Introduction to 33 1/3 Cents a Pound

I was first introduced to the world of radio my freshman year in college. It seemed like the coolest extra curricular activity you could do, by far. Having your own radio show of course meant you got to pick all the songs, you got to talk about them, and other people had to listen to it!  And you would get to tell people, "Um yeah I have a radio show. It's pretty cool.  I'm so awesome...." etc.

credit

The first week of the semester CMU had an activities fair. I'm sure other schools do this too.  All the different clubs set up booths and try to recruit freshman to join their activity.  Various activist groups, literary organizations, and intramural sports drew my attention. But something stood out, the student and community run radio station.  WRCT -- Radio Carnegie Tech -- began broadcasting in 1949 and has become a stalwart of the broadcast community, reaching a 15-mile-radius locally and streaming worldwide.

basement of the UC

It was at WRCT, down in the basement of the "new" university center, that I first used a "turntable" and a mixer.  I was exposed weekly to a steady flow of underground hip-hop, just as the underground (re)emerged  in the late 90's with Rawkus Records and that whole scene. I had access to shelves of records of 1980's formative rap and hip-hop music -- not to mention all the soul, funk, R&B, and of course the vast blues, jazz, and rock collection -- and a couple of hours every week to play whatever I wanted.

The first semester, before you get your own show, you have to train with another DJ on the air and then pass an "air test." The first day I went in to the studio to train on the air I remember the girl who was the DJ telling me, "It's just like using your turntable at home."  I was like, "Uh I don't have a turntable at home..."  I'm thinking, man I just got this discman 2 years ago.  Not a lot of kids from my high school were rocking the Technic 1200's in their room, ya know?  I listened to Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre -- I didn't know how to cut up the ones and twos.  So anyway, I had to drop the needle delicately onto the record and my hand was shaking so bad.  Even to this day if I am using turntables and people are watching me mix, you can see my hand shake when I try to place the needle accurately.  

But I'm really glad that my first exposure to the radio station was with a DJ who was using strictly vinyl and no CDs at all.  In fact, and I've never really admitted this before, she never really showed me how to cue up the CD players in the studio (which were weird), and I honestly didn't use them for like the first 2 years that I was on the air.  I also didn't know how to play the recorded public service announcements, from these cartridges, so I always had to read them myself.  

My freshman R.A. Ed Knittell and I had entered into this venture together and we decided to do a show together.  Newcomers get the late night time slots, so our first show ran late Saturday nights (or early Sunday mornings) from 2am to 6am every week for 4 months.  Going for 4 hours was a total mistake.  We had figured we would each do 2 hours, but we weren't thinking that obviously both of us would be standing there for the whole 4 hours.  The show did run quite long, but there was definitely a romantic mystique to having that overnight time slot.  From 2 to 4am things were pretty busy.  People would call from frat parties and request songs.  Our friends would get back to the dorm late and tune in to the show. But after 4 it was just us.  Phyzz Ed and DJMV (that was me, my initials and CMU email being "jmv").  I came up with the name for our show -- 33 1/3 Cents a Pound -- and it has stuck ever since.

Over the next 3 years fewer people were doing hip-hop shows.  There was a TON of techno -- real techno -- plus some indie rock and actually a lot of blues and jazz shows at the time.  I moved up in seniority, and eventually had the prime time slot: Friday evening 8-10pm.  People would be getting ready to go out and party, bumping my show.  By that time it was called 33 1/3 Cents a Pound, Temple of Hip-hop.  I had actually learned how to scratch and mix at that point.  I knew all the current artists.  I knew all the promoters in the area and had them dropping off new white label singles at the station.  I knew Selecta when he was "James" at 'RCT!  Haha -- This all sounds much, much cooler than it really was.  I'm really just a nerd, but a nerd who understands a little bit about different types of music.  

This was the first set of used equipment
we got in 2001 or 02

One thing that I am not, and my radio show will not be, is current, up to date, either with the mainstream or underground/independent scene.  I just don't have the effort necessary to keep up with new stuff -- and/or I'm just not exposed to the channels where I would get this kind of influence -- and there is just too much.  Anyway, back to the WRCT story...

I also joined this underground hip-hop bboard online with all these other guys at other colleges (representin' "the real" hip-hop, ya know? ;-)  The beginning of the internet, man!  I seriously thrived on the music influences I got from the radio station and the bboard -- and of course my roommate at the time Av.

Ever since that era I've always wanted to do a radio show again.  I briefly did a talk show -- a public affairs show called the VP Show -- in 2004, which was really fun.  It was an informational, NPR style news and variety show that I did with a friend and neighbor.  I got a nice set of turntables a few years after I graduated (and then at some point I got Virtual DJ on my computer). My roommate at the time JJ and I "invented" this style of mixing we called "Band Style," which I'll have to describe in another post some time.  It basically takes the approach of DJing recorded music (on vinyl or otherwise) more like a live band, but like an improvisational jazz band or jamband.  So we would layer and segue the songs in different ways, kind of like a band, playing different styles of music, not like a DJ who would play a whole set of the same type of music.  But it WAS like a DJ in that we would always be segueing and mixing from one song into the next.  

The crappy Vestax and Numark we had

Then after going through all that with the turntables and some other random equipment, I got Virtual DJ on my computer -- that's when I really started to actually get good at mixing -- once I had the ability to do everything on the computer and have access to my full music collection.  I could beat-match, loop, and sample very easily, and record my mixes, plus use my iTunes library with all my CDs from the 90's and music I've downloaded since then -- all just sitting at the computer, without having the use the turntables and mixer, without having to buy records of any music I wanted to use.  I just want to DJ as a hobby -- I don't want to have to buy a bunch of records all the time...

eventually I got a couple of
new Stanton turntables

So over the last 10 years or so I've really practiced/experimented with a lot of different music.  My goal has always been to take some of my favorite songs, my favorite artists, and arrange DJ mixes to listen to myself  at home, or on a road trip, or in a social setting.  I like to have different little mixes that I can do when I get an urge to DJ because it's not really fun if you're not doing a good job or picking good songs.  It's fun to DJ is you already have some of the songs picked out and you already know how to mix them ahead of time.  Getting good at it is work -- but executing it is fun.

I haven't had a lot of contact with other DJs, so I haven't learned much from anyone else.  That is something I think I could benefit from the most -- learning some basic skills from other "real" DJs.  Most of what I've done I've figured out myself, and I don't really think it's that hard, but I'm sure there are plenty of basic techniques and principles that I would benefit from learning from somebody else.

djay for iPod: neato

About 2 years ago in the Fall of 2010 I joined mixcloud.com and started working on, recording, and posting my own mixes.  I have about a half dozen up there and a couple of them are really good. My Eminem mix has had a ton of listeners and is one of the higher ranked "cloudcasts" if you search for 'Eminem.'  I have to say it's pretty cool to see that a lot of people are listening to it and enjoying it!  This one dude, 'mjtGold,' just listened to it over and over and over again, it's crazy!  And I love that you can see what mixes people have listened to and favorited -- I love getting all the real time, real world data and feedback.  Technology!

very fun
and it actually works

full DJ set up with pre-cueing

So anyway, I do want to continue to make these DJ mixes, but then I also think I want to do a more traditional radio show and/or podcast type of thing.  At first it could just be a couple of episodes, but eventually it could be monthly or weekly.  I would want to play a bunch of songs, maybe do 1 segment as a DJ mix, and of course talk about the songs and artists like you would hear on a regular radio show.  I don't know if there's anything specific that would set me apart.  I guess it would just be my song choice -- that's the key.  I have to come up with 20 sick tunes for every show.  Song choice is the key for any DJ situation.... And with me, none of it would really be new music, so what is it I have to offer...?

At some point a few months ago in 2012 I did put together a few playlists for a couple of radio shows.  I think if I am going to follow through on this idea, I can do the radio show as one thing and also continue to create separate DJ mixes.  In fact, the radio show could perhaps highlight one of the DJ mixes and play a segment of the mix, to kind of promote it.... For the blog, 33 1/3 Cents a Pound on JoeSoRadio, I'll talk about ideas for different shows, list my playlists obviously,  talk about the equipment and software I'm using.  I do want to buy a microphone, a nice one, which I think is pretty much the only thing I would really need at this point.  And then also I can use the same blog to talk about the DJ mixes, which will be mix sets without me talking and obviously with all the music mixed, not just playing songs.

So yeah let's do this!  33 1/3 Cents a Pound The Return!

Completed my simple home studio since originally posting this article