K.J.M.F.
[Editor's note: this entry of "It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career" is written by Kyle Callahan, not J.M.F. Stone, the regular proprietor of this particular column.]
On Friday afternoon, Dawn and I listened to a message that J.M.F. left on our answering machine that said something to the effect of “Hey guys. I’m going to be doing a radio show tonight on Crested Butte’s KBUT. You can stream it on the web, so be sure to listen.” (Of course, the message was much more exciting and funny than that, but I’m not about to try to capture Mr. Stone’s particular voice and phrasing.)
So the night goes on, and at 12:30 A.M. (10:30 P.M. in Crested Butte), we download the stream, press play in our iTunes, and after listening to some old school rap, the D.J. kicks in, and sure enough, who do we hear, but J.M.F. Stone himself, doing a stint as a professional radio disc jockey on Crested Butte’s community radio station.
And boy did he sound awkward.
So we found the station’s phone number and called in to make some requests. A little TV On The Radio for Dawn and some Zappa for my brother, Brendan (who was up in Vermont for the night). When he gets on the phone, Jamie says something like, “I’m freakin’ out here!” but next time he got on the radio, he sounded much more relaxed, as if now that he knew someone was listening, he could just be himself.
The next two hours was some fantastic radio, with a huge variation of music that also fit nicely together. All in all, the man did a very nice job, and I look forward to hearing his sophomore broadcast.
‘Cause being a radio D.J. could very well become a brilliant career.