There are several folk tales people love to tell in radio. When you ask for actual examples though the details are scarce. Things like how everyone, at least in Rock, once worked at a station where the morning host used to ride his motorcycle up and down the hallways. Everyone talks about it, not many people can say when or where it happened. Few even know how the motorcycle got through the front door.
Another tale often told is about the Program Director who goes to a bar or restaurant and meets someone so funny and talented they are just destined to be a radio star. They hire that person and the unsuspecting civilian blossoms into a successful personality. That always seemed like a myth told around the radio campfire, until Maria Palmer, co-host of The Morning Mosh Pit on Rock 95.5 in Chicago, came along.
Ten years ago when Palmer was studying acting, she worked at a dive bar in the Washington DC area. iHeartMedia Senior Regional Vice President James Howard came into the bar one night wearing a DC 101 hat. “I was already very familiar with the station. I guess he enjoyed my bartending, and probably the free shots of whiskey I gave him.” The rest, as they say, is Rock Radio history. “We exchanged contact information, he offered me a job, and I accepted.”
At that point, Palmer realized she had no idea what she had agreed to. “I started to wonder, ‘what am I doing?’ Yes, I’m here but I would love a little more definition.” Unlike the myth, which tells a story of the person coming in and instantly shining as a high profile personality, Howard started her off with the basics. They discussed the goal of Palmer having her own show. Howard then explained what steps needed to be taken to get there.
“I said great, let’s take those steps. I ran the board for the Bobby Bones syndicated show, literally learning how to flip the on switch. Then I took every shift I could from there on and here we are now.”
And to be clear, true to the myth, Palmer wasn’t trolling for radio jobs when she met Howard. She had always been creative. She was studying acting hoping to get into performing. But she wasn’t sure what that was going to look like. “I didn’t know exactly what lane that was going to take yet, and then the lane chose the car.”
Nearly a year ago she segued from night host to mornings on Rock 95.5 with co-hosts Marris and Michael Mason. She likens launching the show to having a blank coloring book and a set of crayons. “I’m just sort of coloring as I go,” shared Palmer.
While that may seem like a lot of freedom, she says the team has been given lines to color inside of. She explains how Howard has set the tone while allowing them to do things their way. “That’s not easy to do, and certainly not with me. I’m a weird individual. I can’t even manage myself.”
Palmer says the show has evolved so much over the course of their first year. It’s hard to distill it down in a way that can be easily explained. “I supposed you could say it has gone from chaos to a little more organized chaos.”
That may sound like a recipe for disaster to some people, but for Palmer it’s the perfect environment.
“What makes our show work, which we definitely want to keep, is that chaos. It’s the feeling that we don’t know what the hell is going on, but we know we’re going to have fun, and the audience is going to have fun listening to it.”
Unlike some shows that try to project chaos but script everything, Palmer says the team’s magic comes not from overly preparing but from knowing the listeners and each other. “We kind of know that the audience wants to hear and what we can speak upon.”
Palmer is also active in another chaotic world away from the studio – social media. She says it doesn’t necessarily line up cleanly with mornings. “Not all my morning show content works on social media. Some does but in many ways they are two completely different skill sets.”
As most content creators know, that is only complicated by the constantly changing algorithms of the different platforms. “What does work well might only work for six months and then you have to switch it up. Which is another reason I love my audience. I have an awesome core group that sticks with me, regardless of the algorithm. I’m incredibly grateful for it.”
They even stuck with Palmer when Meta banned her for videos she made for a personal injury law firm. The premise was that people can get hurt at work, which she illustrated. “Yeah, Zuckerberg did not like that. He was like, ‘hey, that’s self-harm.’ And I was like, ‘yeah, but it’s a joke.’” In the end Instagram didn’t find it funny. Palmer’s content wasn’t available for quite a while, but she only lost about one thousand followers over that time. To her it was a lesson in what matters in any media, not just social. “It’s the nature of show business in general. What works is connecting with your audience on a real level.”
But to have any discussion of Palmer’s social media requires talking about Thirstday, a weekly Thursday staple that has gone through several iterations dating back to when she was hosting nights. It started with doing short interviews with representatives from local bars and breweries, but she started to run out of people to talk with.
“I thought we were losing the plot here. It’s a whole day all about drinking.” She wanted to turn it into a weekly remote. “I wanted to go out to the bars partially because I was bored sitting by myself in the studio at night.” But, as with many radio ideas, the budget wouldn’t support it.
The following week, with nothing planned for Thirstday she hit on an idea. “I am a little sister, so I thought I’m going to make this a whole thing where I annoy my way out of the studio. They’ll be forced to send me to a bar because it’ll be better than me being on air.”
That’s when the Thirstday jingle was created. “I found a really annoying piano track in the music library. Then I added a very annoyingly vocal, ’It’s Rock 95-5 Thirstday’ over it.”
That was only supposed to last a couple of weeks. However, it caught on to the point where listeners started sending instruments to the studio for her to play as part of the jingle each week. Now, Palmer has finally gotten her wish. Thirstday Live has been born with the morning show going out to bars and meeting people.
But not everything about her social media efforts has been as positive. There is a downside to being a woman on the internet. Palmer faces a large amount of general creepiness from men in her social feeds. “I like my job and understand the need to have a social media presence, but it does mean I have to subject myself to a level of sexual harassment.”
She has, however, found a way to turn it into great content with the invention of purge month. Each day for a month Palmer spotlights a creepy, awful comment she has received on her social feeds. “The beauty is it takes away the predatory nature of those comments because a lot of them are trying to catch me off guard or make me feel uncomfortable. But if I’m expecting it, and even egging it on, that kind of takes the fun out of it for the guys really trying to be hurtful.”
She thinks of it as holding up a mirror to show them how ridiculous their behavior is. “It says you can’t be disrespecting me like that every day but also, some of this is phenomenal creative writing and I can’t hate on it.”
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Mike Stern is a Classic Rock columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. He has been with Jacobs Media consulting stations in the Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative and AAA world for more than a decade. Prior to that he programmed stations in Chicago, Detroit, Denver Las Vegas and other markets. He also worked as News/Talk Editor for Radio and Records, wrote about Top 40 Radio for Billboard Magazine and had his own radio talent coaching business called Talent Mechanic.
