Dan at the sound board in Studio 4 at KFAI May 31, 2002

How Dan got started as a radio DJ
Dan has been a DJ at KFAI radio since his senior year in high school, when he first started on Local Sound Department in 1998 as an intern co-host with Mark Wheat, who created the show and hosted it for about six years. Dan took over the show after a year of interning with Mark. (Mark is now a staffer and host of Music Lovers' Club at Radio K, the college AM station of the University of Minnesota; his friendly English-accented voice and vast music knowledge is an audio fixture for Radio K listeners.) Dan says he was not a natural when he first started; he was nervous, but his mentor Mark eased him into it slowly, starting Dan on pre-recorded interviews with bands.

Before starting on Local Sound Department, Dan had some interest in the local music scene, but was more of a record-buyer then, he didn't go to many shows (he was under age for all the 21+ venues, for one thing) and he credits Rev 105 as the influence that started him on the path to his current musical taste. Like many DJs, Dan confesses that he is a frustrated musician: "I'm a bad guitar player." But he is multi-talented: he started young as a writer, (see below) and worked as the music editor at the University of Minnesota's campus newspaper the Minnesota Daily. Dan continues at the Daily as a campus reporter, and also helps book all-ages music acts near the university campus.

Young Dan and The Rev 105
"The Rev" was a local commercial station that played an alternative music format until it was bought by a Disney-owned media company in 1997 and turned into a metal station, then a toned-down alternative station. Says Dan, "If [a station like the Rev] were to show up now, I don't know what I'd think of it, but at the time, it was something completely new to me, it wasn't the same twelve songs. It was a commercial station, a commercial format—they had a playlist and a rotation—but they also had good DJs who got to have input into what got played ... you could tell that a human was behind it, and it wasn't just the corporate robot churning out another format. And they played local music in the regular rotation, and plenty of it, it wasn't stashed aside like one hour of the week." Rev DJs Mary Lucia and Brian Oake were among Dan's favorites.

Read an article Dan wrote as a junior in high school about the death of the Rev: www.startribune.com/stories/615/42586.html

Dan's approach to programming
Dan says the hardest part of being a DJ is the talking: "I do as much preparation in advance, so I don't need to worry about picking out songs ... mentally I can be focused on what I'm gonna be saying. A lot of times, I'll script out my first break or two ... 'cause if I screwed up right at the beginning of the show, there's no recovery for me ..." His preparation includes going through all the local entertainment weeklies and their venue ads, and he types up a calendar that he puts on his web site. He says City Pages and Pulse of the Twin Cities are the best sources for regular venue ads. In planning each show, Dan normally highlights the calendar bands he knows he's got records for, and narrows down his playlist that way. Sometimes Dan does a live in-studio segment on the show. KFAI doesn't yet have a real performance studio, so Dan just asks bands to do an acoustic set with whatever works with the four microphones in the main studio.

He doesn't have any rules about what genres he'll play on the show, he'll play folk or bluegrass occasionally, but there's a rock slant to his show. He plays a lot of punk, hip-hop, and pop. Dan plays pretty much anyone local, it's not just his favorites, although he acknowledges that his taste probably seeps in and affects the show. Quite a bit of music gets sent to him from labels and bands, but Dan doesn't always play whatever they send: "I try to be as inclusive as I can, but at the same time I try and make sure the show overall is something I'd want to listen to if I weren't the one behind the board ... every week there's always a stack of stuff I don't get to."

Dan's show is not only local, but also timely: "I play bands who are playing in town over the next seven days, so that's the best way to use my show, I think, is to tune in, and if you like something, you can go and see them, and start getting involved more directly with the local music scene and getting away from just the buying records thing, which is great, but it's a whole new thing to get into the live scene." Dan plays bands from the Twin Cities and elsewhere in Minnesota, occasionally bands from Wisconsin get on his show, if they play locally a lot, and he doesn't play national acts at all, except if they are from Minnesota: "if a local band gets signed to a major and gets big, I don't blacklist them, but I don't play anybody unless there's some reason to connect them with here."

When asked who his audience is, Dan laughed and said, "Mom, Dad, ... I think a lot of people listen, kind of off and on, when they're in their car, ... I'm not sure if I have people that listen every week. The audience I'm programming the show for is an audience who is active and goes to shows, pretty much my show is the concert calendar."

Dan checking the web during Local Sound Department May 31, 2002

When local acts make it big
When asked if he's ever "discovered" an artist or band who later went on to commercial success, Dan is characteristically modest: "It's weird to tell how much of an impact radio has, I'm kinda hesitant to give radio that much credit, I think a lot of times, if bands are just hard-working, and good, they'll get there some way. Radio is one source, but radio is just one way, there's zines, labels ..." But he did name one artist who played on Local Sound Department who is now a commercial success: Fog. Dan played Fog, the one-man turntable and instrumental creation of local musician Andrew Broder, in fall of 2000, after Broder had released a record.

Dan describes what he remembers about this record: " ... it started off as a turntable record only and he got kinda frustrated and pulled out his guitar and keyboards and all these other instruments ... it's this really cool turntable meets guitar, there's a lot of weird abstract turntable stuff but then a lot of little pop scraps too. I played that pretty much right away and had him in studio, and then this winter or this fall, I forget when, the record was re-released by Ninja Tune Records in London, and he's all the rage in Europe I guess, and people are picking up on him here. Not that I'm trying to take credit for any of that 'cause it had nothing to do with my show, but it's fun to watch bands from the demo to headlining at First Ave or whatever, that's a fun thing."

Dan's take on the Twin Cities scene
Asked how he'd describe the Twin Cities music scene to an out-of-towner, Dan had a tough time knowing where to begin: "There's a lot! There's a huge hip-hop scene, a huge metal scene that's really organized, there's a lot of ... kinda like this lo-fi, kinda indie-pop scene, there's a whole bunch of really interesting scenes, and they probably don't interact as much as they could, or as much as they should, but when there is crossover, it's cool, like [local metal band, now on a national label] American Head Charge has done some shows with [local hip-hop band] Atmosphere at First Ave, and that's really cool ... there's a big punk scene, post-rock, mathy stuff. [Mathy?] Yeah, math-rock, it's weird time signatures, a lot of them crammed into the same song ... kind of quirky punk stuff."

Dan says the local scene has changed a lot since he first started on Local Sound Department. "A lot of times I think scenes kind of base around a venue, like the Foxfire [an erstwhile downtown venue, now sirsumcorda] definitely had a scene, a lot of venues around town definitely have their style of music, I think venue is a big thing, especially the all age venues seem to open and close faster than the bars, and I think that's a big thing ... Bands break up pretty frequently, but it seems like there's a couple of new bands starting up every time that happens, and I think the scene right now is really exciting, it seems like there's a lot of stuff ready to blow up big ... at the Minnesota music awards, the Best New Band category might as well be the Best Band category ..."

Dan's a persuasive advocate of the local live music scene: "You could easily just listen to local music and get enough of everything, I think ... when you actually think about how many great bands there are here, great musicians, it blows you away, not many people are getting famous for it, but there's a lot of good stuff going on here. I would be impressed if there was another scene that was this good."

Dan at the board during LSD May 31, 2002

Some of Dan's local music picks:
Dan offered these suggestions for getting started for anyone new to the local music scene. (For more, see the Local Sound Department web site.)

indie-pop: Kid Dakota, Work of Saws, Ashtray Hearts, The Owls, Florida, Mike Brady, Quillan Roe
(Dan recommended the local compilation album Apartment Music as an introduction to local independent bands.)

pop: Faux Jean, Valet, Divorcée
(find more pop acts here: http://www.tcmusic.net/musicians/category2.php3?category=Pop)

punk: Dillinger 4, Selby Tigers
(find more punk bands here: http://www.tcmusic.net/musicians/category2.php3?category=Punk or on www.tcpunk.com.)

metal: American Head Charge, A Line, Down and Above, Hook Echo
(find more local metal bands here: http://www.tcmusic.net/musicians/category2.php3?category=Metal)

lo-fi/mathy: the Vets

Dan's recommended local music sources:
Dan's Local Sound Department web site lists many print publications and web sites to keep you in touch with local music events: http://members.aol.com/TheDanOne/lsdlinks.htm.