KRUI, 89.7 FM, is the University of Iowa’s student radio station where I hosted the weekly dance music show from Autumn 1992 – Spring 1997. For the first year it was called X-Static Radio, then Noise until Vince Woolums and Scott Stone took over as Noise Radio in the Summer of 1997 when I moved to Seattle for a bit.

I was extremely grateful to be able to continue the tradition of quality dance music on KRUI, pioneered by The Acid Club House, The Foundry and Dance Trax, which were all hugely influential on my musical development. Vince and I would schedule our lives around these shows when we were in high school. I’d often drive around in the car for three hours just so I could ensure uninterrupted signal, as my basement bedroom on the outskirts of town didn’t cut it.

This was my first experience as a DJ. I mostly bought CDs (quality dance music vinyl in Iowa City at the time was rather hard to come by) and pitch adjustable CD players didn’t hit the market until 1994, so most of the material is not beat-matched. I bought Denon CD players and a 3-channel, global 3-band EQ DJ mixer in 1994. I believe my first 1200 came in early 1995, so even the mixes in 1997 were towards the infancy of my beat mixing.

Towards the end of my time at KRUI I would often pre-record mixes to tape and play them on the air, as I was tired of not being able to mix properly in the studio (the decks were pre-1200, with the +/-6 dials that were nearly impossible to hold a mix on and radio mixers do some funny things with compressing low signals). I only explain this last bit so you understand why you won’t hear me talking on those mixes.