Micah Cox is a car salesman at ChampionShip 54 Auto Sales by day and radio personality by night. Cox is the voice behind Mike Chaney’s Punk Rock Show, an online radio program dedicated to sharing the specific genre of music.
Chaney’s interest in radio broadcasting began at an early age. When he graduated high school in the late 1980s, Chaney had dreams of attending school for broadcasting. Chaney chose to attend Northern Kentucky University to study electronics. After working for years as a factory technical supervisor, Chaney was unhappy with his career choice.
After quitting his job to work in the restaurant industry, Chaney’s sister-in-law landed him a job at Cromwell Radio Group.
“I would work weekends at the radio station and overnights too sometimes,” he said. “The program manager told me that they needed a news director so I started going in on my off times and would practice reading news copy. I eventually became the news director. I started doing radio news in 2003. Eventually, I was doing a morning show on CJ 105.7 and the news.”
Chaney’s rise to success at Cromwell Radio Group came to a halt when his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2012. Chaney and his brother spent the next 13 months serving as their father’s caregiver. When his father passed, Chaney began the hunt for a new job and found employment through Tyler Brubaker of Championship Ford REO. Despite racking up an impressive sales record, Chaney could not ignore his true love — radio.
“The radio itch was getting to me bad,” Chaney shares. “I built a studio behind my house and created and produced a punk rock show. I donated it to the local college station at KWC, 90.3 WKWC. It grew in popularity and eventually got me back in touch with my former employer. They wanted me to come back to Cromwell and I did. At one time I was doing a morning show on CJ 105.7, afternoons on 94.7 WBIO, and weekends on 97x with my punk show…”
Even though Chaney logged up to 18 hours in the studio some days, his passion project could not pay the bills. Chaney returned to car sales once again, but this time he was able to find a way to keep his radio show viable.
“I started an online radio station to keep scratching my radio itch, “ and so the current incarnation of Mike Chaney’s Punk Show was born.
His station plays 80s music from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and switches to punk rock from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. with a live show on Friday and Saturday nights from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
“I play local music, submissions from all over the world, and also popular punk, hardcore and SKA,” he said.
While Chaney finds great joy in hosting the Mike Chaney Punk Rock Show, hosting an independent radio show isn’t cheap.
“My station is all out of pocket, so I rely on donations to keep it going,” he said.
Chaney sells T-shirts to fund his show. T-shirt wearers include Marky Ramone, of The Ramones fame, and actor Micky Valdini, to name a few.
Even though hosting his own radio show requires logging long hours in his home studio and pouring his own money into his program, Chaney finds hosting the show worth it all and has dreams of reaching the radio waves once again.
“I can say that my show might be back to terrestrial radio one day, but for now it’s online,” he said.
For more information, or to listen to Mike Chaney’s Punk Rock Show, visit his Facebook page.
