I grew up in Taylorsville, NC, a small town about 60 miles north of Charlotte and on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains. Taylorsville was a quiet little place abundant in two things- furniture factories and churches. There were no shopping malls, no movie theaters and no ice cream joins.

I can only recall two activities that kept me busy outside of high school- cruising down Main Street on a Friday or Saturday night, and working as a DJ. Yeah, that's right- I spun vinyl for the masses. Most of my gigs were school functions and private parties. With a 27ft truck, crew of 2 and an MC with an over inflated ego, we would pack a high school gym with enough sound, lights, and effects to entertain hundreds of screaming teenagers and scare the hell out of a few chaperones. 

A friend introduced me to Tim Moose a few years later. Tim was a DJ as well and I am very fortunate to have worked with him on a couple projects. I'm not exactly sure how that came about, but one day he looked at me and said, “I'm going to make you a star”.

Next thing I knew, I'm being hauled up to a little AM radio station perched on the eastside of Linney’s Mountain.  The station's call letters were WTLK and with 1000 watts of daytime power, the station barely covered the county. In fact, you could see further than the station would cover (On a clear night, you could see the transmission towers for some of the Charlotte radio stations which were 50 miles away). 

My first day on the radio station was an absolute nightmare. You see, running a radio station is more than just playing music and talking between songs. Every moment of radio station's air time is programmed. For example, at the top of the hour you get the national news from the satellite network. You must than back time your music and commercial breaks so that they flow seamlessly into that network feed. The thing that drove me absolutely nuts was all of the little snippets (local weather forecast, sports bits, and crop report) coming in over the satellite while you were spinning records. So there you are, recording satellite bits, spinning songs, answering the phones, and meanwhile attempting to inject a little personality into the show.

So there I was, the scared kid trying to entertain people I didn't even know. In most cases, I'm sure my mother was the only person listening. But that small opportunity that Moose gave me was huge. I still have a passion for radio today and would love an opportunity to contribute again.