ANCHORAGE -- Eric Smith walked briskly on a sunny Saturday afternoon into the fifth-floor studios of KNBA carrying a Carr's bag full of twangy rock CD's and a bottle of Pepsi.
The reggae show ahead of his winds down as Smith struggles briefly with the computer and apologizes into the microphone for a brief pause.
"We are switching over computer systems and I just learned how to use it," he said.
Smith, a Superior Court judge in Palmer, is a familiar face to Valley residents looking for lower bail or a divorce.
But about once a month, and three times this month, he'll trade his judicial robes for disc jockey headphones and fill in for his best friend, Jim Stratton, the regular host of the KNBA Arctic Cactus Hour.
The format is alt-country, country-tinged rock, rock-fused country. Saturday Smith spun everything from Alison Krauss to the Flying Burrito Brothers to Richard Thompson to the Dixie Chicks.
"I've been listening to this kind of thing since I was in college," Smith said.
Smith was a DJ on the now-defunct Big Lake radio station KABN. His show there didn't have an alt-country theme, or any theme for that matter. KABN radio had an open-ended format.
Smith recalls his days at KABN fondly, even the midnight-6 a.m. shift he pulled his first week.
Stratton lived in Juneau for most of that period, but on his way through town, he'd fill in at times on Smith's radio show.
Stratton, Smith said, had always dreamed of doing an alt-country show. So after he moved to Anchorage and KNBA went on the air he put in an application and was accepted.
Every four songs or so Smith got on the mic and talked a little about what he'd just played. He didn't say much, though he said it's more than he did at KABN where the station manager used to tell DJs not to speak too much because listeners tuned in for the music, not the commentary.
In the sound booth with Smith, conversation stems from the music and moves into topics like his children and his job.
A Bob Dylan line about doing things twice reminds him of the trouble of retrying a criminal case when his ruling is overturned. A fiddle in another song reminds him of the time he brought his son, a violin player, to watch Charlie Daniels, for inspiration. He said he worried Daniels' mistreatment of his violin might give the boy ideas.
Most shows he tries to find songs that revolve around a particular theme. Saturday's show featured songs that told a story.
Signing off, Smith told his audience he'd "be back next week. Given the pile of CDs I never got to this week I'll probably be doing another show of story songs."
