Between The Songs: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Radio Magic, or: Stuff I Learned from Hosting Crap From The Past for Twenty-Five Years

Between the Songs, community-radio legend Ron “Boogiemonster” Gerber’s second book, documents the lessons that Ron’s learned during thirty years of on-mic practice—including twenty-five years of hosting his signature specialty show, Crap From The Past.

Between the Songs is in part an instruction manual for how to produce a radio show. Topics range from the introductory (speaking into a microphone, structuring a talk break), to the practical (what you need to sustain a weekly specialty show), to the extremely advanced (beat-matching, writing for radio, pledge drives, marketing, the duties of a program director). Ron even divulges the secret sauce of radio, which permeates literally every aspect of what goes out over the air, but which is never discussed publicly.

Between the Songs is also part scrapbook, detailing the history, motivation, and inspiration for Crap From The Past, including a year-by-year critique of the shows, as well as divulging an astonishing number of techniques that Ron cribbed from the greatest specialty show of all time, Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. Ron also discusses his music library in absurd detail, including the CDs he used at the time, discloses his secret personal BPM catalog from the 1980s and 1990s, and includes a comprehensive guide to compilation CDs.

If you’re on the radio, or if you plan to be there someday, Between the Songs will serve as your guide and companion for every step of the way.