It should be remembered that it is the way disc jockeys control sound, of all kinds, that is most important. And it is through this control that they bring about their personalites.

Being a disc jockey is a high pressure existence. There is no job security in it. Just while I was in the studios of WMEX for a few hours, I got the feeling of a heavy tenseness in the way the people thought of their own situations. This sort of thing was specifically noticeable when I was talking to Ballou and Duffy and how they got to where they were. It seems that the pressure is on the individual as a performer to win the competition.

And competition defines much of the process they are participating in. The radio station is locked in a head-on ratings struggle with WRKO. The pressure is on Duffy, who is really a young guy, to out program the others in an area that continues to keep itself a mystery.

Ballou was telling me about how he started out as a college radio d.j. while at Syracuse, then got opportunities all the way up the system until he had a big show going in Buffalo that could be heard in half the states of the country. All the time he was biting his lip and saying things like, "You've just got to make it." He wasn't, let's say, nervous; it's just that his existence, because it is unpredictable, is, well, tight.

He appears really schizophrenic because he has to get all wound up for his show every night, but then gets unwound the rest of the time because you can't live at that intensity. (And his schizophrenia takes another form in the fantasy that he promulgates on his show about his non-existent engineer named Stanley, who, because he engineers his own show, is Ballou himself.)

But it's good that when he's on the air, he's going flat out. Because one of the things we've come to realize about the medium is that rapid talk is necessary to the effect. This is an idea that the slow-speaking disc jockeys on WBCN try to transcend. It doesn't work.

It is the disc jockeys who get together to decide what new songs will be introduced on the radio. In their decision they are choosing those songs which they will soon have us liking. (The way we think it is: "they are picking the songs they think we might like." Ho. Ho.)

It's disturbing because their decision is absolutely impossible. They have to choose from among 350 new records every week. Of these, WMEX selects only about ten or so to introduce. And yet, this is one of their big edges over WRKO, which picks only a couple of new songs a week.

Warren Duffy says WMEX makes up its Top 40 by songs requested on the "Request Line" telephone, record sales in local stores, and national trends as represented by publications such as Billboard Magazine. If this is how they know what we supposedly want, then this combination also helps determine which new records they choose to play.

Let us imagine what is wrong with this kind of a selection process for deciding what we want to hear on the radio.

First, the "Request Lines" are clearly not a good indication. The experience of calling up the radio station is in no way integrally related to the experience of liking music. And therefore, since only a few people call, the action of making a call is related to something else about the people who call and the request, itself, is incidental.

Second, record sales do not represent the experience of liking music on the radio. I've already said how the medium changes the kind of music we like. There are many things I like on the radio that I would never buy. And, also, record sales depend on what is played on the radio. If what is in the Top 40 depends on record sales, and what new songs that are introduced are modelled after the Top 40, then we get into one of those self-defeating circles.

Finally, the national trends as represented by Billboard are ultimately based on record sales and such things. It's another big circle. Billboard adds up the local trends to give us the whole. The whole then determines how the individual parts react. Or maybe Billboard takes money from someone to fix it all so at least we get out of this maddening circle.

All of which leads me to believe that they must automatically play stuff by known and accepted groups, and then fill up the remaining slots with anything to represent the other possible tastes.

It seems that it would be almost impossible for new groups to break into the cycle. And those that do would be chosen at virtual random.