I’ve just unearthed a treasure trove.

Then again, maybe not.

Somewhere in my basement, I just found a box of cassette tapes. Not just dubs of albums or promo mix tapes distributed at the New Music Seminars and CMJ conventions I used to attend during the 80s – but some highly unique stuff from my days as both a college radio music director and arts editor at the Georgetown University campus paper.

The tapes say things like “T-Bone Burnett interview.” Or “The dBs.” Or “Interview with Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil.”

You know what? I recall every single one of these interviews.

You see, back in the day, I was pretty aggressive when it came to whatever cool acts came to town. Plus I had the added bonus of representing both Georgetown’s newspaper and radio station. Bands could do the equivalent of killing two birds with one stone.

Never mind that the paper was the secondary one on campus and the station was distributed via carrier current i.e. only on campus as a weak AM feed. Nobody needed to know that.

So I made plenty of friends with record company reps and got them to promise me interviews when one of their bands came to town. Or sometimes I would just attend the concert and see if I could wheedle myself backstage with my tape recorder. (more…)