I used to live in a beautiful fishbowl. I was in radio. It was an insular world where everything I did or saw was filtered by the barriers that being an insider creates. I spent all my time at the station or hanging out with other radio people or record company staffers. I watched concerts from backstage or the guest list section where I was surrounded by other media folk. I went to big industry conventions where musicians were trotted out to perform and kiss up to us. Label reps escorted me past overzealous security guys when the show was over while I gave them my best "take that you #@*!, I'm not a groupie, I'm in the biz" smirk. My dealings with “real people” were limited to watching through a one way mirror while listener panels discussed whether the morning show crew talked too much or watching people fill out grids to show whether they were familiar with seven second clips of songs. Then I hunkered down behind a computer and turned people into numbers and numbers into the design of the station's sound. In a small room where I couldn't see anyone I often talked to a composite picture my boss had made of a "typical" listener. A cardboard cutout with a demographic profile attached that perpetually smiled and never took a breath. If an office staffer or an actual listener actually got close enough to any of us to make a comment we would be totally taken aback. "Today the bookkeeper stuck her head in and said she liked that song!" I would share excitedly with my Program Director. We would both be stunned by just that brief interaction with an actual non-industry.

Technological advances and media consolidation pulled the plug on that little adventure a few years ago. A computer could play the  music, the talk breaks in a five hour show could be recorded in1/2 hour or so, and music selection and market research could be done at the home office and downloaded to multiple stations. A lot of radio people were cut to part-time or kicked to the curb. I was one, now relegated to voice tracking my show at an hourly wage. Suddenly I had a part-time income. I was going to have to get a real job. Possibly more than one. That turned out to be a revelation.

I started working for a company that took care of the plants in public places. Cool job, you don't have to dress up or sit in an office all day. I went to all types of workplaces - rigidly corporate banks, hospitals, malls, artsy ad agencies and casual entrepreneurial ventures.  Passing through all these offices I never saw one person sit and attentively listen to the radio. A lot of people had mini CD players and a stack of favorite CDs. The ones that did have the radio on were not listening closely. They were talking to co-workers or on the phone, having meetings  or concentrating on projects. Nobody was clinging to every word the DJ said or listening closely for that chance to “call in and win.” They weren't even paying enough attention to notice whether they loved every song that came on and they were too busy to search for another station every time a song that wasn't a favorite was played. It had been my life for years but it was one step above white noise to them.

Suddenly there were no promos and free concert tickets to feed my multi-genre CD and concert habit. I never realized what a dent music addiction could put in a person's budget. Even in a city where prices are below the national norm the ticket prices, layers of service charges and parking fees can suck the life out of your bank account, and I wasn't even having to pay for a “date” ticket too. It's easy to see why people who would love to go out more can't support every act that comes to town. There were a few musicians who still got me backstage passes when they came to town. However, without a label rep running interference I was just another potentially psycho chick in the eyes of venue security. They would scrutinize the credentials I did have and often find ways to invalidate them, leaving me to stand wanly by the door until I was rescued by someone who recognized me. It was embarrassing and it was something that other people who were family and friends of these artists had been going through for years while I blithely walked past them.

Without CDs and press releases arriving in the mail I had to buy music. Getting my hands on what I wanted was harder than finding the money to pay for it!  Download sites weren't that accessible yet and sometimes you want the instant gratification that ordering does not provide. I could rarely walk into a music retailer and find what I wanted. They were either out of it, didn't stock it, had never heard of it, or had it sitting in the back room because somebody forgot to unpack the boxes that weren't high priority pop hits. I knew where to go online to find out about new music, and I still got to read trade papers but I still had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get the CD into my hands. Where does that put the person who enjoys music but doesn't have the resources I had or the time to jump through those hoops? I spent an hour at a big name book and music retailer trying to get help finding a new release by a big name in our genre. Most people would have just walked out.

The technology that knocked me off the fence also provided me with a way to crawl back on. Internet radio started to catch on and mass servers like Live365 made it easy for individuals to set up stations and build a pretty serious audience if they were good and stuck with it. Then internet magazines began to fill the gap that was left when a lot of print publications shut down or shifted their focus away from smooth jazz. I started writing for websites which flipped me back into the world of “working media.” but this time as a freelancer, which means keep your daytime job and no jumping back into the fishbowl. I don't sit in a little room talking to people I can't see. I talk to them at gyms all over town and on the sales floor at a fabric store. And at concerts and festivals, the library, grocery store, bookstore, the beach, and while waiting in line at all those places where you have to wait in line.

Listening to our smooth jazz station, which is part of the national network that supposedly holds the key to doing it right, it's obvious that they don't talk to the people I see every day. They never mention full time moms or dads, they think everyone has one job and that that job is in an office during daylight hours on weekdays. That they leave at 5 pm, drive home and spend the evening drinking wine and getting romantic. No kids to take to dance lessons or soccer practice, not chores or projects to do or second jobs to go to because your mortgage payments went up again. They talk to the cardboard cutout I used to talk to. The composite that by trying to be  all of us becomes none of us. One that never dances in the aisles when their favorite musician plays an energized set or lights up when they hear a new song and actually listens closer.

A lot of smooth jazz people in all facets of the business are getting displaced by syndicated formats, the downsizing that comes with corporate consolidation, and the growing pains of an industry that didn't change as fast as the times demanded. Most of these people will have to play in the real world for a while. It's disorienting and downright painful sometimes and for the ones who did thrive in an insular environment it could trigger a healthy deprogramming process. Being surrounded by people on a day to day basis and without the rewards that came with towing the party line it's easier to see the disconnects. Which is the first step toward fixing them. There are a lot of other ways to stay involved with the music, but most of them won't allow anyone to quit their daytime job and jump back into the fishbowl entirely. After a while the view from there doesn't look that great anyway and you don't want to trade living, breathing, inconsistent, erratic, imperfect, and fascinating human beings for statistical profiles. Anything can happen and sometimes things change fast. A lot of smooth jazz exiles could end up coming back into the fold and after their months or years of “field experience” they won't settle for an audience of theoretical people. They will have experienced the real thing and that's what will bring the heartbeat back.

-Shannon West