Murad takes over CJAM's music department
By Clara Musca
Lance Writer
August 31, 2010
 CJAM 99.1 FM welcomes its new Music Director, Murad Erzinclioglu.
Erzinclioglu has been involved at the campus-community radio station since 2002, with his Jammy award-winning show Productive Confusion, and has also served on the Board of Directors.
Originally from Welland, ON, Erzinclioglu moved to Windsor eight years ago to study Visual Arts and Communications at UWindsor. Over the years he has achieved many local endeavours including writing for Upfront Magazine and the Lance, founding and organizing the Harvesting the FAM festival, has worked with Artcite and the Media City Film Festival, and is the producer for Rose City Sessions. He’s also currently in charge of the Windsor Scene column in WAMM Magazine.
Erzinclioglu’s interest in music journalism began when he was very young. In fact, his experience dates back to elementary school when he started writing about alternative rock bands for his school paper.
“My parents were really big on music. I was raised on Bob Marley, Elvis, Beatles, Jethro Tull, The Doors—a lot of classic stuff. I was always interested in music in general,” recalled Erzinclioglu.
“I remember when I was in Grade 4, my sister just started high school and there was this huge snow storm. My sister and I were stuck in the house for a week, and we had just gotten cable TV, so we spent the entire week watching MuchMusic and learning about bands, and what Canadian indie was at the time.”
Since getting on board with the music department at CJAM, Erzinclioglu has been eager to get a good start on his new a job—a job that he has wanted for many years.
Some of his responsibilities include reviewing a pile of CDs that get sent to the station each week. However, he wants to see more volunteers at the station lend their opinion on new music arrivals. He believes that he should not be the ultimate decider for what music should be kept.
“I want to get a music review committee started because I don’t think that I should be the ultimate decider all the time. I think it’s good to have different peoples’ opinions because sometimes you can end up sitting on the fence and I don’t want to let go of good CDs. I also want to see more interviews at the station, because we deal with a lot of musicians who are pretty underground that many people are not informed about.”
Erzinclioglu has never been through formal music training, but he believes he has a good ear for music.
He is also going to promote the idea of having some on-air performances by local bands or touring bands, or even pre-record them playing at the station.
In addition, Erzinclioglu would like to further organize CDs at the library and start a compilation/soundtrack section based on CDs that have various artists and are usually harder to find.
Above all things that influenced Erzinclioglu for this job, the most important one is independent culture. This includes local art, music, and film.
“Pretty much everything I do has something to do with art,” admitted Erzinclioglu. “The idea of getting paid to do something that I love and pretty much already do made sense to me.”
As if his life is not busy enough, Erzinclioglu also DJs and creates visual art for fun. It is also important to note that he has actually toured with Canadian electronic musician known as Koushik, however he mentioned that music is something he does on the side as a hobby—his interests are more rooted in the behind-the-scenes work.
“It’s interesting to see the different perspectives on the music industry. I have gotten the musician’s point of view and now I am seeing the business side of it.”
Want to get involved? CJAM is located in the basement of UWindsor’s CAW Student Centre and is always seeking new volunteers.
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