Mark Wheat
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
working at the Minnesota Public Radio
Minnesota Public Radio
Minnesota Public Radio , is the flagship National Public Radio member network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, Classical Music and The Current, MPR operates a 42-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest serving over 8 million people...
station KCMP
KCMP
-WCAL:The station began with physics experiments in 1918 when five students and a professor built a small radio transmitter at St. Olaf College. Using a wire antenna strung between the campus chapel and the college's "Old Main" , signals from these experiments were picked up as far away as New...
where he provides one of the outlet's unique voices because of his accent
Accent (linguistics)
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...
. Wheat grew up in the small town of Clenchwarton
Clenchwarton
Clenchwarton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is located on the west side of the River Great Ouse, about 2 km from the river and from the town of King's Lynn on the east side of the river....
, near King's Lynn
King's Lynn
King's Lynn is a sea port and market town in the ceremonial county of Norfolk in the East of England. It is situated north of London and west of Norwich. The population of the town is 42,800....
, Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, where he dreamed of becoming a radio host while listening to legendary British DJ John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
. His first radio break came when offered the chance to guest on the briefly incandescent Big Joe Wilson show on CXR Hospital Radio where he riffed with luminaries of the 80’s radio scene such as Karl ‘The Teaman’ Warkus, KY’s Doodie Watson Jones and the Fruit Poets - Fringer Turner and Chucky C Farren. The interweaving of soulful talk and thoughtful music which was such a hallmark of the show, would prove a useful addition to Mark’s kitbag when he later moved to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and picked up his radio career.
Before settling in Minnesota, Wheat lived in St Louis, Missouri; North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
; and Hoboken, New Jersey
Hoboken, New Jersey
Hoboken is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population was 50,005. The city is part of the New York metropolitan area and contains Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub for the region...
.
While living in the area of New York City, Wheat became interested in the WFMU
WFMU
WFMU is a listener-supported, independent community radio station headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, broadcasting at 91.1 MHz FM, presenting a freeform radio format...
radio station in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, and spent some time there. He eventually moved to the Twin Cities region of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
where he became heavily involved in the local music scene and did radio shows on KFAI
KFAI
KFAI is a community radio station in Minnesota. The station broadcasts a wide variety of music, and also airs programming catering to many of the diverse ethnic groups of the region...
and the short-lived Zone 105 (now known as Love 105). During the mid to late 1990s, he hosted Local Sound Department on KFAI
KFAI
KFAI is a community radio station in Minnesota. The station broadcasts a wide variety of music, and also airs programming catering to many of the diverse ethnic groups of the region...
, and also worked at Zone where he did a show named Across the Pond which focused on what was happening back in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
In 1998, he was hired to work at the University of Minnesota's music station, 770 Radio K (KUOM), which is one of the most popular college radio stations in the country. Wheat spent six years at the station, acting as program coach, DJ, and host of the weekend show The Music Lover's Club. He became so identified with Radio K that he was inadvertently labeled in the local press as head of the station. However, Wheat was just part of a small full-time staff that oversees students who do much of the work at the station. As his time there came to an end, Wheat expressed confidence in the ability of the students to continue the station's mission.
Internet radio
Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...
streams or iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
s and other portable devices. In an interview made shortly after the station's launch, Wheat expressed hope that those former radio listeners might be drawn back to the medium, and therefore might discover (or rediscover) Radio K and KFAI.
Wheat has related a number of different personal stories in between playing songs on the radio. One unusual occurrence happened when he was living in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. Some of his friends convinced The Minutemen to come and make a personal performance on his birthday
Birthday
A birthday is a day or anniversary where a person celebrates his or her date of birth. Birthdays are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with a gift, party or rite of passage. Although the major religions celebrate the birth of their founders , Christmas – which is celebrated widely by...
. He has also mentioned that many people—even in his home country—mistake his accent for Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n. This is somewhat to be expected, though, since he has now spent decades in the United States.
Several awards have been granted to Mark Wheat in recognition of his talents. Most recently, he won the City Pages
City Pages
City Pages is an alternative weekly newspaper serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. It features news, film, theatre and restaurant reviews, and music criticism. It is printed in a tabloid format, and is available free every Wednesday...
readers' poll for "Best AM Radio Personality" in the 2004 Best of the Twin Cities awards.
The Fall, a punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
group from Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, is his all-time favorite musical group. He's also a fan of Manchester United
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
club. He attended the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
while members of The Gang of Four
Gang of Four (band)
Gang of Four are an English post-punk group from Leeds. Original personnel were singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, bass guitarist Dave Allen and drummer Hugo Burnham. They were fully active from 1977 to 1984, and then re-emerged twice in the 1990s with King and Gill...
were seniors and during the time The Mekons formed. David Gedge
David Gedge
David Gedge is an English musician and songwriter. He is the main songwriter and vocalist in the bands The Wedding Present and Cinerama...
of The Wedding Present
The Wedding Present
The Wedding Present are a British indie rock group based in Leeds, England, formed in 1985 from the ashes of the Lost Pandas. The band's music has evolved from fast-paced indie rock in the vein of their most obvious influences The Fall, Buzzcocks and Gang of Four to more varied forms...
was also entered the university at the same time, although Wheat didn't meet him until an interview years later.
Quotes
- "Stay safe, be peaceful to one another, and I'll see you tomorrow" – a common signoff
- "I think we're all radio-heads as well as music-heads, so there's a part of us that doesn't want to see radio as a medium die. I think that's part of what we're doing, trying to reinvigorate people's passion for radio and trust in it as a medium where they can find out about music."