A little background.

I graduated from the Connecticut School of Broadcasting in December of 1969 and went home to Poughkeepsie, New York for a job as a newsman at WHVW in Hyde Park.

Admittedly, I wasn't much for news at the time. I had grown up with music; I had been in popular local bands all through high school and college. I wanted music. I wanted to be a DJ.

The Program Director, the late Tom Shovan, had a buddy who was also a PD, in Burlington, Vermont, and who happened to have an opening. So, on February 14, 1970, with as much of my life as I could fit in my '67 Mustang, I headed north in a ridiculous snowstorm.

The elevator music at what was then WJOY-FM didn't exactly suit me either: you should have seen the look on the GM's face when I dropped in Brubeck's "Take Five" (somewhat a departure from Percy Faith and Mantovani). After a year I was heading still further north, to WWSR-FM in St. Albans. They had an interesting mix of contemporary hits and album cuts that I really liked.

Somehow, I ended up doing something like 90% of the commercial production for both AM and FM on what had to be the worst equipment in the state (e.g., a Craig consumer reel-to-reel), but you make do and you learn a lot. WWSR, by the way, was affectionately known as "World's Worst Sounding Radio." All I can say is, it wasn't my fault.

When the FM automated in 1972 (the first rock station in Vermont to do so), I decided to find other employment approaching gainful and got into a federal position. Even so, they still had me at WWSR three nights a week doing production for over a year. It took moving forty miles away to get me out of so-called radio completely.

I got back in on a part time basis in 1980, first at WDOT in Burlington for a couple of years (absolutely loving the "Golden Greaser Weekends"), then WVMT for more than nine. During that time, I was "discovered" as a voiceover talent/producer by Paul Kaza Associates and other agencies in the Burlington area, and also became staff announcer for Vermont Public Television (back then it was called Vermont ETV).

For nearly ten years, you might not have known my face or my name, but you sure knew my voice. If you listened to radio or watched TV at all in Vermont (or adjacent New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts or Quebec) in a given day, you were likely to hear something I had done, from "You're watching Vermont ETV" to commercials for F.J.Preston Jewellers, the Franklin-Lamoille Bank and the Church Street Marketplace, to name a few; a TV spot for the Vermont Department of Tourism that was seen pretty much everywhere but in Vermont. I was also quite active in amateur theatre, mostly with the Essex Community Players.

All of this in addition to my "day job" as Contract Specialist in the US Immigration Service Regional Office in Burlington.

One year, Kaza's efforts on behalf of the Marketplace (for which I did all of the radio and TV) won an award for Best Overall Campaign from a statewide association of advertising people called The Ad Club: they handed out "Pegasus" awards at an annual banquet.

There hasn't been a lot of commercial work since the early Nineties, which I chalk up to a general unwillingness on the part of advertisers to pay for something they can get for free from the stations (and that's a shame: there are only so many voices at a given station, and your commercial sounds pretty much like everyone else's). Instead, it's mostly long form narrations (training videos, trade show presentations, etc.) and quite a few interactive CD-ROMs.

With modern computer technology, I don't have to schlep to a studio sixty miles away to do a recording. I can do it right at home, in my pajamas if I choose. What a life.

The links below will get you to MP3s of a few commercials I did (please bear in mind that these had to be converted from analog tape. New recordings will sound much better).

If you think I sound right for you, give me a call at 802-848-8087, or email me.

Matt