By Earl Karr, Contributing Writer
The Appetizer, a variety music show produced by KACU-FM, is beginning the process to receive syndication.
Dave Smith (’04), better known to listeners as D Grant Smith, is the host of The Appetizer and an operations assistant at KACU.
“We mainly focus on independent music, alternative, rock, folk and acoustic, anything other than hillbilly country and rap music,” Smith said in reference to the show.
Myra Dean, development director at KACU, said she is a big fan of the show and a regular listener. Dean said Smith puts a good deal of hard work into the production, and that the effort shows in the result.
“Everything he does at the station is really top quality,” Dean said. “He’s out there finding people that have been overlooked, the ones that maybe haven’t been discovered yet… He doesn’t just give you the music; he gives you the back story that goes with it, and I love the content.”
The main goal of The Appetizer is to highlight and give a creative outlet to talented, non-commercial bands. This includes local bands.
“The target audience is people in their 20s and 30s, but surprisingly, we have a very wide audience,” Smith said.
The Appetizer has been on KACU since Sep. 20, 2003. Smith said he wanted to make the comparison to food with the title because like the wide variety of foods that can be served as appetizers, there exists a wide variety of music played on his show.
“He gives little tastes of different kinds of music,” Dean said. “I don’t like everything he plays, but I’ve found a lot of new music that he plays that I like, and it gives me hope for the future that there is still really good music being produced.”
Smith said the syndication process for the show began because of some recent attention from The Dallas Morning News and other media outlets in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
“His show is one of those that just keeps growing, from word of mouth. People hear it, then other people hear about it and get curious,” Dean said. “If you can just get them to listen, you’ve got them hooked.”
The attention began when a reporter was driving through Abilene and listening to KACU, Smith said. The reporter wrote an article in a matter of days about the show. Smith said the tagline was, “Kudos to KACU for playing music that we’re listening to.”
“There is no way to tell how many people listen to The Appetizer, but if I had to guess, I would say between 500 and 700 people,” Smith said. “[They are] the people that listen listen faithfully.”
Dean said she thought the show will continue to be successful since it offers something unique to the music radio world.
“You know, people don’t think good music is being done these days, and Dave shows proof that there really is,” Dean said. “He’s played several artists now that I’ve never heard of, but that really would appeal to everyone.”
The Appetizer airs at 11 p.m. Saturday on KACU. For more information about The Appetizer or the music played on the show, visit its Myspace or Facebook pages.
Go to www.appetizerradio.com to hear podcasts about the show, stories about the songs and more information on this KACU production.
