“So, who’s your favorite dj?” Pan, with the voice of god, asked. We were kids talking shop. Talking about pop radio history since when we started paying attention to it. I froze because Louie D. and Jude Rocha is kiss-ass obvious. It was 2002, Chico and Del just left RX, so that may be a spot that either of us would want to discuss with mostly innuendo and 3rd hand information. Besides, I was just 2 weeks in to the internship glamorously named “student jock”. My real answer was Hill-Billy Willy, the first name that came to mind; him with Rudolph Rivera and voice characters the Count, and Grover, shamelessly ripped-off Sesame Street by smile radio, 93.9 DWKC.
DWKC is a precursor of the mass-radio format prevalent today. Yet, the archaic format of KC would sound too “pa-class” with the current FM mass-radio genre, most of which would probably attribute their style with Martin D. of ABS-CBN’s DWRR. But today’s version try to outdo each other as a better incarnation/abomination that is Love Radio.
By luck or circumstance, WKC was able to liberally play Andrew E.’s “Humanap ka ng Panget” since it identifies with their station better than most. It was an irresistible Pinoy pop candy at the early days of local hip-hop, despite it owing most of its intellectual property rights to Tone Loc. Nonetheless, it was like the parody radio station found the perfect song and both successes validated the other.
This was the time when local radio were, by law, required to play four Original Pilipino Music every hour, by the hour, instead of losing young listeners when playing OPM standards, KC was able to sustain it’s youth demographic by being able to play Francis M., Andrew E., along with other upstarts, albeit derivatives, Michael V., Lady D., Denmark among others.
For pure let’s-get-it-over-with type of compliance, the OPM songs are played 4-in-a-row in most stations, a move which makes it harder for a local artist to break ground if he can’t fit the current pop music mold or if the artist don’t sound/groove like the others because the disc jockey won’t be able to seamlessly mix them together.
Come early to mid-90’s, I have outgrown the novelty of WKC and their joke-time. Thanks to analog radio dials, I was able to stumble to a radio station that fed my curiosity for American Top 40 music. As a kid, I’d mostly turn the knob near the extreme left to listen to 89.1 DMZ where Francis M. or the Mouth can be found (only on weekends, or Tuesday nights?… too lazy to google when you’re blogging from your phone). It’s hip, it’s bouncy, it’s booming, character befitting Cubao-bound Jeepney traversing the mean streets of Recto via Ramon Magsaysay Blvd.
WRX 93.1 is about pop music, its range and variety. By the 90’s the Pop music demographic is brimful enough to spill to sub-sections which has enough population and audacity to act like it’s an exclusive club and hate what don’t fit their mold. The Pangks v. the Hiphop-Yo; basically a battle between aggressive pop music factions that wear Doc Martens. For some reason, radio was saw it convenient to offer compartmentalized product. Pop music grew enough range that the music award contest was able to give out Adult Contemporary Music to identify such exquisite taste, or because they’d have to recognize Michael Bolton who has this Raspy Rock voice built for belting out ballads. RX played the full spectrum, or at least the spectrum’s most polished output. It’s like WTM 89.9 or Magic but for some reason Magic is able to highlight their radio personalities like Joe D’Mango, Sgt. Pepper, Little David, Tina Ryan, Miles, Tony Toni and current torch bearers Mo Twister and Sam YG (don’t sleep on NikkoRMS though, as Nikko Ramos would probably say).
That was the long reply nobody wants to hear from a fluke fanboy aspirant. So instead, I offered the cool obscure answer “Koji Morales”.
(To be continued)
danDAman 