Our feature on the hands-on learning opportunities at KZSC in the spring '12 issue provoked an outpouring of warm memories from alums. We share a few of their letters here. Live long, Great 88! Share your story at facebook.com/kzscradio
Radio radio
I smiled and tapped some old memories spurred by your stories and history, having been one of the pioneering (and pretty bewildered) disc jockeys back in the late '60s. I had a show on KRUZ on Friday nights with another Stevenson student, Bob Sloan. We called the show "SOS" ("Schnaidt or Sloan"), and we really did need help. We played the music we liked, partied, and reached an audience in the dozens.
I know the station has gone on to better and more legitimate things, but its beginnings were part of our discovery processes and coming of age. We had a great time being on the radio. We did no harm, we think.
—Steve Schnaidt
Stevenson '70
Your article brought back warm memories. I was one of the early crop of DJs at KRUZ. Little did I know that my days spinning vinyl would lead me to a journalism career that included covering rock music at the Minnesota Daily and stringing for Rolling Stone (one of the first women to do so); doing investigative reporting about United Way at a Sacramento rock-and-roll radio station (one of the first reporters to do so); getting fed up with lying weasels and going to law school to level the playing field when reporting— and then spending 27 years (and counting) as a legal journalist/ lawyer at New York– based media company ALM (I still love rock and roll).
—Monica Bay
Cowell 1967–69, College Five, 1969–71
I was the station manager of KZSC for four years from 1975–79, and I led the station's first renovation and power increase in 1980 mentioned in your article. After working as a commercial radio jock, in TV news, and as a video editor following my tenure at KZSC, today I head a Los Angeles–based media production company that serves Fortune 500 companies. There is no doubt that my UCSC degrees in communications and music, anchored by my years at KZSC, were fundamental to my life and career path.
—Robin Lewin
Kresge '79
My nombre is "Dr. G." I was one of the many Latino or Spanish-language programmers of KZSC. I moved back into the area about five-and-a-half years ago and have since been dreaming of returning to KZSC. I had the most amazing adventure programming and airing what I called then "Alternative Music in Spanish." I was not aware at the time that an actual movement of what was referred to as Latin Alternative or Rock en Español existed outside of the Santa Cruz County borders. Gracias, and que viva KZSC!
— Gerardo Sandoval
My main show was Mystic Maneuvers, playing progressive, indie, and trance-oriented rock à la Dead Can Dance, Smiths, Peter Gabriel, etc. I was also a founder of Night of the Living Dead and the Jazztronauts, and I filled in on the Celtic music show on occasion. I was co-music director from 1987–89 and helped bring our album intake from 5 or 10 albums a month to more than 100.
—Rennie Saunders
I was station manager at KZSC from 2000–02. I was on the panel that hired [broadcast advisor] Michael Bryant, and I spearheaded the Measure 4 initiative to student parliament back in '02 [which provided KZSC with funding for renovations]. It serves me great bittersweet joy to see not only the article in the spring Review, but to see all the improvements! The mic for one! Anyway, I wanted to applaud KZSC 88.1. It was one of the best times of my life thus far. Keep it left of the dial!
—Maruja Clensay
Kresge '02
Being 100% Banana Slug Means …
Being 100 percent Banana Slug means that I'm sufficiently sentimental and nerdy to have traveled to the campus in the fall of 2006, on the 30th anniversary of my first month as an undergraduate, and taken the above photograph. Of all the good fortune I've had in my life—at this point 34 years after graduating—nothing surpasses the transformative experiences I had at UCSC. I don't visit very often anymore, but it was like a dream, in all its messiness, fondly remembered.
— Rob Briner
Merrill '78
What does Being 100% Banana Slug mean to you? Tell us at bananaslugs.ucsc.edu
