I usually arrive about a half hour before my shift, it gives me a chance to relax and prepare. Being a DJ isn’t all fun and games, I do have to actually work, well sorta. I look over the first hour playlist to see what’s on the agenda. Ya these days you don’t just play anything you want. The playlist has been put together by computer, based on group testing and down load hits. On the overnite I can deviate some. In the first hour I’m going to replace two songs that have gotten me calls from listeners telling me those songs suck. My method is to substitute another song from the same artist and CD. That way I’m at least supporting the CD. The program director knows I do this and she gives me that latitude as she knows I won’t abuse it.
I also go over my first break chatter. Tonite it will occur around 12:15, give or take a minute depending on how the time pans out. My first set contains one of the songs I replaced and it’s slightly shorter, so time wise I’ll need to be aware of that. I try to have a topic that I can discuss the whole night. It makes it less boring if I can start a dialogue with the people out there. Tonight the topic will be Cheese. Everybody likes cheese and seem to have a fave type so it should turn out to be an interesting shift. Speaking of which, it’s almost midnite and I’m ON.
