Feature: Dear Friends... RIP Peter Bergman, March 9th, 2012: A Tribute and an Appreciation
by John Pellegrini
"Los Angeles. He walks again by night. Out of the fog, into the smog..." Thus began my very first encounter with a group of gentlemen who called themselves the Firesign Theater. It was 1972 and my friend, who was playing the record on his home stereo, had told me that this group was "really funny". Those two words, "really funny", hardly did justice to what I heard. The Further Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye wasn't just a parody of radio detective shows, it was a mind-opening revelation about the power of imagination and a perfect illustration of how radio was so much better suited than either television or cinema to probe into universes beyond our own. From the crazed mystery in the plot that's so impossible to figure out it that it takes an interruption by FDR to bring the story to a close, to the ridiculous parody of a 1940's era radio commercial ("Loosner's Castor Oil Flakes, with Real Glycerin Vibrafoam!") to the perfect inclusion of cheap Hammond organ thriller music, you realize that this sketch was even BETTER than anything produced from radio's golden era. These four guys ("and a couple a gurlz" as it stated in one of the album liner notes), Philip Austin, Peter Bergman, Phil Proctor, and David Ossman had created something that truly amazed me, and from that instant I knew what I wanted to do when I got into radio.
Production 212: 2 Turntables and a Microphone... Part 3
by Dave Foxx
I recently got back from the Radio Days conference in Barcelona, Spain where I spoke at length about branding. I used Coca-Cola® as a prime example of branding done right and how music, handled well, is a primary key to their success over the last hundred plus years. In spite of constant hammering by Pepsi-Cola® the Coke brand has always maintained top-dog status in the soda wars. If you analyze what they're selling, you realize pretty quickly that it's not a sugary-sweet, brown beverage full of fizz you can clean truck tires with that they're pushing out to the masses. It's a lifestyle. It's the Real Thing. Santa drinks Coke for goodness' sake! Even polar bears moon over the moon with Coca-Cola. From the earliest days of radio and television, Coca-Cola has always used music to help deliver that lifestyle message.
Q It Up: Employment vs. Freelancing Full Time
by the R.A.P. Network!
Q It Up: This question is primarily for full-time freelancers that used to be employed, and those who are currently employed, who used to be freelancers full-time. If this description does not fit you, but you have some ideas on this subject, please feel free to contribute! What have you found to be the biggest pros and cons of freelancing compared to employment? What prompted the move from one to the other? Would you do it again? What would you do differently? Would you wait longer before making the move, or would you have done it sooner? If you're a freelancer, what would it realistically take to put you back in a cubicle? If you are employed, what would it take, realistically, to convince you to resign and become a full-time freelancer? Please add any other views you have on the subject!
Test Drive: Presonus Studio One Version 2
by Steve Cunningham
Hailing from Baton Rouge, LA, Presonus has been around since 1995 and has achieved success primarily with its moderately priced series of audio interfaces and rackmounted effects processors. While the company was always responsible for writing its own hardware drivers in software, along with the graphic user interfaces in its mixers and effects processors, Presonus officially entered the big leagues of software multitrack editing in late 2009 when it acquired KristalLabs, a German software concern founded by former employees of Steinberg, and with whom Presonus had been collaborating since 2006. Along with the company, Presonus also acquired the object of that collaboration, namely a multitrack software audio editor known as Studio One.
Radio Hed: Which Are Better Commercial Motivators, Needs or Wants?
by Jeffrey Hedquist
My wife is an amazing alternative healthcare practitioner, with clients throughout the world. She has studied and been certified in dozens of modalities that help keep people healthy, balanced, out of pain and in some cases alive. Her mission is to treat someone, and then give them the information, techniques and tools to take care of themselves, so they'll do the regular preventative maintenance to stay strong and healthy and they won't have to seek treatment from practitioners like her to continually hold them together. It doesn't happen. She has what they need and tries to get them to use it, but...
The Monday Morning Memo: Left Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook
by Roy H. Williams
The left hemisphere of the brain wants facts, details, descriptions and benefits. Lefty is all about sequential logic and deductive reasoning. Lefty looks for loopholes and discrepancies and is full of doubt. But the right hemisphere cares for none of that. The right half of the brain is where fantasy lives. And Righty doesn't know fact from fiction. If you merely exaggerate, your customer's left brain will shoot your claims full of holes. But if you go beyond mere exaggeration – so far beyond it that the left brain knows you're just clowning – the right brain will happily embrace your glowing fantasy in all its positive glory.
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