A DJ’s juggling act: classical and folk music
Standing at the controls in the KDFC studio, Robin Pressman is responding to the stirring finale of Charles Gounod’s “Symphony No. 1 in D-Major,” an oldie from the ’50s. The 1850s, that is. She does a couple of marching moves, enjoying herself before hitting the mike and, totally relaxed, identifying the number.
It’s a Tuesday afternoon as she begins “The Home Stretch,” the classical music station’s drive-time program. Just two days before, I heard her on the air from 55 miles away, on KRSH (“The Krush”) in Santa Rosa. She was playing folk music, new and old, on her show, “Sunday Muse.” Chances are, while Steve Earle or Cheryl Wheeler were folk-rocking, she was moving, if not marching, to the groove.
Two wildly different genres of music; one appreciative DJ.
In Sonoma County, Pressman is known as the longtime program director of KRCB, where she hosted a folk show, “Our Roots Are Showing,” before moving in 2014 to KRSH. But to listeners of KDFC, she’s a familiar voice from part-time and fill-in work.
How does she shift from one format to the other? She offers a “no big deal” shrug.
“I don’t need to make a mental shift,” she says. “It’s just a different atmosphere, and it’s a different kind of programming.” While KDFC is formatted, her KRSH show is “play time. I do what I want.”
Raised in New York City, Pressman fell in love with folk music, by way of Joan Baez and The Weavers. She also liked movies and radio, and after film school at Southern Illinois University, moved to Los Angeles, where she did production work. That’s when she met director Peter Cooper, while he was working on an Oscar Mayer commercial. After they moved to Northern California in 1993, she switched gears when she heard about a new public station in Sonoma County, KRCB.
“I was in love with NPR,” she said, so she joined as a volunteer. But she wanted to be a vital part of the station. “I threw myself into it,” she said. Within a week, she had her own folk music show. Months later, when the program director left, “I made sure I was the obvious choice” to replace him.
While programming KRCB, whose wide menu of music included classical, Pressman began moonlighting on KDFC in 2011, hosting the all-night “California Classical” show three nights a week.
“All about music,” she says. “I’m all about music.”
Pressman’s upbeat demeanor belies a stretch of tough sledding. Her home of 18 years in Santa Rosa was destroyed by the October wildfires, wiping out her massive music library. (Friends, DJs, musicians and listeners have helped her start a new collection.) And, just recently, she placed Cooper, her husband of 31 years, into a nursing home in San Francisco, while she has found a “tiny shack” in Berkeley.
Around the time of the fires, she said, she was in the audition process for KDFC.
“It was the greatest thing and the worst thing, all at once,” she said.
She got the job in November, when afternoon driver Ray White moved to mornings. Longtime host Hoyt Smith had retired two months before. Bill Lueth, president of KDFC, noted that White had been Smith’s regular fill-in.
“He’s done a fantastic job in the transition,” he said. “Robin has been a utility announcer for several years and earned the opportunity to host full-time. She’s a gem.”
P-Gone: Patrick Connor, who rose at KNBR from producer to host various programs, is out — and all because of something he said on another station. Connor, known as “P-Con,” added a youthful brashness to KNBR, and is a co-host of a new sports talk show on Sirius XM. “Dialed-In with Dallas Braden,” starring the former A’s pitcher, just joined the Barstool Sports channel and is described as “Satirical Sports/Men’s Talk.”
On just the second outing of the program, Connor went beyond satire. While praising Chloe Kim, the 17-year-old snowboarder who had just won Olympic gold, he called her “a little hot piece of a—.”
After drawing fire, Connor tweeted an apology. “My comments,” he wrote, “were more than inappropriate … they were lame and gross.” The next day — Valentine’s Day — KNBR program director Jeremiah Crowe wasn’t exactly lovey-dovey. “Patrick Connor is no longer with Cumulus Media,” he stated.
Connor got an on-air warning from Braden. “You will clean it the f— up or day three will be the last day.”
That’s “men’s talk” for you. The Bay: That’s the name of a new podcast from KQEDFM. Available via KQED.org, The Bay is short form and newsy and features interviews. KQED will post four new ones a week, beginning March 6. The host is Devin Katayama, who co-hosted KQED’s previous podcast series, American Suburb. Audio Academy: An internship is one of the best ways into radio, and every summer, pioneer public station KALW offers a fourmonth journalism program. Would-be reporters and writers are invited to apply (by March 15). Some audio production or journalism experience is preferred. Participants put in about 16 hours a week. For more info: http:// kalw.org/summer-2018journalism-internships