Were (are) you on the radio, or in a band? Did you (do you) ever get MIC FRIGHT?

There have been times when I lost my train of thought on the air, or effectively went silent when I was using the wrong mic.

 

I never had a problem playing (rock) music, or hosting a radio show for that matter. But I was TERRIBLE at auditions. We're talking concert band and orchestra stuff here. I'd perform way under my abilities and totally screw up. It's been years since I've played that stuff, so it doesn't come into play anymore. But, yeah... I know that feeling.

 

I was on the air once at KCR at San Diego State and also did an all night session. I also asked for requests and got no calls at all. I guess I didn't have too many listeners. OTOH, I think they were only broadcast into the dorms and around campus at that time. I did hang out with Bob Coburn a few nights at KGB-FM while he was on the air, but fortunately I didn't have to say a thing. It did feel kind of strange though when he talked and I was sitting right there.

I never got stage fright with a band because I wasn't alone. No way could I have performed alone in front of people, then or now.

Strangest sensation I ever had with a microphone was at Balboa Bowl in 1975. There were over 20,000 folks there and I was doing the testing 1,2,3 thing into the stage mics. I was on a dead mic until the FOH engineer switched it on full blast. I must have scared half of the people there. It seemed like they all looked to the stage but I wasn't nervous or afraid. I guess saying testing 1,2,3 was not nearly as scary as singing would have been.

 

Yes he was one of my favorites as well. He turned me on to a lot of good music, especially Focus. Of course this was back in 1973.

 

I used to feel like everyone in the audience looking at one's band is sitting in a position of judgment. Turning that over and over in my mind used to freak me out; now, I talk conversationally between songs and that gets more attention.

Back when I worked in radio, I was a lonely "board operator". I never took a mic, nor, I guess, was I supposed to. Basically, most of the station was automated. There was a feed from NBC, TalkNet, that was the bulk of the programming, and at the top of the hour there was ABC News, for which I pushed a button. After that, I was to push another button that would bring back the NBC feed. I'm sure you can guess what happened--the big grey box failed to bring me back NBC after the top of the hour news. Should I say something? Do a top-of-the-hour ID? Holy Crap! I was paralyzed and could not. I certainly had no training to handle this kind of discrepancy.

I grabbed as many music carts as I could find. By the end of "End Of The Innocence", I had awakened the PD to mention my plight. There were no more than 5 seconds of dead air, yet I felt as if it were a half hour. The program director got right on the phone to the chief engineer; the satellite system had completely died, and I almost had an attack myself! I was scared to death of the mic, even though I had 4 years of college radio experience....go figure.


Dan

 

Strangely, no. The only time I ever really PANICED on the air was during my first ever "solo flight" on the board when I was about 17. Simple screw up. I didn't have the multi select swicth turned to the CD position, so as the one record is fading, I hit the PLAY button and................................................

................nothing. So after 3 seconds of panic, I just potted the record back up, and the listeners were treated to a twin-spin of Johnny Cash!

Anyone got any airchecks of themselves to post? Here's one of myself back in November 1997 on what was one of the first ever internet radio stations in existance. I was 22 years old and must have had a sugar rush or something, because I was "ON" that night, if ya know what I mean. I'm much more laid back now, but man oh man.....talk about "too much" energy!

http://www.wackradio.com/MZR History/MetroRadio Aircheck - Chip Ordway 11-22-97.mp3

C'mon, people....post yer 'checks!!!!!

 

I was once in a band, had the lead vocal on two songs, and never had stage freight. But, I did when I did keroeke at the local Famous Sam's years ago.

 

Same here. I did "progressive rock" (i.e. alternative, modern rock, etc) in the late 80s for a Top 40 station. It was a Sunday night specialty show and I had near total freedom.

Through a series of unfortunate events, my on-air name was Kenny Presley.

 

Joe Mannix! i had a metal show in college called the Caustic Catharsis. ouch, just the name is embarrassing now. all my airchecks are under lock & key.

 

Thank you kindly, Sir!

Not to turn this into a Chip Ordway Apprieciation thread, but here's one more clip, this time with VIDEO, shot about a year or so ago while "killing time" on a high school station which some friends of mine are in charge of. The invite was extended to some and do a shift, so I said "Yeah, what the heck." They even installed a turntable for me! This was fun.

And it proves that I do indeed have a face for radio!

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2012985657

I promise...that's the last clip of myself....POST 'EM, people!!!!!! There have GOT to be others here with 'checks they can post!!!!

 

I never had Mic Fright doing many shows for my college radio station in the 80's, but there were plenty of times I wish I had a "do-over" to say what I intended to; not what came out

Having met someone years later who tuned into my shows, I got the greatest compliment when he said it was hard to study while I worked because the music was too good.

 

I've actually been pretty comfortable on mic from back in high school up through my radio time. I used to be the MC at all the school assemblies, so by the time I got on the radio, I was pretty relaxed. I still needed a lot of experience to learn how to stop "announcing" and talk more normally and conversationally, though.

 

While I spent most of my radio career engineering at various educational and commercial stations, I did some volunteer announcing and produced a weekly music show at the NPR station at Purdue, WBAA. At the time, we had a 5KW AM signal that covered from just south of Chicago to just south of Indianapolis. I played extremely varied musical styles, rock to folk to jazz to newage and just about anything that I thought was good. As I've mentioned before in another thread, I aired some of Doug's handiwork on that show, Seals & Crofts "Sunrise".

I never was nervous about that show, by that time I'd been around radio stations for 15 years; this was the show I'd always wanted to do. For me, it was like sitting around listening to great music with a bunch of friends. Sometimes I'd read interesting bits from the liner notes and talk about the artists and songs, but the music was the star of that show; it was as if I was just along for a great ride.

Back in 1985, I played the first CD on-air on WBAA. Back in those days, the station had no CD equipment, but I brought in my Sony D15 Walkman and patched it in. This became a regular occurance until the station got a couple Denon broadcast CD players. Also, later on we upgraded the turntable systems to Technics SP10, Signet arms, V15-V cartridges with homebrew copies of PS Audio's phono stage. Also, about that time we put in a direct FM feed into the city's TV cable system, which gave us much better fidelity than just about any on-air FM station. And even our AM signal was not bad; before the NRSC emissions mask we got 50 - 15KHz within a couple dB out of our old Collins 21A rig. I quit at WBAA (because they cranked up the processing too much for a while, can you believe it) before they put in an FM transmitter to complement the AM, and I haven't visited the renovated studio complex, but I hear it is wonderful.

Doing that show expanded my musical horizons greatly; I'd often spend 2 or three evenings each week in the music library at the station listening to new (and old) stuff, planning out future shows. They had a great record library, around 10,000 LPs of popular music and near 10,000 LPs of classical. Since then, I've been on my own musically, but my horizons have expanded even more. Maybe one day I'll find another situation where I can program my dream show once again...

 

I had stage fright immediately before opening for the Beach Boys in front of 15,000 people or so in Provo, Utah, in 1980; a strange experience for me, as performing was usually as natural as breathing for me. I guess it was because it was my first-ever arena gig, and the Beach Boys would be following us. I went on to playing in front of many huge crowds after that, with no problems.

Doing a radio show would give me pause, though.

 

When I started in radio in 1980, I was very nervous on the air and I still have some of those painful airchecks to remind me. The last time I tried to listen to one of those tapes, it stayed in the deck for about 45 seconds...it was bad!

After a few weeks on the air, I started to relax and it soon became second nature. More than 27 years later, I'm still on the air where I do a daily morning show with my best friend. We've doing this show together for ten years and I still look forward to it...every day brings something new and there are some occasional perks aside from the free coffee. For example, tomorrow morning after our show, we are scheduled to record an interview with Ken Mansfield (the former U.S. manager for Apple Records) about his new book, "The White Book."

We strive to keep the overall content of the show as local as possible which helps set us apart from all of the satellite-delivered morning shows on the other stations.

Radio has changed dramatically but as long as it's still fun (and as long as my pass key gets me into the building every morning! ) I'll do it.

 

I fall into the band category for this (although I did have a late-late night radio show on semester in college).

When I first started playing music for the public, I used to get really anxious and nervous and feel it all the way to the pits of my stomach.

This is my first public performance, at a talent show in High School:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dUEw8UARO7c

That was about seven years ago (2001).

I now play music so much with my band that those fears are all long gone. It's funny, because not only can I perform in front of large crowds of people without getting nervous, it has helped my public speaking speaking and interviewing immensely.

 

I worked mostly at a "progressive" station in he 1970s, and I never had Mic fright. Because I was never sure anyone was listening.

 

Hi,

One of my first times on the air, I suddenly got scared right after a record. One of the other DJ's at WATO-AM 1290 got busted for marijuana (on the air, too) and I was suddenly thrust into his last 4 hours of shift. The Herb Alpert record finished and I opened the mic "You just heard Tijuana Taxi by Herb Alpert & His Marijuana Grass". I was scared as hell as a young greenhorn and afraid of being chewed out by the PD. He barged in and laughed his head off. We got along superbly after that and this young engineer became a DJ regular afterwards.

 

"Herb" Alpert?

 

Was a disc jockey and also in a "metal" band. The only time I got mic-fright was one night at an outdoor concert and I look down and see my mom standing there. Ahhhhhhhhh.

 

Great story! If it hadn't happened to you, somebody would have had to make it up...

As for myself, I used to volunteer at a couple of community radio stations, and would always get severely tongue-tied wehn speaking on air. I once gave a shout-out to another local host, Sara Bartok as "Sara Bear-talk".

 

Great thread, lots of fun stories!

Unlike many here, I didn't have mic fright...I had camera fright.

Here's the story;

My wife saw an ad in a local paper searching for a tv host, asking for someone "talkative". She pointed it out to me, saying "You should try this..you can't shut up". We laughed, and she again said it, but this time more seriously and after some discussion, I decided to give it a shot. I did it, enjoyed it, and felt happy about giving it a shot.

And then I kept getting called back for auditions...surprised the heck out of me, and soon a lark started to get a bit nerve racking, but I was still out nothing but time, so I enjoyed the "try outs".

It got down to me and another guy, someone with radio experience, so he was offered the gig, a daily show. Although I had no background whatsoever, I was disappointed when told, but the producer mentioned he'd give my name to another producer he knew was looking for someone, if I didn't mind.

Of course I accepted, now interested in what once seemed an impossibility.

Soon enough, I had an offer for a weekly show, live on Saturdays. LIVE, the way I like performances...make or break, no redo's. With no hesitation I accepted, and after a few weeks of the odd discussion with the producer about the show, it was time for my first television experience as an adult.*

I was nervous but excited all day..the show runs late afternoon... and finally I headed to the studio, got ready and got on set.

I'd been on set and in the studio before, during the weeks between getting hired and the first show, so I was familiar with the setup and comfortable being there.

I sat down in my chair and looked at the camera for the first time as the camaraman adjusted the shot...and my top lip started to quiver. Nothing radical, just twitching like it had it's own energy source. The shot set, I checked my mics and earpiece, well aware of this nervous reaction plaguing my mouth but trying to ignore it all the same.

I tried smiling and then frowning, moving the muscles of my face in what I thought we soothing exercises, oblivious to the scene I was making as I focused on calming my twitchy lips ...the gang in the control room were of course privy to my facial contortions and having some laughs about it I found out later.

It did work, until I heard the directors voice in my ear telling me we had 60 seconds until air time, and then it was back; the left side of my mouth, now quivering like a dish of jello in a childs hands.

30 seconds...I'm making faces again, saying "Rubber baby buggy bumpers, seven swans swiftly swam seven seas" and any other tongue twister I can think of as I try desperately to steel the nerves in my mouth before the 10 second countdown.

And then it begins so I look into the camera.... and my left eye starts feeling "sticky".

9 seconds...it's feeling like I have "sleep" in it on something and I gently brush the lashes with my fingers....6 seconds....maybe it's a bit of makeup and I start blinking fast to try and unstick it, mouth twitching spastically as I do.....2 seconds..I'm staring at the camera like a twitchy-mouthed deer-in-the-headlights and the light above the camera goes red, signaling I'm on the air.

I introduce myself and start talking, focusing on the camera in a tense fashion at first, still feeling aware of my eye and mouth but slowly relaxing as my own voice carries me away in it's usual fashion ....and while the twitch didn't go away, it seemed to fade a bit as I introduced the show and did the required adlib for a minute before the show cutaway for a 20second video segment, allowing me a chance to take a deep breath, look away from the camera and realise I was actually doing alright, despite the still-present-but-now-less-annoying-twitch. With that, it was back to camera and the live show.

The twitching didn't stop right away as I continued but by the first commercial it had lost it's power over me and it never occured again after that show.

The eye thing however, creeps up again from time to time and remains a mystery to this day....




* I did a tv commerical for Aerowax as a toddler, my only previous tv experience. While fame was on the horizon, I decided to take time off and focus on more important issues, like potty-training.