A Day in the Life

Edited by Michaelangelo Matos

(Brian Brasher)

4:38 a.m. KBCS Studios, Bellevue. In four hours, Chris Peterson will be teaching a third-grade class at Bellevue Children's Academy, but right now he's back- announcing an Ecuadorian wedding song. Peterson has just played Chaskinakuy's "Sahuaringui," from A Flor de Tierra, on his radio program, Inca Cola. It's the tail end of KBCS' fall pledge drive, and in a gentle, knowing voice as suited for 8-year-olds as it is for early, early morning fans of South American music, the DJ nails the segue: "While we're listening to wedding music, why not make a pledge yourself?" It works, and as an Argentine tango bleeds out over the airways and the ether, the station's phone line comes alive. Readying his next few moves, Peterson jockeys CD cases and old vinyl, purchased for a song on one of many trips to Bolivia, while he patiently takes a local caller's credit card number.

"We're supposed to play upbeat music during pledge drive, but I'm actually playing a lot of Andean music this morning; it actually gets me better listener response," the experienced community radio DJ says. Although it is underwritten by Bellevue Community College and other businesses, KBCS (91.3 FM) is operated by a team of passionate volunteers and is 80 percent listener supported; Peterson's show, which he began at a station in his native Michigan and resurrected 14 months ago, takes a cross-cultural, cross-genre approach, easing from '70s Peruvian rock into sambas and Creole waltzes.

His last song of the morning is Lucila Campos' "A Saca Camote Con el Pie." Campos, he tells listeners, is a "top diva of the Afro-Peruvian style." Off-air, Peterson looks satisfied and a little wiped out. "The amount of coffee I need to ingest to get through the show means I can't go back to sleep before I go to work," he says. "So I just push through." LAURA CASSIDY

6:20 a.m. KEXP's John Richards between responding to e-mail from Chicago, Atlanta, Manchester, Madrid, and Seattle. (Marcy Sutton)

6:20 a.m. KEXP Studios, Lower Queen Anne. It's not even daybreak in Seattle, and KEXP (90.3 FM) morning host John Richards has already received 26 e-mails from Chicago, Atlanta, even Manchester, Madrid, and Toronto. After seven years on the air, Richards has perfected the balancing act of checking his in-box, answering the phone on loudspeaker, cueing tracks, and finishing a bowl of cereal—superhuman for those of us who wrestle with the toothpaste cap at this hour. "Congratulations to those who've made it through the week," he offers at the usual caffeinated clip, nodding to the "cubicle army," his term for regulars plugged into their desktop computers.

Does Richards have a surefire morning tune? He says he can't choose just one: "I'll play my favorite Friday morning tune, how about that?" Goldspot's acoustic-pop "Friday," along with Sinéad O'Connor's reggae number "Vampire," sets a gentle pace for the day. Richards saves the rock and roll for seven o'clock: The cubicle army, after all, needs to be prodded into the day, not razzed. KATE SILVER

8 a.m. The Internet. "Blogio Oddio turned me on to the wonderful sounds of N.Y.C. band Luminescent Orchestrii, purveyors of fine 'Romanian gypsy punk' music," Scotto, the Seattle-based proprietor of www.comfortradio.org, writes on this morning's post. "They claim that 'orchestrii' means 'small ensemble with orchestral intent'; I just think it sounds cool." Indeed it does: "Warsaw," one of two tracks Scotto posts today, is a fiery, fleet instrumental near-jig, while "Stranger" is slower, knottier, and features female vocals that sound like commands: "Stole the gold from around my neck/Stole the jewel from my chest/Stole a girdle from my hips/Stole the rose from myyyyyy . . . lips." MICHAELANGELO MATOS

11:20 a.m. Screenplay, Inc., Interbay. If you've been inside a department store, hotel, or nightclub in the United States, you've likely observed Screenplay's "audio-visual business environments" without even knowing it. Drawing from the biggest music-video archive in the world, they service retailers—Seattle clients include R Place and Experience Music Project—with monthly compilations designed to attract and keep customers' attention.

Lanna Apisukh is hospitality, sales, and marketing coordinator for the company's Nightlife division, which expands on the DVD subscriptions by placing customized video jukeboxes in sports bars, casinos, and other venues. "I find leads for the salespeople, and if they're qualified I'll send info packets and a demo," Apisukh says. The jukebox near her desk reads "Lanna's Fo Shizzle," and it's playing Sonic Youth, Throwing Muses, the Killers, Elefant, the Hives, Depeche Mode, the Distillers, Zwan, Blondie, and Beck.

Upstairs in Acquisitions, deals are being made with labels; in Quality Control, someone checks the videos for glitches and objectionable content. Does the receptionist, who sits 5 feet from an always-looping video screen, still enjoy MTV? "Uh, no," she says, almost too quickly. RACHEL SHIMP

12:02 p.m. Tower Records, Lower Queen Anne. Moving across the street from a large music retailer is a bad, bad idea for an inveterate record buyer. Every morning—or, equally often, early afternoon—I end up stopping in Tower, usually to see if any new books or magazines are in. Today I pick up the British edition of GQ, a "music issue" featuring a very airbrushed-looking Mariah Carey on the cover. Playing over the system is a flickering ambient drone that fades out after a minute; oddly, nothing takes its place.