Surrounded by rooms of display cases filled with CDs and vinyl records, volunteer radio DJ Sara Grosky manages to find the misplaced Johnny Cash disc to complement the Japanese noise musician she just had spun.
The musical transition is seamless despite the genre shift, not unlike Grosky’s shift from the Department of Dance to LSA Biophysics student services administrator.
For seven years Grosky served as the administrator of the Department of Dance for the School of Music, Theatre & Dance before taking her current position with LSA Biophysics. “I felt I needed to focus on one specialty, which was student services,” she says.
As an avid music lover, Grosky started as a voice major before transferring to U-M during her undergraduate term to earn a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing and literature in 1992. She worked in New York in the advertising industry for several years before earning a Master of Arts in creative writing at Eastern Michigan University in 1999.
During her education, Grosky had come to realize that what she really wanted to do was work with students, as she did first in the Department of Dance and now with doctoral students in LSA Biophysics.
It was also during this time that Grosky began spinning discs. On Wednesday evenings Grosky enters the colorful poster-laden basement of the Student Activities Building, sometimes called “the Belly of the Beast,” and prepares the playlist for her 6-8 p.m. free-form show on WCBN 88.3 FM. Using the pseudonym Saramin, she likes to keep her airtime improvised.
“This is seat-of-your-pants radio,” she says while searching for a song among the catacombs of CD display cases. “I often get to say to myself, ‘This would sound great if I played it after this piece!’ That is the height of free-form.”
Grosky also collects, and estimates to have collected more than 3,000 CDs and 150 vinyl records. “I can’t pick a favorite,” she says, “There are simply too many.” Her collection started in high school, and she frequents Encore Recordings in Ann Arbor to expand it.
Among the music she collects are experimental rhythms, Inuit chanting, jazz, electronic soundtracks and much more. Grosky often uses her collection on the air, including older tracks from The Jam, along with new songs from Deerhunter. “The basement of WCBN is full of great music,” she says as she lays down a Cecil Taylor vinyl, “and it makes my job so much more enjoyable. I get to browse the new music and all of these rooms filled with good stuff. I wish I had this many CDs at home.”
When not collecting or spinning, Grosky practices her bass guitar. She was a member of two bands, contributing vocals to both as well as bass for one of them, a punk power trio. She often plays along with her collected records. “I love how thick and satisfying the low tones of the bass are,” she says. A recording microphone is one of her future musical purchases, she says.
“Before I was a DJ, I was a purveyor and a performer,” Grosky says. “But as a DJ, I can be a performer, a purveyor and an educator by playing different kinds of music for the community.”
Her knowledge of music has come in handy for students. A dance student looking for suggestions for his senior thesis concert looked to Grosky. “He asked for some suggestions for noise music,” Grosky says. “He used it and I was thrilled.”
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