COFFEE WITH ... J.B. & SANDY

Morning radio duo are 'always looking for the funny angle'

By Michael Barnes
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, November 20, 2008

Every class has its clown. A smart mouth. A wiseacre.

I don't remember future radio jock J.B. Hager playing that role in my classroom.

Yet I distinctly recall his permanently crooked smile, noted while team-teaching Introduction to Theater at the University of Texas during the 1980s. You'd looked into his half-curious, half-worldly features and guess: This student is on to the joke. Not much will sneak past him in life.

Nowadays, Hager is paid a nice salary — he won't say how much — to clown around on Mix 94.7 with his longtime on-air buddy Sandy McIlree. The team understands their peculiarly zany roles in the entertainment universe, a space they share with a dozen other Austin drive-time jocks, with whom Hager and McIlree swear they are friendly. At least, for now.

They work — some listeners might not call it that — to make people smile during their highly competitive broadcast slot, which starts before most people make breakfast and ends before lunch. Yet they also try to do a little good along the way.

"We're always looking for the funny angle," Hager says. "We'll flip-flop on any subject. For instance, on health insurance for Austin musicians, I'd say: 'I play the comb, so do I get insurance? ' "

"But then you know people come from all over the world to see these musicians," McIlree interjects. "So maybe they should get some help."

If Hager is the book-smart, rocker-cool class comedian, McIlree is his good-natured enabler, the one who often sneaks in the funnier line while nobody is paying attention. Hunched over midday coffee, the rumpled and slightly stooped Hager still views the world warily, but with an indulgent glint in his eye and ready cackle for life's ironies. McIlree, on the other hand, is like a big, shiny kid, his enormous head craned out with goofy amazement and an endless font of good will.

On air, they play tricks (once staging a casting call for a fake reality show called "Teen Momma: The Race to Get Pregnant"); they puncture hypocrisy (a recent target: people who move downtown then complain about the loud music); and interview guests from far and wide (last week, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called in to talk about her little-publicized Texas connections; Lance Armstrong and Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo have made popular appearances).

But don't accuse the duo of practicing shock talk, the filthy-mouthed, transcendent talk radio format of the 1980s and '90s that has since surrendered to industry overkill and FCC standards after the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction.

"We all saw her nipple so we can't be outrageous anymore," Hager jokes. "In Austin, listeners get tired of that quickly anyway. If we ever get too blue, our listeners say, 'Now, come on guys, take a step back.' "

"You can still go to a lot of towns and you can hear shock radio," McIlree says. "It can be good for ratings but not for revenue. Advertisers don't want to be associated with it."

Though not exactly shocking, Hager still wants "people to drop their jaw: 'I can't believe they just said that.' "

They've learned to stay away from political controversy.

"We don't take a hard line on anything," McIlree says. "We took hard lines in the past and we just got (slapped) for it. You realize you are in way over head in a savvy town like this. I'm just a ding-dong disc jockey. I don't know what I'm talking about."

"If someone confronts us, we deny, deny, deny," Hager says.

"They want to hear a tape of it, we say, we forgot to put it in the machine" McIlree says.

"And we contradict ourselves," Hager says. "We've gone to so far as just say, in the middle of an argument, OK let's just switch sides and we'll do it over again."

Besides shock radio, changing music styles and ownership consolidation, the pair has survived the passing threats from Internet and satellite delivery systems in the 13 years of their "terrestrial radio" partnership.

"They were having the same conversations when the Walkman came out," Hager says. "They said, 'Oh, radio's dead.' "

"Wall Street hasn't liked us for a long time," McIlree jokes. "But the radio business is good. Ninety-five percent of people use radio on a daily basis. It works."

The pair emphasizes the part radio plays in building local communities.

"We've always thought it was a responsibility to do stuff for the city," McIlree says. "A few years ago a police officer was killed, run over, and we said we have to do something about this, I mean, this is a cop. And we went out on the streets to four different spots around the city. In just a few hours, we came up with just over $20,000 for her family. We can just do it."

Besides raising money from others, they'll donate from their own resources.

"Last year, a mom sent us a frantic note: 'My kid's baseball team lost their sponsor.' " Hager says. "We jumped into his truck and went to Academy and bought them uniforms ourselves.

"We did this because we remembered what it was like when we were 9 years old and having those crappy uniforms and all the other teams had the real thing," Hager says, making sure they don't sound too much like saps for a sad story.

It's not always a trip to a discount store, either. They've raised more than $1 million for their favorite cause, Bikes for Kids, and funded a $750,000 room at the Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas, naming it for their late friend Kelly Davidson.

Both jocks are married, McIlree for a second time. They used to hit the party scene hard, but that's not easy when you rise for work before dawn.

"You feel like you're missing something," McIlree says. "Once you get over that, you're really not missing a whole lot."

Now they are more likely to partake in grown-up leisure, such as exploring Austin's restaurants and shopping districts.

"I challenge myself to go to different places," Hager says. "Now you have so many choices: Do I want to go to West Sixth or the Warehouse District or Red River or go east?"

They've even warmed to the Domain, every populist's favorite whipping boy.

"I kept telling my wife that it closed down," McIlree says. "It seemed so Dallas. But you know what it is? Disney for adult women."

"And the restaurants are good," Hager says, except it's hard to find the freeway exit for the upscale center. "I just park on MoPac (Boulevard) and walk."

But wait, after an hour of frenetic conversation, the interviewer still hasn't asked the standard questions.

McIlree is prepared anyway: "We wake up at 4:30 a.m. We live in separate homes and live separate lives. We have separate dogs. We don't do everything together. If you see me out without J.B., that's normal."

mbarnes@statesman.com; 445-3970