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I'm taking an advanced radio production class at Pasadena City College, and for the final, each of us is required to "cold call" a commercial radio station, arrange for spending a complete shift with an on-air personality, to be a fly on the wall, have a picture taken with us together with the station banner visible behind us, and do a write up of what the on-air personality did and didn't do, what equipment was used, Etc...
So, seeing as how Indie is my favorite commercial station (KCRW is my favorite overall station - Indie probably would be, if not for their ruining great songs by constantly overplaying them like every other station), it was awesome to get to do my project at Indie, and what a great guy Dicky was for helping me out! I sent a bulk email to all the email addresses I could find on Indie's website, and Dicky was (not suprisingly) the ONLY one to not only respond, but tell me he'd help me.
He told me to be there on April 4, at 6am. I was there on time, but nobody answered the phone when I called from the guard station downstairs. After bugging the guard over and over again, he finally let me up to the floor Indie is on, and told me to keep pounding on the doors for Entravision, until someone hears and lets me in. I did that, for like 15 minutes, to no avail. Then a guy came off the elevator, and went the other way from the main entrance, so I ran after him and asked if he worked for Entravision. He said yes, I told him my sitch, and he went in to Indie's area, and Chuck, Dicky's sidekick and main guy, came and got me.
It was way cool to see what goes on. And way cool to meet Dicky, Chuck, Liz, and the main guest, Don Letts, who was in the band Big Audio Dynamite, and was there promoting his new documentary, Punk Attitude, which will be shown on IFC Channel in July, I think it was. There was another woman there as well, but I can't remember her name (sorry if you read this), as well as the woman from the IFC Channel.
Dicky razzed me a bit, both on and off air. I'm pretty shy, and not that quick to think of good responses when I'm not expecting to be contributing to their conversation, which made me a prime target. He was cool though. "You have to earn your keep", he told me.
It was a cool thing though. Dicky is a real giver. Way cool guy.
- Tom [ http://www.noyou.net ]