2/16/07, 5:55 pm EST

Week Five Finalist: Brent Baldwin on a Radio DJ

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Note: This is not an official Rolling Stone article. What follows is a submission to the “I’m From Rolling Stone” writing competition.

by Brent Baldwin
Age: 35

Radio DJ Chris Bopst wants you to stay clean.

That’s why he’s offering “musical penicillin in a world trying to give you audio syphilis,” as his show motto goes. His eclectic and popular program, “The Bopst Show,” is heard weekdays on WCLM 1450 AM, an African American-owned-and-operated station specializing in southern gospel, soul, and R&B oldies.
Bopst, however, is a smoky-voiced, 40-year-old white guy reared in the D.C. hardcore scene.

“I find the same quality of redemption in the music I play,” he explains. “For me, the spiritual power of the Bad Brains and Mahalia Jackson are the same … The goosebumps don’t lie.”

With his shaved dome and thick-framed retro glasses, he could easily be mistaken for comedian David Cross, a former guest on his show. The son of an artist mother and jazz musician father, Bopst moved to Richmond in the early ‘80s to study sculpture. While in college, he co-founded the shock metal act, GWAR, later playing bass for SST and Dischord bands.

On air, Bopst is a fast-talking rant machine. His confrontational, non-p.c. style of humor recalls legendary comedian Bill Hicks, one of his heroes. Check his MySpace page and you’ll see a graphic Teen People cover he designed showing Britney Spears being fellated by a dog.

Sample playlists include anyone from Nina Simone and The Clash to Bollywood stars, Slayer, Negativeland and audio collages of Dubya calling himself “slobbering honeybaby” and “Sir Butts-a-lot.” Anything but jamband music, which makes him vomit.

His work philosophy is simple.

“Commercial radio doesn’t have to be a gutless, soul-destroying experience in corporate-mandated homogeny,” he says.

Bopst also just became a father, but don’t expect him to soften up. “If anything, it’s made me more hateful,” he says. “And more determined to help make the world interesting.”