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Twenty three year-old
Bret Batterman (“Batman” to his e-mail correspondents) is a hero of sorts
around these parts. After all, he was the very first radio reporter to jump
on board our little Roots Music "movement." (You might say he was our John
Glenn of cyber-space).
Although he's only been
in radio two years, he’s already hooked. This native of Ceres, California
(just north of Turlock) studies at CSU Stanislaus, and it was at the college
station—KCSS—where he received his baptism into broadcasting. Bret started
out jocking a jazz program (Batman’s Jazz Show), a show whose content roams
from Coltrane to Fusion, and features everything that “tickles my fancy.”
After about 6 months he was named music director at the station. “I hadn’t
had a lot of ‘roots’ or Americana experience before I got here, so I’ve had
to depend a lot on the broadcasters. I try to get the deejays interactive,
so they have a lot of input into what goes into the chart.”
Lately, he opines,
there has been a great deal of merging of musical forms. “There’s been so
much music prior to this date influencing [the musicians], and they’re
taking lots of forms and merging them together. And that’s why you’re
getting the emergence of stuff that sounds like jazz, but it isn’t; stuff
that sounds like rock, but it isn’t; or sounds like bluegrass, but it
isn’t.”
After graduation,
there’s the possibility of lots of travel
ľ
Europe, Southeast Asia, and the like. But
more certain is a career in radio, where he feels he’s discovered his niche.
“I’m probably going to stay in radio for most of my life. It’s become one
of those things that I’m passionate about. Before you find your |
passion, you’re just
jumping from one foot to another, trying to figure out what you like. What
do I want to do with my life? This is especially true in college, where
there’s a lot of pressure to find what you want to do.
“Radio’s been good for
me and good to me. There’s a lot of perks; and you do work
hard, but your work is rewarded in a way that a lot of other people don’t
get to experience.” For instance, he gets a kick out of meeting jazz artists
in the alley out back of Yoshi’s, the premiere jazz club. And a meeting
with Buckwheat Zydeco at a recent concert was “a religious experience.”
Away from the station,
Bret sails his Hobie Cat 16 on the lake and takes in "lots of outdoors
stuff"-- mountain climbing, biking, and concert-going. His affinity for
jazz goes back to his high school days, when he played clarinet in the
school band, but later switched to drums, and wound up as the 1st
chair drummer with the school jazz band. He sees jazz as a musical form
that’s “a little under-appreciated in its complexity.”
KCSS in Turlock
KCSS has been on the map for about
15 years, and broadcasts with 455 watts. It covers most of the
metropolitan Modesto area and down almost to Atwater (30 miles south),
boasting a large blues and Americana following. Bret is now building up
both the jazz and the modern rock programs.
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