Random, if imperfect, memories of exhilaration from 1980-85 at KTRU:

Midnight, April Fools Day, 1984: For about an hour KTRU became Tru 92 and went “commercial,” aping the format of top-40 station KKBQ 93Q. We practically made up the whole thing as we went, including drafting copy for the bogus adverts.

Another April Fools moment: Jonathan Sadow feigning dyslexia and parodying his own long-winded sports reports.

Laurie Anderson dropping in, before her show at Hamman Hall, for an interview, causing the temperature and the lighting to get just a bit warmer.

Getting a little B & D from the S & M show during my Friday evening Calendar broadcast: Shawn (or was it Hope?) and Marilyn found some patch cables and started binding me to the chair with them.

Fall 1980: After two weeks off the air, KTRU got a boost from 340 to a screaming 650 watts, and President Norman Hackerman read the sign-on.

The Butthole Surfers interview, which I did not conduct: “We used to be the 7-Foot Worms That Generate Their Own Food. Before that, we were the 9-Foot Worms That Generate Their Own Food.”

Interviewing John Cage and Allen Ginsberg in the same week.

Interviewing Roky Erickson without really knowing how to interview Roky Erickson.

Interviewing John Cale without knowing what a nasty drunk he could be. Months later, after a shift at KPFT, I would find myself drinking with Cale’s friend & fellow Velvet Underground alumnus, Professor Sterling Morrison.

Interviewing Congressman Ron Paul and 1980 Libertarian presidential nominee Ed Clarke, as well as driving around on Election Night to get interviews with winners and losers.

The Judy’s playing the RMC Grand Hall.

The Dishes playing the RMC Grand Hall.

Producing a short-lived sketch comedy show “Buffoons for Non-Majors,” much of the material for which I later discovered was adapted from other comedy shows.

Experimental summer replacement show “MusicAztlan,” my first swing of the bat as program director.

Ray Shea: “You can say ‘suck’ on the air; you just can’t say ‘blow job’.”

The first “Treasure of the Sixties” broadcasts, discovering great rock & roll that KILT would have played only after my bedtime when I was a kid.

Reggae, women’s music, ’50s music, hardcore punk and a few other specialties got their own shows; “Chicken Skin Music” had a few years under its belt already.

Discovering what KTRU’s music meant to young gays & lesbians in Houston, and that many of those ’80s bands (especially the British bands) featured gay & lesbian musicians.

Using KTRU as home base for a summer electronics project, wherein some buddies and I built & programmed a drum machine consisting of a sequencer built from Radio Shack parts, a Korg MS-20 synthesizer, and a couple of reel-to-reel tape decks.

Theme sets that could have lasted hours but for having to work in a quota of playlist tracks.

The Eclectic playlist.

Celebrating the end of the calendar year by playing the 40 most overplayed tracks of the year, all of which would then be placed on the Overplayed list and thus off limits for a week.

Martha & the Muffins: Best Canadian band you’ve never heard of.

Hearing King Crimson’s “Discipline” and Peter Gabriel’s “Security” for the first time on those bitchin’ Klipsch speakers.

Playing New Age music before anybody called it that.

And that’s only about half of it.

David Collins

Lovett 1984