Written by Ian Zentner
KZSC is proud to present Aimee Hamel as October’s Programmer of the Month. Aimee graduated from UCSC back in the Fall of 2014. In the midst of majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in Electronic Music, Aimee fell into the warm hands of KZSC during her senior year.
When asked how she was introduced to the station, she recounted the day in Fall 2013 where she received a ride up to campus with her friend Nikki Nice, host of Stirrin’ the Soup. The KZSC Fall Pledge Drive was in full swing, and when offered to check out the station she took the opportunity. Aimee told us that, “There were pastries for the people working the phone lines. I volunteered right then and there, and I kept coming back.” Although, she did remark that, “I thought that there was always going to be a hefty stack of pastries at the station, and that was the only let down.”
For those of you who are not familiar with Aimee Hamel, you may be more familiar with her on air name of Aimdog Hamslice or DJ Rrr Rr Rr Rr RRR (think rooster call), depending on what show she was doing. Original starting out as Aimsky Hamdog, but unsatisfied with the handle, she was gifted the name Aimdog Hamslice through her mentor Olright back from CR8 Diggers Anonymous and now Du$ty Finger$. Aimee told us that, “He would announce me as a different name every week until he spit out Aimdog Hamslice, and that was that.”
Aimee’s primary show was Country Fried, which finished up a full year-run with the end of the summer schedule. The first show she was spinning was Irish Boyfriend. One Saturday morning, she needed to do some emergency subbing for the show directly after Irish Boyfriend. Struggling to come up with another three hours of music to play, she started spinning from a large stack of Country vinyl from the library. The fun and insanity that came from subbing that show, along with already having a passion for playing the fiddle and loving folk music, lead to what would be the creation of Country Fried. Over the Summer of 2015, Aimee was able to test out a new show known as Sexism, Drugs, and Rock n Roll, a show focused on showcasing female musicians only. Currently, Aimee is still a part of the Lagniappe and Local Brew collectives.
When asked about what kind of advice Aimee would give to those getting started in college and radio, she said:
Do what you want. The pressure of other’s people’s eyes adds up, and made me feel like doing things that I didn’t want to do, or not do things that I did want to do. Be selfish, but not cruel. I wish I spoke up in class. Whenever I would listen to the radio, it seemed like a thing that was so far away that I would never get close enough to it to see where it was broadcasting from, yet alone have my own show. It’s such an amazing place, and it’s right on campus. You do have to hike up a hill to get there, but getting to any class is a trek. I always struggled with talking in front of large groups of people, and radio has really helped me with that. It’s a lot easier to talk in front of people if you can’t see them 🙂
Aimee is planning to move to the Bay Area soon after scoring an internship at WAM (Women’s Audio Mission). WAM is the only non-profit recording studio in the world that was built and run by women. Less than 5% of people working in the audio industry are women, and WAM’s goal is to “change the face of sound.”
Thank you Aimee for all the hard work you have put into making KZSC the community station we all love.