By Kaitlyn Emslie Farrell
Brain Drainer Radio is one of the more fresh shows on CKUW. Every Friday from 10:30pm to 12:00am, two pals Alex and Spencer, delightfully shove their taste down your throat just like the hotdogs they’re eating while answering these questions. Actually, let’s talk about hotdogs for a moment. They’re a simple food really, everyone knows how to cook them and where to buy them. They’re complex if we want to know exactly what they’re comprised of, but that’s not on our minds when we choose to indulge. We buy hotdogs because of their convenience, their simplicity, and their great taste (open to discussion). So, that about sums up Brain Drainer Radio, straight forward and effective, simple and delicious. Alex describes it as “two dum-dums chattin’ it up” and Spencer adds “with some punk in between.” And that’s all you need on a Friday night.Alex and Spencer’s friendship is sincere though, and we can hear this on the airwaves. It sounds like a couple of best buds talking it up, which is easy to tune in to. It truly makes the listener feel like they are part of the conversation, without having to actually converse with anyone or even leave their home. It’s almost a service to the current generation. Not that everyone stays inside these days, but we know a lot of you prefer it. So where do two dudes who listen to loud tunes find each other? “We met in the pogo pit,” says Spencer. This is the kind of friendship that sounds natural, the kind developed by meeting in a stinky basement sometime listening to loud, live music.
But it didn’t just appear out of thin air, right? After filling in for some open time slots at the station, Alex and Spencer expressed interest in making it a regular thing. Spencer did the grueling research, I mean, he asked the program director how to get a show, they took the training and viola. Brain Drainer Radio is just four months old, still a baby, but a baby people kind of like.
There’s a lot of radio shows that use the air as a platform for another objective. It’s equally important to have a lot of shows that strictly entertain. We need these breaks from everything that happens around us. We need good old fashioned listening to music. Brain Drainer Radio is the one of those shows that’ll help you kick back, so long as you like to kick back loud. Offering sounds in the range of punk and hardcore, Alex and Spencer only intend to share what they like with you. Grabbing vinyl from their own collection, they make sure not to overthink it. “I just grab a fat ol’ stack of wax and head out the door,” says Alex. Spencer has a guideline however. “I choose the records with the least amount of cat hair on them.”
The guys are musicians themselves, playing in punk and hardcore bands. This might be where the passion comes from, that and the endless experience of listening to music. “It’s nice to play music you like for people, and exposing some local bands to the airwaves,” says Alex. These boys sure are qualified and they make sure I know. “I’ve been listening to music for a long time, since I was a baby,” says Spencer. Who can argue with that?
In the end it’s all about fun. They want to have fun doing it, and they want you to have fun listening to it. And that’s pretty important so we can probably all just have fun together. The objective is simple as Spencer states, “play records that we like and be doinks.” And Alex doesn’t over complicate it. “We like fun.” Thanks guys, fun is good. Everyone can always use a little more fun.