Programmer Featurette: Chris Buckridge

Each month, a member of our Programming Committee is interviewing one of our programmers. These “featurettes” will give you a glimpse into some of your favorite WGDR/WGDH voices and what they do when they aren’t on the air. Up first, Savannah Bailey, one of our newest programmers in 2024!

Programmer Featurette: Savannah Bailey

By John Dillon, Chair of the CVCR Programming Committee

Chris Buckridge, host of the Saturday show “Predictably Unpredictable,” was part of the group of new programmers who came on the air last spring. He’ll celebrate his first anniversary on the air next month.

Chris says he first started seeing – or hearing – himself on the radio when he lived in New Haven, Ct. in 2015 and became a fan of WPKN in Bridgeport, Vt. Like WGDR, WPKN is volunteer-driven and community-supported.

What follows is an interview with Chris, where he describes growing up in a music-infused household, playing turkey calls on the air, finding community in Vermont, and a very memorable show when his daughter Ramona was born.

CB: [At WPKN] I was really impressed by the diversity that was on the airwaves: A bunch of different characters helming their own shows making mistakes live. I fell in love with the dead air and all the ums. I thought it was such a beautiful thing.

I daydreamed about having a show there but hadn’t pursued it yet, but I was definitely attracted to it and started to see myself there. I saw myself reflected in it, in some shows and some people.

JD: So, it was sort of hearing other community radio offerings, and like you said hearing yourself there?

CB: Yes, it was a great place for other awkward weirdos. And you would listen and try to imagine what they looked like and stuff. It was great. I love it so much.

JD: Your show is called Predictably Unpredictable and you started [a recent show]  with the Ramones, then you had Artie Shaw and then there was a whole Twin Peaks thing. How would you describe your shows intent?

CB: Emptiness? [Laughs] I don’t know if there is an intent. I want it to work, I want it to sound good…  I guess it’s a real struggle to try to identify that because it changes so often. I don’t know that there is an intent, it just is.

JD: I think the title gives it an intent or at gives it at least a definition

CB: The title is more of a disclaimer, I feel like… The theme coming up this week it’s John Frusciante’s birthday, from the Chile Peppers, because there’s an anniversary of a record coming out. I’m a huge fan of his. I love him. I think he’s great. The whole show is Frusciante and Frusciante adjacent stuff and things that influenced him and snippets of interviews and stuff like that.

But it’s not going to be a birthday theme every week, although birthdays will enter into it sometimes. And it’s not going to be a theme every week at all. Some weeks will be a lot of jazz; some weeks it will be just be vinyl; Some weeks it will be just MP3s … It all changes week by week. It’s kind of whatever floats up for me and I kind of just pull from an interest in music and a knowledge of music. Whatever I have lying around in in my brain or in record collection could potentially end up in there.

I’ve done turkey calls before. Not me. I mean, I played a turkey call record. I mean anything is really fair game

JD: I do those in the spring but it’s usually to try to find a turkey.

CB: Yeah, I was kind of wondering if anybody would like turn their speakers out in their windows and see if they could summon any turkeys… I forget why I did that. I found it my collection and was really excited about it.

JD: How does your community, geographic as well as social and political, shape your perspective that you bring to the air.

CB: Well, my show is a reflection of myself and my own interests so when I do my show it’s just me it‘s really just me. It’s a direct connection between myself and my community. I wanted to live in Vermont for about 10 years before I moved up here, because of the social and political landscape and community up here. It’s been shaping me for a long time, but maybe not shapes, but harmonizes with, it is a better way of thinking about it for me, because the values around me and the work that’s being done around me for lack of better term is so completely right on for me, the gender representation of every conceivable gender on spectrum, the representation of different political viewpoints.

It’s made me feel safe in embracing my feelings on Gaza, hearing other programmers and other members of the community speak out about it, and having shows where they talk about it a lot.

To be less specific about, you could say it helps me feel brave, my community and the values around here, makes me feel brave and supported in bringing my beliefs and interests or whatever they are with me onto to the airwaves.

It’s such an inclusive place up here. I really feel like you’re welcomed and encouraged to do your own thing and you’ll be considered a good neighbor no matter what that is, as long as you’re not infringing on the people around you. And if you’re participating and supporting the people around you, you’ll find there’s a strong and resilient community web up here

JD: Where do you draw your material from?

CB: Whatever sounds good to me… At least once a month, I will try to pull from new music that the music department sends out, the dropbox files.

I feel like at least a slight obligation as a DJ, not an obligation but a responsibility, as a DJ to share new music. ... I don’t want to be necessarily stuck in a situation where it’s just and exclusively stuff that’s interesting to me and almost biographical to me because that would be predictable. It would converge like an 80s or 90s show. it would be appealing to people who are almost explicitly just like me. I would like to grow and the audience would like to grow so it’s important for me to share new stuff

I’m a huge music fan. I have a lot of records. I’m listening to music pretty much constantly or talking about or investigating music. And everything’s fair game. There’s nothing I’m not interested in.

JD How did that interest develop? Was there music in your house?

CB: I was lucky to grow up in Northeast Ohio. You can say a lot of things about Ohio, and a lot of them aren’t positive. But one thing you could reasonably say about the Northeast part is that it’s got a good quantity of like creative and smart people. It’s no coincidence that’s where Devo comes from... I grew up in Northeast Ohio and my parents were and still are only about 20 years older than me. So my parents were young. And I was an only child and so the people I hung out with were my parents. And they’re both counter-cultural and open-minded big, big music fans. And speaking of Devo, they bought like the first Devo record when it came out. I just grew up with that in the house. I grew up with a big record collection in the house. And my dad especially, is really, really into the minutiae of artists. You know who was playing with them, who they were friends with, what they were influenced by at the time. So like really doing close listening and deep diving into things was always around for me.

He's a musician too so there was always that. It just kept going once I got to high school. I was a musician and joined a bunch of bands. There was always music happening.

JD: Doing a live show in the studio in the studio is a solo event and a performance in a way. How do you imagine the audience, and what role do they play in the show?

CB: It’s tough to imagine an audience. In a way it’s a solo performance but I do cheat. My wife and baby daughter are in the studio with me. It’s a family event. Also, there may be no such thing as a solo performance. Whoever is listening is there to. So, it’s sort of like that John Cage idea that there’s no such thing as silence. Even with nothing playing you can still hear your heartbeat. But it is a performance. I get the same stage jitters. I try not to criticize myself, like transitions and things, when things get clunky…

I don’t really imagine more people listening than the people who are texting me during a show. So, it’s usually like one friend of mine who lives in Georgia, and my parents. And sometimes my in-laws will listen in… I know the audience is larger than that. I got a call from a guy in Hardwick who was really into what I was doing. I get calls from people. I know that it’s bigger and more widespread than I’m aware of. It really doesn’t…  It’s funny, it is like a performance, but my audience is the room.

JD: How has your show changed over time.

CB: I think it’s gotten more casual. I feel more casual on the microphone, like more conversational and less announcer-ey. I’ve gotten more comfortable in bringing in different formats, like CDs… Oh, I figured how long it takes me to run to the bathroom and back. So I’m not as worried about that. It takes me two minutes exactly to make it from the studio over to the bathroom and back again, so I’m not as worried about that.

JD: What was the funniest thing, or has there been anything funny that happened to you on the air?

CB: Well, it didn’t happen on the air. But my wife was due to have an induction for our daughter. And my show goes on at 10. At 9:57 we got the call from the hospital that they were ready for us to come up and do the induction.

I was getting my bag of records out. I had gone to the bathroom and was coming back and I could hear my wife on the phone. And that was a week that Rebecca was doing in Kitchen Permaculture… She came out and I told her I guess we’re leaving then. And I told Rebecca we’ve got to go we’re having a baby, and just let the robot go because I had an evergreen in. So, we got to listen to my show on the way to the hospital.

So the whole time we’re driving around in the car, going home, getting our bags together, checking all the boxes and stuff, I’m listening to my radio show. It was weird. I don’t know if that’s a funny thing. it’s just fun…

JD: That’s a great story. You won’t ever forget that day!

CB: No, if it had been four minutes later, I would have been on the air already. I would have had to stop what I was doing and then bring the evergreen in the middle of the song; it would have been super sloppy. But as it was, it was two minutes before I was supposed to go on and I was able to just let it play and just listen and enjoy it along with everybody else. I soundtracked our trip to the hospital basically.”