Music Monday: New Releases Worth Your Time
New discoveries, familiar proof: the Capital Region’s sound continues to evolve.
Did you catch me on the air Friday afternoon?
In addition to my usual Thursday night show, I was invited to the fishbowl inside the Sarazen Student Union on the Siena University campus as part of WVCR’s annual Radio-thon.
If you missed me, that’s okay. I was hardly on.
Darrin Scott Kibbey is not only responsible for the station’s jazz show on Sunday evenings — he’s also its general manager. He runs everything. He’s the boss. I’m the novice. So I sought guidance from him. Guidance I knew I’d need walking in.
Because my weekly show is recorded from home, I don’t concern myself with distractions or the occasional slip of the tongue. I rarely curse. Okay, that’s a relative observation. But the fear of accidentally swearing on air is always there when broadcasting across the Capital Region.
I nearly backed out.
But the idea of doing something genuinely uncomfortable had its pull. Darrin had been pushing me to go live since Day One. Call it confidence or recklessness — indifference isn’t part of his makeup. He has a lot of love for what he does. He also knows exactly where the station fits in the broader landscape.
It’s a college station. Most of the DJs who volunteer grew up with a love for new music on the radio, and later, MTV on television. Then, while school is in session, there are the students enamored of the opportunity to be heard. There are no professionals on the air. It is a work in progress handled by people who genuinely care. But it’s on iHeartRadio. And locally, it will soon broadcast at 50,000 watts, extending its reach across the region.
I wasn’t confident behind the board. It resembled the setup I had at home, but the logistics were different — the signal chain, the sequencing, the way the levels were mapped. I stopped by the studio the day before to get familiar with everything. Darrin took 20 minutes to walk me through it. I recorded the whole thing on my iPhone. And I was still lost. But once my air time arrived, I was there.
I kept it simple. I reduced everything to a few buttons. The logic was: if this, then that. Nothing beyond a few steps to make it functional.
But once I tapped in, the heart rate spiked. I spoke into the mic. Remembered the call letters. Shared the phone number to encourage listeners to donate. Described the scene outside the studio — all of it aimed at pulling listeners into the moment with me.
The anxiety made it nearly impossible to read the board. It was just a minute. I wrapped up, hit a few buttons and was back off the air. DJ Brian Donovan was in the booth with me to take phone calls and help guide me. Darrin, too.
And that’s why I was hardly on the air.
If you know Darrin, you know he’s a radio guy — which means he talks. And we all got to talking. And talking.
Two hours into my three-hour set, he promised to step out and get pizza.
“I haven’t heard you on the air that much, you know,” he said. I threw my hands up. It was because he wouldn’t stop talking. “Oh, you don’t need me to be quiet. Just jump on!”
This month marks one year since I said yes to broadcasting On The List on WVCR. It’s been the North Star in a year that has been a struggle to navigate. Saratoga Living laid me off abruptly in January. I’ve been rebuilding since — quietly, and not so quietly.
I launched The Ish Bulletin, a Substack covering arts, culture, and community across the Capital Region. It crossed 5,000 subscribers in May. I’ve continued freelancing. I’ve kept the radio show. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I was named a finalist for Radio DJ of the Year at the Capital Region Thomas Edison Music Awards.
I’m not sharing that to impress anyone. I’m sharing it because there seems to be a persistent misconception about people in my professional generation — that we are somehow behind, or resistant, or slow to adapt. While our parents struggled to program the VCR, we were tinkering with the parental controls to lock Mom out of the shopping channel. That curiosity doesn’t go away. It just finds new places to live. My kids have mostly moved on to streaming. I understand the impulse. But I didn’t grow up intimidated by new technology. What’s changed is that I’ve found a place where that instinct is actually useful — and I’ve learned how to operate within it.
Getting laid off doesn’t erase what came before it. And it doesn’t define what comes next.
So now Darrin has me thinking about doing my weekly show live. There's something about a live broadcast — the stakes, the stumbles, the fact that there's no taking it back — that makes the whole thing feel real. And as nerve-wracking as it initially felt, the moment that mic opened and I heard my own voice coming back at me, I didn't want to stop.
—Michael
