With apologies to Tom Petty and his intended subject, Jim Ladd, Mason Kelter may be our last DJ.
Kelter is the host of Party LiveLine. On Memorial Day, just after I profiled WHYA (Y101) Cape Cod, Mass., Kelter moved his weekend show there to weeknights, with owner John Garabedian taking over the weekend slot. In July, it was announced that Party LiveLine would begin syndication in August.
Kelter graduated from high school in 2019. But he became a production assistant/social-media advisor on Garabedian’s Open House Party in 2015 (and a local DJ at home in Wisconsin, and a wedding event/DJ, and he ran an online radio station). Kelter moved east, joining Y101 in March.
That might seem a particularly fast ascent to nationally syndicated night-show host, but Kelter has clearly prepared. There are moments when Kelter reminds you of hearing Garabedian, especially the host’s little roguish asides. Then again, Kelter started calling Garabedian on OHP a decade ago. Sounding like OHP is a good thing, and I doubt either person will be offended by my pointing that out.
But there are also conversational moments when Kelter reminded me most of the radio-station salesperson who has learned to chat with anybody about anything. The bio recalls Futuri’s Daniel Anstandig, but the prodigiousness also reminds one a little of early Ryan Seacrest, especially the slightly edgier version heard on KYSR (Star 98.7) Los Angeles in the mid-‘90s. And it says something about today’s radio that Anstandig and Seacrest comprised the bulk of the “radio prodigies” category for 25 years.
Mostly, Kelter deejays — doing “over-the-intros” content of the sort familiar to longtime radio listeners, but increasingly unknown to the younger audience that broadcast radio needs to repatriate. I tuned in one Friday night and heard a top-25 countdown of the sort that was once a weekly staple on local CHR. Kelter talks about the music itself a lot more than I’m used to these days. He always draws request callers out, and sometimes the question is, “What are you doing tonight,” but often it’s, “What do you like about that song?”
When OHP launched in the late ‘80s, local radio-station programmers were hesitant about giving up their own night shows. Party LiveLine is looking to fill a need for those stations that, after the personnel crunch of the last year, are either voice-tracked in nights or jockless, something that was once unimaginable on CHR.
There’s one thing you hope might be the same. OHP’s early years were sparked by flagship WXKS (Kiss 108) Boston also being the local station for New Kids on the Block. Garabedian has said that the show was saved from the CHR doldrums in the late-‘90s by the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync. At this writing, BTS’s “Dynamite” has slowed down after its fast start at CHR, but there’s certainly a realization in the format that CHR needs another teen-pop infusion from somewhere, which would be good for PLL as well.
Here’s how the Sept. 16 PLL was structured in terms of features (all interspersed with a lot of calls and usual over-the-intros business):
7 p.m. – Mystery artist feature (“Who Sings This”); artist birthdays; Kelter solicits callers/texts for the question of the day (“what was the most embarrassing text you’ve ever sent by accident?”).
8 p.m. – Question of the day payoff (one respondent accidentally sent the text that revealed that she was living with a co-worker); “Secret Sound”; “Bad-Ass Breakthrough,” spotlighting a new song, in this case Marshmello & Demi Lovato’s “OK Not to Be OK.”
9 p.m. – “TikTok Cover Block” lets listeners vote on snippets of two online cover versions — an acoustic guitar version of Chris Brown’s “Forever” is the winner over a piano-ballad treatment of “Watermelon Sugar”; this is also the hour with artist interviews when applicable (recent ones included Ava Max and Jason Derulo).
10 p.m. – The “Throwback Hour” ranges from the relatively recent to mid-‘00s titles. It can be “Thank U, Next” or “Teenage Dream.”
11 p.m. – Commercial-free hour, emphasizing remixes and new music. The show ends with a recap of the top 5 and Kelter playing the No. 1 song (which had been 24KGOLDN f/Ian Diorr’s “Mood” for the past few nights).
And here’s a monitor of PLL music in the 7 p.m. hour:
- Harry Styles, “Watermelon Sugar”
- Cheat Codes, “No Promises”
- Topic & A7S, “Breaking Me”
- The Weeknd, “Blinding Lights”
- Kane Brown f/Khalid & Swae Lee, “Be Like That”
- Avicii f/Aloe Blacc, “Wake Me Up” (the “Who Sings This” mystery song)
- Black Eyed Peas f/ J. Balvin, “RITMO (Bad Boys for Life)”
- Jawsh 685 x Jason Derulo, “Savage Love”
- BTS, “Dynamite”
- Post Malone, “Better Now”
- Saint JHN, “Roses”
- Juice WLRD f/Marshmello, “Come and Go”
- Joel Corry X MNEK, “Head and Heart”
- Jay Sean, “Down”
I hope Kelter doesn’t end up being the last DJ — or at least the last person who wants to do this kind of deejaying. I’ve maintained throughout the last five years that if broadcast radio really gives up the personality and companionship franchises that the pureplays will finally pick it up, something already heard on Apple Music’s growing radio portfolio. At least Garabedian and Kelter are speaking to a listener who might want to be on the radio in a decade.
