Well, you all heard my story of poker parties in the control room, now it’s time to share some much better tales. We have some great stories here, and some great writers, too! Thank you all for taking time from your busy schedules to make this very special issue happen!
jv...
Q It Up: What’s that one story you’ve told dozens of times? Think back. Is it the story about that one event in your career that really changed your professional path or taught you a great lesson? Maybe it’s a story about one of the funniest times you’ve ever had in this business, or the scariest. Maybe it’s about the biggest highlight of your career, meeting this person, or working with that one. Grab another cup of coffee (or your favorite holiday beverage), shut off your distractions, and tell us a story!
The Pig Farmer
From Craig Jackman [Craig.Jackman[at]ottawaradio.rogers.com], Rogers Media, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Let’s see, I could tell the story about smoking a joint with the company CEO at the Christmas party, or getting reprimanded for making the CLIO shortlist one year, but I think I’ll tell the story I tell to graduating Broadcasting students. It was my graduation year, and as the radio program at the time wasn’t as good as it is now, I spent almost all my last year working on the television side. When it came time for our year end awards, I really, REALLY wanted to win for best TV audio. The room was packed with fellow students, but also with all the broadcasting executives in the city. There were only 2 nominees for the award and the winner is... not me. Crap. The PD at the station that just hired me the week before cast me a dirty look. The Ops Manager at the station I was still working at left to get another beer without a second glance my way. I, however, did get the last laugh as I’ve gone on to a 25-year radio career, and the college winner went on to become a pig farmer in Georgia.
The Bill Young Critique
From Frank Scales [fscales[at]kloveair1.com], K-Love & Air 1 Radio Networks, Rocklin, California:
Thinking back on my years in radio production, the one story that has to be one of the ‘most memorable’ and career changing would be the first critique session I had with the infamous Bill Young. Leading up to my being hired at BYP I had spent some years as a jock, PD and several years as off-air Production Director with some nice accolades under my belt. When I got the offer to move to Houston, in my mind, I was going to the major league - and in fact I did. However, on that fateful day I questioned every moment I had spent in the industry by what I heard. It was a couple weeks into my new employment with Bill. I had been assigned to work on a tour spot. I worked hours on trying to get my read to sound like the Bill Young Sound. I submitted the demo to Bill, and then was shocked by the response. “Bring it back when we all can be proud of it”! What? Not the usual “great job Frank,” “you’re so creative,” “what would we ever do without you, blah blah blah”??? I learned immediately (well, almost immediately after the stun-gun effect wore off) that I hadn’t actually arrived yet. But at least I was on the right road.
The lessons from that day, wisdom, VO and production chops I developed, and ability to handle more production in a day/week than I thought humbly possible while at BYP for nearly a decade are invaluable to me, especially in my present role as Director of Creative Services for K-LOVE and Air 1.
Lesson learned Bill! No pain - no gain!
And, oh yes, I did bring it back when we could all be proud of it!
Tell Me The Truth
From Richard Stroobant [richard.stroobant[at]sait.ca], Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Best radio story? Most often told? Here it is.
I, like everyone else who first goes into radio, wanted to be a jock… BAD!! It’s 1987. I had been in radio for 2 years as a jock. Working in a small town, and nothing made me happier than being on the radio, playing my favorites and yakking about whatever was on my mind. It was my dream! I finally make it back to the big city as the all-night guy and I get my first air-check with a Program Director -- very famous PD, legendary, a reputation for making stations #1. I trusted this guy’s opinion more than anyone. He puts tape in, listens to the first 2 minutes and then stops it. He looks at me, and I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for him to tell me I’m gonna be the next Rick Dees. He says “You want me to tell you the truth or blow wind up your ass?” I say “Tell me the truth!”… ”You’re F&%$ing terrible!! Awful! Worst jock on our station, probably the worst announcer in the whole city. The best you will ever get in this business is mid-days in Scrubwash, Saskatchewan. And the worst part is, you work your ass off for hours prepping, and you’re still that bad. I can’t even listen to you!” As I watch him rip my beating heart out of my chest and throw it to the ground and step on my dreams, he says the one sentence that changed my life… FOREVER! “If you put as much effort into production as you do that thing you call an air shift, you would be a wizard in production!” End of story, I went on to have a 20 year career as a senior producer at a legendary rock station (one that he actually put on the air in 1977), I was lucky enough to win several international awards, including 2 RAP Awards. And now, I teach production at one of the best radio colleges in Canada. I look back now and wonder what he would’ve said and how my life would be different if I woulda said “Blow wind up my ass” instead.
You Did It!
From Johnny George [JG[at]johnnygeorge.com], Johnny George Communications Inc.
A few of you may know that I was a Disco DJ back in the day before I got into commercial radio full-time. Additionally, all through high school and college, I was the MC of the Variety Shows, beauty pageants and anything that needed an announcer. I came straight out of college right into the Disco Craze in 1975 in Indianapolis. Due to radio/TV production and on-air experience in college and prior interests, taking over a DJ booth and entertaining the crowds was a nightly “show.” I used SFX, drop-ins, I beat-mixed the music and my programming experience set me above the others who were literally, “playing records.” I just wasn’t satisfied in doing just that – I wanted it to be special and unique. And yes, off-stage, I’m basically shy like most of us. <G>
With that being said, I was nominated for the Billboard Magazine Best Regional Disco Deejay Award for our market in 1980. I had attended the Discotheque convention in NYC the year before, so the ritual was something I had seen before with some big name DJs in the industry. Since I was nominated, several of the DJs in our market all decided to go to the convention and support me and have an excuse for a great couple of days of partying and seeing the Big Apple.
We sat and chatted at the awards dinner sipping our drinks awaiting the announcement from the podium by Bill Wardlow, the Editor of Billboard, when he called my name as one of the finalists. My throat was dry. I was a bit tense, even with several rum and cokes in me, as they called my name as the winner. That moment seemed like an eternity as I tried to stand up and head up to the front table and accept my award. As I walked quickly forward, not feeling my feet even touching the ground, my eyes scanned the front row of celebrities sitting there clapping. Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Michael Sembello, Ray Caviano (RFC Records, who presented the award to me) several members of the Village People, Grace Jones and others. Ray handed me the award after repeating the category and all I could do was smile from ear to ear. John Luongo, who is a legendary producer in NYC and had become a good friend of mine over the years, picked me up by the waist and threw me up into the air and said, “Goddamn it, you did it! You did it!” THAT was one of the most exciting times of my life, only second to the birth of my son three years later.
The award remains a token of my fun years spinning records when I had the energy to work at the radio station from 9-5+, then home to grab dinner, see my wife and then off to the nightclub several nights a week to spin records. On top of that, I also ran The Indiana Record Pool, a disc-jockey record service for nightclub jocks in our 5-state area.
Whew… those were the days.
Plate On
From Charles Archer [Chuck[at]WBQB.com], B101.5/NewsTalk 1230, Fredericksburg, Virginia
One night, about 15 years ago, I was working for a 100,000 watt FM station when the main transmitter failed. The backup kept us on the air but it was only a few thousand watts. The signal was so weak, we had trouble monitoring the station in the studio. Several attempts to bring up the main failed.
As fate would have it, our Chief Engineer was out of town and our backup engineer was almost an hour drive from the transmitter site. Thinking we could get there faster, he instructed my OM and me to go up to the transmitter site and be his eyeballs. Neither of us were engineers, but we figured it wouldn’t hurt to go up to the site and tell him what we saw.
The setting was quite spooky. In the dead of night, we drove up this mountain to a cinder block shack in the middle of the woods. Once inside, we called the backup engineer and relayed some of the readings we found. He instructed my OM to hit the “plate on” button to fire up the main transmitter. As soon as the button was depressed, a deafening 100,000-watt white arc of pure electricity exploded above our heads. It was a lightning bolt going off in a 20x20 brick building.
We hauled a** out the door and covered about 50 feet in two seconds!
Once outside, we checked our underpants and debated whether it was safe for us to go back. About 5 minutes later we gathered enough courage to slowly go back inside where we found the speakerphone with the backup engineer still on the line. Without even asking if we were extra crispy he says, “Well, that didn’t sound good. Guess I’m heading over… and guys, whatever you do, don’t touch anything!”
That was the day my engineering career ended.
The Whisper
From Steve Cook [steve[at]audioadrenalineinc.com]
One of my first gigs in radio was running a simulcast board for the morning show at XTRA Sports 1150 in L.A. back in ‘97. It was one of those jobs you could do with the studio door wide open and one sock-foot propped up on the console, while enjoying your favorite reading material as your fingers chased down the last few Funyons in the bag next to the cart machines. And this is exactly the multitasking I was perfecting one morning when suddenly the morning talent from the show broadcasting live from up the hall happened to burst in to say something on his way back from the head. This was highly unusual as I don’t think he had ever even taken the slightest notice of my existence before. But this morning he walked all the way up to me, put his hand on my shoulder (no, he didn’t wake me up... exactly) and whispered in my ear, “You’re much too talented to stay in this job.” And then he left. Back to his wacky morning guy antics for the FM stick two doors up the hall. A year later I had learned SAWPlus32 and taken my first Production Director job at another station in the cluster in Santa Monica.
The morning guy who took a special interest in my “career” that day?
Rick Dees.
The Liner
From Buzz Calhoun [buzzcalhoun[at]clearchannel.com], Clear Channel, Bryan, Texas
This will be a brief one, and is not meant in a malicious way whatsoever. Mainly because I understand the pressures of small market Radio to simply make a buck in any way you can, and I also realize that many operations in those small markets are not necessarily interested in Programming quality, but rather have a skewed vision comparative to their PD. So naturally, sometimes you sacrifice quality to compensate for money to the bottom line.
One such instance was a small two station outfit I worked for as Operations Manager, for lack of a better term. We had a Country FM and a Beautiful Music meets News/Talk AM. The Sales Manager and I often found ourselves in a “billy goat headlock” over certain aspects of what they desired to have happen on the air versus what we needed to do to gain and keep listeners. The specific issue was over a local Krystal franchise that had just opened up and bought a modest schedule. The “added benefit” -- a phrase that always sent shockwaves through me as a PD -- was that this particular ingenious Sales Manager sold 7:05am to the Krystal franchise. Now bear with me, let me see if I can explain the logic to you here. Some days earlier, said Sales Manager comes into my office asking very ambiguous questions about my show, and finally gets around to asking… “do you do anything special or particular at 7:05am each morning?” I ponder this for a moment realizing that an IED has just been discovered on the road ahead and our vehicle is unable to maneuver around it so I brace for impact. “No,” I reply much to my chagrin that the realization of shrapnel will soon be rocketing towards me with various projectiles of death and destruction.
Flash back to the present, it’s a Wednesday morning and fast approaching 7:05am on my Country Morning Show. It should be noted here that this operation utilized one of the 24 hour formats for programming outside of Mornings, so I was bound and determined to not only sound as smooth and keep the transition from my show to the dish as seamless as possible, but I even went to great lengths to try and keep the illusion alive that our staff was actually in town and lived there. Oh what we used to do when radio was young. But I digress. I notice the prominent blue index card which has now been permanently affixed to my console, as if this particular station element should far and away exceed anything else we are doing in a 24 hour period. The card read… “7:05am EXACTLY….Liner: (Good Morning, its 7:05 in the morning brought to you by Krystal, the little square burger with the big round taste.)”
The premise was that over time we would eventually modify the liner to remind people about lunch later that day or the breakfast options they were furiously trying to get set to debut at their location. For the first two or three days, ironically I was at a two song segue right at 7:05am during a two song sweep, so the Liner was always at 7:05. Those of you who have been in the business before 1999 KNOW what is coming next, don’t you? On this particular brisk and cool morning, I had two guests during the 6am hour and even a contest, so naturally I am running a bit behind. Go figure. 7:05 comes and goes. I realize I am going to be ONE MINUTE LATE. I figure no big deal, silly me. As I am waiting for my song to end, my studio door FLIES open with a red faced Sales Manager huffing and puffing ready to blow my house down. I remove one ear of my headphones to begin to hear and enjoy the childish and immature tirade that follows of how we will lose money if we don’t get this Liner RIGHT AT 7:05! He insists that I stop the song and read the liner right this second. As I begin to try and explain the effect this will have on the Programming tactic of a Morning Show and Radio Broadcasting 101, our General Manager sweeps into the room to echo the demand. Time stands still, I see myself as a spry and eager 16 year old kid going to every Radio Station in Augusta Georgia looking for work, I remember my first moment on the air and see all the subsequent positions I had held up to that point, the Swap N Shops, the Obituaries at Noon, and the endless array of absolutely clueless people who took Radio way too serious and wondered why they had to sell commercials under 10 bucks a pop, with clocks filled with over 40 minutes of commercials and maybe, just maybe squeak about 4 or 5 songs, most of them at the end of the hour. It was in this instance that I reached over, pressed the pause button on the CD player, recited the Liner as happily and naturally as I could, and then pressed play to continue my song. Since the Sales Manager was sleeping with our General Manager, I decided that it was high time to find a company or organization that put Programming first. After all, you can’t sell a car until it’s built, and far too many times I found myself in a studio of some owner who lived and breathed the ads over Programming and wondered why they never won. You got to love this business or you’ll shoot yourself trying.
It Ain’t Rocket Science
From Ryan Drean [ryandrean[at]gmail.com], www.RyanOnTheRadio.com, Dallas, Texas
I have had a ton of hi-lights, very few low-lights, met some really great people and have been lucky enough to have some wide-ranging and interesting jobs all in broadcasting. BUT one thing I always keep in the back of my mind is something I was told about 2 or 3 months into my very first full-time job.
I was a morning board op at a talk station in Boulder, Colorado. I took things pretty seriously back then and I was always overly-worried, unnecessarily so, about screwing something up. One day I had messed something up on the show, and while no one seemed to care too much I was pretty stressed about it. Our Afternoon host had just walked in, saw I was stressed, asked what happened and then just sort of chuckled at me. He simply said, “Man, we work in radio. It ain’t rocket science. Everything will be fine.” It actually took someone to just say those words out loud to sort of straighten me up.
Since then I always remember that moment and, with maybe only a couple exceptions, everyday is fun, rewarding, BUT never too serious. BTW - the guy, with whom I still keep in touch, is Mike Flannigan, now a professor at Colorado. We would all be so lucky to have him as a teacher of “All this!”
No Quacking
From Todd, Mitch [Mitch.Todd[at]siriusxm.com], Sirius XM Satellite Radio, New York, NY
I got suspended for a week, with a 3 day suspended sentence for quacking and making other “barnyard” sounds on a 200,000 watt FM in 1980!
It was a cold November day in Roanoke Virginia. I was the #1 DJ (morning drive) on the #1 station in town at the time (when music playin’ AMs were still #1)! A big snowstorm hit one afternoon. I was told the overnight jock couldn’t make it in and that I had to come in, do overnights, then do my morning show. How could they do this to me, their star?! I was not happy. So at 3am that night, very bored, I walked over to the Abrams automated FM and quacked, snorted and mooed in rhythm to “Sympathy for the Devil.” What the hell was the PD doing up at 3 in the friggin’ morning! He didn’t even call ME, but I got “called on the carpet” that next morning by MY PD and the GM.
The (now framed) “Quacking memo” for my “file” was the best part, particularly the section that reads “Numerous childish actions in the past have caused great concern for staff and management…” (I guess quacking kills)! I was offered “immediate termination or a week off without pay.” Whoo Hoo! A week off — I needed it. Until I got called Tuesday and asked to come in because “the fill in guy was sick.” :-/
Ring Of Fire
From Shaun Whynacht [shaun[at]bluecowcreative.ca], Blue Cow Creative, Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada
When I was in radio broadcasting school back in 2000, I was working overnight shifts at a local country station in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia (AVR). The shift began at midnight and went to 6 am. As first year radio students, we were still very green on the air and I mean very green.
This was before digital music, so we would have to grab all the CDs from the library and plan out your hour from the printed play list. Some of the songs were still on CARTS. When I first started I was told to always keep the Johnny Cash – RING OF FIRE cart handy as I would need it. With the request seeming odd, I took the advice of the evening guy and kept it out, not knowing when I would need it.
As the night progressed and I proceeded with my show, wondering if anyone was listening through these wee hours of the night, the phone rang around 3:45 am. It was an elderly lady, asking to hear Ring of Fire... hmmmmm I thought, but took the request and played it.
The next shift I had, 3:45 came and the phone rang. It was the same lady and sure enough she wanted RING OF FIRE. Again I played it. On my third night, I was waiting for my dedicated caller to call in. Without fail, 3:45 came and the phone lit up, Ring of Fire it was. Not being able to contain my curiosity, I asked her why she calls at that time of night? She proceeded to tell me that she really enjoys listening to the evening shows because it’s when she gets to hear stuff that makes her laugh, referring to inexperienced radio students on the air. Adding that 3:45 is usually the time “we” start to get tired and have fun on the air. To this day I still tell this story as it stuck with me over the years.
Casey
From Joe D’Agostin [audioproduction[at]sbcglobal.net], D’Agostin Productions, Pasadena, California
I would have to say that one of the greatest talents that I have ever worked with would have to be Casey Kasem. We have all heard the Dead Dog outtakes, but that is not the Casey that most of us know who had the opportunity to work with him. We have all had horrible days in our lives, but we have all been lucky enough not to have recorders documenting it. It was obviously an overblown situation that we’re all guilty of from time to time.
I had the honor of working with Casey during the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. I have never worked with someone as hands on as Casey. After thousands of radio shows and countless VO sessions over the years, he still maintained an interest in the quality of his work. He was involved in every detail throughout the entire production process and was always concerned with the quality of his shows. He had the legendary voice, American Top 40, TV shows etc. He could have very easily just blown through everything to collect an easy paycheck but he didn’t. Instead, he put everything he had into every show to make it the best that he could.
I learned a lot from Casey’s work ethics and I really admire him for that.
Drop Anchor!
From Ric Gonzalez [Ric.Gonzalez[at]coxmg.com], Cox Media Group, San Antonio, Texas
Alright… first one that comes to mind is the female paramedics who pulled up in their ambulance during my overnight show many crazy years ago. But I can’t have that one printed. So… instead, there was the time someone at our station had the great idea to take the station BoomBox (remember those?) and put it on a huge float/barge and tow it out to the middle of Town Lake in Austin. We (station) were going to bring Santa (hidden in our Boom Box) to the masses. These BoomBoxes were huge radios you could do live broadcasts from. They looked like a concession stand bookended with giant speakers. Plan was to announce Santa’s arrival, and a little boat and an official would take him to Auditorium shores where all the children would be waiting to see him.
Our barge with the BoomBox, me, the PD, and three other jocks got towed out to the middle of Town Lake. When we arrived at the spot, the guy in the tow boat told us to drop anchor. I was on top of the BoomBox and doing my best Pirate-Captain-dude. I yelled down to one of the jocks (who I won’t mention), “Ahoy there mate! Drop anchor!” And NICK dropped the anchor.
After some live broadcast to build it up, a boat came and got Santa and took him to the shore. The PD decided to go with Santa. He’d had enough of floating on Town Lake.
It started getting colder as the sun went down soon afterwards. Then it flat out got ugly cold and dark. We finally figured out that they forgot to tow us back. That’s a little after we also figured out that we’re moving! Turns out the rope was still neatly coiled up on the corner of the barge. I looked at NICK and said, “I thought I told you to drop anchor?” He said, “You never told me to tie the rope to it.”
There we were. In the dark, freezing our behinds off… and we figured… drifting towards the dam. This was long ago before everyone and their kids had personal cell phones. Plus the battery in that huge brick-of-a-phone that we had from promotions for coordinating the call-ins had died earlier.
We did try to guess who the strongest swimmer was, but decided it didn’t matter since we couldn’t see ANYTHING and the water was probably very cold.
Meanwhile, back at the bar where I was supposed to meet our promotions director, engineer, and others, they realized I was later than normal. The promotions director (now my wife) and the engineer then realized that each thought the other had taken care of arranging to have us towed back.
They sent a boat to search for us. All I had on was a black nylon station jacket, sunglasses, white t-shirt, and blue jeans. It was really cold!
Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me
From Matt Anthony [matt[at]mattanthony.com], Matt Anthony Multi-Media, Inc., Allison Park, Pennsylvania
She paid almost $12.00 for those two packs. They didn’t look like brand-name cigarettes. Or, maybe they were, and I didn’t know it. It’s been over 15 years since I’ve smoked, so I’m not nearly as well-versed on tobacco products as I was back then. As she was paying for them, I looked up at the racks holding the various cartons. I didn’t see my brand. Maybe Kent Golden Lights weren’t even made anymore. All I know is that back then, $12.00 would have probably given me a whole carton of cigarettes in return. I also know that Kent Golden Lights, and an Elton John song, almost ruined my radio career.
I was doing Afternoon Drive at Arrow 94-7 (now Fresh-FM) in Washington, DC, back in 1994. It was the day before a Holiday, and most people had left the building early (although, as I would find out, I had completely forgotten that). I was a smoker back then, and a pretty heavy one, averaging almost 2 packs per day. It was a bit after 4 p.m. and I just hit the button to start “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.” It was a pretty good smoke song. Not as good as “Stairway to Heaven,” and certainly not as good as “Do You Feel Like We Do.” Hell, you could squeeze in a “100” or two regular smokes when Peter Frampton would come up on the log. But this one would do the trick. We were required to smoke outside of the building back then.
The station was located in Rockville, Maryland, within a series of 2-story office complexes. The entrance to the station had three front doors: the main door, a door on the left that looked in to the production studio but was never used and had an Otari reel-to-reel deck placed in front of it, and another to the right of the main door that opened into the sales office, also one that was rarely used.
The day was overcast and extremely windy! After starting Elton, I pulled out a cigarette, leaned against the door, lit it, opened the door, and started enjoying my smoke. The wind was blowing me away from the door for some reason. So I turned slightly to face the road, with my butt and heel of my foot keeping the door propped open, giving me a chance to both brace myself against the gusts and allow me to still hear my song which was playing on the radio on top of the receptionist’s desk. Suddenly, (and still not completely understanding the meteorological effect that occurred) a huge jolt of wind slapped against me, knocking me forward, and the door blew shut behind me, slamming loudly. I silently cursed, took a final drag off the cigarette, tossed it, and turned to open the door. It was locked. “Damn,” I thought. I started knocking on the metal-door, and then peered in through the small slivers of glass that surrounded the door, to see if anyone was hearing my knock.
Of course, I had forgotten that everyone had left early.
As anyone who’s been on the air will tell you after gaining some experience behind the microphone, one’s mental “song-length timer” can be acutely developed over a short period of time. I knew, intuitively that at least 3 minutes or more had elapsed from my Elton John tune. Continued rapping on the metal-door produced nothing, so I moved down to the door on the left with the Otari in front of it. I looked in and saw nobody. More pounding, this time on the wood door, also elicited nothing. Now, a tiny bit of panic was starting to settle in. This was PM Drive, in the seventh largest market in the country, and I had a Program Director (Craig Ashwood) who thought two sins to be unforgivable: murder, and dead-air. I returned to the metal-door and tapped a bit harder on it, again and again. Still nothing. While standing there walking around in circles, muttering to myself, the heavy wind started to merge with a rain/sleet mix, making it somewhat difficult to see through my glasses, and quickly penetrating the front of my shirt and khakis.
I could see the Denon CD-deck in my mind, the red numbers counting-down backwards, and I figured I had about a minute and-a-half before my song ended. And the panic started to increase a bit.
I raced down to the door on the right, peering in through the window to see if I spotted anyone in the sales department. Empty. I quickly thought of my mental-timer, which prompted even more nervousness. I then ran back up to the steel-door, and with every ounce of strength that I could summon, pounded on it with both fists, repeatedly. “Why wasn’t anyone hearing this?” I mumbled. I figured I would either put a dent in the door or break my hand, whichever came first, but I was going to get somebody to answer this door! No response.
Now, I was in full panic-mode. My mind was reeling. I knew that Bill, the Overnight guy, lived in the tall apartment complex next-door, but there was no time to run over to see if I could contact him and get a key to get in. And I couldn’t believe that Tammy, the Evening host and always consistently early for her show, hadn’t yet arrived from Baltimore. “What the hell, Tammy,” I thought. “You’re always here by now. Why not today?!” Someone from one of the buildings next to ours was getting into his car and, while putting down his umbrella, watched my now-audible tirade, as I bounced from door to door, streaming panic-infused profanities, all the while keeping track of the clock-timer in my head. “Can I help?” he yelled through the now-pouring cold rain.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t have to. Through my rain-soaked spectacles, I looked again at the door on the far-right, and I knew what I had to do. I had to get in to this building.
They say that adrenaline will enable the body to do miraculous and sometimes devastating things. I’ve read of people who, while watching a friend or loved one become trapped underneath a car, for instance, will suddenly be able to lift up the back-end of that automobile, thus sparing that person’s life. Or a person normally unable to swim will, after seeing somebody about to drown, jump in to the water without fear, to try to save them. It’s a kind of laser-focused will-power, some bizarre phenomenon even seemingly beyond the scope of requesting divine intervention. Insta-Zen. It’s almost as if no mind exists. No mind, except the constant threat of that damned Elton John song ending!
With 40 seconds or so on my internal-countdown, I ran briskly down the small sidewalk, through the now-formed puddles, to the door on the far-right, in front of the sales department. I wiped some of the water off the lenses of my glasses, stood back, sized up the entrance-way, and, breathing heavily, charged towards the wooden-door, right shoulder-first. Nothing. I did it again. And again. And again. Suddenly, on the next try, I could hear wood along the dead-bolt beginning to pop. I felt like an offensive lineman slamming into the blocking-sled on the practice-field, repeatedly banging into it under the watchful-eye of my coach. The next attempt splintered the frame at the top of the door near the lintel. I lunged again and again, completely oblivious as to what the repercussions would be from the authorities, the building-owners, or the management at CBS. I didn’t know if that man with the umbrella was watching me or whether he was calling the police. I did know that my Elton John song was about to end, that Craig Ashwood was about 20 seconds from executing me, that the sun was going down on my career at WARW-FM, and that dead-air would soon grip the Nation’s Capital, during my watch, on Washington D.C.’s only station playing rock ‘n roll oldies. I simply could not allow that to happen.
It was on my 11th or 12th try that the door began to give way. The cheap dead-bolt was now pushed almost all the way through the jamb. The framing at the top and to the right of the door was completely disengaged. Sore, exhausted, and almost unable to see because of the pelting rain, I managed one last shoulder-pound. With a sickening explosion, the door finally gave-way! The blowing wind lifted papers and folders off their desks and on to the carpet. Upon falling through the opening, I immediately tripped over a chair leg and bounced to the floor. Scrambling quickly to get up, I leapt over several wastebaskets that were in my path, around several cubicle-dividers, into the hallway past the reception area, and down to the studio, jarring the door open with the same shoulder that had been used to break into the building. The final strains of “Don’t Let the Sun Down on Me” were fading out, the station processing pushing the last audible note into the air. Leaning over the board, panting, I hit the “on” button on the cart-deck, fired the next sweeper, and pounded on the button that kicked off the next song. I had done it.
Almost immediately, though, whatever elation I had felt was quickly snuffed-out when I realized that I had just demolished station property. I had completely screwed up. All over a cigarette.
Through the tiny speaker next to the cart-decks, I could hear the voice of Walt Starling, our esteemed traffic reporter, repeating, “Matt? Matt? Hey, Matt!” Still panting, I pushed the talk-back button. “Walt, I screwed up, man, big time!! I really screwed up! Craig is gonna f*%$ing kill me!” After trying to acknowledge his pleas to calm down, I rapidly explained to him the drama that had unfolded. “OK, listen,” he said, “after the last report, I can go by a Home Depot for you and get one of those heavy-duty door-stops, so nobody gets into the building overnight. But, you know you’re gonna have to call Craig and tell him what happened.”
I knew I had to. And just then, skipping merrily into the studio with her headphones under her arm and dinner tucked away in her Tupperware container, was Tammy Jett. “Hey, what’s going o-- WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU!?” Between quick back-sells of songs, I recounted the afternoon’s events, and then Tammy went to the other side of the building to inspect the damage. “Oh, dude. That’s bad. You, uh... you have to call Craig.”
I continue to be amazed at the length of time that can pass when you’re staring at a phone, stalling, attempting to put off a call that you know you have to make, but really don’t want to. You could be nervous about asking out a girl. You could be apprehensive about passing on the bad news to someone that a mutual friend had died. You could, as I’ve done, be frightened to call up the person who just hired you to tell that person that you’ve decided not to take the job after all. Or you could feel unqualified terror at telling the person who just hired you that you just decimated station property because it was imperative that you fill your lungs up with nicotine during a 5:36 song. So, after signing-off, I put my headphones in my assigned compartment and wandered over into the production studio with Craig’s phone number in my hand.
“Hey, Craig, it’s Matt. How’s it going.” I was trembling.
“Hey, mate, what’s up?”
I paused. “Well, I screwed up.” I could feel my voice shaking. “I locked myself out of the station and I had to break a door down to get in.”
“You what!?” he screamed.
And I told him. I gave him all the grisly details, hearing the occasional “um-hum” between segments. As I recalled details about splintering wood and mangled dead-bolts, I simultaneously looked around the studio to see if there might be an empty box lying around, one that would contain all my belongings here, including my headphones. One that would fit neatly in the trunk of my car. I finally wrapped it up, and then Craig asked, quickly, “Did ya have any dead-air?”
I paused briefly. “Uh, what?”
“Did you have any dead-air?”
I paused again. “Uh, no. No, I didn’t. None at all.”
Craig quickly replied, “Okay, cool, then. Well, no worries, mate. We’ll get it fixed. As long as you didn’t miss a song or have any dead-air. That lock probably needed replaced anyway. Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell Sarah when I get there in the morning and we’ll get it fixed up. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
There are those times when I can relate to “Ralphie,” Peter Billingsley, in A Christmas Story. After almost shooting his eye out and breaking his glasses while trying out his new official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle, he realized that he wasn’t going to be destroyed by his parents. Of course, Ralphie lied, and I didn’t. Still, that same gooey feeling washed over me as I made my way home that evening on 66 towards Manassas. I wasn’t going to be destroyed by Craig Ashwood. I wasn’t going to have to relinquish my slot as the PM Drive personality on “Arrow 94.7.” And I wasn’t going to have to stand in the hallway of our apartment and explain to my wife that the job-search was on yet again. Calmly inhaling the final remnants of my cigarette, I vowed to quit someday. It would be another year-and-a-half before I would, but I knew that it was possible. “Hell”, I thought. “If I can break down a door and not have any dead-air, then I should be able to do anything!”
Southern Pacific
From Stewart Herrera [stewart.herrera[at]citcomm.com], 95.5 KLOS-FM, Los Angeles, California
Here’s how I wound up in radio.
I was sort of straddling 2 paths. I had taken radio courses in college, and was working a production internship at Pure Rock KNAC in Long Beach, CA. I had no way of knowing whether I would ever be hired, but in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, it was THE perfect place to be for someone who was immersed in hard rock and metal, as I was (and sometimes still am).
I also had taken studio engineering courses in college and was eager to get behind mixing consoles anytime, anywhere. This led to work with some local rock bands, which in turn, led to a job at Doug Weston’s Troubadour in West Hollywood, and in turn… work with many more bands. All this stuff was happening simultaneously.
One morning in late spring 1989, my phone rang and on the other end was a guy who said he was the tour manager for a country rock band called Southern Pacific. And it just so happened that I was familiar with that band, because Stu Cook, the bass player from my first favorite band ever, CCR, was a member. So he tells me that my name came up as someone who knew their way around a board, with good ears, and easy to work with, etc. Would I like to join Southern Pacific on the road for the summer to mix their stage monitors? He described the job, the pay, the per diem, and told me that if I accepted, they’d need me to hop on a Florida-bound plane that afternoon.
I hardly knew what to say, I was so excited. I immediately pictured tour busses and outdoor amphitheaters, cheering crowds and willing GROUPIES. On the other hand, I wondered if I really had what it took to do this, and I wondered what would become of my plans for radio. I knew that if I left KNAC, there’d be little chance of them holding anything -- even an internship -- open for me, but I told him I was very interested, and asked for an hour to decide. No problem, he said, and gave me his phone number. I hopped in my truck, and rolled down the street to talk it over with my Dad at his shop. We weighed the pros and cons, and came to the decision that this was just too rich an adventure to pass up.
So I hurried back home, placed the call, left a voice mail for the guy, and packed a bag.
Never heard from him again.
The Far East Network
From Dr. Jim Grubbs [jgrub1[at]uis.edu], University of Illinois, Springfield, IL
This is a real oldie but goodie...
The year is 1966. I’ve made my radio debut on the Tokyo flag-ship station of The Far East Network -- the AFRS outlet in Japan. Suzanne Stevens and I, both high school students at the time, were selected through an audition process to co-host the weekly “Teenagers on Parade” Top 40 show that was heard over the entire network and on shortwave. We did the show “live to tape” with our FEN provided military producer Navy Journalist Craig Smith.
Story 1
There was almost always time between when we finished our show and when the bus I needed to catch came by. On this particular evening I decided to bide my time in “automation control” - a very large 1940s era studio that had originally been used for local dramatic productions. It was now filled with an entire room of automation equipment - some of the very first made available. There were reel-to-reel machines of course -- and even turntables connected to the system -- a very large portion of our programming came on 16 inch transcription discs out of AFRS Los Angeles. There was no carousel cart machine, rather a big bank of standard cart machines.
An Army PFC sat quietly at a desk in the middle of the room where it was his job to manually log the actual air time of each event, faithfully typing it with his manual Underwood typewriter. The 6:00 to 6:30 block consisted of a live round-up of news, up and down the Japanese Islands. At precisely 6:29:20, master control turned things back to the automation system.
First, a recorded :30 second “command spot” -- the military equivalent of a PSA -- was initiated by the automation system. At 6:29:50 (precisely, of course, this is the military) the network ID went out to all stations “Serving American Forces Oversees, this is the Far East Network.” At this point, the system split out to each of the outlying transmitters for local ID. In Tokyo on the AM (there was also shortwave) you heard “810 on your dial, Far East Network, Tokyo.” Like clockwork, one of the reel-to-reel machines fired. “Japan Standard Time is 6:30 p.m.” Like clockwork, Turntable #1 fired and the air filled with a transcription program called “Music By Candlelight.” No reason to suspect any problems. The PFC on duty dutifully typed the time of each event in the log.
But then the “stuff on a shingle” hit the fan. At 6:30:10 the system fired the next event - the command spot, network ID, local ID, time sequence, scheduled for close to the top of the hour, followed by the top of the hour news jingle. Of course, there was no news because no one expected this until 7:00 (it was done live). At precisely 10 seconds (the length of the silence sense) the next program fired, and approximately every 10 seconds after that, the automation system proceeded to run through everything that had been programmed through 6:00 a.m. the next morning.
There was no way the PFC could keep up, no matter how quickly he tried to type. He gave it a gallant try for the first few events but finally just stopped dead in his tracks. As I got ready to head for my 6:45 bus, I noted his final entry in the sequence which was 6:31:20 - ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE (and yes, it was typed in upper case)
Story 2
Having auditioned and gotten the job, I reported for my first recording session. I was pretty cocky - “public speaking” was nothing new to me. I had even built a controlled-carrier-current station for our high school. Suzanne was scared half to death. We went through the preliminaries of setting up and as we prepared to “roll tape” Craig Smith said to us, “Remember, there are Seven-Million people listening!” I lost my composure - surely he was wrong, but it was too late to ask. The theme song rolled (remember theme songs?) and I blundered and stuttered through my first big chance on the air. Suzanne was like ice -- I can still hear that incredible voice of hers just as calm as can be. It took me months to recover! (What Craig didn’t bother to tell us at the time was that 6.9+ million of those listeners didn’t speak English - they were the Japanese teen “shadow audience” who tuned in to hear the western-style music - they could care less about the DJs.)
Story 3
It’s a few months earlier at my audition on a quiet Sunday afternoon in late summer. They were “running behind” so my dad (“the Colonel”) and I sat in the waiting area listening to “Tokyo Calling” -- an immensely popular Sunday afternoon variety show aired on the network. The time approached 4:00 p.m. The normal sequence leading up to top of the hour news came through the giant RCA monitor speaker. “Japan Standard Time is 4:00 p.m.” - cue the news jingle. You could hear the microphone open in the studio, but there was no news. Seconds that seemed like minutes elapsed. And then came the indecipherable yelling that was coming out of the intercom speakers throughout the building. It was the engineer in master control asking in emphatic terms “where’s the news guy?” A moment passes and into our view comes a young man clad only in his underpants and tee-shirt running down the hallway with a stack of “rip and read” in his hands. He made a mad dash to the on the air news studio and within moments you heard a thoroughly composed FEN newsman say “Good afternoon, this is Army Specialist (insert name here) and this is the news.” Apparently, he had been sound asleep after working for 24 hours straight.
I still laugh every time I think about it.
The Dolly Parton Interview
From Dave Spiker [davespiker[at]aol.com], Imagination Media, Fayetteville, Georgia
Here’s my story. It was 1979. I was a grizzled veteran... 3 whole years in radio, the ripe age of 22. I was producing an interview program for one of the airlines’ in-flight channels. We got the green light to interview Dolly Parton at the home of her manager, Sandy Gallin. We hired a famous LA radio personality to ask the questions. I had convinced (read: bamboozled) my boss into letting me take my dad with me to the interview. Rationale: I was the producer of the interview... my dad produced me... so he must be the executive producer. (Side note: my dad never cared so much about what I did for a living until that day!)
So we pull up the windy driveway to this enormous house in the Hollywood Hills. I get out and knock on the door. The butler (of course there’s a butler) says the interview will be conducted in the game room across the driveway. I looked across the driveway. The game room was another HOUSE! The entire house! We start setting up our equipment on this hot summer day. And back then it was a whole lot more involved than a handheld MP3 recorder, let me tell you. The tuxedoed butler reappears with a silver platter on which was the biggest pitcher of the best ice-cold lemonade I have ever tasted. It was a moment I’ll never forget. Sipping this awesome lemonade inside an elegant two-story house filled with every jukebox, pinball game, ping-pong table, air hockey game, and custom neon sign you can imagine.
Well, the world-famous host showed up. We had worked with him several times before. Consummate professional. Unflappable. Had interviewed EVERYBODY! Well, when Dolly walked in, suddenly he was no longer unflappable. He became a goofy schoolboy. Evidently Dolly was the only celebrity he’d never interviewed but always wanted to. He started off telling Dolly a “Dolly Parton joke.” (You pretty much know how those go.) My life flashed before my eyes. I figured Dolly would soon be walking out screaming something about “you’ll... never... work... this town... again.” Surprisingly, when he finished his joke, Dolly slapped her knee and roared with laughter! And then she proceeded to tell HIM a Dolly Parton joke! The rest of the interview was a breeze. She was warm, funny, candid and charming. And I lived to work another day.
You Can Succeed
From Terry Phillips [terry[at]terryphillips.com], CBS Radio, Detroit, Michigan
I remember back in college, now a small branch of Texas A&M in Commerce, the head professor Dr. Sanders sitting me down my freshman year. He told me because of me being Dyslexic -- and thus not being so great at the time at reading copy cold -- that “I would never make it in radio, because I would never be any good at production.” Just a couple of years later while working part-time in Dallas -- you know, the total crap shifts -- but damn lucky to be there, Buzz Bennett mentioned that as much as I hung around production, paid attention to everything that Brian Wilson and Aubry Hayden did, and messed around in their rooms when they were out, I would either be a great prod guy, or Program Director.
Well, the last 10 years of being Creative Services Director for WYCD and WOMC in Detroit for CBS Radio... I think I may have at least gotten better with my reads. LOL.
The lesson is, if you have some talent, and a TON of passion... you can succeed!■