Over the past five years, Surplus Property Manager Sam McGuire a.k.a. Disk Jockey Big Fat Sac has been playing the radio show ‘Wash Behind Your Ears’ on 88.1 WKNC. Last Monday was Sam’s last broadcast and Technician sat down with him to commemorate his accomplished career.

McGuire’s last song on the air had a special meaning for both himself and his listeners.

“[The song is] by a band called Heat Miser, who was Elliot Smith’s old band before he passed away,” McGuire said. “The name of the song is ‘See You Later.’ I picked it out for obvious reasons from the title, it seemed like an appropriate send off song. The song always kind of seemed to me as saying see you later to stuff in your life that you maybe don’t want to go back to. A lot of what brought me to KNC was trying get out and be social and meet new people.”

He also spoke about the effect that KNC had on his life in North Carolina.

McGuire said, “I moved down here from New York and the trouble with moving somewhere from another place is the tendency to hang out with people you are familiar with. KNC was a real big part of opening myself up to new experiences and the song fit into that.”

The move south from New York was an easy decision for McGuire.

“I’m originally from Liverpool, New York which is a small town outside ofSyracuse. I moved down here in August of 2001. The main reason was that I was just working a job in Liverpool after high school and didn’t have any reason not to go anywhere else. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the average temperature or 100 or so inches of snow that fall each winter, but I was more than happy when my friend called up and expressed the need for a roomate to help pay his share of the rent to move down to the wonderful weather here,” McGuire said.

His career with the school began seemingly by chance.

“I began working for [N.C. State] because I put out a bunch of applications when I got down here and I got hooked up with the University Temporary Services here on campus. I ended up working with the Surplus program. I started cleaning up the place and moved up from there, started driving the box trucks picking up the surplus.”

When McGuire got to North Carolina, it piqued his interest.

“The whole time, from the get go, I happened on KNC. When I was in high school, I had gotten involved with this university radio station and I was the holiday sub for when the students would go home for holiday break and summer break. They had an indie rock show, the station at that time was primarily a hip hop station but they had a three hour show every week that was indie rock and I got involved with that. I had some experience and I was a real big fan of independent music and all the stuff that comes along with that. When I moved down here and discovered that [N.C. State] had a fantastic radio station, I was super excited,” McGuire said.

He began trying to get involved.

“I was already a big fan and the first year or two that Iwas living down here working for [N.C. State], I would always say topeople, ‘Man, I would love to start working at that radio station.’ My friends that I had known from New York told me that I should see what I could do about it,” McGuire said. “I felt like I couldn’t just walk in there if they didn’t know who I was, but eventually I would call in, make requests and listen to the show pretty regularly. I thought one day, ‘What have I got to lose,’ and I made my way to the studio.”

McGuire spoke with the General Manager about a position.

“At that time, WKNC wasn’t quite as popular of a student destination as far as demand for shifts and so they had some shifts that needed filling. I went through the training process and picked up the shifts. That was September 2003,” said McGuire.

He also said that this position had not existed before his arrival.

“About a year or two ago, they did some changes as to who could be involved with Student Media,” Mcguire said. “They made an exception for what they called community volunteers. It’s a student radio station and you have to be a full-time student in good standing, but there are exceptions for members of the community that help out in various capacities, like training new DJs. To my knowledge, as far as employee goes, I don’t know that there has ever been another full-time staff or faculty deal at KNC,” said McGuire.

McGuire was put in charge of the Double Barrel Benefit which raised money for the station.

“[The Double Barrel Benefit] is something that was started right when I was coming on and was organized by the GM and people there,” McGuire said. “I took over was in 2006. I would go out and contact area bands and get them to donate their time and talent to play a concert for free. I would find a venue that would donate the nights at the venue so we could put on a show and use the money raised to help out with WKNC’s budget for the year. Stuff that [the artists and venues] would normally get compensated for, their Friday and Saturday nights, doing everything for free for WKNC was a great thing to witness.”

McGuire had a few ideas about how to spend his new free time.

“I’m going to keep doing what I like to do anyway, and that’s seeing musiclive,” McGuire said. “Living in the Triangle, we have the luxury of having a place flush with local artists. In the past year, I’ve become not only a husband, but a home-owner, and I have a lot of stuff I can do around here. I’m going to take it easy for a little while. Double Barrel Benefit would usually take up about five months of my time making sure everything was lined up. I’m going to relax, try to get back to some writing and maybe pick up an instrument and start making the music that I would normally be playing on the radio.”

Music obviously plays a huge roll in McGuire’s life.

“It’s always been the soundtrack of my day,” McGuire said. “If I’m not listening to music on my iPod or stereo, I’m humming a tune. On the floor [of the warehouse], I have a pair of computer speaker hooked up to my iPod on a rolling cart so I can move it around the warehouse with me. I kept it with me at all times,” said McGuire.

He also spoke about how he loved all types of music.

“To me, there really isn’t a bad genre of music,” McGuire said. “I bristle a little bit when I hear people say they don’t like indie rock, country or hip hop. You can’t really say there is a bad genre out there. You can say that there is a bad artist, absolutely. I’m a firm beliver though, that every genre has some talented people making some wonderful music and as long as you keep open-minded.”

As for his radio name came about from a high school nickname.

“It’s a little bit of an inside joke,” McGuire said. “Back when I was in high school, I used to torment this one DJ in the local area and just call up all the time. I’d call up as a 16, 17 year old kid and tell him, ‘Can you play this for me? This is for Sam. Play it for Sam will you?’ I had a nickname back then which was ‘Mad Man Sam,’ that was actually what my name was on the radio. He told me he would play a song for me and he came on the radio and said, ‘This next one goes out to Mad Man Max, wait, I mean Mad Man Sac.’ When my friends heard them call me ‘Sac’ on the radio, they thought it was pretty much the funniest nickname they’d ever heard in their entire lives, so it kind of stuck from there. When I came to the station, I had to come up with a new DJ name and I figured I would go with ‘Sac.’ I’m not particularly a big guy or a fat guy, so I thought of the fat guy named ‘Tiny,’ and so I went with ‘Big Fat Sac.’ It kind of flows off the tongue pretty good, and it’s always seemed to get at least one phone call. It’s served me pretty well the past five years.”

He still plans on continuing his career as a DJ.

“This Saturday I’ll be splitting a four hour set with a friend down atJackpot on Hillsborough Street after the ECU game,” McGuire said. We’ll get started at about 10 o’clock until 2 and we’ll probably split it hour by hour.”

McGuire gave his favorite band and song at the end of the interview.

He said, “I would say that Radiohead is, and has been, my favorite band for many years. They are the best example of a band that stirs emotions in the listener, is sonically adventurous, and made consistently great music for years. And, if I had to pick a favorite song, it would be “Jinx Removing” by Jawbreaker. It’s a great, raw punk song, with lyrics that always make me think of my wife, Leah, who I met while we were both DJ’s at WKNC.”

Make sure to check out DJ Big Fat Sac at Jackpot on Saturday night at 10p.m., and look for him to make guest appearances on WKNC.