There are people who attend radio conventions, and then there are people who somehow become part of the convention itself. You don’t necessarily look for their name on a panel. You don’t need them standing beneath a sponsor banner. You simply walk through the hotel, turn a corner, hear that unmistakable voice and think, there’s Spider. Now it feels like The Conclave.
As the radio industry prepares to gather one final time for Conclave 45 The Last Conclave, On The Dial wanted to spotlight one of the Twin Cities broadcasters who represents something this gathering has always been about.
Not corporate titles.
Not ratings.
Not who owns the biggest cluster.
Radio people.
And Larry Spider J Hamilton 00 is about as radio as radio people get.
I honestly cannot remember going to a Conclave and not seeing Spider there.
Maybe there’s a year somewhere that I missed him. I certainly can’t remember one.
And with the final Conclave happening in his own backyard, it seems only right that before everybody starts flying into Minneapolis, we give this man some flowers.
Because Spider J Hamilton didn’t simply work in radio.
He’s spent more than half a century living it.
It Started Because Somebody Gave A 17 Year Old Kid A Chance
Spider’s radio story reaches back to 1969, when a 17-year-old Hamilton found an opportunity at KWKI in Kansas City.
He was young.
He was learning.
He was watching.
He was absorbing the magic happening around him.
By 1970, he had moved into legendary Kansas City Black radio station KPRS, and what could have been a teenage adventure started becoming a life. His career would eventually take him through stations, cities and DJ booths across the Midwest.
And there’s something wonderfully full-circle about that beginning.
Somebody opened a door for Spider.
Eventually, Spider started opening doors for other people.
That’s legacy.
Minneapolis Eventually Got Spider And Spider Became Part Of Minneapolis
Hamilton’s career would become deeply connected to Twin Cities Black radio.
His journey included multiple runs at KMOJ, stretching from the late 1970s into the early 1990s.
And anybody who understands Minneapolis broadcasting understands why that matters.
KMOJ isn’t merely another collection of call letters.
It represents community.
Culture.
Black voices.
Black music.
Minneapolis.
And Spider became part of that history.
Then came another chapter that showed he wasn’t content merely being the guy behind the microphone.
In 1984, Hamilton worked alongside legendary Twin Cities media entrepreneur Pete Rhodes on CBLS, the cable radio operation that would later become WR&B. Spider served in programming leadership while continuing to work on-air.
Think about the timing.
Minneapolis in the 1980s.
Prince.
Jimmy Jam.
Terry Lewis.
The Time.
A musical identity unlike anywhere else in America was exploding around the world.
And Spider J Hamilton was right there doing radio while it happened.
And Denver Got Some Spider Too
His career wasn’t confined to Minnesota.
Hamilton also spent time at Magic 1510 KDKO in Denver, another important chapter in a career that increasingly became a tour through significant Black radio properties.
Kansas City.
Denver.
Minneapolis.
Programming.
On-air.
Clubs.
Music.
Community.
Decade after decade.
Eventually a résumé like that stops being a résumé.
It becomes oral history.
And Spider has a whole lot of history inside him.
Then There Is New Jack Swing
Oh, Spider.
We weren’t going to leave this part out.
If you know the man, you know.
New Jack Swing.
This isn’t a casual musical preference.
This is practically a marriage.
Hamilton eventually brought that passion to Minneapolis community radio through The New Jack SwingBeat ReVue on KFAI, celebrating New Jack Swing alongside R&B, Funk, Soul, Pop and Old School music.
That’s Spider.
Give the man a musical lane and he’ll move in, redecorate the place, install better speakers and explain who produced every record.
And we mean that with tremendous affection.
Because radio needs historians.
We Need People Who Remember
Who was on what station?
Who broke the record?
Which club mattered?
Who gave somebody their first opportunity?
What did the station sound like before consolidation?
What did Black radio sound like before somebody tried to squeeze every market into the same programming template?
Which record absolutely destroyed the phones even though research said it shouldn’t?
Those stories matter.
And some of them don’t live in a database.
They live in people.
Spider is one of those people.
He Has Also Been Willing To Talk About Black Radio
Hamilton has never hidden his passion for Black music and Black radio.
His career unfolded during enormous changes in Urban broadcasting, and he has spoken publicly about the challenges of maintaining outlets for Black music in the Twin Cities.
There’s an irony there that shouldn’t be ignored.
This is Minneapolis.
A city whose Black musicians fundamentally changed popular music around the world.
Yet maintaining dedicated platforms for that music locally has not always been easy.
Spider lived that history.
He didn’t study it later.
He was standing behind the microphone while it happened.
Then Spider Started Paying It Forward
This might be our favorite part.
Remember that 17-year-old kid?
Somebody helped him.
More than fifty years later, Spider apparently hasn’t forgotten what that opportunity meant.
That spirit eventually became tangible through the Spider J Hamilton 00 DJ Scholarship Program, created to help aspiring DJs receive training and continue developing their craft.
A scholarship.
For DJs.
Created by a DJ.
Designed to help create more DJs.
Come on.
That’s beautiful.
Because Spider apparently doesn’t believe the story should end when his headphones come off.
Somebody else needs a chance.
Somebody else needs to touch the board.
Somebody else needs to learn how to work the microphone.
Somebody else needs to discover that ridiculous feeling of saying something into a piece of metal and realizing somebody you’ve never met is listening on the other side.
That’s how radio survives.
Not by protecting the microphone.
By handing it to the next person.
And You Cannot Tell The Story Of Spider Without Talking About God
Because underneath the music, the radio stories, the conventions and the personality is something else.
Faith.
Spider is a man of God.
His faith isn’t some accessory attached to his radio biography. It is part of the foundation beneath the man.
And as a fellow believer, that’s one of the things I appreciate most about him.
Radio can make us obsessed with titles.
Program Director.
Market Manager.
Vice President.
Consultant.
Morning Host.
Music Director.
Whatever.
Eventually every one of those titles disappears.
What remains is what you did with what God gave you.
Spider got an opportunity.
He used it.
He developed it.
He shared it.
And then he started trying to create opportunities for other people.
That’s ministry too.
Sometimes ministry wears headphones.
And Now We Have To Talk About The Last Conclave
Because this is why we’re telling Spider’s story right now.
The Conclave has been bringing radio people together in Minnesota for half a century.
It has survived different generations of broadcasting, different ownership structures, technological revolutions and an industry that sometimes seems capable of completely reinventing itself between breakfast and dinner.
Now we’re approaching the final gathering.
Conclave 45 The Last Conclave runs September 15 through September 17 2026 at the Crowne Plaza Aire MSP Airport Mall of America in Bloomington Minnesota. The opening festivities are listed to begin Tuesday September 15 at 4 PM Central.
And this isn’t simply another radio convention.
This is the last one.
After 44 previous gatherings across 50 years, The Conclave is bringing generations of radio people together for one final celebration of the business, the friendships, the arguments, the sessions, the hallways, the mentors, the students and that wonderfully strange family we’ve spent our careers calling radio.
If you have ever attended The Conclave…
If you’ve always wanted to attend…
If you’re still working in radio…
If radio decided it didn’t want you anymore but you still love it…
If you’re a student trying to figure out how to get inside this crazy business…
Come.
Don’t be the person who says next year:
“Man, I wish I’d gone to the last one.”
There isn’t another one.
And Spider Better Be There
Seriously.
Because when I think about The Conclave, I think about people like Spider.
You walk into the hotel.
There’s Spider.
Get on the elevator.
Spider.
Walk toward a session.
Spider.
Somebody in the lobby starts telling a radio story that happened before half the room was born.
Oh yeah. Spider is definitely involved.
Those are the people who made The Conclave special.
The hallway conversations.
The introductions.
The friendships.
The veteran broadcaster sitting down with the 22-year-old kid who desperately wants their first job.
The programmer talking with somebody they competed against twenty years ago.
The retired jock suddenly sounding twenty-five again while telling an aircheck story.
That’s The Conclave.
And Spider J Hamilton represents that spirit beautifully.
This Is Your Invitation
Radio people, get to Minneapolis.
September 15-17.
Crowne Plaza Aire MSP Airport Mall of America.
And the party starts at 4 PM Central on Tuesday September 15.
Registration information is available now.
Register for The Last Conclave today at TheLastConclave.com
Don’t wait until September and decide you should have gone.
Register.
Call somebody you haven’t seen since Conclave 2008.
Call the PD who gave you your first job.
Call the jock you fired and hopefully you’ve both gotten over it by now.
Call your old morning partner.
Bring a young broadcaster.
Bring somebody who has never experienced a real radio convention.
Come learn.
Come laugh.
Come tell stories.
Come shake hands.
Come hug some people.
Come remember why we fell in love with this ridiculous business in the first place.
And somewhere inside that hotel…
Find Spider.
Before The Last Conclave We Wanted To Say This
Spider J Hamilton, we see you.
We see the teenager who got his opportunity in Kansas City.
We see KPRS.
We see Denver.
We see KDKO.
We see Minneapolis.
We see KMOJ.
We see the clubs.
We see the programming.
We see New Jack Swing.
We see the scholarship.
We see the young people you’ve encouraged.
We see the faith.
And we see all those years when radio people walked into The Conclave and somehow weren’t surprised whatsoever to find Spider J Hamilton already somewhere in the building.
That’s a radio life.
And that’s a beautiful legacy.
An On The Dial Perspective
As we prepare for The Last Conclave, we’re going to spend some time remembering that radio conventions were never truly built by hotel contracts, panels, badges or PowerPoint presentations. They were built by people. People who showed up. People who stayed connected. People who remembered where the industry came from while encouraging the people who would take it somewhere new. Spider J Hamilton represents that spirit. More than half a century after somebody gave a teenager an opportunity, Spider is still talking about music, still carrying pieces of Black radio history, still encouraging another generation and still giving God a place in the journey. That’s bigger than an airshift. That’s legacy.
And Spider?
September 15.
4 PM.
Minneapolis.
We’re expecting to see you.
Actually…
We’d be a little concerned if we didn’t.
Because after all these years, it just wouldn’t feel like The Conclave without The Original Ol’Skooler somewhere in that hotel.
God bless you, Spider.
Thank you for the friendship.
Thank you for the history.
Thank you for paying it forward.
And thank you for spending more than half a century reminding us what a disc jockey is supposed to be.
Now everybody else:
REGISTER.
This is it.
The Last Conclave.
September 15-17 2026.
TheLastConclave.com Register Today
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