You're an art major, right?

Yes.

Who's your favorite artist? Or what's your favorite style of art? Whatever.

My favorite style of art is Postwar German Expressionism, which includes artists such as Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, and Anselm Kiefer.

Super. So, give us a brief rundown on KSLU past, present and future.

KSLU started back in 1920 as WEW, a faculty-run religious radio station which was the first radio station west of the Mississippi. In 1949, KBIL was established, making the station student-run in conjunction with the Communications Department, providing training for students preparing for the radio profession and serving as entertainment designed for the student audience. In 1983, the call letters KSLU were established. We currently broadcast over a closed cable channel on campus and stream online through itunes. While losing our airwaves in the 1980s placed extreme restrictions on our radio station at first, we are now in a time where this is not an issue, allowing us to reach a large listener base online. KSLU continues to grow and evolve, with over 100 members currently, we have nothing but high hopes for where we can be in the future.

What prompted you to get involved with college radio?

The annoyingly obvious answer, would be music. Duh. My freshman year, I had some friends who had gotten involved with KSLU and it sounded like a really fun activity to get involved in. I like music, I wanted to play music for other people, so alas, I applied for a show and quickly became obsessed with KSLU and college radio as a whole. I began assisting our Music Director at the time, eventually becoming MD myself, and now they are going to have to kick me out of my office at the end of this semester, kicking and screaming of course.

What kind of music do you as a DJ play for your audience?

During my show, I try to play a lot of new releases that I am excited about, ranging through many genres including folk (okay, a lot of folk), psychedelic, indie rock and pop. Additionally, I try to preview concerts we have coming to St. Louis in order to promote the show and introduce the listeners to the artists if they have never listened to them before.

What does KSLU do to increase awareness of the local music scene?

We realize that college radio is a great avenue for local artists to get their music heard. Outside of having a special CD rack dedicated to local music, KSLU is affiliated with our on-campus venue, The Billiken Club, which tries to put at least one local act on every bill. Not only does this allow them to share the stage with some great national touring artists, but gives them ability to reach a new crowd that may not have heard of them otherwise.

What was your most satisfying moment working at the Billiken Club? What about the opposite end of the spectrum? Anything that made you want to run and hide and never go back there again?

Throughout my time at SLU, The Billiken Club has been my baby. So, to be cheesy, I kind of have to say that every moment has been really satisfying. It keeps getting bigger and better, and it is really gratifying to stand back and watch how many people appreciate what we do. If I had to pick one moment that was the most satisfying, it would probably be when the Riverfront Times named the Billiken Club "Best Rock Venue" for 2007. Our staff works really hard, without pay, to make some really awesome shows happen, and it was nice to get some recognition. As for wanting to run and hide, there was one incident at the club where a concert-goer got extremely angry at the slow bar service, picked a fight with the bartender, threw things, and got kicked out. No one wants to see that happen at their venue. But, all and all, The Billiken Club is the greatest thing in the world, or at least St. Louis in my opinion. I love every minute working there.

Please explain what a "quote attack" is.

A quote attack is an artform, really. It is fighting with words, but not your words, those of others. You pick a good quote and exclaim it in the face of your opponent while making quotation marks with your fingers. If need be, a quote attack can take digital form as well. This can go back and forth for quite some time, especially when you are dueling with Mr. Hector Montes.

If you had a choice between going to an awesome party or falling asleep in front of a TV while watching Mulan, which would you be more likely to do? Be honest.

As much as I would like to say "going to an awesome party, duh," I cannot. During SXSW last year, my partying skills were way below par, and yes, I ended up falling asleep at 7pm in my hotel room watching Mulan, only to wake up the next morning and say "crap."

As industrial society continues its inevitable collapse, and our national infrastructure slowly but surely begins to unravel, a sense of regional identity becomes crucial to survival as tribalism makes its triumphant return. What ten CDs would you take with you into the Independent Republic of St. Louis?

Oh lordy, here we go (in no particular order):

Les Savy Fav - Inches
Paul Simon - Graceland
Grizzly Bear - Horn Of Plenty
Phosphorescent - Aw Come Aw Wry
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
Talking Heads - Remain In Light
Michael Jackson - Thriller (yeah, seriously)
Talkdemonic - Beat Romantic
Joanna Newsom - Ys
New Pornographers - Mass Romantic

If you had to give up either coffee or whiskey, which would you choose? Please phrase your answer in the form of a haiku.

whiskey or coffee
a tough call, but not the last
whiskey shan't be passed

At the 2007 CMJ College Radio Awards, KSLU won "Biggest Improvement" for the second time in three years. What happened in the year between those two awards? Did you just suck for that one year or what?

I think it is rather amusing that we received that award, again, in such a short amount of time. I do not believe it is because we sucked for a year, then stopped sucking again. Rather, when we received the award in 2005, we had made some really great strides as a radio station after several years of, er, kind of sucking. We were awesome and at the top of our game. In 2006, we reached a plateau. We were happy with how awesome we were, and focused on maintaining that status, nay, perfecting that status, before continuing with bigger and better improvements. Finally, in this past year of 2007, we began to implement more changes including, but not limited to, a new website, dependable specialty music directors, new software for the studio, and a new production studio.

It took Hector a really long time to write these questions and send them to you. Given the long wait, aren't they kind of disappointing?

No, not at all. You are here to make people happy, Hector. I am smiling right now, really. Job well done.

One last question: you're afraid of birds. How can you possibly be afraid of birds?

Okay, I know this is kind of weird. Not only am I afraid of birds ... I am TERRIFIED of birds. During my childhood, I had some very traumatic experiences with this species including being attacked by a peacock at the zoo, being dive bombed by birds in my backyard while trying to protect my dog from them, and pigeons just really grossing me out. To this day, I remain afraid. I hope to get over it one day, but let's get serious, I don't know if it will ever happen.

Was there a noticeable difference between the making of Bits and Remember The Night Parties? Less pressure? More pressure? More interference from record label suits looking for a hit song?

We’ve never felt any pressure from Sub Pop as to write any certain kind or amount of songs. We wanted to challenge ourselves by writing a bunch of songs, different types of songs, and record them in a more relaxed environment, with friends, over a longer period of time.

Does the title Bits mean anything in particular?

It’s something we say a lot. It means pieces, different parts, or mostly an inane insult or term of affection, depending on how you look at it and how someone takes it.

The cover of Bits features piñatas and a crew of skull-faced musicians that look right out of the Mexican Day of the Dead. As you may have noticed, Hector is Hispanic and he wants to know how you feel the rich history of the Mexican people fits in with Oxford Collapse’s music in general, and Bits in particular.

Huh. We actually had Hector in mind when choosing the artwork. We started with Peru, though, using Mike’s grandpa’s old slides from a Peru vacation from years ago. Those are the photos inside the booklet. For the cover, we just put a bunch of things on there and thought in some way the three Mexican dudes were the three of us.

What gave you the idea to open Bits with the noise of a car starting?

We wanted something special, so it was both an ode to one of our favorite records, Double Nickels on the Dime and also to our buddy Mike Henry’s car, which sounded awesome peeling out. His ’70 Chevelle ended up going up in flames shortly thereafter on the GW bridge, so it’s a fitting eulogy in a way.

“For the Khakis and the Sweatshirts” from Remember The Night Parties features the line “We lived like O’Shea Jackson/Low-rider station wagons.” Did you ever hear from Ice Cube or any of his surrogates regarding the use of his Christian name in an indie rock song, and is the lack of any references to famous rappers by their given names on Bits indicative of a split between Oxford Collapse and the hip hop community?

We are big Ice Cube fans, or the old Ice Cube anyway. We actually saved the Ice Cube tribute for the remix of “Bikini Atoll” on the 12 inch we recently put out which features a verbatim rip off of the last song on Death Certificate.

Speaking of lyrics, they’re one of the things that make “Young Love Delivers” a high point on Bits. Are they autobiographical?

It’s partly autobiographical, Mike’s mom, though, not his “love” brought him back a camera from China. The rest of the lyrics are made up of obscure references to ….[deafening, forced burp, Dan loses his train of thought.]

Oxford Collapse is geographically part of the Brooklyn music scene, but seems to stand apart musically from most of what comes out of the borough. Who do you consider your peers in the Brooklyn/NYC music scene?

Just friends of ours, who have been with us through the years…Cause Co-motion!, Emperor X, Lame Drivers, Get Him Eat Him, Meneguar, Professor Murder, Doug Mosurak, Randy Costanza…

Was “A Wedding” written specifically for cello or was that a decision made later on? Was there a specific reason for the use of cello?

It started as just a little dinkytown jam, on bass and guitar and we wanted to try something symphonic, so we arranged it that way and our friend Molly Schnick ended up playing all of it.

The only person thanked on Bits is “the amazing Randi.” Is this a reference to stage magician/paranormal debunker James “The Amazing” Randi? If so, why is he thanked? If not, who is Randi and what makes him/her so amazing?

That is a reference to our good buddy Randy Costanza, who helps us out a lot and is in general a man about town. Yes, it’s also a reference to James “The Amazing Randi” who helped out on Alice Cooper’s December ’73 Billion Dollar Babies tour. Mike and I had recently read Bob Greene’s excellent Billion Dollar Baby and were smitten.

Who’s your favorite member of the AAM crew to run into at a show, bar or party in New York? Be honest.

It depends what time it is. Hector’s good for sunshine, Caroline at night.

Does Oxford Collapse have a message for the college radio stations that made Bits a #1 most-added record at CMJ?

Yes. We still have no idea what “#1 most-added” means. Please explain.