Pigs, "Please Stand By."

Dangerbag learns from veteran swine.

In my first Substack post, I documented my personal motivation for starting the National Music Sanctuary. For this post, I want to pay homage to my first music industry mentors.

Nothing exceptional happens without a great team and great coaching. The National Music Sanctuary is no different. The only exception is my school was a sty and my professors were pigs.

On the FM radio waves in Central Coast California is the call sign 107.5 and the radio station attached is KPIG. The studio is nicknamed the Sty. On Sundays from 10AM to noon a live, in studio radio show used to air called “Please Stand By.” For two hours, radio DJ, Sleepy John Sandige, broadcast musical performances. Live musicians would play, usually four acts per show.

The crew was volunteer (mostly) and was made up of a DJ, a host, an audio engineer (running the board), an audio tech and a production team. They set up mics. They ran the audio board. They wrangled the performers. They stocked the snack table with coffee and homemade snacks. Sleepy John was the host.

“Please Stand By” crew in the Sty Studio (left to right) Dave Gordon, Sleepy John, Eric Parson, Geoff Childers, and Arden Eaton

KPIG was my Sunday. It was my church. My job was to capture the live performances on video. At first it was just me and my Canon DSLR. I set up a tripod, focused the shot, pressed record and walked away. The studio was small, eight feet wide and fourteen feet long. It wasn’t made for video production. It was made to broadcast music. In other words, the limited space provided few options for shots. If I moved cameras constantly, it would distract the performers and could compromise the audio recording. I needed to be stealthy. I had to be respectful. For these reasons, I couldn’t move the shot mid song or the edit would be discombobulated. I only had one camera.

Because the camera production was limited, I had time to hang out and listen to the show. Typically, I would push record and head out to the porch. The porch was the place to be. I watched the staff. I listened as they interacted with the performers. I observed the performers load in and the slow trek of gear and instruments. I watched the performers warm up. I was the new guy, the stranger. Like all outsiders, I needed to play it cool. I hung out. I listened. Most of the “Please Stand By” production staff had day jobs related to the music industry. They were DJs. They were microphone manufacturers. They were musicians. They were promoters.

As a result, the front porch became my classroom. I watched the production crew greet the performers. I watched the players warm up. Instruments got tuned. Set lists were determined. The production crew moved the artists from the green room to the studio. I felt like I had a private invitation to the greatest radio show on earth.

Every three to five minutes I had to stop the video recording and move the tripod slightly. When you only have one camera, the only option for shot variability is to change the size of the shot (or move the camera position). With such limitations, I had a lot of time to hang out, listen and watch.

Since I play music myself and I spend a large proportion of my waking hours being immersed in music, KPIG was the perfect classroom for me. It was where my education of the music industry began. I thought I knew what “the business” was, because I’d been to a lot of live music. In reality, I didn’t.

I could watch musical veterans from three feet away. The techniques of vocal projection, stage presence, and songwriting structure came alive. Because the guitar is my primary instrument, I’d watch fingering and strumming styles. I’d geek out on pedal boards and guitar types. Occasionally, I’d find a way to quip with a performer. I got more and more comfortable with the crew (and they with me) and my understanding deepened. “Please Stand By” became the place where theoretical conversations became real world lessons.

I doubt the crew of “Please Stand By” knew how much they were teaching me. It wasn’t like we talked about it directly. I kept showing up and they kept allowing me to contribute. The videos weren’t great, but no one complained. What the staff was thinking is hard for me to know. Each week as we wrapped a show, the crew would ask if I was coming back next week. More times than not, my answer was yes. I felt obligated to contribute. I wanted to help out. As the outsider, I wanted to make sure I was thankful. Some weeks I would make a quiche or pick up donuts. Little things to let the crew know I appreciated the invitation.

When a band was done performing, the sound engineer gave me a CD. On it was the audio mix of the band’s performance. As the crew began to trust me, I was tasked with presenting a second copy of the performance to the band. Two copies were made. One for my edit. One for the artist.

When the show was done, the post production process began. I’d take the video footage and edit it to the board mix. Eventually, the final edits made it to the studio manager. There was no review process. It was a simple arrangement. I showed up and recorded the video. I edited the video to the audio master. I passed the edited footage to the studio manager. Rinse. Repeat.

At first, it was just me. In later sessions, I brought in other cameramen. Nobody made any money. Additional crew came sporatically. The musicians got copies of their performances if they asked. Most times they didn’t. As is often the case with art, the final product went nowhere. I doubt the station manager even looked at my edits. If he did, he never said anything about it. I gave them to KPIG. Where they went after that is an unsolved mystery. Occasionally, the station would upload a video to their website. That was rare and only for the Grammy winners.

Ryan Bingham and Ed Carapezza

Since I wasn’t paid, there wasn’t any post production pressure. I finished the edits when I finished them. Nobody complained or criticized. A perfect situation for a budding videographer.

I bring this up because it’s important that the uninitiated understand “Please Stand By” was a labor of love. The production crew volunteered for the music and the musical community. “Praise the Lard” (a common KPIG bumper sticker) was our battle cry. The crew came because they knew music is perfected by playing it live. The crew felt obligated to support the artists they believed in. They came for the tradition that live radio represented.

As most of the crew were musicians in their own right, they often stood in. If a performer got delayed by traffic or their car broke down, one of the production crew would grab an instrument and perform instead. For me, it was heaven on earth. It was a clubhouse I never knew existed. When I found it, it was like finding a home I never knew I had.

How I convinced KPIG to let me participate in “Please Stand By” is another story. Perhaps a strength, perhaps a weakness, but when I see something I want, I don’t take “no” for an answer. My powers of persuasion are infamous. With no job experience as a videographer, KPIG let me in. I didn’t need to show proof of general liability insurance. I didn’t need to submit a sizzle reel to the board of directors. My personal passion for music was enough to gain access. I was free to bring my video camera into their production. Funny how easy it was, because I didn’t have a production company. I just printed a business card, called my company, Dangerbag Productions, and went directly to the studio manager. In reality, I was just a man with a dream.

Allison Russell, Ed Carapezza and JT Nero

Maybe KPIG liked dreamers, maybe they just liked “free” video. I’ll never know. Either way, the “Please Stand By” veterans welcomed me into their club.

KPIG is both a cultural phenomenon and a radio station. When I started coming around, they had already been around for decades. They had their marketing dialed in. For example, KPIG announces on air that they broadcast from Freedom, CA (yes, an actual town in CA), even though the actual studio is in Watsonville. KPIG listeners are called “Swine.” When listeners call into the radio station they call the “Swine Line.” When listeners want to get a message to their fellow KPIG listeners, they leave a “Hog Call.” When KPIG listeners attend a KPIG sponsored event, they go to the “Humbug Hoedown” or the “Fat Fry.” When KPIG listeners want to hear new music, they’d tune into “Fresh Pork.”

For many years, KPIG printed up “Lard Cards.” It was a physical membership card. Like a library card, it had a membership number. Freaks like me would drive to the station and knock on the window of the DJ booth and the DJ would point you to the office (or if it was a commercial break, they would go get you one themselves). I got “Lard Cards” for family members one year for Christmas. KPIG encouraged people to make requests by doing a “Drive By.”

All radio needs advertising. KPIG does it with style. They support local companies as much as possible. You rarely hear large corporations advertised. Local before local was a bumper sticker. Meta before Meta, KPIG stitches parody ads into their ad breaks. “My doctor tells me I need tequila" spoken in the voice of a pharma ad doctor. “Dickin Cider” claiming the benefits of “hot dick inside her.” Juvenile and raunchy, but unlike anything else on West Coast radio waves.

If KPIG is a cult, I am a cult member. When I decided I was going to launch the National Music Sanctuary, I knew who I needed to learn from. At first, I reached out to the station in person. At that time, the KPIG studio was housed in a two story commercial building. Picture a nondescript parking lot with a two story box of a building. That was KPIG at the time. The station had an office for billing. The station had the DJ studio next door to the office. It had the server room one door down from that. The DJ studio was a library of CDs and records. There was a sliding window at the DJ booth. Usually the window was open. If you were bold at heart you could walk up and request a song.

That’s how I started. I walked up to the studio and asked to speak to the studio manager. I can’t remember exactly what I said. I was directed to the office next door and told to contact Frank. Frank was the big boss, the programming manager. If I wanted to come to the studio to record video, I had to talk to Frank. From Frank, I was referred to Arden Eaton (a DJ). Arden was the glue. She knew all the DJs and also promoted live music through a Monterey based company called Kelly Productions. Arden eventually connected me to Sleepy John, who eventually told me I could come record video for “Please Stand By.”

Why they let me do this, I’ll never be sure. I was unknown to them. I had no career to speak of in video production. For whatever reason, they gave me a chance.

Please Stand By was Sleepy John’s show. I’m sure he was influenced by the other crew members, but John picked the artists. John is also a promoter, so often times the artists he picked to play “Please Stand By” were artists he was promoting concerts for. Every week had a headliner act, a recognizable name that the radio audience knew of. Sometimes, the headliners were legends. Todd Snider, Fred Eaglesmith, the Devil Makes Three, the Trailer Park Troubadours, Greg Brown, Ruthie Foster and John Craigie would all make regular appearances.

That said, the majority of the “Please Stand By” sessions consisted of relatively unknown artists. Musicians came that were just starting out and were looking for a chance to connect with the KPIG audience. Musicians came that were touring through the area and wanted to promote an upcoming local show. Musicians came that wanted to promote a new album.

To KPIG’s credit, they let “Please Stand By” curate the artists. The result was over 1000 sessions. To the performers it was great PR and often a career highlight. Because of “Please Stand By”s commitment to the music, performers flocked to the radio station. Even at the time when radio was dying, musicians still came. Grammy award winning artists back to back with unknown artists. It really was the stuff of legends.

Ed Carapezza and John C Riley

There are people that listen to music and there are people that live inside music. The listener class puts on music for backroom ambience. When they work out. When they dance. When they drive. Music becomes the soundtrack of their lives, but they don’t live inside the music. That’s a different class of person. For the latter class, music isn’t a hobby. It’s not background sounds. It’s life itself.

True music aficionados live inside the music. They are obsessed with sound. KPIG falls into the latter category. The crew of “Please Stand By” fits into this category. It’s an auditory reality. It’s a drug and its power is inescapable.

It isn’t a stretch to say every part of my life has been about music. Yes, I had the typical human events, love, heartbreak, friendships and careers. But at the core of my life was music (is music). My obsession with music is so great that I can’t do anything that requires focused attention while music is playing in the background. Music literally hijacks my brain. So when I found a place, a church, and it allowed me to live where I’d always lived in my mind (and the people that supported it had the same obsession I did), I felt at home like I’d never felt before in my life.

Aspects of life need to be ordered and clean and rational. KPIG is not one of those places. It’s a place for absurdity. It’s a place for rebellion. It’s a place for satire. KPIG’s programming is eclectic. In modern vernacular it would be called outlaw country or Americana. A Willie Nelson song will follow a Ray Wylie Hubbard number. Todd Snider will follow Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.

When I first started going to KPIG, the studio was transitioning. Laura Ellen had recently passed away and the core crew was still grieving. Laura had been KPIG’s lodestone. A handful of original crew members remained, and a new crew was transitioning in.

It was 2011 and radio was beginning to die. People were moving away from FM and AM to adopt new technologies. iPhones were only four years old, but they were taking over. KPIG did its best to keep the spirit of radio alive. “Please Stand By,” even more so, as it was a live radio show (the roots of the medium). Not to say KPIG wasn’t full of visionary thinkers. Before Pandora or Spotify, KPIG offered a paid streaming membership.

It’s hard for the younger generation to imagine how quickly things changed. It was only sixteen years ago that digital streaming really started. Believe it or not, there was a time, when all entertainment was “uncurated” by the listener. Stop and reread that last sentence. If you wanted to hear something new, you either learned about it from a friend or a DJ showed it to you. And if you were obsessed with hearing the latest new music, you had to listen to the radio regularly or you might miss out on the next new thing. Today I doubt more than ten percent of the population listens to radio at all. DJs used to let us know what new music was cool. Now it’s a computer algorithm. The point is “Please Stand By” showcased new music. They did it live on the radio. In 2011, that was revolutionary.

KPIG has a storied past. At the risk of getting it wrong, I’ve included a link here. KPIG’s fan base is rabid and I don’t need anymore enemies.

KPIG History

For the casual music listener, none of what I’m writing here will make sense. But for the musically possessed, this writing will resonate.

KPIG taught me important lessons. It showed me the bones and sinew of the music industry. I got a chance to see how the sausage was made. Pure pork, no doubt! I got a chance to learn how to produce, direct and edit video. I was treated like a friend. The DJs were all respectful and gracious. Some of the crew are still friends today. With my work on “Please Stand By,” the seed of the National Music Sanctuary was planted.