Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 14, 1994 TAG: 9403140017
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON RICHERT STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That's what K-Crew in the Morning co-host Sally Severeid calls the slow time on the 5-9 a.m. morning show.
If you saw her and co-host Monty Foster - also known as Mofo - at work at 8 a.m., though, you'd swear their last hour on the air is anything but slow. Watching them play the commercials, plug in the CD tunes and laugh it up on the air is more like watching jugglers at the circus. You wonder how they keep it going. Day after day after day.
The K-crew in the Morning - Mofo and Sally Severeid - have been back less than two weeks from Norway, where they covered the Olympics for K-92. Since January they've been waking listeners weekdays at 5 o'clock in the morning (and on Saturdays from 7-11 a.m.). That means they wake up around 3:30 or 4 a.m. and arrive at work by 4:30 - before most people have rolled over in their sleep.
It's still dark outside when they get to the brown carpet-walled studio in Roanoke. And while they might not have wiped the sleep from their eyes, they know they have to sound wide awake when their mikes are turned on.
That's the easy part of their job, though. It's natural for Mofo to be the funny guy and Sally to be the level-headed one, as she puts it. The part most folks don't know about is what they do while they are waking the rest of us up.
The hard part is obvious when you see them in action. In the tiny studio, Mofo stands before a microphone and giant board of switches, knobs and lights. When he first saw these radio controls, he remembers thinking "I don't know if I can fly this ship."
The studio telephones are to his left beside a reel-to-reel tape recorder. A rack of hundreds of sound effects are to his right. Behind him are the tapes of commercials - called "carts" - and the CDs of music. And in front of him, taped to the wall, are small posters of the things DJs say between songs, like the studio phone numbers and outside temperature reports.
Sally works out of this studio and another one across the hall, where she does the news report. She dashes back and fourth between news casts, weather spots and fun talk with Mofo and callers. Her headphones go with her so she can plug them wherever she is.
Both must grab the commercials and plug them into the players at the right time. They can't just play any commercial, though. They have to play the one that's on their list of commercials for their show. When one commercial's done, they put it back in the rack and get the next one.
They do the same thing with the songs, too. Again, Sally and Mofo don't get to play whatever songs they want. A computer keeps track of the most-requested songs and Billboard's top tunes. Every morning, Sally and Mofo are given a computer list of the songs they are supposed to play. When it comes time to play a tune, they pick it out of the CD racks and put it in one of the CD players.
Even more confusing is how they keep up with those sound effects you hear in the background while the DJs talk back and forth. There's the "oooh, aaah, oooh" one. The "yowser, yowser, yowser." Then there are drum rolls, motorcycle sounds, hand clapping, booing and cheering crowds. On top of that are the K-92 jingles and birthday songs they play as they talk.
Hundreds of these sound effects and jingles are recorded on CDs and carts, and Mofo and Sally must know where each is so they can plug it in and play it at the right time.
As if all this isn't difficult enough, everything Mofo and Sally do must be done ON TIME. That means they can't be a second late with anything. When it's time to play a song or a commercial, they have to have it in the player before it's supposed to air. Then, at just the right second, they hit the play switch.
The same goes for the phone conversations with contest winners and others who call in. These are recorded when listeners call. When it's time for Mofo and Sally to award a prize or share a quick joke on the air, they replay the telephone conversation as if it's happening live. To make this work, everything must be coordinated down to the second.
There's never time during their four hours in the morning to sit down and sip sodas, Mofo says. "It's fun, but it's not what people think it is."
In fact, they don't even do much sitting around and relaxing after their show is over because they have to prepare for the next day's show. Much of their jokes, news stories, weather forecasts and entertainment news to read the next day are prepared after they get off the air.
The hard work DJs do does pay off, not in millions of dollars but in having a good time. "You have fun," Sally says. "You give away stuff . . . you wake people up, make them happy, make them feel good. Radio is to entertain."
And the most important part of what they do, Mofo says, is to "host the show . . . and get people the information they need to know and let people have a good time."
"Yeah," Sally agrees. "What he said!"
Memo: ***CORRECTION***