DJ

DJ, by Alan Jefferys and Bill Owen

No month stated, 1971  Popular Library

I discovered this obscure paperback, first published as a hardcover by Ashley Books in 1971, many years ago – and it seemed to be all I was seeking in trash fiction. A contemporary novel about high-libido radio DJs at the height of the rock era! Hell, even the first-page preview provided a glimpse of one of the DJs dropping acid before a little hippie-chick lovin’. 

But then I actually started to read the book (which is an unwieldy 447 pages)…and discovered that it wasn’t anything like what I was expecting. For one, the majority of the tale takes place in the pre-rock era, like the very early 1960s. Even worse, despite being titled DJ, the novel isn’t even really about the DJs! It’s more focused on the business end of running a radio station in New York City, with the jocks reduced to side characters and hardly any narrative at all spent on their on-air activities. Indeed, the main protagonist isn’t even a jock, but the director of the station, a savvy business-minded dude named Basil Kelcke. 

As it turns out, the novel is more focused on the business aspect of things. It’s also a clumsily-written novel. We’re introduced to the state of things in the mid ‘60s as Kelcke learns that his hit DJ, Daddy-O, wants to retire…because Daddy-O is sick of the drug-centric, moral-lacking rock music that is becoming popular and feels that he is contributing to the overall decline of society. He just wants to move back out to the sticks and raise his child in nature and whatnot. And mind you friends, this is like 1965! Well anyway, apropos of nothing Kelcke flashes back to how he hired Daddy-O in the first place…and this flashback turns out to be the exact same plot that started off the book: how Kelcke manages to replace a famous radio personality and not lose out on market share. 

So we flash back to the sticks and it’s now 1960…I mean the hopes of this being a no-holds-barred novel about FM rock radio jocks at the height of the progressive freeform era are just repeatedly dashed. Kelcke is known for fixing up failing radio stations and we see him accomplish this on a regional station…then he takes a job with WMBE in New York, and here he goes about hiring the guy who will eventually end up quitting, aka the aforementioned Daddy-O. But it’s all so focused on the business end of things – it’s about competition with the other stations, pleasing the numbers guys back at the office, shit like that. Absolutely none of DJ actually features a, you know, DJ doing a show on the air. 

There’s a humorous attempt at sleazing things up, per the style of the times, and sometimes it’s so egregious it made me laugh out loud. Like one part where a famous DJ goes home, blasts a classical LP on his turntable, jerks off, and…dies. Then we have a bit where cipher-like protagonist Kelcke is being cuckholded by some delivery guy…there follows super-explicit parts where this guy gives the goods to Kelcke’s wife, Millie, and, when the hotstuff gal who lives next door discovers them in the act, she gets in on it, too! But this subplot is dropped as soon as it’s introduced, having no ramifications on the narrative. 

That’s another thing. DJ is credited to two authors, and I don’t think they compared notes very often. In fact, there’s actually a titular “DJ,” and he doesn’t appear until halfway through the book. My assumption is one author wrote the first half of the book, which focuses on Basil Kelcke, and the other author wrote the other half of the book, which focuses on DJ, aka Daryl Jackson, Kelcke’s latest jock personality who replaces Daddy-O and becomes the hit WMBE DJ through the 1960s. Stuff that comes up in the first half of the book doesn’t pan out in the second half, and in fact Kelcke, ostensibly the protagonist of the first half, is hardly even a supporting character in the second half. 

But then there’s a lot of dropped stuff even in the first half; for example, Kelcke gets a lovely female assistant named Jeannie, one who is a radio superfan. One thing to remember, though, is that this is the early ‘60s, and thus her penchant for radio history is rooted in the old stuff, ie the Lux Radio Theater and stuff like that. Well anyway, she’s pretty and available but Kelcke is a strictly “I’m married” type (of course the ironing is thick given how his wife’s into a three-way affair), so there’s no hanky panky. But there are parts with her trying to find a guy, going out on dates, and none of it ever really goes anywhere. Indeed, she abruptly leaves the narrative with little fanfare and is never heard from again. 

There’s hardly any feel for the era, either. One of the things that pops up in the first half is the nascent rock movement, which Daddy-O isn’t fond of, but man there’s hardly anything topical about it…it’s just yet another “business thing” Kelcke must concern himself with. The book is so incredibly bland and unfocused, and misses out on so much potential. Even when things progress into the mid-‘60s later on, we hardly get any of the “sixties stuff” one would expect – the editors at Popular Library clearly knew what their readers would want, spotlighting a part where DJ (the guy) does LSD, but man this happens toward the very end of the novel…and almost seems to come out of a bad Afterschool Special from the ‘70s. 

I mean really…the tone of this novel is so unintentionally hilarious. According to DJ, if you take a job at a big-city radio station, you’re bound to be corrupted by the forces of evil, committing adultery, getting hooked on heroin, knocking up jailbait…hell, even robbing liquor stores. But you don’t have to worry about actually peforming on the air, because that’s the one damn thing these two authors don’t show us about the job. 

Oh, and DJ is so pathetic that the novel basically rips itself off; Daddy-O is really a back-to-the-country guy who just wants to fish with his kid and live in the woods and stuff, and doesn’t cotton to all that big-city shit. And the titular “DJ,” aka Daryl Jackson…is the same! Folks, more of that unintnentional hilarity ensues when Kelcke, who has discovered DJ in some regional station, brings him to New York and lets him familiarize himself with the city. I kid you not, folks, but DJ actually vomits in fear after a day out, being hit on by hookers and whatnot. It’s just so stupid and lame and pathetic. And DJ too has a button-downed wife back home, one who worries over him, etc, etc…just a retread of the material with Daddy-O. 

Since the novel occurs in a cultural vacuum there’s no insight into the rock happenings of the time, nor is there – believe it or not – anything about progressive freeform FM radio and how it cornered the rock market. But eventually DJ is swooned by a British band called The Glad Stones that takes him over to London and sets him off on an LSD trip…these guys are total ciphers, though, and the authors do nothing to bring them to life. 

Jefferys and Owen do have a gift for dark comedy, though; there’s a part where DJ is finally pushed into wanton behavior by his friend/enemy Rex, a guy who harbors a grudge because DJ beat him out of the WMBE gig; DJ ends up screwing a pretty young female fan…who turns out to be only fifteen. And he gets her pregnant! The authors bring a nightmarish vibe to it all, as DJ is called into the WMBE offices and questioned about his seduction of the innocent, and they almost casually mention he also got the girl pregnant. Later she shows up, after having gotten an abortion (paid for by WMBE!), and throws herself at him – and DJ literally runs away from her! 

But from here it gets even more darkly comic, with DJ spiralling into heroin addiction; again, hardly anything is made of his actual friggin’ radio job. I mean even the Glad Stones stuff doesn’t pan out; Kelcke sends DJ over to London as a big PR venture for WMBE, for DJ to become friends with the band and then officially welcome them for the station when they come to the US for their tour…but even all this is just sort of brushed under the narratorial carpet. Honestly, so much of DJ is told in summary that I had a hard time connecting with any of it. 

And that’s a helluva thing, because a novel about a rock radio station is a novel I want to read. Unfortunately, DJ is not that novel. It hardly has anything to do with rock or radio, despite being set in that world. Kelcke, Daddy-O, even DJ…all of them don’t even like rock music, and it’s really just treated as another trend WMBE needs to exploit to stay ahead of the competition. 

At least the finale packs an unexpected punch – though again it’s so over the top as to be hilarious. We flash forward to 1971, with DJ now destitute after saying “fuck” on air (courtesy that heroin addiction), and he needs some cash, and there’s a liquor store nearby that he decides to rob…a crazy, out-of-nowhere finale that’s rendered even more crazy with Basil Kelcke suddenly turned into a heartless prick on the final page. As mentioned Kelcke is barely a presence in the second half of the novel, which makes me suspect that Jeffery wrote one half and Owen wrote the other. But I don’t know, and to tell the truth I don’t really care – I’d say DJ is justifiably forgotten.