Mike Goode, Production Director, KEDG-FM, The Edge, Las Vegas, Nevada
by Jerry Vigil
It's a Las-Vegas-kind-of-issue this month. There's the NAB Convention in Las Vegas, and our Test Drive is on the SAW Plus which comes from Innovative Quality Software in Las Vegas. So we decided to check into one of the local stations for a glimpse of radio production in Las Vegas. We had heard some "good" things about Mike Goode at Radiovision's KEDG-FM, the Alternative rocker in the city. While we usually visit with long time veterans in this business, Mike is a newcomer, but his work doesn't show it. The station itself is rare in this day of multi-station facilities in that it is the only station owned by Radiovision. Join us for a brief visit with one of the industry's up and coming producers as Mike tells us about production in Vegas and working at a station that, for a change, is not a victim of merger madness.
RAP: Where did your radio career begin and what brought you to Las Vegas?
Mike: I started with the Academy of Radio Broadcasting in Huntington Beach, California in February of '93. They taught me the basics, like which way to hold a razor blade and stuff like that. Then, I started doing little jobs. My very first radio gig was for a little AM/FM combo in Twenty-Nine Palms, California, which is like, market number nine thousand. Then I did an internship at the legendary KNAC in Long Beach, California from August of 1994 to November of 1994. Basically, I was a production assistant and interned under Malcolm Ryker, who is now at 91X in San Diego, I believe. He's the guy who actually taught me multi-tracking, and I just took off on it from there. After KNAC, I went to KCXX in San Bernardino, which was a new Alternative station that started up on New Year's Day in '95. I did seven to midnight there for about nine months and did imaging production also. The Operations Manager at the time was Steve Hoffman. He left that station and went to The Edge in Las Vegas. Then a couple of months later, he called me up and said, "Hey, do you want to work for me again out here doing production?" I said, "Sure." That was September of 1995.
RAP: You're just barely in the business! What were you doing before radio?
Mike: Prior to the broadcast school I was working entry level mail room at IBM and just got totally sick of my job. So, I said, "I'm out of here...before I get too old."
RAP: Did you have some college background at this time?
Mike: No. Actually, I got thrown out of a community college a long, long time ago. College wasn't the thing for me. They just mailed me a letter saying don't even bother coming back. So, I figured: I love music, and when I enrolled in the academy, I was thinking, "I want to be a DJ." Then I got to learn a little more about the production aspect of it, and I realized, "Hey, this is a lot more fun." When I was doing seven to midnight I thought, "I don't like doing this." It's like sitting in a little laboratory for seven or eight hours a day.
RAP: You've worked for one Operations Manager/Program Director at two different stations. You must work well together.
Mike: Right. I'm pretty fortunate to be working for someone who gives me a lot of freedom, which is basically what The Edge does. If there's a promo that has to be done, either Steve, the Operations Manager, or the General Manager will write it. They'll send it out to Keith Eubanks who voices just about everything under the sun. Once I get it back, they give me the reel and say, "Here, go make this crazy," or something like that. I'll write a few things like sweepers, but I basically just take whatever reel I have from Keith and go from there.
