Behind the scene at KKUP

Yesterday at KKUP it seemed as though events were enveloped in some sort of vortex focussed on the place.  After schlepping all my gear to the parking lot right behind the station, with an hour to go before airtime, I found the entire lot filled.  A Farmer's Market was in progress on Franklin Street.  The only two spaces open, and closest to where I had to move my stuff, were marked "Disabled Only" and I quickly decided, the hell with it.  I've got sore knees.  I backed into those spaces.  Suddenly, directly across the aisle from me, a car started backing out!  The best space possible had magically appeared.

When I got to the door of KKUP, lugging my speaker stands, a gentleman met me and introduced himself as Dan.  I asked where he fit into things there.  He said he was the station GM.  Well, I said, it's nice to meet you -- where do you want me to set up?  I explained that my performance would be delivered on powered speakers and that they'd need to mike it.  Oh dear, I don't have the key to the equipment room; but we've had this happen before and we just used the studio mikes.

It was going to be tight, precious little room between the studio console and the wall, but I managed to squeeze it all in with enough room left over for myself to sit at the keyboard.  This was only the second time I had played somewhere, and my first fear was realized.  Everything but the keyboard worked.  After some investigation, I discovered that during the move the power switch on the keyboard had gotten turned off.

In the midst of all this, both phones were ringing and no one in there but me and the DJ, Michael B.  He asked to take one of the calls and pushed a pledge form across to me.  So I answered, KKUP!  The caller was a Mrs. Meyer.  I thanked her for calling.  She said she wanted to pledge $1,500 -- I could hardly believe it.  Most people pledge $25 or $35.  She said there was a story behind this pledge; her husband has been listening to KKUP for thirty years, enjoyed it very much, especially the jazz, and never made a pledge.  Michael just about fell out of his chair when I told him this.

He said I could warm up while he continued the show with recordings.  He would signal me just before he had to go on the air to announce records and ask for pledges.  This was not an ideal way to warm up because, of course, he had to have the studio monitor on to hear what was going over the airwaves.  So I played along with some of the music I heard on the monitor.  When I felt warmed up, he said OK you're on in 15 minutes.

He was queing up records when suddenly he exclaimed "O My God!"  His face changed dramatically, he clutched his upper left chest, and then he went blank.  Everything stopped.  Soon the GM was yelling down the hall, "Dead Air!"  He came in, looked at Michael -- you OK?  And Michael started saying incoherent things, talking about his mother.  Dan took over the board, got some music on the air, took Michael into the next room where he had just brought in some food, and called 911.

After that it was just Dan and I in the studio, Michael in the other room eating some fries and chicken.  Since it was about time for me to go on, Dan interviewed me, which filled in nicely.  Then the paramedics arrived and Dan had to leave to tend to Michael.  As he left, Dan motioned to me to just keep on playing.

So there I was, alone in the studio, to just keep playing while the paramedics swirled about.  To say the least, my debut performance was not what I expected.  It took a bit of concentration to block out my worries about Michael, to ignore the paramedics, and to not reflect on where it was all going, how long I'd be there playing by myself.  But then again, whenever I play I never know where it's going to go anyway.

As it turned out, the paramedics said Michael was OK.  He came back into the studio and we finished out the remainder of his shift together.  It was such a relief, and as we reached the end of the show, he thanked me.  And I thanked him, reminding him and the listeners that my presence there was directly due to his encouraging me to keep on doing my music.