For the first time since the fall of 1989 on KGRO/KOMX in Pampa, Texas, my very first job out of college, I am playing disc jockey. Tom Petty Radio (Sirius XM channel 31) selected me a couple of months ago to be this week’s Last DJ. The Last DJ is a 30-minute show in which listeners play five of their favorite Tom Petty songs and talk about Tom and his music. So, about three weeks ago, I employed one of our youth ministers, J.E. Bundy, to help me record the audio and the show aired last night.

It was a blast. Of course.

I don’t think I said anything about Tom Petty and his music that I haven’t written before in this space, but it was a really cool experience to put it all together into one, hopefully, coherent presentation to be heard by devoted Tom Petty fans all over the country. And the world. I mean, this is the official Tom Petty radio station, and I’m on it all week!

Carrie-Anne and I were sitting on the couch listening to it together last night when, during the fourth song, I received a text from an old friend from college–back in the late 80s! He lives in Tulsa, I’ve probably only seen him once or twice in the past 15 years, but he and his wife were driving home from a restaurant and heard me talking on the radio! He texted me and we went back and forth for almost an hour. It seemed at once completely random and totally logical.

I also received an email through our church website from a woman who lives here in Midland, just wanting to tell me she enjoyed the show and how proud she was to hear somebody on Tom Petty Radio from Midland, Texas.

My show re-runs at a different time, once a day, for the rest of this week. It’s channel 31 on Sirius XM. Here’s the schedule:

Today – 12n 
Wednesday – 5a
Thursday – 9p
Friday – 11a
Saturday – 8p
Sunday – 7a

Or you can listen to it right now in the Tom Petty Radio archives.

If you don’t have a subscription, I don’t know how you listen to it.

Here are the five songs I selected, for reasons I explain during the show:

Even the Losers
The Wild One, Forever
Love is a Long Road
Sins of My Youth
King’s Highway

The most difficult part of the whole process was trying to explain to Mark Felsott via email how to correctly pronounce my last name. Driving into work this morning, I heard him promoting The Last DJ on his morning show and he pronounced it exactly right. The ‘R’ is silent.

Peace,
Allan