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NEWS
| february 12, 2004
Gamer’s
Delight
Two students and their friends
talk computers and broadcast ‘geek rock’ on UTA Radio’s
The Midnight Express
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| The Shorthorn: Brandon Wade |
| Interior design senior Shaun McKinney
installs a video card into broadcast news senior Dave
Deatherage’s new computer, which they and friends
built during their radio show. |
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By Caren
M. Penland
The Shorthorn Staff
Dave Deatherage and Shaun McKinney are a couple of self-proclaimed
computer-gaming, nerd-loving geeks who have their own radio show
for others like them.
On the show, they discuss computers and upcoming events for gaming
fiends to get together and play. The two students play nothing but
what they have termed “geek rock” — a collection
of Weezer-esque bands, old-school music from the ’80s and
classic rock that “just isn’t played on the radio 20
times an hour.”
They use their online gaming aliases on the air — Deatherage,
a broadcast news senior, is “Radon” and McKinney, an
interior design senior, is “Vazzini.” Their gaming friends
help host the show when discussing computers and parties. They bash
Metallica and much mainstream music with a passion and get excited
over technology.
Their show, The Midnight Express show expanded an hour this semester
to run from 9 p.m. to midnight every Monday. It’s available
online at http://radio.uta.edu.
And the two hosts say their audience is growing.
Deatherage said it’s unlikely they will find out how many
listeners they have until May when their show is ranked by the Communications
Department. But judging from the responses they get by e-mail and
instant messaging, he said it’s safe to assume The Midnight
Express is becoming more popular.
“We have people listening from Nebraska, New York, California,
Philadelphia — all over,” he said. “They request
songs and give us feedback. One time we got a call from Europe.
It’s pretty cool to be on the Internet.”
Traditionally, they compete with the university’s broadcast
sports games and the Dead Air Show, which plays heavy metal music,
for the highest listener rates. Those two genres typically capture
most listeners’ attention, Deatherage said.
The Midnight Express, which he and McKinney have run for six semesters,
played primarily classic rock until this semester. Deatherage said
listeners were bored with the same old stuff, so he started taking
their requests.
Because their show is broadcast online, he said they decided to
change out the songs to cater to those most likely hooked up to
the Web on a Monday night with nothing better to do — geeks
just like them.
He said he does the show for fun and course credit. McKinney likes
being on the air because it’s something a little different.
Deatherage said he plans to use his experience here to land a sports
broadcast show in the future, but “having a show like this
at night on [KDGE 102.1] The Edge would be just as cool.”
McKinney said he sometimes misses the old classics, but that geek
rock suits him, too.
“It’s not like underground music, just old alternative,
kind of grungey, stuff you don’t hear on the radio,”
he said. “We refuse to play ‘Stairway to Heaven’
because every 11-year-old with a guitar learns to play it. And absolutely
no country — we don’t want a bunch of sad geeks out
there crying on their keyboards.”
Monday, their show featured the “first on-the-air birth of
a computer,” where they put together Radon’s new machine
and gave a play-by-play on the status of it.
Between songs and joking around, Deatherage hovered over his shiny
new Shuttle SN45G like a mother hen while his friends pieced it
together. The Shuttle “shoe box” is a small computer
designed for portability and the capability to run high-end video
games — a dream for any hard-core gamer.
Deatherage and McKinney invited two of their tech-buddies to help
with the project. Jeremy Mayes and Matt Hebert of Arlington worked
quickly to complete it.
Mayes, “Sanford,” is a regular guest on the show because
he is the Texas representative for an online gaming clan called
42. He wants to bring the show to the next Quakecon in August, where
fans of the video game Quake gather by the thousands to compete
and show off their skills. The gaming buddies hope to broadcast
the show live from the event.
“This show pretty much centers around what music and discussion
gamers would be interested in, so taking it to Quakecon would be
perfect,” Deatherage said.
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