This is the second in a series of installments this month.
So, as we approach 9/11/07 – the 25th anniversary of the first Chris and Dave Smorgabord show, I’ve been reflecting back on some of the early emotions I experienced at that time. As I mentioned in the last posting, Dave and I were paired up and assigned the key Saturday night prime-time slot. This was “cruising” night – you know, anyone who was anyone had a driver’s license and was out cruising the streets of the western Chicago suburbs. As the old slogan went, “WDGC-FM…150-watts of music right in your face”, we had a 15-mile radius, capable of reaching as far south as Bolingbrook, as far north at Addison, Hillside to the east, and Batavia to the west. We had to be good – or suffer extreme humiliation at school on Monday morning since pretty much anyone at DGN High School had the potential of listening to us. We also had the rest of the WDGC staff waiting for us to fail – most of them jealous that we had been given one of the top 3 timeslots. However, much of the worst was behind me by this point since the senior graduation class of 1982 was out of there. Plus, Dave was a senior so collectively we were starting to be big fish in a small pond, as it were.
The first thing we did after learning about our pairing was record a series of sound effects and radio promos, we picked an opening show theme song, and wrote some very rough scripts of quick bits to do on-air. We did some of these in my basement recording studio, and others in the WDGC studio after the station went off air for the day. Everything else was pushed aside during those last two weeks leading up to opening night (which might explain my grades during the first semester of my junior year). We also felt we needed business cards. This was in the old days when you had to visit a printer and sketch out what you wanted. We thumbed through a book of logos to put on the cards and for some strange reason we settled on palm trees (for our second season in 1984 we had karate guys). You can see what we finally ended up with at another section of this website.
And that was pretty much it as I recall… we were ready for our big debut.
Check back during the week of 9/10 and read about some of my memories of opening night, initial feedback from the audience, and a story about that special package we received from a fan after the first show.
– Webmaster Chris
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