TOTALLY "AMPED" & THE JANKEE JEARS

I'm not around many teenagers, these days, but I'd sure like to know how they use the radio. Sure, I'm privy to some of the market research. A lot of that data, however, can (in the hands of a cunning executive) yield whatever results desired.

I've read recently, for example, that more teens are listening to the radio now than, say, in the last decade. That report was posted on a radio trade website, and it flies in the face of all that I've heard from friends who have teenagers, and anything I've noticed in public. More than likely, the realty is mixed--kids who have the means download music from the internet, and constantly fill their iPODS with what ever they enjoy. Those for whom the computer culture is too expensive, rely on the radio.

It's an important point to make because Los Angeles just got a brand new Top-40/ CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio) station, Friday, February 20. 97.1 AMP radio supplanted FM talk station KLSX, 97.1 Free-FM, one time over-the-air-radio home of Howard Stern. Its studios were no more than 20 feet from where I still toil on Saturday and Sunday nights, one year after being laid off.

The "flip" as we call it in radio, happened at 5PM, when Tom Leykis offered up his final few opinions on dating, divorce, and knockers he has known. Amp Radio then started the first of 10 thousand songs, from a studio on Venice Blvd., several miles away. On the air, it had all the requisite, whiz-bang excitement of everything young and new. Except that there won't be a live human speaking to you for quite a while...if at all.

It used to be that when a new hit radio station went on the air, there was the palpable feel of human endeavor. The technological progress we've made, and (some say) gleeful corporate cost-cutting has put an end to all of that. How do teenagers and young adults 18-34 like their music presented? Many in important positions maintain that the disc jockey as we knew him/her is a deterrent. Others believe that only the right personalities appeal to the desired demographic, with a full plate of fast-moving elements, phone activity, and interviews. It's all very subjective. The truth is, regardless of the market, small or large, corporations now feel the less money spent on talent, the better.

Maybe someone can answer my question: are teenagers excited by the start of a new radio station? I can only point to what I've known. In the 1970's, "the New Ten-Q" started in L.A., in the middle year of my senior year in high school. It really made no impact on anyone I knew. In those days, we all listened to stations that defined our interests. Those who had "more soul than they could con-trol" listened to 1580 K-Day, which played all the "soul-hits," and, believe it or not, Philadelphia Freedom by Elton John. Surfers and rockers couldn't live without FM stations KMET and KLOS. The rest sampled everything else, with KHJ as a default station of choice. Ten-Q, with its music sped-up by a good 3 to 4 %, was unsustainable to me, despite the fact The Real Don Steele was there. Every song sounded as if it were performed by Alvin and The Chipmunks.

The 70's were marked by the insurgence of FM stations over those stalwarts on the AM band. Cassettes and Eight-tracks found their way to automobile dashboards. You had more choices as to how to get your entertainment. It's not surprising that a "format-flip" would not have the significance that KHJ's did in 1965. From all that I've read and learned from those who were there, KHJ literally exploded, and within a year had revolutionized the way Top-40 music was presented over the air--with forward momentum, constant, creative contests, and a thrill that's still present when you hear ancient airchecks (available for your review, in their entirety at reelradio.com, an online radio museum...membership is $15).

I was too young to understand it, but I could sense from my older brothers that 930 on the AM dial was absolutely where the radio had to be at all times--from getting up in the morning, to washing dishes at night, and even on New Year's Eve. That's when I remember hearing some of those gentlemen I eventually worked with, and have written of in previous posts. They plied their trade to my brothers' delight, while I scrambled around as a 6-year-old. By the time I was a teen, I didn't get to experience that type of sensation.

Not, that is, until I was in my 20's and trying to make it as a jock, myself. I was working at a deadly dull Adult Contemporary station ( A-C, as it's known: where old, slow, lugubrious hits by groups like America and Bread, and artists like Phil Collins and Billy Joel commingle to salve the troubled psyches of some very wounded ladies) in San Diego. In early 1987, Q-106 went on the air, and it was intoxicating. The energy was contagious, the tempo mesmerizing, and , for those of us in radio, the suspense was mounting. Who were the jocks going to be?

They added an air-staff gradually, after a week of playing nothing but hits and giving away T-Shirts. The result was an enormous ratings debut. Their competition, the previously established KS-103, gave up without a fight. From my outpost at the lowly K-Lite 94.9 (Lite Rock and Less talk), I pined away for a chance to work there, but my abilities weren't yet honed to what they would be. Still, I'd seen the impact of a great station launch. (An epilogue: all things in radio change. By the mid-1990's, Q-106 was first steered in what they call "Hot" A-C, meaning a little more energy and a lot more Michael Bolton music. Then it became a Spanish-language station, and remains so, today).

I have no doubt that somewhere in metropolitan Los Angeles, Orange County, Ventura County and parts of the Inland Empire, enthusiasts of Kanye West, Beyonce, Britney, Katy Perry, Lil' Wayne, and all who top today's charts, must be experiencing a sense of urgency. Those of us who are now too old to be CHR jocks get a kick out of Amp Radio, but are also extremely aware that this 21st century CHR will interface with listeners through all the modern avenues--twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Blackberrys, texting, etc. The fact that jocks are the last priority leaves some of us less excited than we would ordinarily be about a new station. I now know how old-time radio announcers felt in the mid-1950's when radio transitioned from soap operas, dramas and variety shows to D.J.'s. If they could cut through the jungle of theirown egos, they saw obsolescence.

MANNY, JOE AND "JANKEES"

Spring training is here, and anyone who loves baseball as I do is grinning it up. The dedicated baseball fan (as opposed to the off-the-charts-fanatics who maintain fantasy leagues year round) has spent the off season months keeping track of trades, free-agent signings, and doing some light reading on the subject. Dodger manager Joe Torre inadvertently stirred up a hornet's nest with his book The Yankee Years, written with Sports Illustrated baseball editor Tom Verducci. It's not penned like an autobiography at all. Verducci has blended interviews with all the main Yankee players from 1996 through 2007, Torre's last as manager. It's truly a great baseball book that only whipped up some flames in the New York tabloids and sports talk stations because of its assertions that Alex Rodriguez was a player unto himself. Previous to A-Rod's arrival, from Torre's first year through the third of three straight World series victories in 2000, the Yanks were a tough-minded, work-as-a-single-unit outfit, one on which the concept of team trumped selfish interests.

For all the useless words piled up and printed, coughed up and spewed over the air, the book came no where near as close to hurting A-Rod's reputation as Alex did himself when he had to admit to using steroids. If you read the book, and compare it to Alex's dissembling interviews, you know that Torre didn't defame him--Joe had A-Rod pegged. A-Fraud, indeed. Magnificent talent, varnished with a coat of "all shine, no substance." A-Rod is constantly concerned with image, and consumed with being catered to.

Finally, on the subject of catering to players with massive talents: As I write this, it's being reported that Manny Ramirez has rejected the Dodgers offer of 2 years at 45 million dollars, with an option to leave after 2009. This is bad news for the Dodgers, who need Manny's potent bat. You can't account for players (and their agents) who want to get all they can. It means an average year ahead for L.A., whose 2008 season was pulled out of the ashes only because Manny arrived for two cost-free months (Boston literally paid to get rid of him).

I hope that future posts will find him batting fourth in the Dodger line-up as the season begins, but hope appears to have faded, tonight. No slams, here. I appreciate what he did last season to start pushing nouns against verbs in order to blow him up. When it comes to ego and money and the unpredictable personality, all of this is not unexpected. We fans of the blue must move on--even if it means third place and stupefying mediocrity in 2009.