Chris Douridas

Chris Douridas (born September 20, 1962) is an American popular DJ and musical tastemaker at Santa Monica, California's radio station KCRW, where he hosts a two-hour program showcasing progressive new music. He is also a filmmaker, actor, television presenter, and a three-time Grammy-nominated producer of soundtracks and music videos.

Douridas was born in Columbus, Ohio. He attended North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) on a theater scholarship where he became involved in campus radio station KNTU-FM. While there he hosted a freeform morning radio show called "The Morning Exchange", mixing blues, bluegrass, reggae, Motown, classical, jazz, and progressive pop. While still in college, Douridas was hired by Dallas, Texas public radio station KERA, beginning as a weekend classical music host, and later promoted as host of the stations All Night Jazz program. In 1987, the station transformed into an all eclectic format, with Douridas hosting the innovative evening show, "90.1 at Night". While there, he created a series called "Sound Sessions", live radio sessions featuring Dallas area bands. This show gave a platform, recording resources and eventually compilation CD exposure to bands such as the Dixie Chicks. At the time the only other broadcasts that featured local bands were on KDGE.

In the 1990s, Chris Douridas became known as the host of KCRW's daily three-hour new music program, Morning Becomes Eclectic, bringing a personal character to the show. He was also the station's music director at the time. When he went independent of KCRW in 1998, he maintained a link to the station by presenting a two-hour program called "Ground Zero", which was renamed "New Ground" after the 9/11 attacks. Later, the show was extended to three hours.

Perhaps Douridas' greatest contribution to the station was his hiring of most of the on air staff including Liza Richardson (a former colleague at Dallas' KERA), Jason Bentley (formerly of KXLU, and current music director/host of "Morning Becomes Eclectic"), Garth Trinidad, Anne Litt, Gary Calamar, Kevin Ponthier (a former colleague at his college station, KNTU), and Tricia Halloran. Halloran recently left the station and is a staff music supervisor at Hum in Santa Monica, CA.

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