I had a dog and a PC in the back seat. The computer was a 486. The car was a 4-door beige Mazda and a can of Spam was stuck to the dashboard with Velcro. When I left, my girlfriend was furious. The phone rang, a job was offered, I said goodbye to her and my friends and a few days later I was gone. I drove across a good part of the country, through blizzards, rainstorms and blurry nights. I’d gotten a call that a job would be waiting for me in New York City. As I drove across the Goethals Bridge, I caught sight of madness. New York. It was pure industrial lunacy like I had never seen. Indigo perked up in the back seat and smelled the air while cocking her head. A few short days later I was living in a musty basement apartment(it flooded regularly) and was navigating the adrenaline that is market #1. This was NEW YORK RADIO. I left market # 268 behind and was going to the place all people in radio dreamed about. The program director, Russ Mottla, interviewed radio people from across the nation to come to New York and try a modern rock experiment. My old job at the tiny radio station in Columbia Missouri was a blast – but I had just graduated and wanted to head East- anywhere East. The dream phone call arrived within 7 months of graduation, asking me to come to New York and write and produce for a New York radio station.
I brought my computer to work. Not that many people had a computer, and I didn’t want to deal without having it nearby. Russ asked me if I was interested in recording a quick bit about computer stuff for the morning show. He knew I was heavily into computers and had been on the Internet since the 80s. We came up with the name “The Technofile.”
And so the Technofile began. I wrote scripts, recorded them each day, and they played in the morning on WDRE in New York and simulcast across the modern rock Underground Network on a handful of stations. Soon word spread and other stations began calling asking for the feature. Nobody was talking about computers, the Internet and tech on commercial radio.
And so syndication began. Dick Clark's syndication company even signed on to represent the show.
Trust me. People called in asking what this nonsense was. “Why are you talking about computers and this ‘Internet?’” they demanded. “Play Nirvana!” But before I knew it, tech took off with everyone, and the Technofile was adding stations every month, soon airing on over 100 affiliates. Within months I was flying to Vegas – sponsored! – going to Comdex! - and interviewing visionaries starting tech companies, celebrities appearing on CDROMS, and homeless people furious about computers. Within a couple of years I was hitting every tech event I could find, grilling geeks, talking to entrepreneurs, trying to figure out what’s next, what’s now, and what should be ignored completely. The Museum of TV and Radio even inducted the Technofile into their permanent collection as a pioneer in reporting about the Internet and PC explosion.
When the dotcom boom hit, the Technofile hit major exposure. We were sponsored by Mindspring. Then Earthlink. Thanks to the marketing director there, Nikki Nickerson, the Technofile spread to every major market in America.
Over the history of the Technofile, there have been stations that refused to air certain features. When I bought a Gateway laptop that died within days and chronicled the tech support nightmare and the multiple shipments back and forth, some stations refused to air the features, claiming Gateway ran commercials on their airwaves. Years later my nasty run-in with Dell’s CEO(and his gun toting handlers) at Comdex in Vegas it seemed to confirm rumors I had heard that this guy was a paranoid lunatic. Of course, this was after 2001, where tech CEOs felt so important they assumed they were the next plot for terrorists.
The Technofile has taken some alternative views over the years. As the newly formed tech press praised and gloried every new silicon silliness to slither out of Silicon Alley and Valley, I tried to keep a historical perspective on tech and reveal to listeners what is important and what is trivial hype. It’s cost us sponsors and gained us sponsors.
Next week, on Friday July 27th the Technofile signs off. I’ll utter that tagline “That’s what’s on my Underground Hard Drive” for the last time. The “Underground Hard Drive” signoff was an idea spawned from the fact that the Technofile started on the Underground Network. WDRE stopped simulcasting modern rock under the Underground Network name, but the tagline stuck. The Technofile continued to grow. Later, new program director Jim Mcguin came in and demanded the tagline be changed. I reluctantly complied. Protest letters came in requesting the tagline stay. It quickly returned, and has been there ever since.
In 2001 I met 3 guys who had just founded Rockstar Games. They have become my best friends, and we have collaborated on video games that have been the most rewarding, creative challenges I’ve ever had in my life. I’m writing for video games, helping shape virtual worlds, coming up with ideas with amazing people and watching those ideas turn into core game elements. That has turned into a full time job, one that has me flying to other countries, writing, directing talent, and, the best part is – while working on the Grand Theft Auto games, we get to make radio. Real. Uninhibited. Radio. The response we often get is “I wish real radio were like this.” It feels incredible to be in that organic environment creating radio(albeit for a fictional world). In the real world radio has turned into an automated cookie cutter mess, and it warms my heart to see stations freaking each month as revenue drops and people flee the banality to go to Ipods and satellite radio. That’s one of the reasons I gravitate towards Opie and Anthony’s show so much. It’s really unprofessional. There truly is no plan. It grows organically and feels real and unpredictable.
Radio has changed a lot, and many of my very talented friends have bowed out of what was once, in my mind, the most creative and free medium in the country. I love radio. Good radio is blissfully unnoticeable. An hour goes by and you suddenly realize “This has been incredible! Funny! Creative!” Time passes quickly with good radio. It entertains you. With bad radio you know it in half a second.
The Technofile is still going strong, but I've decided to focus on creating video games. It’s sad to say goodbye to the Technofile, but it brings me great joy looking back on everything and everywhere it’s been. I’m glad to be shutting it down on my terms. I’ve had a lot of affiliates freaking out that it’s going away. A friend of mine who was on a major TV show talked a lot about this feeling. He quit a TV show when it was in it’s prime to move on to something else, a new creative challenge. Sometimes, deep down, you know it’s time to move to the next chapter. And that chapter is already unfolding.
This week I will be posting stories – tales from the Technofile. Technofile affiliates will be airing a week of final features that look back. The Technofile has been a labor of love, something I adored doing every week. It’s taken me around the world. Meeting geniuses. Interviewing goofy nerds. I’ve written and produced over 3,000 Technofiles, and in the end I tried to report on what really mattered. I hope I succeeded, and I hope every now and then a Technofile made you laugh. Thanks to all the people who have tuned in to hear it over the years.
That’s what’s on my underground hard drive.
posted by lazlow at
on Sunday, July 22, 2007
