KCRW Veteran DJ, Tom Schnabel, Part I

Tom Schnabel is one of Los Angeles’ most legendary DJs—not only has he been spinning here forever, but he’s also one of the earliest voices to come out of Santa Monica College’s KCRW-FM, the world-renowned public radio station which spawned such well-known DJs as Jason Bentley, Liza Richardson, Chris Douridas, Garth Trinidad and Raul Campos.

Schnabel, whose weekly radio show, Café LA features some of the most varied artists in world music, is himself an anomaly of the very best kind—as a young man, he attended the famed Sorbonne and taught in Paris, he then worked as a lifeguard on the beaches of sunny California, he was KCRW’s very first Music Director (1979-1991) and he has little tolerance for people who can’t sing on key.

Here, Sonic Weekly brings you the first of a two-part interview with Schnabel to learn more about his advice to musicians trying to get airplay, his passion for public radio, and what inspires his eclectic musical taste and keeps him going, after more than 30 years on the radio.

SW: Tom, how did you get your start?

TS: What got me started is what gets a lot of people started. I was crazy about music. It was a Jones. I mean, if it came between buying lunch and buying a record, I would buy the record and figure out a way to get food. That’s the way it always for me, from the time I was stricken with music—from like 15 or 16, that was it. So I never had enough money to buy records, spent all my money on records and pursued another career—I went to graduate school, taught here at Mount St. Mary’s College, moved to Paris and taught there… I came back couldn’t get a teaching job, couldn’t get one. The only teaching job was in Topeka, Kansas, and I was like, I can’t go to Kansas! I’m from California! It’s not gonna work for me in Kansas. It just isn’t.

I said, well, let me just start walking towards music, this is where I’m already at, this is what I love, if only I could figure out how to get paid for it.

SW: How were you making a living back then?

TS: One thing that really saved me, I was a county lifeguard and I was high enough in seniority that I could work on the beach. That’s another thing, I learned a lot about music sitting on the lifeguard tower, especially in the winter time. Listening to the radio. Radio was always really important to me because it’s a conduit for music.

I had a little bit of money coming in from the lifeguarding, I’m working for a catering service during the day, still can’t get a job teaching. First of all, I start writing for Downbeat [magazine] 40-50 bucks, then I start doing liner notes for record companies, I still have all my vinyl upstairs; I’d write for $75 bucks a pop, 800 words.

Then, I get my radio license. And in the old days it was tough to get your radio license. You had go down and take these tests where you had to compare the ‘plate current’ and the ‘plate voltage’ from transmitter A and transmitter B, and ‘What is the total plate voltage coming out of the station?’ And you had to do all this calculus! It was weird you don’t have to do that now. So I failed it the first time, then drove down to Long Beach again, and finally got my 3rd class license.

SW: Why did you decide to work for public radio back then?

TS: I started working for KCRW in ’77. [At that time] the station was so bad, the signal, rather, was so weak, it could not get over the hill, it didn’t go past Robertson Blvd.

I didn’t really even decide on public radio, wherever the best music was is where I went. I was interested in Coltrane, so I went wherever there was good music, KCRW had really good jazz programming, and I love jazz, I love classical too. KCRW was local, it was kind of user-friendly, and the first demo I submitted was to them. I wasn’t going to probably get a job at a commercial station, I wasn’t going to a classical station, so that was in ’77—April of ’77—I turned in my tape in April, finally passed the test and probably got a show, probably about summer of ’77. I was 30 years old.

SW: Why KCRW?

TS: KCRW wasn’t too far to drive, I kinda liked the feeling of it. KPFK, it just— it was a better fit for me than KPFK, and there weren’t any other public stations around then, except for KUSC and I really didn’t want to be a classical DJ; it’s hard to be involved as a DJ when you’re playing classical music. I mean, you play a symphony or something that lasts an hour, and then come back and say what it was and pronounce some fancy, foreign names, but your involvement is quite different. And people who are passionate about classical music—I’m sure they get off on it just as much—but you don’t have the gestalt you know. Being a DJ at a public station is like having a 6-speed manual shift, you’re active, you’re doing stuff, you’re not just putting it on cruise control.

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Author's biography:

Esther Reyes is a three-time Emmy award-winning Television Director, Producer and Writer. She has traveled extensively producing and directing documentaries, unscripted dramas and reality television programs in more than 30 countries around the globe. Esther has produced for many major networks including ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, PBS, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, VH1, USA, the WB and FX. She is an avid music-lover and a former college radio DJ who can boogie with the best of ‘em.