Radio Daze: Part Four — The Wild West Show
I was starting to formulate a concept for a “post punk-progressive pop” radio show and it may have started with a song. Back in New York some of the DJs played ‘Wild West’ an atmospheric track by the Liverpool band Pink Military from their 1980 album “Do Animals believe in God”. At around 3 minutes it was perfect for an intro theme.
Jayne Casey from Pink Military on the Mersey ferry, Liverpool, 1980.
I certainly wouldn’t be blazing a trail on the radio since I was just following the template of the college stations back east with the addition of a Hollywood Western motif. I was striving for an inclusive and eclectic approach—I wanted to play everything from hardcore to industrial—mainly because I enjoy variety and would get bored pretty damn quick playing the same of anything, no matter how good it might be. Snippets of dialogue from classic movie Westerns copped from videos or TV would give the show a unique signature and help tie together thematic sets.
Feverishly, I typed a proposal for the show on an old, beat-up manual typewriter and in a moment of unbridled optimism and profound naiveté scheduled an in-person pitch to the program director at Denver’s NPR affiliate – KCFR-FM – a rather conservative public station with a very staid but profitable classical music format.
The 30-ish PD buzzed me into the main studio where he was in the middle of his afternoon air shift. With his cowboy boots propped up on the control console he listened politely to my spiel while flipping casually through my proposal. A long symphonic piece played over the studio monitor.
When I was done he proceeded to mercilessly shred apart and reject the entire concept. I don’t recall any of his specific objections but he was very blunt and somewhat arrogant. In hindsight I understand that my proposal was completely incompatible with KCFR’S format and would, more than anything, alienate the vast majority of their loyal, dues-paying audience. It was a humbling experience and one that was completely avoidable had I been a bit more discriminating in deciding who to approach. Not all public stations are the same. I couldn’t exit fast enough I felt so humiliated.
I was still volunteering at the KGNU a few mornings a week and decided to approach them. I reworked the proposal by whiting out ‘KCFR’ and retyping ‘KGNU’ over it, showed it to Fergus Stone, the general manager at the time and he liked the idea and offered me a late night shift on a probationary basis to start. My on-air debut would take a while though. After shadowing a DJ for a couple of shifts for orientation, I debuted the ‘Wild West Show’ solo on a Friday night at 1 am. You could well imagine the adrenaline rush I was feeling that first night. I was nervous and made a few mistakes, but nothing catastrophic. Eventually the show moved to the Saturday, 10 pm-1 slot.
Wax Trax Records
KGNU had a decent record collection and most of the notable domestic indie labels of the time – SST, Ralph, and Alternative Tentacles – would always sent them stuff. So as far as US releases went, they were in good shape. The one area they lacked in was in imported vinyl so I focused my record buying in that area. Weekly trips to Denver’s Wax Trax Records were de rigueur for building my personal collection. During a visit I might pick up a couple of singles, an EP, and a few LPs. Compilation albums were always a favorite since they provided an economical way to get a lot of variety for the show. I lived frugally in a small two-room apartment with a shared bath on Steele Street, and this was the only real extravagance I allowed myself.
The Wild West Show Flyer
Promotion for Wild West was minimal at best and included short recorded promos than ran on the station irregularly. An art student friend designed an eye-grabbing flyer using rub-on lettering and printed them on neon-orange colored paper. Occasionally I would send Westword – Denver’s alternative newsweekly – a short press release announcing an upcoming special I was planning and they would usually run it, much to my amazement.
The Wolverine
Doreen DeSalvo called the show regularly. She was a writing arts major at a local college who sounded much, much younger over the phone than her actual age. After impressing me with her knowledge and love for the music, I invited her to the station and eventually persuaded her to join the show. Her most noteworthy contribution was ‘New Music News’ –a smartly written, 5-minute newscast that she compiled and delivered each week in her signature dry witty style. She’d also handled the phones and occasionally put together musical sets from her personal record collection. Her fresh and youthful perspective really helped to develop the show and, best of all, we became good friends.
As to how she got the nickname, two possible scenarios emerge both involving bad hearing. In the first case, I took a call once from a listener who asked to speak with the ‘Wolverine’. He may have misheard my pronunciation of ‘Doreen’ for ‘Wolverine’ over the radio (I mumble sometimes—great for a career in radio) or in the second case, he asked for ‘Doreen’ and I misheard it as ‘Wolverine’. Either way one of us was bad of hearing. The short of it is, Doreen and I liked the name and it stuck… “The Wild West Show with Richard and the Wolverine.”
The Spaghetti Tape Fiasco
Sometimes a prerecorded show would precede my own. I would normally busy myself in a nearby production studio previewing new releases while the program ran unattended on a reel-to-reel tape deck. Usually about 10 minutes before my shift, I would go back into the main air studio to get my things ready.
On one of these occasions, I came in and to my horror found that the take-up reel had stopped turning in my absence and all the tape was spooling into a nice big nasty tangle on the floor. Some albums that had been stored in a tight spot adjacent to the tape deck had tilted over and pinned the take-up reel in place causing the mess. Despite this little glitch the show was still playing normally.
After my initial freak-out, I calmed down enough to be able to manually spool the tape back onto the take-up reel as the show was still playing, and put it back in its box when it was over. No one was the wiser.
All Good Things…
Sometime in 1984, after almost a year with the show, Doreen announced that she was moving to San Francisco with her boyfriend. I didn’t take it well because she added immeasurably to the show, but more selfishly I’d be missing her companionship during what is otherwise a very solitary job.
Soon after I invited another fan and frequent caller to be co-host. Tom lived in Denver where he was a union steward in his day job and an activist in progressive causes. He was deeply into hardcore and, even though we both lived in Denver, we never became close friends and didn’t socialize outside the station.
With Doreen gone, we re-branded ourselves as ‘Sacco and Vanzetti’ after the Italian anarchists. We co-hosted for only a few weeks before I quit and moved to Florida where I re-nested with my parents, who had retired to Orlando from Queens.
Station management allowed Tom (aka Vanzetti) to continue in that time slot with ‘Smash it Up’, his all-hardcore show. We exchanged a few letters after I left but lost touch after a while.
It’s A Wrap
I was truly privileged and honored to have had the pleasure of hosting a show on KGNU and it will always count as a highlight of my radio career. It was an extraordinary experience.
The best part of it though, was that I had the freedom (within reasonable limits) to craft a weekly radio program without someone’s imprimatur. I could play the music I wanted and say what I wanted, in an environment free from corporate oversight and regimentation, to a passionate, appreciative and knowledgeable audience. It don’t get much better than that.
Sure, looking back I would’ve done some things differently. To ward off burnout I would have opted for a rotating schedule, where you can alternate your shift with one or two other DJs. That way you don’t feel so shackled to your show and get to enjoy some time off. I would have also made more of an effort to participate in the station’s other fundraising activities and events, and tried to get to know some of the other volunteers better.
The Lepers
I wasn’t terribly proactive in doing interviews either—I only did two my entire time there! A live in-studio with The Lepers, a Denver-based band and a taped interview with Black Flag’s Henry Rollins that I made into a one-hour special. That’s a horrible record for a show like mine.
We’ll get it right the next time – I promise.
Making a Spectacle of Myself 
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