DJ Garry in 1958, 14-years-old.
wasn’t much to do around there.” Good for him, though, that Brill enjoyed bowling and nightlife; during his evening outings he met his wife-to-be Virginia, a schoolteacher originally from Tulare, CA. The couple married in 1968 back in her hometown. “Then I got drafted,” he said. After basic training, his first assignment was the Presidio in San Francisco where, working in communications, he produced tapes for US western stations about “Why you should join the Army.” His next post was Vietnam. “My new assignment was 71R20, broadcast specialist. They gave me a mic, amp and a speaker. I was assigned to go out into the jungle to meet with an ex-Viet Cong contact and give him equipment so he could coax others to come over to our side,” Brill recounted. Hardly something you’d want to write home to mom about. But, once it was learned that Brill could type, he found himself working in inventory: a much safer—yet far from radio—place to be.
Schmeer offered the ride-less Brill a lift back. “On the way, we stopped and he gave me a tour of the radio station and that was it,” Brill said emphatically. “I’ve been in radio ever since.” Born to Robert and Margaret Brill in Hazleton, PA, Brill said the family, including a brother and sister, lived in the coal-mining region in the eastern area of the state. Graduating high school, Brill secured his first full-time job in radio in Berwick, PA. “I learned quickly, from there, that in radio you move around a lot,” he said. Breaking into bigger markets and advancing in the industry, Brill moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan and then Omaha, Nebraska. “Wherever I was, I loved the communications part of my job,” he said. “Even today, when I sign on, I love it. I love talking about the music you’re about to hear and the songs I’m going to play.” While Brill said his career was possible without a college education, he’s convinced it was learning to type that “saved my rear end in Vietnam!” The story goes that in the mid1960s, Brill, who’d always wanted to work in San Francisco, drove across the US hoping to land a job there. “I couldn’t even get an interview,” he lamented. But Brill heard about a job opportunity in Alaska, where he would be on the air in the morning and sell advertising in the afternoon and he placed a call, scoring a round-trip ticket for the interview. He got the job and fell in love with the beauty of the area but realized quickly that “there really
Always one to seek opportunity, Brill signed up for a refresher course in Business Management at the base. “I was the only one who showed up,” he said. The instructor was a Major who could not understand how I was in inventory with a broadcast background. Brill said, “One morning soon after at 4 AM they woke me up and said ‘pack your duffle bag; you’ve been assigned to Saigon’ and off I went.” Once billeted in a hotel in the then-capital of South Vietnam, Brill listened to the AM and FM radio programs aired from the local military base where at the time, Pat Sajak (Wheel of Fortune), was the announcer at the station. “I went to the Colonel and asked Garry at Hearst Castle in 1998.
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him if he liked the music being played,” Brill said. “He replied it was a little too ‘rock-y,’ so I suggested a softer blend of music on the FM station—Sinatra, Percy Faith, Streisand— and I made a sample tape.” The Colonel loved it and Brill started his new program “Sunrise in Saigon” that ran from 1969 -1970. “It sounded like a stateside radio station,” he reminisced proudly, adding that the program received excellent feedback. Upon his return, Brill and Virginia went back to Alaska and daughter René was born in 1971. Brill managed a station there but over time decided it was time to be his own boss. “I had enough experience,” he said, “and I heard of a station in Atascadero, CA that needed a manager.” He went on to purchase the Central Coast stations KIQO 104.5 FM oldies station and KWSP Whisper 106 in 1990 and sold them both about a decade later. Since then, Brill has set about archiving more than 10,000 45s, 3,000 LPs and “thousands upon thousands” of CD cuts. He is active in the community and hosts the Veterans Day Dinner at the Elks Club in Atascadero and also gives talks throughout the year to groups about his radio days in the military and even plays commercials they aired back then. His current show, “Juke Box Saturday Night,” runs Saturday nights from 7 – 10 PM on station 1230 AM. Brill remains active in Atascadero Rotary and is a 20-year member and past president. Daughter René graduated from Atascadero High School and later USC and works as a civil engineer for the county of Los Angeles. Brill and Virginia have travelled extensively since his retirement in 1999 and boast visiting at least 80 countries. While Brill took a five-year hiatus from radio right after retirement, he’s back behind his studio control panel putting together his weekly show and sells and produces Atascadero Greyhound Football programming for KIQO. Today, he says, the Brills live a quiet life. “We’re proud of what we’ve done, we’ve seen what we wanted to see.” Brill predicts the future of radio will be tough. “There’re so many ways to get entertainment now,” he said. “A lot of young kids aren’t interested in radio. They like their music without interruption, without narrative.” Brill remembers the early days in Juneau when, during earlymorning drive time, “We’d talk with our listeners who were heading to work along the long, dark, solitary stretch of road just outside our station windows. We’d say ‘Good Morning Juneau, flash your lights for us’ and boy, did they!” For Garry Brill, this wave’s been a good ride. M A Y
2016
Journal PLUS