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t5lll\lhUl 5 i in CO Journal PU.ASK1—RADFORD, Va- August 7. liW7 1.1in the ValleyKiCHARDSWPUVStep aboveBv CHIP JONKS Staff Writer“I'm going to write a little letter.Uoing to mail it to my local D.J. . . .Roll over, BeethovenHot to hear it again today. —“from “Roll Over Beethoven” by Chuck Berry*If you ask d.j’s (disc jockeys) in the New River Valley why they got into the medium that made Beethoven roll over in his grave, they may get faraway looks in their eyes for a minuteThat may just be because most of them are too \yapped up in it to have a ready-made expladation waiting on the tips of I heir overworked tongues.But once they get their memory tapes rolling, it becomes apparent that there’s a method to their vinyl-inspired madness.Maybe.It seems fitting that the movie, “Rocky, is somejow bound to the aspirations of d.j. Frank Galmeir at WRAD {Radford). Only a three month veteran of the booth, Galmeir, 25, worked as a “laborer” around his native Silver Springs, Maryland area while working his way through the Columbia School of Broadcasting.And the d.j. that most inspired him was Philadelphia’s DonCannon, the radio voice in “Rocky,” Galmeir said.As his arms and hands snaked over the control board.(Jalmeir said he was in the process of mastering the technical end of disc-jockeying. This is a feat in°itself, considering the confusion (he untrained eye sees in the rows of knobs, switches, levers, lights, and tape cassette-players.The next step for Galmeir, though, is to “develop a personality” on the air, something he’s now doing on the country station between six and 11 p.m. nightly. His main concern was to “not sound phony.”“Bar” Michaels, music director and morning jock at WQBX, Christiansburg, had a more sordid motive for entering radio.“I thought it was one-step above purse snatching.” he said with a glint of infectious humor in his eye.“No. really,” he said, “Radio was something I grew up liking.Michaels, 25, said he use to plug a transistor radio that his mother had given him into his ear and listen to “top 40” music. His radio idol was a Ft. Wayne, Indiana d.j/, Rick Shultz, who use to count down the top forty weekly on his “Sunday Session.”But now, Michaels said, “My ideas have changed a lot.”“We don’t play bubblegum music,” he said, “I’d go absolutely crazy if we did.”The mixture is now 60 percent singles and 40 percent albums at his station, Michaels said. And unlike some radio stations that consult record trade-magaziries like “Billboard” when compiling playlists, Michaels said he shuns such trendsetting — or reporting — volumes in favor of “what I like.”But Mighaels, who has had seven jockeying jobs in five years of riding the airwaves, freely admits that the profession can have it’s rough edges too. “Station managers are always looking for something better,” he said “It’s very unstable.”For Bob Boling, WKEX, Blacksburg “jock” (on a fill-in■basis now) Snd station sales-manager, the thing that initially turned him on to radio was a “fascination w’ith the power of the medium.” A°t age 26, this “fascination” now- includes radio’s advertising potential as well as its entertainment side.fie still is “very musically inclined” — and said he sometimes sheds his earphones for a robe as an organ player at local church services.“I feel the full impact of radio hasn’t even been ap-lt; proached,” Boling said exhuberantly, speaking of the commercial side of the business.Boling, who began his career as a high school disc jockey in(See JOCKS, Page IB)lt;?Staff Photo By Gene DaltonWINDING OUT OF SIGHT4W Rumbles Through ValleyIntegral PartOf Valley LifeJKAREN T. COX Staff WriterThe steel tracks which wind through the New River Valley are just about as much at home here as thecNew River itself.No one now can remember when there wasn't a railroad running through the valley. Whereas once people protested the invasion by the “iron horse” now they have come to accept it as a normal and integral part of everyday life.The railroad has done more than exist in the valley, however. Without it many towns and cities would still be small mountain communities or would not exist at all.The “coming of the roalroad” in the mid 1800’s and its growth into thelt;present ha§ been essential to the development of the valley and continues to play an important part in the molding of the area’s future.It seems ironic that the one thing which probably had the most impact on the valley during the last two centuries, was not even considered important when interstate trade really began.In the early 1800’s the citizens of Virginia decided that the(See RAILS, Page 16)
Newspaper Details
Pulaski Times Journal
Pulaski, Virginia, US
Sun, Aug 07, 1977
Page 21
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 29 Nov 2019
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