at a time. If the music is bearable,
than the DJ's comments between songs are inane, if the DJ's conversation
IS interesting, then it goes on far too long and ruins itself.
And the sad fact of it is, these DJ's don't really seem to mind
their own incompetence. Week in, week out, they just sit
in this holding pattern of mediocrity, never trying to improve
their own show, because they figure it's just college radio anyway.
But they are not the only ones
to blame--much to blame is the casual, laid-back, I might even
say 'dirty hippie,' feel of the studio itself. However,
that's still no excuse for unprofessionalism--what these people
need to realize is that they are being broadcast to hundred of
thousands of people's homes and places of business, and that settling
for less can never be acceptable. What it comes down to
is this--I'm not disappointed with the poor quality of many of
the station's shows, my own show is quite shitty--I'm disappointed
with most DJ's complete lack of interest in bettering their own
radio broadcast. Our show may not be great, but we still blow
the expletive out of a good third of the programs on KSCU, and
we've just started. So to all of the crap-faced, uncreative,
no-talent ass-wipe DJ's out there on KSCU--just give up now, because
you'll never make it into real radio. My gosh it's hard
to walk with such huge nuts between my legs...
Tom Kruller
p.s. our show is 9am-11am
every Friday 103.3fm. if
you're not in the south SF bay, go to www.kscu.org and
look for streaming audio.