Hi, I'm Dave Cusick. I'll be hosting and writing about music here, so I thought I'd introduce myself.
I was born and raised in Portland. My mother, a piano teacher, met my father in choir at college, and the result was a family of five that can sing "Happy Birthday" in four-part harmony to its fifth member. I'm also fiercely Oregonian. Though my grandmother, the family historian, could tell you much more about the Cusicks who came across the Oregon Trail in covered wagons, I love it here. And I feel about Portland the same way the Beach Boys felt about the ocean.
OPB will officially be my first paying radio gig, but my career in radio has been a long time in the works.
As an eight-year-old, I used to record everything with my little red tape recorder, from acting classes to my older sister's parties, to interviews with our Speak & Math in the back of the car, on the drive out to pick blueberries. And, like any good member of my generation, I made mixtapes. Lots and lots of mixtapes, starting at age 13. Sometimes for girls or for friends, but mostly to pop in my walkman. I still believe that the most pure way to experience recorded music is on a big pair of headphones, played off vinyl on the family stereo system at midnight, while copying it onto a high-bias tape, with the recording level turned up so that it will saturate the tape just so.
in 1991, when I was 17, I had the freedom to go downtown and spend time in record stores and discover new music. One day, I sat down at the computer, wrote a letter to Portland's Top 40 station, asking them to please play "more alternative and club music," and listed 40 new songs I thought they should add to their playlist. I printed it out on the dot-matrix printer, took it to a friend's birthday party, and had everyone there sign it, like a petition. A few weeks later, I got a letter back, thanking me "for being such an ardent listener!" While I appreciated them adding the word "ardent" to my vocabulary, it's been another full 17 years, and I still haven't heard them add those songs to their library.
Instead, I abandoned Top 40 radio for bands like The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs, New Order, Stone Roses. My motto was "British is Better." But over the years, I never stopped wishing that I could hear the music I called my own on the radio. That wishing eventually led me to start hosting my own radio show on KPSU in 2002, which I'm still hosting. After my first year of doing that show, I moved north to the suburbs of Vancouver, Canada, to finish school and marry my Canadian sweetheart. I knew that someday we'd both move back here, and so rather than abandon my radio show, I recorded it at home each week, for KPSU to air. And even though it was impossible for me to attend any shows by Portland bands, our music journalists made it really easy to keep up on music in our fair city from the Great White North. Three months ago, after being gone for nearly five years, I finally moved back. It's good to be home.
Lately, the music I can't get off my mp3 player is Cut/Copy, Club 8, Trespassers William, Blue Giant, Moonbabies, and about a thousand other bands. My favorite thing to do is find new music and share it with people, and I'm really excited about the opportunity to do that for you here at OPB!
So, enough about me. What about you? What are some early musical memories that formed what you like listening to now? What are you listening to now?
September 17, 2008 at 5:25am by aesop2008
Right now I am really digging Deerhunter, No Age, Blitzen Trapper (Portland), Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Alela Diane, Jolie Holland, Old Time Relijun, Eat Skull, The Fall, Cicada Omega (Portland) , Baptist Arms (Portland), Matana Roberts, Hammer and Hathor(Portland), Shellac, etc.
Best, Kevin
http://eclectic-grooves.blogspot.com
September 17, 2008 at 5:26am by aesop2008
These days, I run my own blog Eclectic Grooves and I just started doing a music podcast. I was wondering if you would have any advice or suggestions for me in how to get a paying gig as a radio DJ. Music is my passion, and I know that I would be great as a DJ. I hope you don't think that I'm being too forward. I just figured that you may have some pointers for me.
Best, Kevin
http://eclectic-grooves.blogspot.com
September 17, 2008 at 5:28am by aesop2008
I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your forays into music and how they have led into your first paying DJ gig. I too made mix-tapes and recorded everything on a boombox when I was only 9 years old. I used to record whatever was on the radio, because for some reason I felt that I wouldn't be able to hear those songs again. I kept listening to the radio for something new, but then I realized that I was hearing the same 40 songs. Hence the term "top 40". This led me into the MTV era, where I would obsessively watch music videos from morning to night. I was so fascinated with these images set to music.
September 17, 2008 at 5:28am by aesop2008
This brought me up to mid 80's, where I became obsessed with rap and hip-hop. In fact, I listened to hip-hop solely from 1986-1990. Someone would play me something that had a guitar solo, and it would practically make me sick... Until that fateful day when my brother would pull me into his room to listen to a whole different world of music that my ears had never been exposed to. The musical world was mine to explore, and I began with classic rock and alternative rock in the early 90's.
September 17, 2008 at 5:32am by aesop2008
After I graduated from college, I started to seriously explore out-there genres like free-jazz and kraut rock along with a healthy dose of blues and soul. While I was opening up my world to just about everything else, I decided to boycott hip-hop and rap. I moved to Portland and started working at Music Millennium in 2001, and my tastes became extremely esoteric. For a small period of time, I would only listen to something if it was noisy and abrasive, escewing most classic rock except for maybe Jimi Hendrix. However, my tastes started branching out into all diferent genres like afro-beat, klezmer wedding music, free jazz, electronic glitch hop, freak folk and drone.
Sorry for sending so many messages, but the system would only let me send a certain amount of words per message. In any event, I wanted you to hear my whole story so I sent individual messages.
Best, Kevin
http://eclectic-grooves.blogspot.com
September 17, 2008 at 8:24am by Jeremy Petersen
Thanks, Kevin!
I'll jump on the wagon, too-- I played radio DJ as a kid, too, recording my own cassettes (Wham's Make It Big, Falco 3, Sting's Dream of the Blue Turtles and Tears For Fears' Songs From the Big Chair are a few I remember) next to stuff I'd steal from the real radio (Madonna, Patti LaBelle, anyone?), and of course, the requisite weather reports (which I deliver only a little less awkwardly now).
September 17, 2008 at 8:25am by Jeremy Petersen
It's interesting looking back at all of the various musical phases I found myself passing through, much like the two of you, more or less all of which probably continue to manifest themselves in some way today. The first cassette I owned, I'm only a little embarrassed to admit, was Kenny Rogers' 25 Greatest Hits (white chocolate himself)-- and Tears For Fears, White Lion, Bell Biv DeVoe, Public Enemy, Depeche Mode, REM, The Cure, John Coltrane, Morphine, Chet Baker, Willie Nelson, The Smiths, Radiohead, Belle & Sebastian and Nick Drake (not to mention many many others better and worse) were all a big deal to me and one point or another-- some of them still are.
September 17, 2008 at 8:27am by Jeremy Petersen
Obviously, music's a personal thing, or at least it can be, entwined inside our life stories as it can become. With every CD I pop in or mp3 file I click for the first time these days there's still that moment of "Will this change my life? Will this be the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship?" More accurately, it might be "Please change my life.." "Please be the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship..." Hope springs eternal, I suppose.
September 17, 2008 at 4:53pm by Dave Cusick
Kevin: Thanks for responding! About half the bands you mentioned are new to me, and I like the other half, so I'll be sure to check them out!
As for how to get into a position where you're doing radio professionally, my advice is a little pat, but literally, just keep doing it. I did my weekly, one-hour radio for six years, five of them in my bedroom using Adobe Audition (formerly known as CoolEdit). Sometimes I felt like throwing in the towel with it, but I had no idea what else I wanted to do with my life instead. Ira Glass has said in a few different interviews I've seen (one is here), where he basically says "keep making stuff on a regular basis. Eventually, you'll like what you're making, but you have to persevere." That has been true for me.
September 17, 2008 at 5:20pm by Dave Cusick
Also, the part I left out my musical past was all the less-than-cool music (according to this scene) I loved. A few highlights include: Hall & Oates, Chicago (SO great for 5th grade heartbreak), Phil Collins, Howard Jones, Toto, and the best prefabricated pop group EVER: Milli Vanilli.
Oh, and I went to a Nelson concert at the Scnitz with my sister and her friends who were totally obsessed with them at the time. Matthew Nelson (the one without bangs) tossed a neon green Nelson-logo guitar pick into the audience, and it landed RIGHT AT MY FEET, even though I was in way up in the balcony!
September 18, 2008 at 2:20am by dchristensen
"Playing DJ" with a tape recorder seems to be common. (In my case, also practicing my play by play skills so as to one day get to describe Heisman winner Johnny Rodgers' twisting, improbable TD punt return to win a Thanksgiving-day game over Oklahoma... but alas, that day only came once and I was 8.) Chicago.. oh yeah. Queen? The Police, Phil Collins, Thriller-era Michael Jackson, yep. Found the advent of MTV mesmerizing. I think the first time I saw a music video was in the electronics section at the old Meier & Frank department store, and I couldn't take my eyes off. (The proliferation of Hall & Oates videos eventually allowed me to go on with my life.) An interesting question is: what artist or band did the music video "ruin" for you? I think I might've been more of a David Bowie fan if I hadn't first encountered him in the video for "Blue Jean."
September 18, 2008 at 2:36am by dchristensen
And Kevin, to your question: I'd suggest you talk with college or community stations about volunteering. It's one way to gain some experience.
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