Doug Jaffe

Douglas Grant Jaffe joined KWFM in 1974 as an air personality, also doing production and voice. Tucson's night owls could tune to 92.9 and listen to Doug's overnight show.

Following an e-mail exchange with Matt Siegel, I was curious to know how well remunerated our radio heros were. These people were like gods to us teenagers... did they live like gods? Doug shed some light on this...

"To say that programming your own show and doing creative production for broadcast was a labor of love is an understatement. When I first came out to Tucson in '74 to work in underground radio at KWFM, it was as a part-timer. I lived on $35 a month! $20 a month to sleep on someone's couch, and the balance went to food and other discretionary expenses. I was just 18 years old then... and given the odd airshifts I was scheduled and my lack of transportation (or much else), at times I slept on the floor in the back of the radio station. Matt Siegel and Dave Gordon, observing this devoted novice without a life and living on practically nothing but airwaves and a few Hardee's hamburgers, dubbed me 'The Jet'.

"Later, when I took over the midnight to 6AM shift full-time, the station owner took pity on me. No, he didn't give me a raise... but he did have a decent 10-speed bicycle fabricated for me out of scrap at Bikesmiths on East 6th Street (where Fair Wheel Bikes is today)."

At some point Doug took a haitus back to his home in Vermont, returning to Tucson in 1975 to pick up Matt Siegel's 7pm - midnight shift.

Much of Doug's career is split between gigs in Vermont and Tucson, with a three year stop-over in Albuquerque. He settled back in the Old Pueblo in 2002 and is running his own business, LowNoise Productions.

Watch this space — in the coming months we might possibly convince Doug to dig out a few of his reels from the period, as well as a rare recording he has of Mark Young from 1971.

Visit Doug's website at LowNoise Records.