Saturday A.M. Toonz

 

Hi! I’m Ivan.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of “playing DJ” in the garage with my best friend—two ten-year-olds pretending to be 1970s AM radio boss jocks, back-announcing bubblegum hits into my portable Radio Shack cassette recorder. Yes, there were tapes. Thankfully, those relics have long since disappeared into the sands of time.

By my teens in the 1980s, my ears shifted from all-American stadium rock to the new wave, punk, and post-punk coming out of the UK. My first records—paid for with paper route money—came from the rows of new and used record stores along “The Ave” in Seattle’s University District.

In 1991, I got to be a real DJ. I was a Gen X intern who became a board operator, then eventually an overnight on-air host at a sixties-era oldies station. Our sister station was the “cool” alternative FM outlet at the time, but I don’t regret the path I took. At the oldies station, I built a strong foundation: learning radio craft, production, and the history of early rock ’n’ roll from a veteran DJ with an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre. In those pre-internet days, it was all about tribal knowledge being passed down from mentor to mentee.

Through the late ’90s and 2000s, I wandered musically—soaking up everything from club shows to outdoor festivals to arena concerts. My knowledge (and record collection) grew even larger, fed in part by the “free” music that defined the early file-sharing era.

In 2014, I relocated from Seattle to Tucson, where I discovered a whole new soundscape of desert-born national acts and vibrant local artists. By late 2019, I was back on the air at Downtown Radio, hosting one, then two, then three weekly shows before departing at the end of 2021. I’ve kept producing independently ever since, with shows available on my Mixcloud page.

Now, I’m thrilled to bring Saturday A.M. Toonz back to the terrestrial airwaves. It’s like a giant bowl of sugary cereal for the soul—power pop, pop punk, new wave, glam/glitter, and bubblegum pop/punk. The show isn’t about cartoons so much as it is about fun: an oasis from all the cruddy stuff happening outside. I’m glad the Toonz are back on Downtown Radio, and I hope you’ll make them part of your Saturday morning routine!

 

Music submissions/feedback: SaturdayAMToonz@gmail.com

BlueSky Social: saturdayamtoonz.bsky.social