The Most Iconic Radio Station DJ Line-Up I Ever Worked With

CBS' KODJ was the station I worked at in the late 80's that had the most iconic staff of disc jockeys, including Charlie Tuna, The Real Don Steele, Dean Goss and Machine Gun Kelly. I was actually working there before all of them doing the morning show when it was still KNX-FM and a hybrid rock station, that didn't last very long. In March of '89 CBS flipped it to an Oldies station and we played a lot of the music I grew up with as a little kid, '50's & 60's...I loved it. It was very high energy, and the delivery was "Boss Jock". I had an All Request Lunch Hour where nearly every song was requested. Of course we weren't allowed to put listeners live on the air because you never know what they might say. So, I had to record each request on reel-to-reel, and unlike today where we have digital editing machines, had to cut and splice any edits. I can tell you I got really fast at it, you had to because many of the songs were just over two minutes long. I can also tell you in the beginning I had band aids on most of my fingers from cutting them with the editing razor blade.

Many Portland people know of The Real Don Steele from his disc jockey days at KISN, where he shut down the Steel Bridge for a radio stunt. He was known for having his headphones turned up to the max, and because of that suffered major hearing loss. At KODJ they installed a special headphone jack just for him, and I was very careful to never plug into it. Ironically, years later when I left radio for a while and became a Landscape Designer in LA, his lovely wife Shawn, hired me to redo her back yard.