Exposing tunes

Exposing tunes
By Lisa Lewis
Features Writer

The creator of Stillwater’s hottest radio show may be sitting next to you in class and you may not even know it.

“Danger” Granger Brown, 26 and a broadcast journalism junior, hosts Independently Exposed radio show, which Hideaway Pizza sponsors, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on KSPI 93.7 FM. The show, which he has hosted for a year, focuses on indie music and many lesser-known artists.

Brown recently returned from a four-month long studio art internship in New York, where he still recorded and sent Independently Exposed for airplay on KSPI. He said that he “didn’t make one [piece] of art the entire time I was there” and learned that studio art wasn’t what he wanted to do.

Podcasts are available of past and recent Independently Exposed broadcasts at www.independentlyexposed.org and www.myspace.com/independentlyexposed.

“Then if you miss an episode you can go online and listen to it each week,” Brown said. “Or if you don’t have a radio you can listen to it online, which is great. And anyone outside of the radio range can listen to it.”
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Jay McRae, program director for KSPI, said he hired Brown for “his extensive knowledge of the type of music that he’s playing and the big following he has.”

Independently Exposed’s one-year anniversary party, “Dance Off! Pants Off! 3,” will be held at 9 p.m. Feb. 23 in Oklahoma City at Tree & Leaf, 8405-1 N. Rockwell. Mymo, Beatpunks and John Bourke will provide music. The cost is $5, and it’s an all-ages event, 21-and-up to drink.

“We’ve had a couple of these so far,” Brown said. “They’ve been a lot of fun, honestly, and a lot of people have shown up. It’s just a dance party, you know?

“But it’ll be the best dance party Oklahoma has ever seen,” he said, smiling.

The O’Colly got the chance to sit down with the man behind the voice to discuss his show, his job and, uh, shoes and undergarments.

The Daily O’Collegian: How did you get into DJing in the first place?

Danger Granger: Very much by accident. I had a friend that worked for KXZY and he was doing the late Friday night show…and he was just up there by himself and he was bored, so he called me and asked me to come up there and hang out with him. So I pretty much went in there, played some music, started talking, and I started getting into it. Then he was asking me back. So I started doing the show just a little bit with him, and then I decided to do [KXZY show] Hijack the Mic after that. So I just really kind of fell into it. I’ve always been a huge fan of music.

DO: How did you come up with the name for Independently Exposed?

DG: That’s one of the hardest things to do, honestly, with a radio show. Took a lot of brainstorming. Really, it’s just all about coming to one, and it just kind of hits you. It’s like the way I pick out shoes. I’ll go through like hundreds of shoes until I get like one and I try it on, and I feel it. It’s just that feeling you have that you know that it’s just the right one.

DO: What were you doing before that?

DG: I was doing a studio art major. I thought about teaching art. I was never passionate about art like I am about the radio show.

DO: How do you go about selecting the songs that you want to play?

DG: Listen to lots and lots and lots of music. I kind of have a technique, I’ve kind of got it boiled down to engineering, almost, now. I have about 1,300 songs that I just have that I know I’m going to play on the show in rotation, no matter what. And then each week I handpick the playlist and then I base it on a flow of music, not just a random pick. From one song to the next, there’s never going to be a song right next to one another that’s completely different. It’s not going to jump from one type of music to another type of music, because it doesn’t sound good.

DO: What’s been your strangest song request from a listener?

DG: I get all kinds of weird stuff, since it’s 93.7. This old lady called me and asked for the brand new Santana song. I had to explain to her that, I’m sorry, it’s not that show. Lots of teeny-bopper stuff, like Britney Spears and stuff like that. I think it’s just people turning it on randomly and being like, “Oh, there’s somebody in there, let’s call him!” The weirdest one that I got that I played was a longtime listener and I can’t remember the name of it. It’s so obscure. Almost like Velvet Underground, kind of stuff from the 70s. It was really dark and kind of long, which I don’t usually tend to go towards. It was a good song.

DO: What’s the best part about doing the show?

DG: The ladies (laughs). Just creating something that you can be proud of and exposing people to music they’re not gonna hear on the radio anywhere else in Oklahoma. And the ladies.

DO: Tell me about your nickname.

DG: Some girl way back in the day just started calling me that. She was singing some song that said something about “danger danger,” and she, like, had an epiphany and added “Granger” in there. And then other people started doing it, too. This was actually in California where I first got called that. But people here were calling me it, too. But it has a nice ring to it so I kept it. I like it.

DO: What can people who tune into Independently Exposed expect?

DG: Mind explosions (smiles). What I’d really like to have happen is people turn on the station, they hear the music, they have a deep inner realization, like an epiphany, their life changes, and they’re new people after that. But probably what really happens is people get exposed to some new music, they might like it, it’ll maybe speak more to their generation. That’s one thing I really, after a certain amount of time, listening to radio just didn’t say anything to me anymore. At a certain point, I just couldn’t relate to the music that was coming out. So I feel like my show does that more, it speaks to a different generation. So hopefully people can come on and find something they relate to.

DO: How about we expose you: boxers or briefs?

DG: None. (laughs)
This story was published January 28th, 2008 under Entertainment.