They say we truly grow older when we realize our own mortality, a realization that comes first with deaths in our own families, and then with the passing with enormous figures in our popular culture. Those of us who spent 1976-77 in high school danced to The Jackson's Enjoy Yourself, and watched Charlie's Angels with an ache in our teenaged loins. On this day, June 25, 2009, we all aged considerably.
In the summer of 1977, Elvis Presley died suddenly, sending shock waves around the world. Elvis? Dead? My late sister Laura came running from her bedroom, putting a loud, disbelieving voice to the news that this 42 year-old man, his career in decline for years, had passed away. In those days when tabloid news was pretty much restricted to actual supermarket tabloids, we scarcely realized or acknowledged his problems with weight and prescription drugs, making it much harder to understand that, at such a young age, he was gone.
Much the same can be said about Michael Jackson, except that we've known, via one outlet or another, of his controverseys and peculiarities. He was a year older than I. When the first bulletin crawled across the TV screen around 2:30 PDT (I'd been watching the Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox head into extra innings, tied 5-5), I figured he'd make it. It was on a sports talk show that I heard news of his death confirmed by the website TMZ, while local L.A. Tv stations and the cable news outlets were waiting for their own sources to make it official.
Shocking? Absolutely. When you get past the shock? Not as surprising. A 50-year-old man training intensely for one more come back, suffering cardiac arrest. A 50-year-old man, perhaps, not fully realizing his body is 50, and likely compounded by more than we know--his history with presecription drugs largely goes undiscussed. Hell, my own doctor told me last year that if I wanted to start jogging or running, I should have a stress test first. At 49 or 50, we are not what we were at 25.
This news, the surreal word that Michael Jackson was dead, obscured the fact that the pain and discomfort Farrah Fawcett experienced for three years , had ended, and that she was gone. From her great fame as Charlie's main Angel, to befuddling appearances on Late Show with David Letterman, Farrah was a beguiling creature. Tons and tons of high school and college-aged guys, and many more servicemen, hung that iconic poster of Farrah on their bedroom walls. To be truthful, I tacked the centerfold of a Playboy playmate named Denise Michelle (April '76) on the back of my door, but I watched Charlie's Angels until it began to drive my testasterone- charged teenaged senisibilities utterly wild.
But, back to the point of all this: the deaths of pop culture icons remind us that we are getting older, and mortality is the destiny of all. Farrah died at 62, but in our minds (and on that poster) her visage will forever be 29 years of age.
Michael Jackson dreamed of one last tour that would remove the stain of the last 16 years...years beset by allegations and peculiar behavior. The sad irony of life, as those of us old enough can attest to, is that his music, his phenomenal legacy between 1969 and 1993, will fly off the shelves of what stores still sell CD's, and burn up iTunes on the internet. He may become bigger than ever as some of his less appreciated or well remembered efforts after Thriller find their way to the air, with all the appropriate kudos.
There will be the inevitable books, with unimpeachable sources telling their stories without fear of reprisal, and we will learn in hideous detail of his massive foibles and peculiarities. The fact remains, however, that hardcore fans will pay no attention. In death, he will once more be the giant whose 1982 album sold more than any other by a solo artist. Like fans of Elvis rear-up in fury at the mere mention of drugs or dietary gluttony, those who deeply mourn the King of Pop will look past prurient revelations, and fiercely defend their lost Idol.
And perhaps we can hope that for the first time since his childhood swerved into superstardom, then disfunction, Michael Jackson has found peace.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
APRIL ODD AND ENDS
The sun just set on the third straight sunny, southern California day, with temperatures close to or above a hundred degrees. That's not unprecedented, but it's freaky for April, never-the-less. It reminds me that summer is not far away, and I haven't been on a real vacation for a long, long time. Nor have I enjoyed the natural beauty of the world outside So. Cal. for what seems like most of the decade.
There's so much to visually experience in this state, from the interior pleasures of Yosemite and Mount Shasta, to the hundreds of miles of precious coastline. You could spend years just soaking in the views from Eureka to Rosarito Beach.
For years, one of my favorite places of repose has been Point Loma in San Diego. It's a thumb-shaped bluff of peninsula that creates an entrance to San Diego Bay. A national park and monument stands near the peninsula's edge, named for Juan Cabrillo, the first European to sail into the natural enclosure. From the site of this monument, looking east, one sweeping gaze can take in the entirety of the city, it's airport, the skyline, North Island Naval Air Station, Coronado and its bridge, and, on an exceedingly clear day, Tijuana. Fighter jets land, while submarines, freighters and the occasional aircraft carrier churn their way into or out of the bay. The sands on Coronado reflect the sun and, at one time, shone as white as snow. The scope of this view is more picturesque and fluid than any other in this part of the state. If you cross to the other side of the bluff, you can look out over a seemingly endless Pacific Ocean, especially breathtaking as dusk nears.
I went there with regularity in 1987 and the first part of 1988, during another particularly difficult time in my career (difficulty in radio means A) not working, or B) remaining in a job you've come to hate with the searing heat of a thousand suns, or C) having to present A-C music in an A-C style...which for me is like a cat having its fur rubbed the wrong way). The therapeutic properties of just looking out at this magnificent vista from a location like Point Loma cannot be too strongly emphasized. I remember that view more fondly than the on air situation I encountered during those years. The Spanish word for the Cabrillo National Monument at Point Loma would be tranquilo.
MANNY'S BACK
Since my last blog, all has been squared away with Manny Ramirez. Though the Dodgers had an eight game winning streak end in Houston this evening, Manny ripped a homer to the farthest reaches of that pin-ball machine the Astros call a stadium. Their pitching is young, the middle relief a question mark, but other than that, it's the most dangerous Dodger team I've seen since the 1970's. Why? Not only are they young and talented, with a world-class hitter and sure-fire Hall of Famer in the middle of their line-up, aside from Manny, they are superior defensively. This will make for an interesting summer for all us Dodger fans.
ADIOS, DESGRACIADOS!
That's become my favorite Spanish word, thanks to the telenovela, Dona Barbara. There are a ton of desgraciados in the storyline, and they are liberally refered to as such. The English definition, of course, can range anywhere from "wretch," "disgrace," or "jerk," to the penultimate BASTARD! Dona Barbara deals with a lot of desgrasiados, and can be one herself, a great deal of the time. The series ends in May, and I have to tell you, it's been a hoot. Spanish-language television is an adventure worth the undertaking. The stories are told with a lot of tears, a lot of action, and an honesty you don't get with its English language counterparts. Dona Barbara could not have dealt with her enemies as grotesquely on NBC as she has on Telemundo. Watching has been a fun experiment while I've had time on my hands. I can now refer to cretins in the radio business as DESGRASIADOS!! Maldita Sea!! (that one means "damn it. It's always the four-letter words we learn first, isn't it?).
SCRUBS
On the subject of TV, here's a show that's taught us the meaning of cultural phenomena like Soup Shower (the act of placing a bullion cube in the head of some unsuspecting schmuck's shower); Bacon Back (slathering Crisco on to some sunbather, instead of Coppertone); and Grill Face (the result of college girls, hopping on to some drunken guy's back while he's standing too close to a Bar-B-Q...the results being predictable, as he pitches face-first into the fiery place between the burgers and hot dogs).
Scrubs has also given us the startling medical statistic that, "...75 percent of all (baby) deliveries are accompanied by an accidental dukey."
Underrated and under watched, Scrubs may well have delivered more genuine laughs than any sit-com in the first decade of the 21st Century.
AND IN CONCLUSION
...with hope, friends, the summer will bring some much need and well deserved career news. Stand By, as they say...
There's so much to visually experience in this state, from the interior pleasures of Yosemite and Mount Shasta, to the hundreds of miles of precious coastline. You could spend years just soaking in the views from Eureka to Rosarito Beach.
For years, one of my favorite places of repose has been Point Loma in San Diego. It's a thumb-shaped bluff of peninsula that creates an entrance to San Diego Bay. A national park and monument stands near the peninsula's edge, named for Juan Cabrillo, the first European to sail into the natural enclosure. From the site of this monument, looking east, one sweeping gaze can take in the entirety of the city, it's airport, the skyline, North Island Naval Air Station, Coronado and its bridge, and, on an exceedingly clear day, Tijuana. Fighter jets land, while submarines, freighters and the occasional aircraft carrier churn their way into or out of the bay. The sands on Coronado reflect the sun and, at one time, shone as white as snow. The scope of this view is more picturesque and fluid than any other in this part of the state. If you cross to the other side of the bluff, you can look out over a seemingly endless Pacific Ocean, especially breathtaking as dusk nears.
I went there with regularity in 1987 and the first part of 1988, during another particularly difficult time in my career (difficulty in radio means A) not working, or B) remaining in a job you've come to hate with the searing heat of a thousand suns, or C) having to present A-C music in an A-C style...which for me is like a cat having its fur rubbed the wrong way). The therapeutic properties of just looking out at this magnificent vista from a location like Point Loma cannot be too strongly emphasized. I remember that view more fondly than the on air situation I encountered during those years. The Spanish word for the Cabrillo National Monument at Point Loma would be tranquilo.
MANNY'S BACK
Since my last blog, all has been squared away with Manny Ramirez. Though the Dodgers had an eight game winning streak end in Houston this evening, Manny ripped a homer to the farthest reaches of that pin-ball machine the Astros call a stadium. Their pitching is young, the middle relief a question mark, but other than that, it's the most dangerous Dodger team I've seen since the 1970's. Why? Not only are they young and talented, with a world-class hitter and sure-fire Hall of Famer in the middle of their line-up, aside from Manny, they are superior defensively. This will make for an interesting summer for all us Dodger fans.
ADIOS, DESGRACIADOS!
That's become my favorite Spanish word, thanks to the telenovela, Dona Barbara. There are a ton of desgraciados in the storyline, and they are liberally refered to as such. The English definition, of course, can range anywhere from "wretch," "disgrace," or "jerk," to the penultimate BASTARD! Dona Barbara deals with a lot of desgrasiados, and can be one herself, a great deal of the time. The series ends in May, and I have to tell you, it's been a hoot. Spanish-language television is an adventure worth the undertaking. The stories are told with a lot of tears, a lot of action, and an honesty you don't get with its English language counterparts. Dona Barbara could not have dealt with her enemies as grotesquely on NBC as she has on Telemundo. Watching has been a fun experiment while I've had time on my hands. I can now refer to cretins in the radio business as DESGRASIADOS!! Maldita Sea!! (that one means "damn it. It's always the four-letter words we learn first, isn't it?).
SCRUBS
On the subject of TV, here's a show that's taught us the meaning of cultural phenomena like Soup Shower (the act of placing a bullion cube in the head of some unsuspecting schmuck's shower); Bacon Back (slathering Crisco on to some sunbather, instead of Coppertone); and Grill Face (the result of college girls, hopping on to some drunken guy's back while he's standing too close to a Bar-B-Q...the results being predictable, as he pitches face-first into the fiery place between the burgers and hot dogs).
Scrubs has also given us the startling medical statistic that, "...75 percent of all (baby) deliveries are accompanied by an accidental dukey."
Underrated and under watched, Scrubs may well have delivered more genuine laughs than any sit-com in the first decade of the 21st Century.
AND IN CONCLUSION
...with hope, friends, the summer will bring some much need and well deserved career news. Stand By, as they say...
Friday, March 6, 2009
1979
That was the year that was. Gas lines, J.R. Ewing, The World Champion "We are Fam-Uh-Lee" Pittsburgh Pirates, and Benny Hill's syndication to the United States (well...OK...it meant something to me).
Two other things bubble up from the ooze that is my memory of that year. One is caused by my continued reflection on what impact Amp Radio will have on the business and the southland; the other is something that has revisited our consciousness as would an unsettled meal: Michael Jackson. Like what emerges from a crypt in a Zombie movie (and with the pallor to match), he is risen, once more.
Jacko, as the British call him, is a talcom-powered example that the relative few who attain icon status in this world can get away with almost anything. If you don't believe that's true, try slathering on kabuki make-up, dressing like Mohamar Qaddafi gone wild with Bedazzler, and start favoring the company of non-adults. See how fast you get taken to the psyche ward or beaten up, or both, with all deliberate haste.
His (alleged) misdemeanors notwithstanding, Michael Jackson is a pitiable soul. He's a lasting reminder of what can happen to talented, precocious youngsters when they are cruelly exploited and robbed of their childhood. By the same token, M.J. embodies our own basic human need to worship at the foot of the charismatic, regardless of their foibles or felonies. The innate ability of people to forgive allows Michael to exist. Not as the ground-breaking, breath-taking, one-gloved performer he was in 1979, but as the celebrity so burned into the iris of the public's vision, that he made news world-wide when he announced a series of "final" concerts, this week.
I'm not a fan of the individual. It's not easy to remain unsettled by a 50-year-old man who's beginning to resemble a Star Wars Storm Trouper. There is, however, no denying the talent...a talent that has come to represent what little was compelling about Top 40 music in 1979.
Last week, I wrote at length about the debut of Amp Radio, and why it's always exciting when a new Top 40-CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio) station starts. That made me recall how much fun it is to be a young person when something new is breaking. I always felt I'd missed something having been just four years-old when the Beatles exploded on to these shores. My brothers got to experience that as teens...plus The Stones, The Animals, Motown and James Brown.
Every teen or young adult has a music scene to embrace, but it's once in a couple of generations that an act like Elvis or The Beatles come along to rattle cages and shake up the landscape of popular culture. The rest of the time, people between 10 and 20 years are either digging what's cool, or searching for something more iconoclastic. What broke big when I was 18 was huge, but eventually loathsome, and had, by no means, the enduring impact of Beatlemania.
Disco. To say the word, even today, after semi-revivals and nostalgic reunions, is to blanch a little with disgust.
In 1979, Disco was at its height, a fact that speaks to the patchwork quilt that was Top 40 music in the 1970's. The decade began as a series of tributaries that flowed out of the radio: Soul, rock (the "roll" half of the name faded away for a brief time), some million-selling country hits, and a syrupy melange of mush and chewed bubblegum. We're talking James Taylor and Carly Simon as a couple, Elton John's softer efforts, The Partridge Family, The Osmonds, and abysmal one-hit wonders like Reunion (Life is a Rock, but the radio Rolled Me). On Top 40 stations from coast to coast, songs by those artists were linked by jingles to Led Zeppelin, Chicago, Charlie Rich, Jerry Reed, and Isaac Hayes doing The Theme From Shaft. It was true Top 40--hits from all fields, but nothing comparable to what shifted tectonic plates when the British landed in 1964. There was no real "craze" that gripped the country until Disco was delivered forth from burgeoning technology in the recording studio, and the glitter-balled excesses of New York night clubs. And it took over the airwaves in late 1977.
A previously low-rated album-rock FM station in New York started playing Disco records in Top-40 styled rotation and shot to the top of the ratings. They knocked off Dan Ingram and the venerable WABC, the city's leading Top 40 station for a decade. In L.A., KUTE 102, with a bad signal and ratings to match, went Disco in '77 under the helm of Bill Stevens, and zoomed past all the Top 40's except KHJ, and even they were feeling the heat.
Of all the music trends of the 20th Century, though, from ragtime to the big bands, from the birth of rock and roll to hip-hop, Disco is the most difficult to assess in a fair, even-handed way. For a music style that accounted for millions and millions of records sold, thousands of dance lessons taught, and hundreds of Discos opened, it was vastly reviled. Sticky-sweet, simple, thumping and monotonous, Disco was the first music trend since the Cha-Cha that entailed having to learn steps from professionals. What really caused its disconnect was the robotic tempo. You HAD to dance to it, because it didn't lend itself to listening for long periods, and reduced those not dancing to spectator status. As it blared, you sat, you drank, you ogled, as you were bombarded by this catchy, happy music that, after a while, just wasn't very good.
Rockers, particularly, were offended by having to abide a music form that ignored the depth and nuance of stirring chord progressions, textured guitar solos, and all the elements that afforded hard rock its artistic credibility. One of the cultural changes as a direct result of the Beatles influence was Rock's evolution from high school dance accompaniment to concert event experience. A steady buzz, comfortable pair of jeans, and some roaring guitar licks what all a rocker needed to get his (or her) groove on--no dance lessons needed. From the Rocker's disdain for its homogenized milieu, came the prevailing chant of the time: Disco Sucks!
Students of pop culture will tell you Disco died because it didn't develop enough stars; that its flame burned bright, then quickly burned out. I submit that unlike most other items that are plastic, its shelf life was doomed by its inability to change, as all things must.
While it permeated the charts and the radio, Disco momentarily obscured the music that would climb out of clubs and neighborhoods, and last for 30 years and counting. Call them alternative and hip-hop today--they were known as punk/new wave and rap in 1979. These are the forms that would merge into the mainstream, and resurrect the Top 40 radio format that was on life support after an overdose of The Bee Gees and Donna Summer.
I was one of those guys who got sick of Disco pretty quickly. In the summer of 1978, when it was a relatively new thing, I had fun hitting dances in a three-piece suit, downing Seven and Sevens though I was underage, and trolling for halter-topped, long-haired girls. By 1979, the music was no longer tolerable. Even TV dance shows stopped about music and artists and spontaneous fun, as much as they were a showcase for semi-gymnast professionals. It wasn't very participatory. I told friends that the next dance move we'd see would be some heavily-cologned, expensively permed Disco King throwing his partner in the air and shooting her down with a skeet gun.
Disco waned in 1980, and by the end of the year it was done. It bobbed like a cork in the tub until groups like The Pretenders, The Go Gos, and a vanguard of what was new wave became 1980's Contemporary Hit Radio, CHR, the former Top 40. And yes, one of the biggest beneficiaries of Disco's death was the fellow who's music stood out in the midst of the Disco lemmings in 1979. In 1982-83, Michael Jackson's Thriller became (for decades to come) the biggest selling album of all-time.
30 years later, with music even more fragmented from market to market, itemized by demographic group, the odds against another trend as encompassing as Disco run high. We who love music can be thankful for that. Its vestiges live on, as evidenced by the popularity of ABC-TV's Dancing with The Stars. People will still dance and love it, to salsa, meringue and big bands, but Disco will continue to peacefully push up daisies.
The same odds that would gleefully prohibit another Disco-like phenomenon would also, sadly, rule out a future event as world tilting as Beatlemania and its aftermath. And those four lads from Liverpool didn't have MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or Texting to conquer the universe and alter a generation.
Two other things bubble up from the ooze that is my memory of that year. One is caused by my continued reflection on what impact Amp Radio will have on the business and the southland; the other is something that has revisited our consciousness as would an unsettled meal: Michael Jackson. Like what emerges from a crypt in a Zombie movie (and with the pallor to match), he is risen, once more.
Jacko, as the British call him, is a talcom-powered example that the relative few who attain icon status in this world can get away with almost anything. If you don't believe that's true, try slathering on kabuki make-up, dressing like Mohamar Qaddafi gone wild with Bedazzler, and start favoring the company of non-adults. See how fast you get taken to the psyche ward or beaten up, or both, with all deliberate haste.
His (alleged) misdemeanors notwithstanding, Michael Jackson is a pitiable soul. He's a lasting reminder of what can happen to talented, precocious youngsters when they are cruelly exploited and robbed of their childhood. By the same token, M.J. embodies our own basic human need to worship at the foot of the charismatic, regardless of their foibles or felonies. The innate ability of people to forgive allows Michael to exist. Not as the ground-breaking, breath-taking, one-gloved performer he was in 1979, but as the celebrity so burned into the iris of the public's vision, that he made news world-wide when he announced a series of "final" concerts, this week.
I'm not a fan of the individual. It's not easy to remain unsettled by a 50-year-old man who's beginning to resemble a Star Wars Storm Trouper. There is, however, no denying the talent...a talent that has come to represent what little was compelling about Top 40 music in 1979.
Last week, I wrote at length about the debut of Amp Radio, and why it's always exciting when a new Top 40-CHR (Contemporary Hit Radio) station starts. That made me recall how much fun it is to be a young person when something new is breaking. I always felt I'd missed something having been just four years-old when the Beatles exploded on to these shores. My brothers got to experience that as teens...plus The Stones, The Animals, Motown and James Brown.
Every teen or young adult has a music scene to embrace, but it's once in a couple of generations that an act like Elvis or The Beatles come along to rattle cages and shake up the landscape of popular culture. The rest of the time, people between 10 and 20 years are either digging what's cool, or searching for something more iconoclastic. What broke big when I was 18 was huge, but eventually loathsome, and had, by no means, the enduring impact of Beatlemania.
Disco. To say the word, even today, after semi-revivals and nostalgic reunions, is to blanch a little with disgust.
In 1979, Disco was at its height, a fact that speaks to the patchwork quilt that was Top 40 music in the 1970's. The decade began as a series of tributaries that flowed out of the radio: Soul, rock (the "roll" half of the name faded away for a brief time), some million-selling country hits, and a syrupy melange of mush and chewed bubblegum. We're talking James Taylor and Carly Simon as a couple, Elton John's softer efforts, The Partridge Family, The Osmonds, and abysmal one-hit wonders like Reunion (Life is a Rock, but the radio Rolled Me). On Top 40 stations from coast to coast, songs by those artists were linked by jingles to Led Zeppelin, Chicago, Charlie Rich, Jerry Reed, and Isaac Hayes doing The Theme From Shaft. It was true Top 40--hits from all fields, but nothing comparable to what shifted tectonic plates when the British landed in 1964. There was no real "craze" that gripped the country until Disco was delivered forth from burgeoning technology in the recording studio, and the glitter-balled excesses of New York night clubs. And it took over the airwaves in late 1977.
A previously low-rated album-rock FM station in New York started playing Disco records in Top-40 styled rotation and shot to the top of the ratings. They knocked off Dan Ingram and the venerable WABC, the city's leading Top 40 station for a decade. In L.A., KUTE 102, with a bad signal and ratings to match, went Disco in '77 under the helm of Bill Stevens, and zoomed past all the Top 40's except KHJ, and even they were feeling the heat.
Of all the music trends of the 20th Century, though, from ragtime to the big bands, from the birth of rock and roll to hip-hop, Disco is the most difficult to assess in a fair, even-handed way. For a music style that accounted for millions and millions of records sold, thousands of dance lessons taught, and hundreds of Discos opened, it was vastly reviled. Sticky-sweet, simple, thumping and monotonous, Disco was the first music trend since the Cha-Cha that entailed having to learn steps from professionals. What really caused its disconnect was the robotic tempo. You HAD to dance to it, because it didn't lend itself to listening for long periods, and reduced those not dancing to spectator status. As it blared, you sat, you drank, you ogled, as you were bombarded by this catchy, happy music that, after a while, just wasn't very good.
Rockers, particularly, were offended by having to abide a music form that ignored the depth and nuance of stirring chord progressions, textured guitar solos, and all the elements that afforded hard rock its artistic credibility. One of the cultural changes as a direct result of the Beatles influence was Rock's evolution from high school dance accompaniment to concert event experience. A steady buzz, comfortable pair of jeans, and some roaring guitar licks what all a rocker needed to get his (or her) groove on--no dance lessons needed. From the Rocker's disdain for its homogenized milieu, came the prevailing chant of the time: Disco Sucks!
Students of pop culture will tell you Disco died because it didn't develop enough stars; that its flame burned bright, then quickly burned out. I submit that unlike most other items that are plastic, its shelf life was doomed by its inability to change, as all things must.
While it permeated the charts and the radio, Disco momentarily obscured the music that would climb out of clubs and neighborhoods, and last for 30 years and counting. Call them alternative and hip-hop today--they were known as punk/new wave and rap in 1979. These are the forms that would merge into the mainstream, and resurrect the Top 40 radio format that was on life support after an overdose of The Bee Gees and Donna Summer.
I was one of those guys who got sick of Disco pretty quickly. In the summer of 1978, when it was a relatively new thing, I had fun hitting dances in a three-piece suit, downing Seven and Sevens though I was underage, and trolling for halter-topped, long-haired girls. By 1979, the music was no longer tolerable. Even TV dance shows stopped about music and artists and spontaneous fun, as much as they were a showcase for semi-gymnast professionals. It wasn't very participatory. I told friends that the next dance move we'd see would be some heavily-cologned, expensively permed Disco King throwing his partner in the air and shooting her down with a skeet gun.
Disco waned in 1980, and by the end of the year it was done. It bobbed like a cork in the tub until groups like The Pretenders, The Go Gos, and a vanguard of what was new wave became 1980's Contemporary Hit Radio, CHR, the former Top 40. And yes, one of the biggest beneficiaries of Disco's death was the fellow who's music stood out in the midst of the Disco lemmings in 1979. In 1982-83, Michael Jackson's Thriller became (for decades to come) the biggest selling album of all-time.
30 years later, with music even more fragmented from market to market, itemized by demographic group, the odds against another trend as encompassing as Disco run high. We who love music can be thankful for that. Its vestiges live on, as evidenced by the popularity of ABC-TV's Dancing with The Stars. People will still dance and love it, to salsa, meringue and big bands, but Disco will continue to peacefully push up daisies.
The same odds that would gleefully prohibit another Disco-like phenomenon would also, sadly, rule out a future event as world tilting as Beatlemania and its aftermath. And those four lads from Liverpool didn't have MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or Texting to conquer the universe and alter a generation.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
SO FAR, SO GOOD or DOIN' FINE IN 2009
It was an unusually cold Christmas in Southern California, and a fairly quiet New Year's Day. For me, It was almost like being fully employed again. Three weeks of radio work, in the daylight, plying the trade I've studied and executed so well. Sure, I had to endure Christmas music the likes of which must be played for people who can't come down from injections of speed, but we got through it. I could blog for page after page about this dolorous, morose Christmas music...painful dirges that have nothing to do with the merry spirit of the season, but I'll spare you and get to the point of this entry: 2009 has started quite well.
What, You say? With the economy tanking? With the United States in a financial panic rivaled only by the great depression? With jobs being lost by the thousands each week (including the radio profession--not so much panic, there, just expediency. The technology is allowing companies to blow people out by the dozens, and doesn't bode well for my own career interests. More on that, later)?
Yes. We're doin' fine so far in 2009 from the perspective of hope. Any year that starts with a skilled pilot successfully ditching an airliner in the Hudson River, and saving 155 lives, HAS to be a positive year. Add that to the Inauguration of an actually articulate, intelligent person to our highest office, and yes, the year has promise for positivity. Even for those who are not fans of President Obama, just to see his predecessor go is an occasion for revelry. Eight years of that simpleton in charge has left the country in a shape that only his blindest, most ardent minions could ignore.
Before I veer away from politics, I have to express even more than the relief that Mr. Bush has returned to Texas. If we can all suppress our partisan leanings for just a minute, a good look will reveal that the very idea of Sarah Palin even being in the vicinity of the White House (let alone a heartbeat away from the Oval Office) is mind boggling, especially at a time like this. Is it sexist to say that this glib person could probably be entertaining at a meeting of the Wasilla Community Players, and little else? Anyone who voted for that ticket, then viewed the Governor of Alaska holding court with reporters as a turkey got its head ground to bits has to see the light by now. If you didn't see it, there stood Sarah, beaming and prattling on about getting the government out of people's way (I think we've seen what happens when the government gets out of people's way: the government has to bail 'em out!). As she babbled, the guy who ran the farm rammed turkeys head-first into a steel funnel, its legs kicking as it's noggin was turned to a pulpy mass of viscera. We love turkey, but really don't want to see it's final moments in life played out as a woman who ran for Vice President spews disconnected political bullet points, in a bright, cheery manner. Yeah, that's who we want running the country, eventually.
Lastly, no Republican deny what drew nearly two million people to the Inauguration. Of course, the reverence will at some point recede, because he is, after all, a human being. So's The Chief Justice, who fucked-up administering the oath of office. I reflexively hit the jump button on my remote at the embarrassing moment, but it wasn't the President who goofed.
I wasn't surprised when later, on Fox News, Chris Wallace surmised that the oath might not have been legitimate because of the wording goof. Chris is a journalist-- he should be ashamed. But as we all know, there is no shame in the world of Fox. Before the holidays, I read a book about Rupert Murdoch and Fox, and it backed up what many of us had known for years: It's a propaganda arm of the Right Wing, and shouldn't be mistaken for news. You want objectivity? Try what's left of CBS, NBC and ABC...PBS, CNN. If you want to watch a dunderhead (Bush) put on a pedestal, and the new President stalked, then pounced upon at the first scent of blood, watch Fox. Just don't mistake it for news.
*
I just watched an episode of 30 Rock, one of the smartest (if not the smartest), funniest comedies on TV. Even after all the Emmys and Golden Globes, the ratings are still awful., and that's too bad. With television programs spread all over hundreds of channels, hilarious, well received, high-rated sitcom are rare. A fabulous talent like Julia Louis-Dreyfus is caged in drek like The New Adventures of Old Christine...well below her ability, and no where near 30 Rock in class.
Tina Fey must be the crush of a million guys who would have been too shallow to dig her twelve years ago, when she was a little heavier and less well known. It's good advice for us all to keep our eyes open for the Tina Feys of our world.
On the subject of ratings, I've said it for 15 years, and I'll say it for 15 more: Letterman beats Leno by miles. No, not in the ratings, but as a show. Where Leno is a practiced stand-up, almost without peer, Letterman is a real broadcaster, with the ability to work the irony and sarcasm out of a bit until it bleeds laughs. After his open-heart surgery, 9/11, and the birth of his son, he dialed back some of smirky Dave, and displayed depth of knowledge and interviewing prowess thatleaves many in the news business chartreuse with envy. This was especially evident when he finally got Senator McCain on his show and grilled him like a smoked salmon. For those who prefer Leno, it's a case of apples and oranges, I guess. NBC certainly is betting on the apples, what with elevating Jay to a nightly prime-time strip on the network, Monday through Friday at 10pm.
My reaction is that NBC is not just keeping Leno out of the hands of the other networks, b ut cutting costs, and taking a gamble. First, what are the odds that his current audience would break habit and follow him to another network like Fox or ABC? Secondly, does NBC really believe average folks in the Midwest who chose Leno over Letterman at 11:35, tune him in at 10? My bet is that they'll pick CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Without a Trace, and NUMB3RS. That noise you hear is Sarah Palin putting the NBC Peacock into a steel funnel to have its head turned into pate'.
Finally, a note on the evaporation of jobs in radio--I can't say too much, if I still want to land some work, but believe me, there are some folks who are still getting rich in L.A., New York, and Chicago. Filthy rich, and sometimes for no return in the form of ratings. Example: at least one organization is paying two million a year for a morning talent, while scores of jocks are laid off. The lack of equanimity is not quarantined to radio, as anyone who as followed the fiscal crisis knows. Because its entertainment, it's just a little more sickening.
'Til next time.
What, You say? With the economy tanking? With the United States in a financial panic rivaled only by the great depression? With jobs being lost by the thousands each week (including the radio profession--not so much panic, there, just expediency. The technology is allowing companies to blow people out by the dozens, and doesn't bode well for my own career interests. More on that, later)?
Yes. We're doin' fine so far in 2009 from the perspective of hope. Any year that starts with a skilled pilot successfully ditching an airliner in the Hudson River, and saving 155 lives, HAS to be a positive year. Add that to the Inauguration of an actually articulate, intelligent person to our highest office, and yes, the year has promise for positivity. Even for those who are not fans of President Obama, just to see his predecessor go is an occasion for revelry. Eight years of that simpleton in charge has left the country in a shape that only his blindest, most ardent minions could ignore.
Before I veer away from politics, I have to express even more than the relief that Mr. Bush has returned to Texas. If we can all suppress our partisan leanings for just a minute, a good look will reveal that the very idea of Sarah Palin even being in the vicinity of the White House (let alone a heartbeat away from the Oval Office) is mind boggling, especially at a time like this. Is it sexist to say that this glib person could probably be entertaining at a meeting of the Wasilla Community Players, and little else? Anyone who voted for that ticket, then viewed the Governor of Alaska holding court with reporters as a turkey got its head ground to bits has to see the light by now. If you didn't see it, there stood Sarah, beaming and prattling on about getting the government out of people's way (I think we've seen what happens when the government gets out of people's way: the government has to bail 'em out!). As she babbled, the guy who ran the farm rammed turkeys head-first into a steel funnel, its legs kicking as it's noggin was turned to a pulpy mass of viscera. We love turkey, but really don't want to see it's final moments in life played out as a woman who ran for Vice President spews disconnected political bullet points, in a bright, cheery manner. Yeah, that's who we want running the country, eventually.
Lastly, no Republican deny what drew nearly two million people to the Inauguration. Of course, the reverence will at some point recede, because he is, after all, a human being. So's The Chief Justice, who fucked-up administering the oath of office. I reflexively hit the jump button on my remote at the embarrassing moment, but it wasn't the President who goofed.
I wasn't surprised when later, on Fox News, Chris Wallace surmised that the oath might not have been legitimate because of the wording goof. Chris is a journalist-- he should be ashamed. But as we all know, there is no shame in the world of Fox. Before the holidays, I read a book about Rupert Murdoch and Fox, and it backed up what many of us had known for years: It's a propaganda arm of the Right Wing, and shouldn't be mistaken for news. You want objectivity? Try what's left of CBS, NBC and ABC...PBS, CNN. If you want to watch a dunderhead (Bush) put on a pedestal, and the new President stalked, then pounced upon at the first scent of blood, watch Fox. Just don't mistake it for news.
*
I just watched an episode of 30 Rock, one of the smartest (if not the smartest), funniest comedies on TV. Even after all the Emmys and Golden Globes, the ratings are still awful., and that's too bad. With television programs spread all over hundreds of channels, hilarious, well received, high-rated sitcom are rare. A fabulous talent like Julia Louis-Dreyfus is caged in drek like The New Adventures of Old Christine...well below her ability, and no where near 30 Rock in class.
Tina Fey must be the crush of a million guys who would have been too shallow to dig her twelve years ago, when she was a little heavier and less well known. It's good advice for us all to keep our eyes open for the Tina Feys of our world.
On the subject of ratings, I've said it for 15 years, and I'll say it for 15 more: Letterman beats Leno by miles. No, not in the ratings, but as a show. Where Leno is a practiced stand-up, almost without peer, Letterman is a real broadcaster, with the ability to work the irony and sarcasm out of a bit until it bleeds laughs. After his open-heart surgery, 9/11, and the birth of his son, he dialed back some of smirky Dave, and displayed depth of knowledge and interviewing prowess thatleaves many in the news business chartreuse with envy. This was especially evident when he finally got Senator McCain on his show and grilled him like a smoked salmon. For those who prefer Leno, it's a case of apples and oranges, I guess. NBC certainly is betting on the apples, what with elevating Jay to a nightly prime-time strip on the network, Monday through Friday at 10pm.
My reaction is that NBC is not just keeping Leno out of the hands of the other networks, b ut cutting costs, and taking a gamble. First, what are the odds that his current audience would break habit and follow him to another network like Fox or ABC? Secondly, does NBC really believe average folks in the Midwest who chose Leno over Letterman at 11:35, tune him in at 10? My bet is that they'll pick CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Without a Trace, and NUMB3RS. That noise you hear is Sarah Palin putting the NBC Peacock into a steel funnel to have its head turned into pate'.
Finally, a note on the evaporation of jobs in radio--I can't say too much, if I still want to land some work, but believe me, there are some folks who are still getting rich in L.A., New York, and Chicago. Filthy rich, and sometimes for no return in the form of ratings. Example: at least one organization is paying two million a year for a morning talent, while scores of jocks are laid off. The lack of equanimity is not quarantined to radio, as anyone who as followed the fiscal crisis knows. Because its entertainment, it's just a little more sickening.
'Til next time.
Monday, November 17, 2008
THE BEST, THE BRIGHTEST, AND TURKEY-TIME
Now that we've elected a new President, it didn't take long for the first Xmas trees to pop up at malls around the country. Bang! Zoom! From the Electoral College to Santa's Workshop in a matter of days, as if the rest of November doesn't exist. At least Nordstrom's has the right idea. I saw a sign in front of their newest store advising all who entered that they believe in celebrating one holiday at a time, and that their holiday decorations will go up on the 28th. "Happy Thanksgiving," the sign read. A pretty solid message from a place with a lounge-lizard piano player on site.
The holidays will bring a full schedule of for me, the first sustained work for, what up til now, has been my former and intermittent employer, KRTH, Los Angeles. It's a time to look ahead to prospects in 2009--prospects in a depressed economy--and to look back at the 14 years I spent at K-Earth 101.
Dave "Sky" Walker, who handles the weekend overnight shifts (while they still exist, knock on wood) remarked that it's amazing, the number of radio stars I've had the opportunity to work with, and he's right. I thought I'd share my observations about those who are no longer with us, and one who spent all of five days working in Los Angeles...but what a five days they were.
THE REAL DON STEELE
I'd always been aware of The Real Don Steele. KHJ was everywhere when I was young, and it was impossible not to hear him barreling out of radios all over L.A. I knew him best from his hosting duties on Boss City, the Saturday evening dance show on KHJ-TV Channel 9 (later called The Real Don Steele Show, once "Boss" became passe).
I became a true fan at a time I was struggling to advance in the business. That was in 1985, when Don burst forth from a seven year hiatus to do afternoons at KRLA, AM 1110. No air talent ever augmented the hits with more formatic precision, more energy, double entendres, sarcasm, and minimal, expertly timed observation than The Real Don Steele. I could go on and use a hundred superlatives about his work, which stayed extraordinary... from his earliest days in Omaha, 1962, until his terminal illness forced him off the air at K-earth 101 in April of 1997...but I've said enough. A memo by Bob Henabery of WRKO, Boston says it all succinctly and profoundly. This remarkable seven page document was written in June of 1966, when WRKO management contemplated a move to the Top 40 music format that made a huge success of its sister RKO station, KHJ. Henabery assessed KHJ from top to bottom, from the music to the jingles, newscasts and the boss jocks. He had this to say about Don:
"The Real Don Steele is the most articulate of the Boss Jocks in respect to the argot of the youth. he delivers this language flawlessly, at a furious and witty pace. Steele is the most intelligent and talented of the Boss Jocks..."
WRKO went on to become the Top 40 station in Boston for the next 15 years. Real Don went on proving Henabery correct until he passed away, August 5, 1997. He's the best there ever was, and it was surreal to be on the same air staff with him.
ROBERT W. MORGAN
My first memories of Morgan were from his TV stint with a puppet named Mickey Mudturtle. When I told him that, he laughed, coughed out some cigarette smoke and exclaimed "Christ, I was 27 years old!"
Morgan was a morning presence in our house. His was the voice from the transistor radio as my older brothers got ready to head off to high school. Armed with a razor sharp wit, he was ahead of the curve when it came to presence in morning drive. To describe him as gruff in his later days, would be to say that porcupines were a little prickly from time to time. That was part of the armor you experienced in person. On air, he was quick, absolutely funnier than anyone else, and a perfectionist. When we lost Steele and Morgan in freakish tandem, we lost more than two men of flesh and bone and spirit. The medium of radio lost two larger-than-life entities that towered over the rest. A pair that defined professionalism. The generations to follow will never know what it's like to have performers of their greatness present music on the radio. To have Morgan tell me "You make the station sound good," is a compliment I'll take to the end of my days.
Robert W. was tart and topical; his booming voice vibrated acerbic quips over intros to songs, tete-a-tetes with phone callers, and hit musical posts with punchlines. He tolerated no fools. Toward the end of his career, those five years at K-Earth 101, he was unrelentingly political, but he lost none of his old fans from Boss radio days at KHJ. Because morning meant MORGAN. Unlike Real Don, he went public with his lung cancer diagnosis, and retired at a lavish broadcast from the Museum of TV and Radio in Beverly Hills, January 9, 1998. He passed away on May 28th of that year.
DAN INGRAM
First things, first: Dan Ingram is very much alive, in New York City, active at age 73. He spent all of one week on the air in Los Angeles, from June 22 through 26, 1998, auditioning for the morning job at K-earth, left open by Robert W.'s departure. I got to follow him that first day. He was gracious, cordial, and hilarious.
Because I'm a Southern Californian born and raised, I hadn't heard of Dan Ingram until I read Rocking America, Rick Sklar's 1984 memoir about the heady, Top 40 days of WABC, New York. My introduction to Big Dan came by way of tape, and he was incredible. The zingers, the one -liners, the wink-of-the-eye smarty pants comments that preceded, followed and punctuated songs, commercials, newscasts and everything else, were side-splitting. For anyone who's never heard him, I'd say that, at his peak in the 60's and 70's, he was like Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam, but more in control, more exacting, more professional.
A good example would be a series of ad libs between commercials on the 4th of July, 1968. He read what we call the "tag" to commercial about a Sea World-type exhibition, made a quip, ran another spot, then said of the "Sea World" commercial, "How about this: when love congeals, it soon reveals...the faint aroma, of performing seals..."
Anyone from the Northeastern United States who got to listen to him every afternoon were privileged, indeed. The one week we had him, ten years ago, he caused more positive phone calls than anyone else who auditioned for the job, including the guy who wound up being hired.
To compare his work in the afternoon to The Real Don Steele's is like comparing WABC to KHJ: it's a case of excellence born to two different mothers, and any comparison would be nefarious. They were different, on separate coasts, and both brilliant within their own veins.
DICK HUGG, "HUGGY BOY"
I was not a fan of Huggy's. He was from a time when presenting music on radio was in its infancy. It was that cred from the deep past that made Hug beloved in L.A.'s deeply entrenched Mexican-American community. In the 50's, he'd done his show live, all night, from Dolphin's Record Shop in South Central Los Angeles. In the 60's, when the '50's songs became oldies-but goodies, he purchased his air time, and did all night shows on Spanish language station KALI, cementing his connection to Latino listeners.
Flash forward to the 90's, and an elderly Huggy was at KRLA, until the station's format was changed. In October of 1998, he slid into a late night shift at K-Earth 101. We were told it was to keep him from going to a competing Rhythmic Oldies station, but in truth, he needed income, and they created a place for him. I wasn't alone in thinking he wasn't competent to perform at a station as well executed as K-earth 101 was, 10 years ago.
When he joined us, I went out of my way to be nice, but he was aloof...indifferent to me, and so I was little more than polite when I saw him. He truly believed what they told him: that he was there to lure Latino listeners and increase the nighttime ratings. To those who shared my sentiments at the the time, I said, "Huggy could no more generate ratings here than he could a solid bowel movement."
I felt bad about that as time went on. He really was like part of the family to so many on the East side, but I was correct that he didn't make any difference in the ratings. I respected what he had accomplished throughout his long time on the air in L.A., and its historic significance. What was particularly egregious was how the poor man left the planet...not so long after a fall at home, with no one there.
While we never liked one another, I'm sorry a performer held in such high esteem by a significant part of the southland had to come to such a heart-rending end.
*
APOLOGIES TO KATIE COURIC
In an earlier post, I think I wrote that Katie Couric had "cuted-up" the CBS Evening News. Well, when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong. I hadn't watched her broadcast in some time, and according to the ratings, neither had much of the country. Though third in viewership among the network newscasts, Katie's program has become damned good. Her interview with Sarah Palin (Peggy Hill?) was epic! Quietly, politely, she delivered the questions that revealed Governor Palin's denseness. That's all you can ask of any good interviewer for a quality newscast. When I watch evening news, now, I watch Katie.
The holidays will bring a full schedule of for me, the first sustained work for, what up til now, has been my former and intermittent employer, KRTH, Los Angeles. It's a time to look ahead to prospects in 2009--prospects in a depressed economy--and to look back at the 14 years I spent at K-Earth 101.
Dave "Sky" Walker, who handles the weekend overnight shifts (while they still exist, knock on wood) remarked that it's amazing, the number of radio stars I've had the opportunity to work with, and he's right. I thought I'd share my observations about those who are no longer with us, and one who spent all of five days working in Los Angeles...but what a five days they were.
THE REAL DON STEELE
I'd always been aware of The Real Don Steele. KHJ was everywhere when I was young, and it was impossible not to hear him barreling out of radios all over L.A. I knew him best from his hosting duties on Boss City, the Saturday evening dance show on KHJ-TV Channel 9 (later called The Real Don Steele Show, once "Boss" became passe).
I became a true fan at a time I was struggling to advance in the business. That was in 1985, when Don burst forth from a seven year hiatus to do afternoons at KRLA, AM 1110. No air talent ever augmented the hits with more formatic precision, more energy, double entendres, sarcasm, and minimal, expertly timed observation than The Real Don Steele. I could go on and use a hundred superlatives about his work, which stayed extraordinary... from his earliest days in Omaha, 1962, until his terminal illness forced him off the air at K-earth 101 in April of 1997...but I've said enough. A memo by Bob Henabery of WRKO, Boston says it all succinctly and profoundly. This remarkable seven page document was written in June of 1966, when WRKO management contemplated a move to the Top 40 music format that made a huge success of its sister RKO station, KHJ. Henabery assessed KHJ from top to bottom, from the music to the jingles, newscasts and the boss jocks. He had this to say about Don:
"The Real Don Steele is the most articulate of the Boss Jocks in respect to the argot of the youth. he delivers this language flawlessly, at a furious and witty pace. Steele is the most intelligent and talented of the Boss Jocks..."
WRKO went on to become the Top 40 station in Boston for the next 15 years. Real Don went on proving Henabery correct until he passed away, August 5, 1997. He's the best there ever was, and it was surreal to be on the same air staff with him.
ROBERT W. MORGAN
My first memories of Morgan were from his TV stint with a puppet named Mickey Mudturtle. When I told him that, he laughed, coughed out some cigarette smoke and exclaimed "Christ, I was 27 years old!"
Morgan was a morning presence in our house. His was the voice from the transistor radio as my older brothers got ready to head off to high school. Armed with a razor sharp wit, he was ahead of the curve when it came to presence in morning drive. To describe him as gruff in his later days, would be to say that porcupines were a little prickly from time to time. That was part of the armor you experienced in person. On air, he was quick, absolutely funnier than anyone else, and a perfectionist. When we lost Steele and Morgan in freakish tandem, we lost more than two men of flesh and bone and spirit. The medium of radio lost two larger-than-life entities that towered over the rest. A pair that defined professionalism. The generations to follow will never know what it's like to have performers of their greatness present music on the radio. To have Morgan tell me "You make the station sound good," is a compliment I'll take to the end of my days.
Robert W. was tart and topical; his booming voice vibrated acerbic quips over intros to songs, tete-a-tetes with phone callers, and hit musical posts with punchlines. He tolerated no fools. Toward the end of his career, those five years at K-Earth 101, he was unrelentingly political, but he lost none of his old fans from Boss radio days at KHJ. Because morning meant MORGAN. Unlike Real Don, he went public with his lung cancer diagnosis, and retired at a lavish broadcast from the Museum of TV and Radio in Beverly Hills, January 9, 1998. He passed away on May 28th of that year.
DAN INGRAM
First things, first: Dan Ingram is very much alive, in New York City, active at age 73. He spent all of one week on the air in Los Angeles, from June 22 through 26, 1998, auditioning for the morning job at K-earth, left open by Robert W.'s departure. I got to follow him that first day. He was gracious, cordial, and hilarious.
Because I'm a Southern Californian born and raised, I hadn't heard of Dan Ingram until I read Rocking America, Rick Sklar's 1984 memoir about the heady, Top 40 days of WABC, New York. My introduction to Big Dan came by way of tape, and he was incredible. The zingers, the one -liners, the wink-of-the-eye smarty pants comments that preceded, followed and punctuated songs, commercials, newscasts and everything else, were side-splitting. For anyone who's never heard him, I'd say that, at his peak in the 60's and 70's, he was like Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam, but more in control, more exacting, more professional.
A good example would be a series of ad libs between commercials on the 4th of July, 1968. He read what we call the "tag" to commercial about a Sea World-type exhibition, made a quip, ran another spot, then said of the "Sea World" commercial, "How about this: when love congeals, it soon reveals...the faint aroma, of performing seals..."
Anyone from the Northeastern United States who got to listen to him every afternoon were privileged, indeed. The one week we had him, ten years ago, he caused more positive phone calls than anyone else who auditioned for the job, including the guy who wound up being hired.
To compare his work in the afternoon to The Real Don Steele's is like comparing WABC to KHJ: it's a case of excellence born to two different mothers, and any comparison would be nefarious. They were different, on separate coasts, and both brilliant within their own veins.
DICK HUGG, "HUGGY BOY"
I was not a fan of Huggy's. He was from a time when presenting music on radio was in its infancy. It was that cred from the deep past that made Hug beloved in L.A.'s deeply entrenched Mexican-American community. In the 50's, he'd done his show live, all night, from Dolphin's Record Shop in South Central Los Angeles. In the 60's, when the '50's songs became oldies-but goodies, he purchased his air time, and did all night shows on Spanish language station KALI, cementing his connection to Latino listeners.
Flash forward to the 90's, and an elderly Huggy was at KRLA, until the station's format was changed. In October of 1998, he slid into a late night shift at K-Earth 101. We were told it was to keep him from going to a competing Rhythmic Oldies station, but in truth, he needed income, and they created a place for him. I wasn't alone in thinking he wasn't competent to perform at a station as well executed as K-earth 101 was, 10 years ago.
When he joined us, I went out of my way to be nice, but he was aloof...indifferent to me, and so I was little more than polite when I saw him. He truly believed what they told him: that he was there to lure Latino listeners and increase the nighttime ratings. To those who shared my sentiments at the the time, I said, "Huggy could no more generate ratings here than he could a solid bowel movement."
I felt bad about that as time went on. He really was like part of the family to so many on the East side, but I was correct that he didn't make any difference in the ratings. I respected what he had accomplished throughout his long time on the air in L.A., and its historic significance. What was particularly egregious was how the poor man left the planet...not so long after a fall at home, with no one there.
While we never liked one another, I'm sorry a performer held in such high esteem by a significant part of the southland had to come to such a heart-rending end.
*
APOLOGIES TO KATIE COURIC
In an earlier post, I think I wrote that Katie Couric had "cuted-up" the CBS Evening News. Well, when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong. I hadn't watched her broadcast in some time, and according to the ratings, neither had much of the country. Though third in viewership among the network newscasts, Katie's program has become damned good. Her interview with Sarah Palin (Peggy Hill?) was epic! Quietly, politely, she delivered the questions that revealed Governor Palin's denseness. That's all you can ask of any good interviewer for a quality newscast. When I watch evening news, now, I watch Katie.
Friday, November 7, 2008
OUR EVENING OF JUBILEE
There are few times in life when the emotions of joy, relief, and the feeling of justification converge. When they all hit at the same time, tears and smiles spring forth. That's an almost clinical description of what happened in my living room, in the homes of friends, across the country and around the world, November 4, 2008. It's as if America, truly as a people, made collective positive movement--out of the darkness of these last eight years and into, at the very least, a glimmer of light.
There's no need for tired ideology, just truth: for the first time in a long time, the bad guys lost. The forces of fear, the punitive control freaks, the unenlightened and the dogmatic lost their grip on our country's destiny. The new President-Elect seeks to govern not by getting even with those who hijacked power in 2000, but by doing what's right for the country on a whole, and not just the richest or the most fanatic.
A s he said in accepting his landslide victory (364 Electoral votes...the most for a Democrat since Clinton in 1996), Barack Obama said it won't be easy. He told the truth. The "haters" in this country (our domestic version of "evil-doers") abound...and the ideological wack-jobs of the right still command angry hordes of viewers (via Fox), and radio listeners (who accept the vomitous rantings of Rush Limbaugh as gospel). He'll be attacked daily, but this guy has a tough skin, and not only is he book-smart...he's a brilliant tactical politician. What mistakes Obama will make, he'll study and not repeat.
Should he fail, at least he will have come into this with good intent. I think his opponent simply wanted to live out a life-long dream. And the less said about "Peggy Hill," the better. There's a passage from Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in which the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge two emaciated, disheveled children.
"The boy is ignorance, and the girl is want. Fear them both, but above all fear this boy," he tells the old miser.
On the Republican ticket of 2008, Dickens' warning rang true. In the case of real life, the male was want, and the female was ignorance. The Governor of Alaska dissembled and obfuscated every day of her two months as a character in this play. The G.O.P. should be ashamed (and some are) that a person so woefully unqualified was put in place to perhaps assume the Presidency. Holding power at any cost, in this case by manipulating its base with a glib, physically attractive person, does not constitute doing right by the country.
I apologize to Mike Judge and his character, Peggy Hill, for the comparison. Peggy is big-hearted and means well.
TURNING TO SPORTS, IT'S MANNY MANIA
In Los Angeles, for two months, we saw one man put a team on his back as if he were performing one of the 13 Tasks of Hercules. And if the Phillies hadn't been so damned good, Manny Ramirez would have lead the Dodgers to the World Series.
They got as far as game five of the N.L. Championship Series. For some of us, it wasn't enough, but reality demanded that was as far as they'd go. Getting to watch Manny Ramirez turn Dodger Stadium into a Fantasyland, which it hadn't been for years and years, was worth it. He'll probably not be back next season. The Dodgers may well pick up where they were in July, battling to stay at .500. But for a short, passionate time, we got to relive what it was like when the Dodgers ruled L.A.
Had the Dodgers won, at least baseball fans would have had a glimpse of what the World Series used to be, played in sunshine and shadows, and the relatively warm temperatures of early Indian Summer. Instead, we were treated to watching freezing fans in Philadelphia--alliteration, I know, but true. The length of the play-offs, the dominance of east coast teams, and the insistence of Fox that the games be played at night have all diminished the World Series as national spectacle.
Maybe someday, someone can figure out a way to save the Series from the rain and the frosty, late October temps of the Northeast without further damaging this treasured rite of Fall. Until then, I recommend a book of photos by Neil Leifer. On its cover are Jim Gilliam, Don Drysdale and John Roseboro, embracing as they leave the field at Dodger Stadium under sparkling blue skies, having vanquished the Yankees in Game Three of the 1963 World Series. We'll never see World Series play in the sunshine, again, but this vivid color photo (as is the case with many others in the book) brilliantly displays what once was...and what should be, again.
THE LLOYD THAXTON HOP
Those friends and family members who've kept up with this sporadic blog over the last year, may have noticed I've changed the layout. The original white letters on blue background was the same used by the great Lloyd Thaxton, who also blogged at this site. I chose the same layout as a tribute. My brothers watched Lloyd Thaxton's KCOP-TV Channel 13 show EVERY DAY when I was very young. I remember seeing Lloyd pretending to play a trumpet to (what I later learned was) Herb Alpert's "The Lonely Bull." He did something goofy each afternoon that made you laugh. More importantly, for teens like my brothers, he played the hits, showed the kids dancing, and brought on the likes of The Temptations, Bobby Vee, The Shangri-Las, and all the top groups of the '60's. Lloyd was a gifted, good-humored man, who passed away a short time ago
I believe his writings are still posted here, at http://www.lloydthaxton.blogspot.com/. Read them, if you can. He would have been ecstatic about November 4th, too.
There's no need for tired ideology, just truth: for the first time in a long time, the bad guys lost. The forces of fear, the punitive control freaks, the unenlightened and the dogmatic lost their grip on our country's destiny. The new President-Elect seeks to govern not by getting even with those who hijacked power in 2000, but by doing what's right for the country on a whole, and not just the richest or the most fanatic.
A s he said in accepting his landslide victory (364 Electoral votes...the most for a Democrat since Clinton in 1996), Barack Obama said it won't be easy. He told the truth. The "haters" in this country (our domestic version of "evil-doers") abound...and the ideological wack-jobs of the right still command angry hordes of viewers (via Fox), and radio listeners (who accept the vomitous rantings of Rush Limbaugh as gospel). He'll be attacked daily, but this guy has a tough skin, and not only is he book-smart...he's a brilliant tactical politician. What mistakes Obama will make, he'll study and not repeat.
Should he fail, at least he will have come into this with good intent. I think his opponent simply wanted to live out a life-long dream. And the less said about "Peggy Hill," the better. There's a passage from Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in which the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge two emaciated, disheveled children.
"The boy is ignorance, and the girl is want. Fear them both, but above all fear this boy," he tells the old miser.
On the Republican ticket of 2008, Dickens' warning rang true. In the case of real life, the male was want, and the female was ignorance. The Governor of Alaska dissembled and obfuscated every day of her two months as a character in this play. The G.O.P. should be ashamed (and some are) that a person so woefully unqualified was put in place to perhaps assume the Presidency. Holding power at any cost, in this case by manipulating its base with a glib, physically attractive person, does not constitute doing right by the country.
I apologize to Mike Judge and his character, Peggy Hill, for the comparison. Peggy is big-hearted and means well.
TURNING TO SPORTS, IT'S MANNY MANIA
In Los Angeles, for two months, we saw one man put a team on his back as if he were performing one of the 13 Tasks of Hercules. And if the Phillies hadn't been so damned good, Manny Ramirez would have lead the Dodgers to the World Series.
They got as far as game five of the N.L. Championship Series. For some of us, it wasn't enough, but reality demanded that was as far as they'd go. Getting to watch Manny Ramirez turn Dodger Stadium into a Fantasyland, which it hadn't been for years and years, was worth it. He'll probably not be back next season. The Dodgers may well pick up where they were in July, battling to stay at .500. But for a short, passionate time, we got to relive what it was like when the Dodgers ruled L.A.
Had the Dodgers won, at least baseball fans would have had a glimpse of what the World Series used to be, played in sunshine and shadows, and the relatively warm temperatures of early Indian Summer. Instead, we were treated to watching freezing fans in Philadelphia--alliteration, I know, but true. The length of the play-offs, the dominance of east coast teams, and the insistence of Fox that the games be played at night have all diminished the World Series as national spectacle.
Maybe someday, someone can figure out a way to save the Series from the rain and the frosty, late October temps of the Northeast without further damaging this treasured rite of Fall. Until then, I recommend a book of photos by Neil Leifer. On its cover are Jim Gilliam, Don Drysdale and John Roseboro, embracing as they leave the field at Dodger Stadium under sparkling blue skies, having vanquished the Yankees in Game Three of the 1963 World Series. We'll never see World Series play in the sunshine, again, but this vivid color photo (as is the case with many others in the book) brilliantly displays what once was...and what should be, again.
THE LLOYD THAXTON HOP
Those friends and family members who've kept up with this sporadic blog over the last year, may have noticed I've changed the layout. The original white letters on blue background was the same used by the great Lloyd Thaxton, who also blogged at this site. I chose the same layout as a tribute. My brothers watched Lloyd Thaxton's KCOP-TV Channel 13 show EVERY DAY when I was very young. I remember seeing Lloyd pretending to play a trumpet to (what I later learned was) Herb Alpert's "The Lonely Bull." He did something goofy each afternoon that made you laugh. More importantly, for teens like my brothers, he played the hits, showed the kids dancing, and brought on the likes of The Temptations, Bobby Vee, The Shangri-Las, and all the top groups of the '60's. Lloyd was a gifted, good-humored man, who passed away a short time ago
I believe his writings are still posted here, at http://www.lloydthaxton.blogspot.com/. Read them, if you can. He would have been ecstatic about November 4th, too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)