“Hi, I’m Julie Lomoe.”
The sound of my voice blaring from the speakers of my Scion caught me by surprise, and I experienced a moment of disorientation. What the hell? What’s going on? My confusion was compounded by the snow covering most of my windshield. “Tune in to hear me on ‘My Exit’ this Monday night at 11:00,” my doppelganger continued.
It was last Friday, February 23rd, and fortunately, at that very moment I was turning into the Park & Ride lot on Route 4 in North Greenbush to scrape the snow off my windshield. We’d had two or three inches of snow the night before, and I’d scraped it off the windows, but I was already late for my Nia class at the YMCA, so I’d decided not to bother with the stuff blanketing the top of my SUV. My husband always warned me to scrape it off, and I had a hunch it might be illegal not to, for the safety of other drivers. I didn’t realize I was putting myself in jeopardy till I braked at the first stop sign and the heavy wet snow slid down onto my windshield. The wipers took care of it easily enough, but when I braked at the stop light near Cumberland Farms, still more snow came slithering down, and I could barely navigate my way through the mammoth intersection. Hence the emergency detour into the Park & Ride.
Pulling into a parking space in the nick of time, I realized I was listening to the promotional spot I’d taped the week before for the
“My Exit” show on WEXT-FM. This was the first time I’d heard it, and I was pleased with the content. I’d ad libbed some lines about my memories of the Sixties and the bands I loved. Chris Wienk had edited it and dropped some snippets of music under my voice, and it sounded intriguing. But my voice! It sounded too high, too chirpy. Would people stay hooked for a whole hour, or would they change the station? When I can’t stand a DJ’s voice, that’s what I do.
When I tuned into the show last Monday night, I was pleasantly surprised. My voice sounded okay—not great, but okay—and I sounded poised and confident as I recounted stories of my life as a rock fan living in New York City in the 1960’s—how I nearly got into the Beatles’ bedroom in the penthouse of the Warwick Hotel, and how I showed my paintings and listened to The Who play “Tommy” as the sun rose at the Woodstock Festival in 1969.
I’d recorded the narrative back in November, and Chris Wienk, the program manager and DJ, inserted the music and edited everything together just recently, so I’d grown hazy about exactly which tracks I’d chosen and what I’d said about them. Fortunately, I found the show fascinating, and Chris said the station has received positive feedback about it.
This coming Monday, March 5th at 11pm, you can catch the second installment, in which I cover the end of the 60’s and the early 70’s, from the Rolling Stones’ disastrous show at the Altamont Speedway, through the glam rock scene of the New York Dolls and David Bowie, with its epicenter at Max’s Kansas City, where I first met my husband the night I was photographing a band called Suicide.
WEXT is the Roots & Rock station operated by WMHT, the local PBS radio and TV outlet.You can catch my show at 97.7 FM, or listen online by going to www.exit977.org. Because of copyright and royalty issues, the station can’t keep the program available on their website after it airs, but Chris is sending me CDs of both shows, and I hope to make them available on this website soon.
I’ve been a DJ before, first on a jazz show with my mother when I was a teenager in Milwaukee, and later at the Harvard radio station in the early 60’s, which I detailed in my last post about how the Beatles broke up my first marriage. I’ll write more about those adventures sometime soon.
To read more about my experiences at the Woodstock Festival, check the Categories heading on the menu at the right, scroll down, and you’ll find a heading for Woodstock. There’s also a heading for Music, where you’ll find other posts about my lifelong passion for music of many genres. While you’re over in the menu column, please subscribe so you won’t miss any future posts. And please leave me some comments so I’ll know you’re out there!
Julie Lomoe says
Yesterday we had another Friday snowstorm—over a foot of heavy wet snow. But shoveling out today, I took care to brush all the snow off the roof of my car. Lesson learned from last week’s mini-avalanche.
Kenneth Ford says
Thank you Julie for your MyExit parts one and two on WEXT. I REALLY appreciated your sharing of personal moments from the 60s and 70s. I suspect I am about ten years your junior so I sort of experienced (though not as immediate) what you conveyed about those moments in time. Thanks again.
Ken Ford
Julie Lomoe says
Thanks so much, Ken. Your feedback means a lot to me. Chris Wienk tells me the station has gotten some positive feedback on the show, and I’ve had some compliments from a few people who heard it. But by and large it’s a lot like the Internet and this website—my voice is being transmitted out into the mysterious great beyond, and I have little idea who if anyone is listening.
As I type this comment, snow is beginning to fall in what’s predicted to be yet another significant storm! Looks like I’ll be snowbound tonight, but there’s nothing on the calendar till tomorrow night, when I’ll be ushering at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall for a sold-out show by Lyle Lovett and Shawn Colvin. Yes, I still love going to hear live music in all sorts of genres. Would you believe country music? In the next six months I’m looking forward to Alan Jackson, Keith Urban and Chris Stapleton.