Each week The Mac Weekly speaks with a DJ on Macalester’s radio station 91.7 WMCN. This week we sat down with DJ Jack Mahon to talk about his show “Alpha/Omega.”

TMW: What is your show and what can a listener expect when tuning in?

JM: My show is called “Alpha/Omega,” and this will be my third semester hosting it. Each week I choose a particular musical style/tradition/subgenre/aesthetic and trace it from its origins, through its formative years and finish with the topic’s current incarnation. For example, I did a two-part disco show and began with Chic and the Bee Gees, touched on people like Frankie Knuckles and Liquid Liquid and finished with LCD Soundsystem and the Rapture. I also try to provide as much information as possible about the topic of the week.

How do you select your music?

Anybody who knows me knows I’m a voracious music listener. It’s pretty much what I’m doing at all times. I’ll think of a certain style or aesthetic tradition that I’m already fond of or am interested in learning more about. Then, I do as much research as I can about the important figures. Often I uncover really influential and important artists that I had never even heard of prior to starting the research. Then I’ll find that they were directly influential on tons of artists I already love.

What do you try to accomplish when having a radio show?

I mainly try to present listeners with sounds and experiences they’re unfamiliar or even uncomfortable with, and then open their eyes and ears to the incredibly vast world of music around us. I also love talking about and appreciating music, and my show is like my own personal hour to just relax and share the music I love with the community.

If a listener tuned in at random, what would they hear?

It changes every week! All the more incentive to tune in every Saturday from 4-5 p.m.! It may be experimental hip-hop one week, Latin rock the next and black metal the week after that. Who knows? I sure don’t.

What was the last song you listened to? Does this represent the music you listen to/play on the radio?

“Gardens of Coprolite” off of the amazing and terrifying 2015 album Scar Sighted by black metal legend Leviathan. I sure do love me some abrasive heaviness and all-encompassing darkness! But my insatiable thirst for black metal is but a mere sliver of my whole music taste.

Tune in to “Alpha/Omega” to discover all the facets of Jack.