WEDNESDAYS 7AM

Salwa Khan:
I'm speaking with John McGimsey and Tanya Tyler, and their show is The Wake-Up Club on Wednesdays from seven to nine AM. Let’s get a little bit of background on each of you. Tanya, why don't you start?

Tanya Tyler: 
I have been a professional in the radio industry for over 16 years, and I have done Seattle to Florida. I've been a co-host of morning shows and afternoon drive. I am also at this moment, a real estate agent, and I'm fairly new to the Wake-Up Club show, within the last two months.

Salwa Khan: 
All right. And John, let's get a little background on you.

John McGimsey: 
I have a shorter stint in radio. I've been doing it about three years. I was born and raised in North Carolina and moved to Texas in 1994. My mother-in-law discovered Wimberley about 18 years ago and got a little place on the creek, and we followed suit.
I started with the radio station three years ago, producing the Far Side Show with Dee Rambeau and Abby Vasek. And then we evolved into the Empower community with Dee Rambeau and myself. I do that show with Dee on Fridays and started doing the Wednesday Wake-Up Club show last September. Tanya came on this year (2024) and we've been doing it ever since.

Salwa Khan:
How did you first get into radio, Tanya?

Tanya Tyler: 
I was managing a Starbucks store for about five years, and I had a radio program director that was one of my clients. He kept saying, you should come on because you talk all the time. I can teach you how to run a board, but I can't teach you how to talk on the radio. We need somebody to do a fill-in show from ten PM to one o'clock in the morning, and that was my first two months of a gig. I quit Starbucks and went in that direction and did this overnight show, and it evolved into one of three shows that were with female hosts.
Then they switched me to the morning show with another female, and we were one of three in the entire country, one being in Los Angeles, one being in Washington, and I think one being somewhere on the East Coast. They hired a coach that was Jimmy Kimmel and Ryan Seacrest's coach. And that was the beginning of my radio career.

Salwa Khan:
Where was that?


Tanya Tyler: This was in Washington state, believe it or not. They hired him (the coach) because he was really good at what he did. I think this is funny, but they were trying to create a show to put on MTV (Music Television). This guy had all these connections in Los Angeles, and they wanted to have our show be a reality show on MTV. At that time, reality was big with Survivor. It just kind of fizzled out being a TV show. But then we stayed together for almost two years as a morning radio show.

Salwa Khan:
Interesting! John, how did you become interested in radio?

John McGimsey:
I did a little radio show in high school. We recorded the music in the band practice room and did the “we funk radio”. So we were WFNK and just played R & B and seventies funk music. And then they played it in the commons area, which was the cafeteria. It made it sound like you're listening to a real radio station. That was really it. 

I was a theater and journalism wannabe and went to college to do that initially, but not until I listened to the radio in Wimberley did I get involved as a volunteer. I wanted to know everything that Brach Thomas (KWVH Production Director) did. I wanted all the back-office stuff. I wanted to learn the boards and do all that. It really just evolved into a little more than that.

Salwa Khan: 
Okay. Tanya, how do you go about producing the Wake-Up Club show?

Tanya Tyler:
After the show, we always kind of look at where we can change or where we need to tighten up things or make things a little bit more creative. Our goal is to bring the listener in and have them be more part of the show and have our show connect to people on many different levels, not just driving to work, but maybe streaming and listening to us.
John runs the board, or I run the board. We go back and forth. We both have that knowledge, which is really beautiful to have. 

We have different topics that we talk about and sometimes on the fly, we'll come up with something completely different, during the show. We've come up with a new one which is going to be the slapstick second and that's going to have some comedy involved. And we play a lot of music.
We produce the show thinking of the listener. If John or I were driving in the car, how would we want to be entertained, or how would we want to connect to the people that are in that show?

Salwa Khan:
How do you pick your music?

Tanya Tyler:
John's a master at it!

Salwa Khan: Tell us about that, John.

John McGimsey:
Thank you, Tanya, for the compliment! I think Tanya hit the nail on the head. We want people to listen to the show and relate. We want it to be upbeat, where you're getting ready for your day, and the music and interaction are motivating. If we joke, if you find yourself tapping your foot or bobbing your head as you're pouring your coffee or getting dressed, all the better.
I've always been fond of 70s, 80s and 90s music. Then just in the last few months, I'm getting feedback that, hey, we like the 60s as well. And so we started doing 60s through 80s. I won't play anything quiet, in the doldrums or melancholy, but I'll do upbeat fun. It’s not skull crushing, but as one wakes up, I want to hear some happy music that gets my day going.

Salwa Khan:
What are the challenges of doing the show, Tanya?

Tanya Tyler: 
I don't know if I see any challenges. I think that John and I are kind of like shoes. We fit really well together. I mean, I've worked with a lot of co-hosts in my career. The one thing that I would say about John is he is just so easy flowing and I’m easy flowing. So we just kind of meld together. I guess we always look at the positive. That's what I like about him a lot is he's really super positive and we're positive together, and it flows out into the radio. John might have a different answer.

John McGimsey:
I think you're spot on. There are several things, in a minor way. Are we connecting with our audience? Do people like what we're playing? Are we impacting the community?
As everyone knows, radio has a challenge with the era of technology. So you have your playlist and you have your all these easy access music portals that can pull people away from radio. So the challenge is, is it worth listening to Tanya and John for these two hours as I'm driving to work or to drop off the kids? I think about that often. 
Other than that, we connect and we do fit together. It's fun. We feel like we're gelling in a way that people like to hear, and we do get good feedback from our group.
We have our regular listeners who, we’ll get a text message after the show. Hey, great show. And this was funny or do more of this or less of that. So it's good. But one thing that I want to keep in the forefront of our minds is are we making an impact?

Tanya Tyler:
They do have so many choices nowadays. As we evolve and grow together and become solid in this show and make the listener part of our show, we really are inviting listeners to call in and request songs. If you want to call in, we'll give you the number. You can call in. We've just started that recently, but it's going to grow. If you look at traditional radio, because I've been in radio for so long, and I'm not doing it professionally, getting paid for it now, but If you look back in the eighties, the nineties, you were able to call in and request songs. The industry has changed so much, especially since 2008, 2009. It has taken a different trajectory into corporate America. If I remember the research, there's only like two percent or one percent that are independently owned. That's why our show is so unique because you can call in. If we happen to have it in the library, perfect, we'll play it for you.

John McGimsey:
Yeah, connecting to that listener and letting that listener be the star of the show. That's the payoff.


Salwa Khan: What else would like to say about your show?

Tanya Tyler: The one thing I do want to stress is that when people are having fun at a party, people gravitate to that. I believe that whatever we are creating in that studio on Wednesday from, seven to nine is magical. And we want those people to be invited because it is such a fun place.
I mean, it is the middle of the work week. It could be kind of dragging us down a bit on stuff we have to do. Take the kids here, go to work here, whatever that is. But we want that morning for those two hours to be, hey, life is super happy. Life is great. No matter what's happening in the world, it is awesome.

John McGimsey: 
And we want that to be the focal point of every Wednesday morning for people.

Salwa Khan:
Thank you Tanya and John.