The Book of Underhill

10/30/1994

It was in the fall of 1994 when I got my first radio show, I had completed the internship at KGLT in Bozeman Montana, and applied for the show under the guise of being a heavy metal show, but really it was a Heavy Metal, Punk, Gothic, thrash show with poetic tendencies.  I had gotten the on air pseudonym of The Rock and Roll Zombie, which was attributed to how I pushed myself and worked a fulltime job, was a volunteer fire fighter and interned at the radio station. I could go from literally from nearly asleep to Mr. Excitement in a moment’s notice. It still happens to this day that the minute I get a microphone in front of me I become the life of the party, and you never know what insanity might cross my lips.

                As a part of building the show and cross promoting we were encouraged to make advertisements for our show and have them played by other Disc Jockeys at the station. I scheduled some studio time, and this was before computer editing made things more simple than ever, so we had to literally cut and splice reel to reel tape to make our commercials. The night before my studio time my friend whom we shall call The Leprechaun and I got into a bad bottle of whiskey. We proceeded to drink until the wee hours of the morning. I woke up around nine in the morning with a hangover freaking out because I had nothing planned for my studio time at three in the afternoon. I started listening to different sound effects hoping it would jostle some sort of creativity out of my brain. The Leprechaun roused and made us some coffee. I continued my search for something, anything but to no avail. Three cups of coffee and five cigarettes later lightning struck. I was playing an old Halloween sound effects tape and this cat made a yowling noise that was long and prolonged, and right after the cat finished wailing The Leprechaun said “Bubba! Get your finger outta that cat!”

                I laughed and then the entire script for the commercial flashed through my head, and I asked The Leprechaun to come with me to the studio so I could record him saying that. He was reserved at first but then agreed. I began committing what I had seen in the script to paper while playing other sound effects and making notes as to what I needed as they rolled by. We drove over to Bozeman from the town I lived in called Livingston and we played some pool to steady the nerves before the recording session. While the game was going on I know the script I had was pushing the outer fringes of decency for radio broadcast so I wrote a second  more reserved script as a back up to have incase the studio person would not record the first one. The snow began to fly in Bozeman and it was a rip snorting storm on the brew.

                Time finally came for us to make our way to the studio. We drove over and both of our wives were accompanying us so we were a small group, and I sure quite overwhelming for the studio tech to deal with, but he handled it well. I warned him that the first script I had would push the limits. He informed me he was very active in his church and if he felt uncomfortable that he would stop us and we would load the second script as a backup.  We began the recording process and everything went smoothly. It came out amazing, it was a commercial urging the listener to abandon an empty life of pet abuse and listen to the “Shock Therapy for Hangovers Show”. The tech turned red once he heard the completed commercial but he said he would not be too embarrassed if it aired and someone know he put it together. He also informed us that we had enough time to do the second script I wrote as a bonus, because we were clear concise and on point. I took that as a compliment. I told him I was worried about making it back to Livingston in the storm that was now dumping snow on us. He told me it would be quick and then we could be on our way. I agreed, and back into the studio we went. We got this commercial done in about the same amount of time, which really was quick, but then we took the commercials over to the on air studio and asked the person who was doing their show if they wanted to debut our commercial. He agreed and we had to wait for his next break to hear it air. This took up more time and the snow was falling more and more.

                The disc jockey aired our commercial and he could not stop laughing at it! He thought it was the single best promo he had heard, and he had been doing radio at this particular station for fifteen years. I was honored by what he said, and we thanked him for airing it, and began our journey home to Livingston. The car we had was a light little Chrysler Aries station wagon, and it had bald tires on it. To get to Livingston from Bozeman it was a thirty mile drive over a mountain pass, and the storm was making the roads horrible. We could hear the snow scraping the bottom of the car for most of the trip; a trip that we did at ten to fifteen miles an hour. We did have the radio on the station that I worked at for the drive. After a few songs rolled by the guy who debuted our commercial came on the air and said something like “I do not believe this but we actually have a request for a commercial, not a song but a commercial, and it’s the one I debuted earlier. Here is the promo for Shock Therapy for Hangovers show!”

                He rolled our commercial once more, The Leprechaun and I grinned at each other whooping and cheering at our success. The trip was slow, but we did eventually make it and we stopped at a local diner for our supper to save anyone having to cook, and it was a most enjoyable evening. We did happen to find a second bottle of whiskey and celebrate our days work. The scene of the requested promo played out a couple more times throughout the run of my show. I eventually got picked up by a professional station in Bozeman Montana, and left a station I loved working for in trade of making money. That was the biggest mistake I ever made in radio, but one that would be corrected eventually.

Author's Note

I don't normally remember exact dates with this, but while we were shooting pool, I remembered there being a news even broadcast that was trace able and I googled it while writing this piece to make sure I had the date correct.