After a lot of feedback, you now have the option of not only listening to me live on air, but you can see the shenanigans that occur on this end of the computer.
Archive for the ‘radio’ category
Geeky Pleasures Exposed
June 12th, 2009
Technology How I Love Thee Yet Loathe Thee
June 7th, 2009I don’t think frustration even begins to describe what is going on at the moment. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. I love technology. I love gadgets. I am not the typical chick. I hate clothes shopping. Not much for the make-up unless I am having to make some public appearance, doing a photo shoot or am on stage. Screw buying me flowers or chocolate. Flowers, even so they are pretty, die. Chocolate, even so it is oh so yummy for my tummy, ends up coming out the other end. You want to get into my good books and woo me, give me a gadget. My best Valentine’s day gift ever was half a gig of RAM and new video card. You want to give me the best thing on the entire planet, give me a gift card to a store where I can buy computer parts, accessories, games or gadgets. I will love you for the rest of my life!
So imagine my frustration when first I realize just how much I need yet another hard drive. I was thinking I could put of this purchase just a little while longer. In order for me to do what normally would have been a simple and quick editing job, I had to uninstall THREE of my games from my PC. What should have been a simple mp3 to wav to edit out music to mp3 conversion and maybe 2 hours of work, turned into over 12. And that isn’t the only tech FAIL that occurred during the process. Finally I think it is all done. I have the files uploaded to the station’s FTP server, added some different coding to my blog to make it easier for people to find and listen to past interviews and my most recent interview, and made sure that it all worked and would play. I am not happy with the editing job for many reasons but after 12+ hours, I was done. It would have to do for now, otherwise my normal love affair with my PC would have turned into the most bitter break up on the face of the planet. I still hadn’t uploaded other interviews that should be made available.
So I walked away from “work” for the rest of the evening. Now normally it is not work for me as this is the type of thing that really gets me off and gives me a chubby. So imagine my even further frustration today when the station’s server goes down! All of that hard work and NOBODY CAN LISTEN and people are wanting to listen. The server provider tells us later that someone hacked into a different server in the data center so as a precaution, they shut down all the servers to stop this punk hacker who seems to have nothing better to do with their time but mess with people’s lives and businesses and will have to check each server (there is about 10,000 in this data center) to see who was affected and who was not before they would put everything back online. I get the obligatory “you may be down for another 48 hours” line. You have to be joking right? 48 HOURS?!?! ARE YOU INSANE?!?! No no no no, this cannot do!
So I think okay I need to get at least one of the interviews uploaded to some free hosting site temporarily and I will deal with the other stuff later, cause dude I can’t handle this! My normally very wonderful love affair with technology is turning sour. This is so not cool. So I get it uploaded to a temp storage area and make the appropriate link. No sooner is this done, I am informed that the server is back up. So I update as many people as possible that YAY we are back up and live and its all cool. But there is this little nagging voice in the back of my head saying, “SUCKER! Do you honestly think that after technology beating your ass all weekend and showing you who is boss for once, that it is just that easy?” So I say to that voice, “You know maybe you are right, I will keep that back up link there for now but still let people know we are live. Yeah, that is what I will do.” Within 4 minutes of updating that we are back up… You guessed it! We were down again! And there is technology mocking me and saying, “YOU GOT PWN’d! BYTE ME BABY! THAT WILL TEACH YOU FOR STICKING YOUR RAM INTO MY MOTHERBOARD!”
So, I do apologize IF my love affair and my current falling out with technology is causing you any inconvenience. Imagine it from my end of the computer! I wish I could give you a firm time for when everything will be back up. Unfortunately, I have to give you the “please wait at least 48 hours for us to be back up and running.” As you have noticed, I didn’t even link anything cause right now there is no guarantee that it will give you the goods.
julia sherred
Dr. Phil Plait Interview
June 6th, 2009Click here to listen to the interview with Dr. Phil Plait. This link is the temporary fix until our server issues at the radio station are fixed. Thank you all for your patience during this time.
Last night (June 5, 2009), I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Phil Plait aka The Bad Astronomer live for my Geeky Pleasures show on Party934. We discussed a variety of topics from the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA to the antivaxx movement and homeopathy, plus a few other topics of interest to the both of us. A warning: I drop the “s” word a couple of times during the interview. So consider yourself warned. At the very end of the interview, Phil gave me some inside scoop about a couple of projects he is working on. You will only hear it here. The total runtime for the interview is 1hr 38min 23sec.
I want to apologize in advance for the editing of this broadcast. Phil sat down with me live last night and we took a couple of breaks to play some music. I had to edit out the music portion of the interview as it would be in violation of the station’s royalties contracts had I left the music in. After close to 12 hours of editing and technology failing over 20 times during the process, what you are hearing now is the best that is available at the moment. I wanted to make sure the broadcast was available as soon as possible for people to listen to and give feedback. Hopefully I will be able to find the time soon to clean it up a bit.
It was a real pleasure interviewing Phil. I had a lot of fun doing it and my impression was that he did as well. A couple little show notes:
I was very surprised how silent the listeners were as we discussed a couple of topics that have caused Phil to receive some heat on his own blog. We discussed these topics very frankly and openly. Considering the feedback he has received on his own blog regarding these topics, I was expecting some listeners to come out and put him to the fire while he was live on air and accepting questions. This did not happen. This leads me to conclude that people are much braver behind a computer typing out words than when they are given the opportunity to express those opinions live and in person.
You will notice during the interview, that I appear to be tongue tied, at a loss for words or do not complete my thought. There are a couple of reasons for that. The first reason is that when I do an interview, they are not scripted. I like the interview to have the feel of two friends sitting down to a cup of coffee and talking about subjects of mutual interest. Yes I have a general outline of what topics I would like to discuss, however I do not script out the questions and the person being interviewed does not know what questions I am going to ask. This allows for a more natural and organic conversation to occur. The second reason is almost 3 years ago, I suffered from a stroke. So whenever I am excited or passionate about something, my ability to communicate (both verbally and written) is one of the first things to be affected. And let me tell you, Phil gave me many reasons to be excited. Not only is he a very passionate speaker, he is extremely funny.
I think that is all I really have to say about that at this moment. I hope you enjoy and your feedback (both negative and positive) are more than welcomed. As I said in the interview, bring it on!
Dr. Phil Plait aka Mister Bad Astronomy
June 5th, 2009The day has finally come. Tonight Dr. Phil Plait will be co-hosting my Geeky Pleasures show. I am a tad nervous about this. Mind you not as nervous as I was when I got to interview Wil Wheaton on my show, but nonetheless I am still nervous. No sooner do I think I have all my questions that I want to ask sketched out in my head, he posts yet another wonderful blog that causes me to rethink interview topics. Regardless of what direction the show takes tonight, it will be a very good one.
Showtime is 9 pm PDT, Midnight EDT. To listen:
Winamp/iTunes/XMMS: [Click here]
Windows Media Player: [Click here]
RealPlayer: [Click here]
Ramblings from 3 am
May 19th, 2009I have been very lazy when it has come to maintaining my blog. Well, I do not that lazy is the correct term. Maybe avoiding is a better term. When I decided to set out on this project, I said I would write about everything going on, and there is always something going on. As the title says, the goings on range from the mundane to the insane. I had also said I would write about personal things going on, not just write about the professional stuff.In the last couple of weeks a lot has happened in both areas.
Just over a week ago, I received confirmation of my media pass for PAX2009 and was completely elated. I have been wanting to go for years, but things always happened last minute that made it impossible to attend. I figured this year, it would be different. A couple days after receiving confirmation, things in my personal life happened where now my attendance may be jeopardized (will go into this later). I am back at the radio station doing my 2 hour Friday Night Geeky Pleasures Show (music genre is varied with many independent artists being featured). This is one of my favourite times of the week. During my broadcasts, I have complete creative freedom and I get to discuss whatever geek topic I may have come across the previous week and% discuss it with the masses. I get to share with the world something that is a huge part of my life. Something that at one point in my life I was teased for from time to time, I now get to do professionally. Geeky Pleasures is followed by 2 hours of alternative/rock/punk etc one week and the alternating week all Canadian content. Again, I love this part of my show, especially the week that it is all Canadian because I really get to push wonderful independent content that does not get the time they deserve on mainstream radio. I am also doing a broadcast for a different organization on top of it on another subject that I can talk about for hours. Everything professionally appears to be going right on track, however it is all very overwhelming at the moment for due to many factors.
The first factor is that I took a break from the digital world for 5 months. Coming back to it and trying to fit everything into such a finite time, while trying to take care of my family has been a bit of a struggle. I find it very difficult to balance all aspects of my life. It is very hard for me to be able to leave anything unfinished. I have been known to stay up for days straight working on a project (whether for work or crafting or you name it), because there is always just one more thing to get done before I can put it away. Then that one thing turns into another and it just snow balls. It had gotten to the point (since I am a stickler to a schedule and heaven forbid I am late for anything, if even by a second) that I had to take out my day planner and schedule in start and stop times, breaks to eat and drink, breaks to bathe and use the bathroom (the list again goes on) because I just can’t leave things unfinished. If I did not put it in my day planner and treat it as an appointment, other things besides whatever it is I may be working on, just didn’t get done. I am also the type that needs to be doing a lot of things at once, otherwise my brain gets bored and I lose focus. So the more projects on the go I have, the more attentive I am to them. But yet again, if I am not careful other things in my life fall apart. So on the five month break I took, I rediscovered things I had stopped doing because of my work life. Crafting and art being the major thing. I was able to find a very nice balance. Now I am having difficulty finding a new balance to keep the things I rediscovered alive with my love of the work that I do and my family. It has been a strenuous 3 weeks trying to write down my new schedule so that in my mind I am not leaving any of my areas (work, family, leisure, meditation) “unfinished” at the end of the day to ensure that I can sleep in peace without my mind racing thinking about the things left unfinished.
Now to compound this, my personal life had a huge explosion. I am not sure how comfortable I am going into details about it just yet. Yes, I said early on that I would talk about it all. But what does that mean? To what extent? I am a very private person in a general sense. I also love my alone time. I need a lot of time alone to think and to ponder and to wonder. I have a handful of very close friends that I tell everything to… eventually. Sometimes it will take me a few months for me to feel comfortable enough to fill them in on the personal events of my life. I am a thinker. I am very introspective. My thoughts dictate my emotions and not the other way around. I am thought driven, not emotionally driven. Even so I can empathize with people and many levels, I have an extremely difficult time understand most people’s emotional reactions to most situations. A lot of the time, it just doesn’t make sense, especially since the emotion most people attribute to the situation certainly is not going to change anything and will just cause the person having the emotion more stress. I look at life and the events that happen in it (for the most part) as an outside observer. It isn’t until I have had a chance to really look at a situation and think about it and decide how is this going to affect my life, will I attach any emotional label to it, IF I attach one. As a general rule, if it is not going to drastically change the circumstances of my life, I am neutral towards the situation. So by the time I actually talk about situations, (that as a norm would cause others great emotional stress) I have already digested it, decided what I am going to do about it and how I am going to feel about it. I just need to say the situation verbally so that it becomes “real” (for lack of a better word) and thus I can move forward. I do not want advice (unless I ask for it) or pity. I just need to be heard.
Now the event that has happened this past week is life-altering. I am still having a hard time accepting that it is real. I am waiting for the day that I wake up and it is all just a really awful nightmare. Never in a million years would I think this would happen (even though statistically it is highly likely). I thought that after all these years, it was good, I could safely plan my life around it and could integrate it into my existence. It was safe for me. Then in a flash, what I believed so strongly would be one aspect of my reality forever, was destroyed. It was a huge blow. This blow has made it very difficult for me to concentrate on anything but. Some may be able to figure out what has happened others may not. All I am really able to say (especially to strangers at this moment) is what I have.
So considering the above mentioned, I will try my best to update as much as possible. Even if it is just one or two lines of something random that may have caught my eye during the day. However, if I go awhile without posting, please check back regularly. I just need time to process this huge change to my life and how I am going to proceed.
I've got talents
November 23rd, 2008Talent to get temporarily banned from Facebook. And this is how this story in the life of Jules begins.
I was doing my show earlier for the station and I received a shoutout from a friend of mine back east that I haven’t heard from in years. So I said during my shoutout to him, “DUDE, I don’t hear from you in over a year and this is how you get in touch with me?!? Through my radio station?!? Have you ever heard of the telephone or email?” So he decides to email me on Facebook. I go to reply to him on Facebook and get a message stating something to the affect that my account has been temporarily banned and I am no longer allow to communicate of Facebook while they check to make sure that I am not some spammer. Of course, I had to share on air that I was banned on Facebook because apparently I talk to much to people. Me? Talk a lot? Never. *tries to look all innocent* One of my staff members was also listening to the show and of course had to ask about it because he has never heard about such a thing. And my response was, “Apparently, I have talents.”
So that was a couple of hours ago, but now I am free to communicate again on the good ole book. Only in the life of Jules.
Reasons Why I Am Proud to be a Canadian
November 20th, 2008A few things came to my attention today that served as a wonderful reminder as to why I am proud to be a Canadian. Some of them may seem pretty minor, however they do reflect what a wonderful free society we live in.
The first two reminders came while watching my favourite shows So You Think You Can Dance Canada. As someone who is trained in dance, this is a wonderful show that finally puts dance and the powers of dance back into the spotlight. Music and dance truly unite the world. Now back to the things that took place during last night’s show. Watch this clip and then I will explain.
Dan Karaty stated the number above would have never been allowed on network television in the United States. On one hand I found it shocking that a piece of art would be censored but when I thought about it more, it doesn’t surprise me at all. I am proud that censorship is kept to a minimum in Canada, even on network television. Shows like Nip/Tuck are not shown on network television but special channels. We are lucky that in Canada after I believe 9 pm, there is very little to no censorship. You will even see soft porn or “blue” movies on regular network television. To me that is a sign of a truly free country, where the government leaves it up to the viewer to decide what is appropriate to watch and not the government or special interest group.
The second reason also came from tonight’s episode along with another comment from Dan. He said that being a judge on So You Think You Can Dance in the States has allowed him the pleasure to be a guest judge not only in Canada but around the world. He also commented on how Canadian dancers are second to none. More of Dan’s thoughts can be found here. Yes, Canada does have so much amazing talent. It is why I dedicate one of my shows on the station to nothing but Canadian musicians.
The third reason has to do with a post from yesterday on Wil Wheaton’s blog. Here is the blog in question and it has to do with the “evils” of gay marriage. It served as yet another wonderful reminder of what a wonderful country I live in. If you read the comments on it and read my comments (Jules), you will get more insight there.
And the last reason, is for something that may seem so simple but is amazing. I love how our government recognized people for their achievements in huge ways. Even our teachers who shape the future of our society. I was very excited to learn that my youngest son’s teacher has won one of the most prestigious awards an ordinary citizen can get by the Governor General. Not bad for a teacher who lives in a town of roughly 1200 people.
Now there are so many more reasons why I am proud to be a Canadian, however those are the 4 little but big things that reminded me of the reasons today.
Week in Review
November 9th, 2008What a crazy week this was. It started of pretty crappy, but half way through, it became surreal. First, time for a little back story. Every Friday night from 7 pm PT/ 10 pm ET – 9 pm PT/ Midnight ET, I do my Geeky Pleasures show on the station. Every Friday, I try to incorporate something about the Hoff, William Shatner and, of course The King of Geek, Wil Wheaton. A couple weeks ago, my topic of the night was Science Fiction. In January, Wil did a recording at the Phoenix Cactus Comicon. In this recording, he reads a segment from his book The Happiest Days of Our Lives which deals with Star Wars plus he performs one of his reviews for TV Squad concerning Star Trek: The Next Generation. This recording is free for download under a creative commons copyright thanks to the lovely people at Pulp Gamer. But that free share is for non commercial purposes only. So that meant, I could not play it on the station since radio is considered commercial purposes. However, it fit perfectly with my topic of the week. To fix this problem, I sent an email to the people at Pulp Gamer explaining to them what my show is about and what I would be using the recording for. They said sure not a problem, however I should email Wil and get his permission as well since even though the recording itself belongs to Pulp Gamer, the material within the recording belongs to Wil. So that is exactly what I did, thinking that I would never get a reply. Was I ever surpised to get an email back saying, “That sounds great!” So I decided to ask him if he would be interested in doing an interview for my Geeky Pleasures show. What is the worse he can say. No. And that is pretty much what I expected given how extremely busy the man is. Was I even more surprised when he agreed to do it.
So that is what happened this week. On Wednesday, November 5, Wil and I sat down to the the interview. It was not the normal interview. We talked about acting, voice over work, 80s fashions, comics, the media, blogging, twitter and many other things. The interview aired on Friday, November 7. However, if you missed it, have no fear. I am rebroadcasting it at a special day and time on Monday, November 10 at 4 pm PT/ 7 pm ET. To listen, just go to the station’s website and click on the appropriate link. When the interview as over, I told Wil that he had an open door at the station. Anytime he wanted to promote whatever and talk geek in an uncensored environment, just say the word. He appeared to be happy with the invitation and said in the new year when things are not so busy, we could do a Wil Wheaton part 2. That made me extremely happy. Hopefully, there will be many more interviews in the future, as he offers so much especially on the topic of geekdom. We didn’t get time to touch on that too much in the interview as there is always to much to talk about with Wil. If this rebroadcast time does not work for you, have no fear. Once it is broadcasted for the final time, I will be uploading the interview portion to my MySpace. I cannot upload the whole show (with the music, which Wil selected) as it violates copyright and our royalties agreement.
Then yesterday, I had another interview. This time I was the guest. It is for one of the other mixologists, Jerry Pippin. The name of the show is The Parazone Hour: Tales of High Strangeness. There is also a second page. I am a very spiritual person and have been all of my life. During the show, we briefly discuss some of the basic ideas of the type of spirituality that I practice and the occult. The show is one hour. For some, that isn’t brief. The reason why I say brief is because in that hour, we barely scratched the surface. Because of that, I will be doing another interview to discuss the topic even further. This interview will air Wednesday, November 12 at 1 pm PT/ 4 pm ET and then again Sunday, November 16 at 12 am PT/3 am ET. To listen, again just go the the station’s website and click the appropriate link. Again, have no fear if these times do not work for you. You will be able to download the podcast from Jerry’s site once it is available.
The New Sound of Radio
November 9th, 2008This will be a very long post, but if you read to the very end, I promise you will not be disappointed. So earlier this year, something unexpected happened in my life. And it all started with an ad on Craigslist. Normally I don’t look at Craigslist since it doesn’t have specific ads for the town that I live in. However, one fated day in June, I decided to look at the tv/film/video posts under the jobs section. Once in awhile, there will be casting calls etc that are not BS. Well on that particular day, I saw an ad for Radio Personalities. It was a telecommute position. The ad was looking for radio personalities from around the world for this new radio station. And that is where this tale begins.
When I first read the ad, I was very excited because I live to entertain people. I have been acting and dancing on stage from a very young age. I thought, “OMG this position would be fantastic for me PLUS I get to do it from home!” Being able to work from home is a must for various reasons that I will get into at a later time. But that joy and excitement quickly faded to a “Shit! This ad is probably listed multiple times in multiple cities! DAMN! The market is so cut throat at the moment! GAH! They will never get to my application and my demo. (Part of the application process was submitting a short 30 second audition Mp3.) And I KNOW I would be perfect for this! WELL JEEBUS MURPHY!!!” How cruel fate seemed at that moment in time. So I closed my web browser and tried to not give it a second thought. But over the next three days, my mind went back to that ad. And every day, I would go back to Craigslist and read the ad. And every day, it was more cursing and swearing about how this would be the perfect opportunity. Well on the third day, I said to myself, “Fuck this, I am going to apply anyway. What is the worse that could happen? They don’t get to my application. Exactly. So do it already.” So once I decided to apply, a new set of problems arose. How on earth was I going to bring across my ideas, my personality and all that I had to offer the station in a mere 30 seconds?!?! It was impossible! There is so much to me, I have so many ideas, 30 seconds was not enough! So I spent yet another day trying to figure out how to complete this mission impossible. Finally, I came up with an idea and tried my best to execute it. Once the Mp3 was created, I composed the email containing all the information asked for, attached the Mp3, held my breath and hit send. This was at around 1 am my time (pacific). I thought one more time that there is no way on earth that my application will be read let alone have someone respond to it and off to bed I went.
The next morning, I got up, made coffee and sat down to do my morning routine. This consists of waiting for the coffee to brew, checking my email, checking the many forums I belong to, checking the blog I read and checking my email. Until I get many many many many cups of coffee into my system (they need to make coffee available through IV) I am far from coherent. My family knows that it is bad policy to say too much to me until my morning ritual is over and done with, cause crabby bear has nothing on me. Once my 20 or so daily emails downloads, I go and look through to see what needs my immediate attention and what can wait. And then I see it! YES IT!! I thought I was dreaming. How can this possibly be? NO BLOODY WAY! I looked at the time stamp. NO BLOODY WAY!! 5 am?!?! This cannot be true. I need more coffee cause now I am hallucinating! After giving my head a shake, rubbing my eyes and then looking at my inbox again, my heart leaped right out of my chest! HOLY SHIT! I AM NOT SEEING THINGS!! So I opened this fated email, and it is the General Manager saying he got my application and wants to arrange a telephone interview. Shut the front door! Four hours after sending out the email, I get a response?! When does that ever happen! So I answered right away saying yeah sure and giving good times for a phone call. Well three more days go by, and I haven’t heard anything in return. And that is when I started having that inner fight again. Of course it was too good to be true. Nothing like that ever happens in the entertainment industry. When I had just given up all hope, I get another email saying sorry I haven’t gotten back to you sooner, do you have MSN and we will do the interview there. So I email back my MSN ID, we add each other and the interview begins. He tells me the concept for the station and how it works and my mind began to race. What he was telling me has never been attempted before and it was about time someone did something like this! Oh the possibilities! So without a second thought, I accepted the job as a Radio Personality. And I thought, wow this cannot get any better. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong!
About a week goes by and I get an MSN asking me if I could help out with a couple of things, because the other person who was suppose to help out didn’t have the time. It was nothing major and wouldn’t take much time. I said, “Well what do you need help with? I have spare time right now.” It was simple, he needed help interviewing people. He had a script all typed up, names and phone numbers for me to call. I had done this many times before for previous jobs. So I started to make the calls, interview people and get the paper work process started. Well this little bit of help, turned into more and more. Then one day I was asked if I wanted to be the Assistant Program Director. Are you serious?! YES! And then I began getting more and more duties. Next thing asked was did I want to be the Program Director? Again, without a moments hesitation, YES! After a lifetime of wanting something even a fraction of this, how could I say no? After that began the many many hours of training a staff of around 80 people, making sure the website was ready and a whole bunch of other things to make this wonderful project lift off. On September 13, 2008, all the hard work put into this project, became a reality.
Now what is this wonderful project? How can a radio station be wonderful? All you hear is the same tired garbage over and over again driven by record labels and corporations and big media wanting to make a quick buck off of the consumer. Well that certainly is not the case here! And when I try to tell people that, they find it very very hard to believe. But it is true. Now please hang on with me even more while I explain exactly why we are different and why I am so excited about this project, more excited than I have been about many things in a very long time.
If you go the station’s website, and then click on the about page, you will read this:
Party 934 is a new type of internet radio station. We are the first truly multigenre station, which means we do not have a set “format.” Our “Party Mixologists” have their own shows throughout the day and they get to play whatever type of music or talk about whatever they want.
How we are different
We have Party Mixologists playing pretty much every genre you can think of — from techno, house, dance, hip hop, R&B, rap, gospel, indie, alternative, jazz funk, Americana, Britpop, punk, and more!
In terms of our on-air personalities, we truly have a diverse team. We have
a professional music producers, like Alexander Cortada (Senior Party Mixologist EvilSeed) who has been making beats and producing music for over seven years. We also have Al-Kesna “AC” Shaw (Senior Party Mixologist AC) who has been extremely successful in terrestrial radio. At Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida, AC served as the Program Director. Then, he got accepted to work at WHQT in Miami, Florida on Sundays as well as Assistant Production Director for Cox’s Radio cluster of stations. AC can also be heard doing colorful traffic reports on WHQT and sister station WEDR. In addition, we have two students from The University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA), Chris and Mike (hosts of “Chris & Mike at Nite”). They are the host of a very popular Broadway/musical theatre show on Party 934. We also have Felisha Ener – Senior Party Mixologist Mz. Fee (host of “Grown Folks Party”) who used to run a community radio station called 96.1 Tha Zone in Houston, Texas.
a professional music producers, like Alexander Cortada (Senior Party Mixologist EvilSeed) who has been making beats and producing music for over seven years. We also have Al-Kesna “AC” Shaw (Senior Party Mixologist AC) who has been extremely successful in terrestrial radio. At Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida, AC served as the Program Director. Then, he got accepted to work at WHQT in Miami, Florida on Sundays as well as Assistant Production Director for Cox’s Radio cluster of stations. AC can also be heard doing colorful traffic reports on WHQT and sister station WEDR. In addition, we have two students from The University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA), Chris and Mike (hosts of “Chris & Mike at Nite”). They are the host of a very popular Broadway/musical theatre show on Party 934. We also have Felisha Ener – Senior Party Mixologist Mz. Fee (host of “Grown Folks Party”) who used to run a community radio station called 96.1 Tha Zone in Houston, Texas.
So, as you can see, Party 934 is extremely diverse — from professional deejays, to terrestrial radio personalities, to students, and finally to those just looking to do something constructive with their time!
Our views on the Top 40
You’ll never catch a Party Mixologist on Party 934 playing anything from the top 40. Party 934 feels that most artists who are on the top 40 do not need any more marketing for their music – which is not even that great to begin with. Party 934 wants to be different – we will never play anything from the Jonas Brothers, Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, Linkin Park, or Miley Cyrus. These artists are already extremely popular (for whatever reason) and do not produce good music for the community. We feel that independent and semi-mainstream artists deserve more attention and promotional consideration for their hard work and efforts. Some musical artists on the top 40 don’t even write their own music or lyrics! We feel that promoting local, unsigned, and independent bands will help them in their musical ventures, because they deserve it for their hard work!
Now, I feel the about page really does not do the station justice, and I have thought many time that it need a re-write. First, we have a huge staff. Each staff member gets to play whatever music “does it” for them, their own personal brand, without having to find radio safe music. The listener gets to hear the music as the artist intends. As well, we do not censor our mixologists. They are free to talk about what they want. Of course we have rules about using racial slurs and derogatory comments re: sexuality, gender, religion etc, because that is not needed. It is not their jobs to be discriminatory. They are free to talk about what they want, but of course it needs to be kept professional at some level. If they are wanting to have a themed show, it is all up to them. We allow all of our personalities to have complete creative control over their own shows. If they are not enthusiastic about what they are doing, how on earth are the listeners going to be enthusiastic about tuning in. Another way we are extremely different is you will never hear the same personality for more than 2 hours (unless an emergency comes up and they have to cover for another mixologist). That way the listener doesn’t get tired by hearing the same personality every day for hours a day. In any given day, the listener has the opportunity to hear anywhere from 12-24 different personalities each playing their own choice of genre. You can listen from anywhere in the world that has internet connection. People who live in the Hudson Valley, NY also have the option of tuning in at 102.5 FM. And you get to hear personalities from around the world, bringing to you music that you will not get to hear on most radio stations in North America. We have mixologists in the following countries: The Philippines, Greece, Germany, Russia, the UK, Italy, Brazil, Canada and the USA. I am sure we will be adding more countries to the list in the near future, bringing variety you will not find anywhere else. There is no pressure for them to play any song since we don’t answer to the record labels. Yes, we are fully licensed and we pay all the necessary royalties, something that is very important. But it is even more important for the independent artists to get air time, since they are the one that have to work that hardest to be heard and we are a voice for them. At Party934, there is no need for long letter writing campaigns begging for air play. All an artist has to do is approach one of the mixologists, and if the mixologist likes their music, it gets played. Something else that is unheard of these days. We have a strict no current top 40 policy. Songs in the top 40 get played enough as it is, they don’t need someone else playing. Yes you will hear songs that have once been the in the top 40, but that is because the mixologist chooses to play it, not because some record label is giving the station a kick back for it to be played. I know some of the information in this paragraph is repetitive from what is on the about page, however I feel it needs to be stressed. Honest to bob, this is real. Its about time people had some real say in the media they not only have to put out to the public but that they choose to consume as well. And it is this creative control, this real voice that many people get to enjoy in what tends to be over ceonsored media, espcially in the states, that has me so very excited!
Well I think I have rambled enough for now. If you made it to the bottom of my post, kudos. Please check us out and support us. I promise you, you will find something that you like.
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