First of all, this page had this title long before Ricky Martin came up with that dumbass song! ;) My name is Fred Sowder and I am now a resident of Gainesville, Florida, USA. For those of you not familiar, Gainesville is located in the northern part of the state and is the home of the University of Florida . I've been enrolled part time in grad school at the College of Journalism and Communications with a specialty in telecommunication, but I'm currently on hiatus due to my 50-hour-a-week plus job.
Anyway, I was born in Miami, FL (hence the above Spanish) and have lived in Florida my entire life. One of my main passions is travelling, though. I go to the world-famous Mardi Gras in New Orleans every year with a very motley group of individuals (1991-1999, 2000). I also like to attend the CMJ Music Marathon in New York, the Music Midtown festival in Atlanta, and other places where great music can be found. I also drove to Saugerties, New York for Woodstock '94, a truly memorable experience.
My main love would have to be music. I've worked at several radio stations in the South Florida area. I began my career at WVUM 90.5FM , a very cool college station located at the University of Miami , which is where I did my undergraduate studies in Broadcasting and Geography. After graduation, I worked at WIOD , a talk station in Miami (now all-news), and did promotions for Hot 105 , also in Miami (well, actually, their transmitter's in Coral Gables, but let's not get technical here :) ). I then worked on air at Coast 97.3fm (WFLC) for a few years, but was laid off thanks to the modern art of automation (thanks, Tip!). I then became the host of "The Perimeter" the show highlighting all things electronic,airing every Sunday from 8pm to midnight on Kiss 105.3 FM! Fortunately, it's one of the few stations in the state that has yet to be sucked up by the corporate machine that is making radio such a musically devoid and uncreative entity. This station, along with Rock 104 (where I worked as Promotions Director on a graduate assistantship) here in Gainesville, are some of the few as yet non-corporate stations. 97X has unfortunately been recently purchased by Entercom, Inc. and promply dismantled and moved to 97.3FM where the station has re-debuted as a talk station, WSKY Sky King (now called "The Sky" because they were threatened with legal action and had to change their name), airing such truly horrible programs as Rush "Lardass" Limbaugh and Dr. "It's All Your Fault, Silly!" Laura Schlessinger. Unfortunately, they didn't do the right thing and leave well enough alone. I'll get off my soapbox now. With all that's going on, is it any wonder why I'm not in radio at the moment?!??!
By the way, some friends of mine have some sites, too, like Russ's or Lenny's home page or even the Mac-obsessed Fajita's home page. Fajita's a friend of mine from WIOD in Miami, by the way.
Speaking of WIOD, I've worked with some great people there over the years, including the infamous Neil Rogers , the inimitable Phil Hendrie, and that wild and wacky guy known as Chris Baker . Thanks to the WIOD diaspora (mainly due to its changing hands THREE times in a year's time...don't get me started! :P), we're all now working at other places. Neil Rogers is now heard on Sportsradio 560 WQAM in Miami. Click here to hear their live broadcast.com feed. Phil Hendrie now has a nationally-synicated show out of Los Angeles at KFI . Click here to experience some of his greatest moments from out there on realaudio ! Finally, Chris Baker is working the morning show at some station in Omaha (hear that, Chris, let me know!), which is also the home of the ever-amazing band 311 . His site can be found at http://www.chrisbaker.com . While at WIOD, I also was the original producer of Byte Me , 610 WIOD's Computer Show, hosted by Dave Marcus, who is also the president of the ISP Netrox (formerly and still Bridge.Net). Fajita has since taken over those duties. WIOD also can be heard in real-time by clicking here.
What else is going on with my future in terms of finding a steady career, continuing education, etc.? The answer is:
Who the hell knows???
...but thanks for asking! It may all shake out one of these days. Life tends to be a bit crazy like that.
All this combined with a freak accident on March 19, 1998, where I was scalped by a sign at the bottom of a hill when I lost control of my bicycle in the rain just makes life that much crazier. Just keep saying "I'm not crazy, it's just the rest of the world." It's a credo that sure works for me.
For the moment, check out my very lame attempt (at least thus far), at a Sarah McLachlan page. :) Yeah, sucks, doesn't it. ;) Finally, remember that there's a time and a place for everything: it's called college. :)