When I Was An Online DJ: Part I

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.)

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3

Clip 4

Clip 5

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…

  1. Friend is a Four Letter Word – Cake
  2. People Ain’t No Good – Nick Seed and the Bad Seeds
  3. Wasting My Time – Default
  4. When I’m Gone – Three Doors Down
  5. Bye Bye Bye – N*Sync
  6. Vanishing – A Perfect Circle
  7. Bad Day – Fuel
  8. Nothing To Lose – Billy Talent
  9. Good Riddance (Time of your Life) – Green Day (or as my mom calls it, “The Seinfeld Song”)
  10. Plane – Jason Mraz
  11. Wordplay – Jason Mraz
  12. Without Me – Eminem
  13. Ready to Run – Dickless Chicks
  14. I’m Moving On – Rascal Flatts
  15. I Want to Break Free – Queen
  16. When It’s Over – Sugar Ray
  17. In The End – Linkin Park
  18. Closing Time – Semisonic
  19. Goodbye To You – Breaking Point
  20. 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.

Pit Tribute

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.