Back in 2004-2008, I took to the air and was a dj online. Those four years were amazing. I had so much fun. I always said I would get back in to it but never actually took the step forward. I was to 
start a new station with a friend but I started working longer hours, dedicating my life to my blog and late night yahoo chat. I just shoved the online deejaying job aside. Maybe I should get back into it. Who knows. I say that now but next week or even tomorrow, I’ll forget about this and not attempt it at all.
How did you get to be a dj online?
Good question! I mentioned before how I played an online game, “The Sims Online“. Great game. Anyway, I was playing the game one day and there were players shouting out song lyrics and thanking a person in the house for playing a certain song. It took a minute to discover she was streaming music online and the other people were tuning in. I clicked the station. If I recall, I believe the station was called “Fusion Radio”. I filled out an application for the station. It sounded like a fun thing to do. I have tons of music. I have good taste in music. Few days later, I was contacted and a test date was set up. I already had a microphone. I had music. I just needed a certain software to get the streaming going. Everything worked. I was in. I picked a few days I would dj on. The only downside to this station was I had to create a specific online handle (yahoo instant messenger) to dj from. It wasn’t such a big deal. I just had to place “dj” in front of my name. I just they wanted people to know I was a dj and not just a random nobody. This brought me to having two different yahoo handles. It caused issues when trying to read mail or message friends. I had to pick one to make my main name. I picked the dj one.
After months of this, the station changed formats. We were really allowed to play whatever we liked. I played it all. The station quickly dropped those not interested in just doing heavy metal. I was out of a job. The dj’ing bug was still with me. I wanted more. I jumped on the games forums and did a search for “radio stations”. I found one called, “ROFL radio”. Maybe not the best name. Okay, it was a pretty sh***y name. But I went with it. I was allowed to switch back to my old yahoo name. That was awesome. This is where I met Katrina, Chris, and Jendoline. I knew Katrina from game. She was friends with people I eventually became good friends with. Katrina was amazing. She even knew about the movie “Mr. Boogedy“.I met others but these three were good friends. Jendoline and I hit it off pretty well. We clicked. Before her and I arrived at the station, is wasn’t wildly popular. They were just a little station in the corner of the web. Just like my blog. Not wildly popular but I am here. Enjoying the space I have on the world wide web. Jendoline and I brought listeners to the station. I wasn’t really wanting to have a “role” with the station. I forgot what title I was given but I was given a little power at the station. Nice and all, but I really just wanted to play music and have fun. I already had responsibilities at work. Don’t overload me.
Before Jendoline arrived, I had fun with doing what I do best. Drinking. I got some strange idea one day to broadcast on the air and drink as I deejayed. Not the wisest decision I ever made but it made for some good comedy and listeners. One of my highest listener counts. I recorded the show. Not sure how much I drank. According to the file I have saved, I only lasted about 2 hours. Not sure how much I drank before I went on air and not sure how much I drank while on the air. What I do remember is, I called people. I yelled. I swore. I spilled drinks. Even my good friend, G-Rock got in on the action. It was quite the night. I edited the file and broke it down into 14 different files. Below are a few of them. These are probably the cleanest out of them all.
(NOTICE: NOT SAFE FOR WORK. DO NOT PLAY THESE FILES WITH CHILDREN PRESENT. DON’T PLAY THEM AROUND YOUR BOSS.)
While at ROFL, Jendoline and I created a segment we called, “Upcoming Artist”. Jendoline was really the one who found them. I helped with the interview and the recording of the interview. We interviewed a number of people. Our first interviewee, was a teenager out of California. His name is Ronnie Day. A very talented artist. Here a little bit of his interview here. Check out his site. Grab his CD. You can get it at Amazon.com.
Ronnie Day Interview Part 1 (Sunday July 24 2005)
Ronnie Day Interview Part 2 (Sunday July 24 2005)
Ronnie Day Interview Part 3 (Sunday July 24 2005)
Here is a video to “Outside”.
Besides interviewing Ronnie Day, we talked with “Milton and the Devil’s Party” and “The Hamptons“. The interviews are saved but due to limited space, I am not posting them. I can send you them if you like. The interviews were always fun to do. The idea started strong but after some time and I am not sure really why, it just stopped.
Jendoline and I had a great time at ROFL. I cannot recall what happened but she was “fired”. Hard to be fired from a job you don’t really get paid for. The ROFL family was worried that with her leaving I was going to leave to. I assured them that I wasn’t. But I did. This was back in 2005. I recorded my last show at that station. The show that night started out like normal. I started with some R&B. I jumped into some rock and roll. Mixed in some country. Then after a few hours, I switched it up a bit and started to play songs that told them basically, “I’m effin’ leaving.”
The play list at the end…
- Friend is a Four Letter Word – Cake
- People Ain’t No Good – Nick Seed and the Bad Seeds
- Wasting My Time – Default
- When I’m Gone – Three Doors Down
- Bye Bye Bye – N*Sync
- Vanishing – A Perfect Circle
- Bad Day – Fuel
- Nothing To Lose – Billy Talent
- Good Riddance (Time of your Life) – Green Day (or as my mom calls it, “The Seinfeld Song”)
- Plane – Jason Mraz
- Wordplay – Jason Mraz
- Without Me – Eminem
- Ready to Run – Dickless Chicks
- I’m Moving On – Rascal Flatts
- I Want to Break Free – Queen
- When It’s Over – Sugar Ray
- In The End – Linkin Park
- Closing Time – Semisonic
- Goodbye To You – Breaking Point
- Gone – Switchfoot
A pretty good selection I have to say. Jendoline and I bailed on the station and went out to create our own. I will talk about that in the next part of my online deejaying days. Hands
down, the greatest time I had working for an online station. Besides running my own online forums (pitweston.com), this was number 2. Sadly, I shut down my forums. I mentioned in a previous post that I still have the SQL file on my hard drive. I just don’t know if it is even possible to bring it back to life. Not to reopen the forum for posting but just to take a second look at the craziness that went on at the forums. Maybe a whole blog post will be dedicated to the crap we pulled while on the forums. When I quit the station, I had the idea of recording the entire show and playing it with me not on air. I had a file I was going to play at the end of the show but with me not pre-recording the show, I never got to use the file. Here it is.
It was fun. I’ll post the second part to this later this week. But knowing me, it’ll me months before I return to this.
pitweston
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