Put a record on. I wanna dance with my baby.

August 22, 2007 4:54 PM

Please give me tips on how to make my aircheck/audition for a medium-size online radio station more apIaling.

I used to DJ for a station called Radio-KoL. I left for quite a while due to life-things, and not having my own computer, and not being able to take a regular shift. They've expressed interest in having me bac, and a shift has just recently opened up that I can take, but I have to have my audition/aircheck in by Friday. The one tip I've gotten is "Don't read," but I'm out of practice with improve, and having a hard time making myself sound non-scripted.

In general, what can I do to make my aircheck more appealing to the people in charge of hiring? I have 3 minutes to make myself sound good (20 seconds or less of which should be music.) Any good ideas for small segments and things the other DJs won't be doing?

Some back info on the station:

It's a 24 hour station (I'd be taking a 2-4 AM shift a couple of days a week) with about 35 DJs.

It's associated with an online game, but in my aircheck I would like to avoid staged contests for in-game items, and lean more towards interested segments or schticks.

Please, Hive Mind- help me get my late night gig back! All your tips are greatly appreciated.

posted by Glitter Ninja to media & arts (5 comments total)

Aliens. Late night radio is all about aliens and ghosts. They'll lick that stuff up.
posted by Deathalicious at 5:39 PM on August 22, 2007

Kingdom of Loathing has a radio channel? That's HILARIOUS (assuming that's what KoL refers to.)

You're already ahead of the game, because you used to work there and they want you back; the demo may be a formality. Don't you have airchecks from your old shows? If so, assemble good bits out of that -- as a station GM, I'd much rather have actual on-air checks than a staged or improvised demo.

Also, that game is heavy on the bad puns, yes? I wouldn't improvise the whole thing; I'd write a start line, an end line, and a few punny phrases to drop in -- then improvise from start to pun to pun to finish, feeling free to discard any that you deem unnecessary or that might seem forced in the moment.
posted by davejay at 12:05 AM on August 23, 2007

Also: if there isn't a prohibition against it for your demo, drift very quiet ambient beats into the background while you talk, at least for the first few lines in and out. If there's anything radio-wise you can take to the bank, it's this: even the most inane chatter sounds a bit better with music under it.
posted by davejay at 12:06 AM on August 23, 2007

Also good background music: anything done on the Moog synthesizer. Look for an old album by Dick Hymen (I'm not kidding) that has random songs performed by him on the Moog, it was the best background music ever during my college radio days.
posted by davejay at 12:07 AM on August 23, 2007

Here's that Dick Hyman album: http://www.discogs.com/release/61401

The Green Onions track is the killer background track, that cannot be disputed. Now I'm going to bed.
posted by davejay at 12:12 AM on August 23, 2007