Motown Christmas & New Years with the Four Tops and Jackie Wilson
Jumping ahead a bit on the calendar when I was working at CJOM radio in Detroit-Windsor the staff and staff from all the other stations were getting ready to party at a club in Mt. Clemens for the annual Radio and Television Broadcast Association New Years Eve party. I took my girlfriend, Denise a black girl who loved Barry Manilow all all people and myself, a die hard James Brown fan...another story altogether...anyway at the party we were at the table with our staff and the crew from our competitor but friends at WRIF drinking the year awa and sneaking outside to the parking lot for a few joints every now and then. After dinner the stage was set for the Four Tops show so a bunch of us moved to the stage area where the Tops asked for a volunteer Top from the audience. As a joke one of the guys at WRIT lifted my arm and my career was off and careening on the Motown Yellow Brick Road! They taught me a few steps and then the band began and and here I was a Top dancing and singing along with them to Sugar Pie Honey Bunch, It's the Same Old Song and Got to Have All Your Lovin after which I was released from custody to enjoy the rest of the show...what the hell I got a standing ovation ha... One more Motown radio holiday.. story this time a Christmas concert (1972) where I met my absolute idol in the field of music...Jackie Wilson. Jackie was on a Christmas Show bill at the old Michigan Palace concert venue, formerly a movie theater. I was only in radio after the military for maybe a year...still a virgin so to speak. He was the headliner. The warm up acts were Del Shannon and also the Shirelles. Having access to the backstage area as radio people do I got to hang with Del and the Shirelles, got autographs , schmoozed and the usual stuff. They in turn did their performances on stage.….I watched then a bit and then got back stage again now that the backstage crowd was gone. I had a mission. Meet Jackie Wilson! I walked back, knocked on the dressing room door and Jackie himself answered. Big smile, introduced himself and bang..old motor city motormouth Mikey couldn’t speak! I was stammering and stuttering and felt like a fool. Jackie smiled seeing my predicament and invited me in briefly to sign an autograph and talk for five minutes… Then ShowTime...I left and took my balcony seat by Denise, my Motown girlfriend, She said well did you meet Jackie? My response is yes and no...I met Mr. Excitement! Told Denise she could borrow my Motown records if she burned the Manilow poster,,ha... Then Jackie hits the stage and damn….the night lit up! Actually got Denise in a sexy mood….I owe the rest of that night to Jackie Wilson!
Denny McClain: Detroit Tigers Flamethrower Meets Mike Marino
When Denny McClain and the Tigers upset the baseball apple cart in 1968, I was serving in the US Army in Okinawa so missed all the action on the field, but that day was burned in my heart as a lifelong Tigers fan that was pride on amphetamines! By 1972 I was a young punk working my first radio gig at CJOM-FM radio in Windsor for the Detroit rock and roll market. Still a baseball fan I had four season tickets, first base box seats for years and got to enjoy every game, especially Opening Days...my favorite game day...the energy was atomic on those days. After the games would head to my watering holes...the Del Rio two blocks away from the stadium drinking to pas the time and relive the game with the other drunks and winos. The Del Rio was a dive but colorful. The bar of choice during the week was the famed Lindell AC downtown. THE sports bar! When the Beatles were in town, Sinatra and the like they all headed there to see and be seen. It was the Hollywood Brown Derby of Detroit. Here I’d meet many of the legendary sports celebs of the day from Mark Fidrych to Alex Delvecchio to Gordie Howe and Kurt Gibson and Alex Karras and once, Pete Rose,...Alex and Pete being two of the bad boys of sports. But none were bigger and badder than Denny McClain. On the way out of baseball (due to trades and investigations) by this time Denny had tried opening a string of paint stores and other failed enterprises. He was now also involved in gambling and some say was dealing with the mafia. His foot injury that kept him out of game was supposedly give to him by Tony “Jack” Giacalone himself. (Think Giacalone...the mafia godfather Jimmy Hoffa met for lunch the day he disappeared.) Denny and partners had a huge pinball and video game emporium going in Mt. Clemens just north of Detroit. A two story machine filled quarter sucking empire that racked kin thousands of dollars a day. (Gee, I wonder where he got all those vending machines????”) The salesman for our radio station signed him up for advertising and took me along to meet him. We hit it off immediately and from then we USED each other. I was a radio personality well known and he was Denny McClain...in Detroit baseball that was better than Babe Ruth. We’d gone to three games together, using my box seats and through him got to meet the current at the time roster of Tigers. To me this was the Holy Grail!! We’d also meet and drink at the Lindell with his buddies, footballs Karras and basebals Gibson and hockeys Howe and I felt I was in the inner sanctum of the Vatican or the Tiger dugout...even better. One day hanging out and playing pinball at his fortress of solitude a fight broke out between his bouncers and some members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Gang on the main floor. The bikers were beaten pretty badly and Denny came down and with his guys tossed them out into the parking lot. Words were exchanged and the Outlaws said they’d be back to take care of “ou mother fuckers” which mant only one thing… a shootout at the Pinball Corral. That afternoon we were all upstairs in denny’s office while they loaded shotguns and pistols he kept in the room. He had more weapons and ammo than Col Kurtz in Apocalypse Now! I do believe Denny loved the smell of napalm in the morning. Thankfully I was due back at the radio station and not involved in the warfare. Denny also called extra help..all with Italian names from what I was told from Dearborn and the East Side. In short, they were outside armed and ready and when the bikers showed up...left in a hurry. Denny owed advertising money to every rock radio station in town...WRIF, W-F, WABX, CJOM, WDRQ and a few others and good luck getting paid. At CJOM we got a new General Manager from Toronto, Ray Greenspan and he was determined to collect from McClain so he made the appointment with Denny and took me along with him. I guess as mediator and was an acquaintance of his. We drove out there, I made the introductions and the negotiations began. On Denny’s desk was a pen set of mahogany with two large caliber gold dipped bullets on it. Ray mention it and admired it. He finally told Denny ..no cash no ads...Denny was not happy and negotiations broke down. When we left I said to Ray, “Well we got nothing, now what?” Ray smiled and pulled the two gold bullets from his pocket….”We got something,” he laughed. Deny finally paid up an got his bullets back...extortion? Just another day in Dennys world... (He once tossed the salesman from W-4 Pat M a friend of mine down the stairs of his office after Pat said “You run your company now as bad as your goddamned paint company!” (a McClain disaster enterprise that went bust!) Pat was then tossed down the stairs...I was there visiting Denny when that happened and new Denny’s glory days were coming to a crashing end eventually. We still did Tiger games and diners in Greektown and booze at the Lindell but had seen a different side o my hero..eventually left Detroit for other radio markets in the country. When I’d visit Detroit would call him and had drinks but by the 80’s his flame was about to go out as we was eventually sentenced to 23 years in prison on racketeering, extortion and drug-dealing charge. The judge also tacked on the maximum 15 years for his attempt to deal three kilos of cocaine in 1982, and fined him $8,900. So much for hero worship….later Denny was released and worked doing a radio talk show in Detroit. He was a badass with Mafia ties..which may sound awful but as a dago kid growing up in Mafia kladen Detroit’s Eastside and a Tiger fan ..Denny was still the flamethrower...except now there was no more flame to throw. I hit the Lindell a few times on my visit but no more Karras, Pet Rose, Gordie Howe or Beatles...and no more Denny McClain to laugh and joke with...but damn it...I still play pinball and take in as many baseball games as I can...Bases loaded...here comes the pitch.
ThenBisexual Bohemian
Living with a Bisexual female is as amazing as scaling Mt. Everest. I’ve had the grand fortune to live or have relationships with four of them, but the weirdest one was in San Francisco that made a lasting dent in my psyche. She was, before a San Francisco bohemian, the sales manager at the radio station in Michigan I worked at. She went west and under her spell...I followed...wagons ho! Go west young man, go west and discover gold. She was 8 years older than I was at the time so she had two things going for her...Bisexuality and also, Bisexuality. The sexual version of splitting the atom and causing a nuclear reaction. I knew about her sexual persuasion when I met her. She was very open about it..at least to me other wise it was kept in the bi- closet of Northern Michigan where liberal attitudes took a back seat to bowling tournaments and bar room fights. In Michigan she would go out on the road to sell advertising while I was on the air adn before walking out the door for her car she’d come into the studio and ask for what she called a “wet set”, in others words two sexy songs in a row that she could masturbate to in her car before she left the parking lot! I’ve taken a few requests like that since from other listeners. One listener, again Northern Michigan had a baby and when her husband was at work would call the studio with her breast pump in full tilt boogie mode over the phone. The perils of being an on air dude! My Bi-babe and I had a nice apartment in San Francisco with great view. She also had a girl crush on a co-worker of hers at her new place of employment. They would go out to movies together and sometimes when they stayed in I was invited as one would order a piece of pie...but don’t get me wrong...I never complained. Strangely enough she would complain if a caller on the air on my San Fran show was too personal. Go figure! Together we would haunt North Beach strip clubs and adult toy stores on weekends. In the clubs they ahd fantasy booths that were two seaters where we enjoyed the action as the Ozzie and Harriet of Sin City. One of her games was when walking teh downtown streets and we’d see a group of females at a bus stop she had me try to guess which one she would go to bed with...our tastes ran the same so I picked a winner every time…..actually our taste was scarily close..we both had the hots for Lt. Yar on Star Trek! At Big Al’s sex emporium she buy “toys” to play with when her girlfriend came over. Without going into detail she had a thing for cuffs and riding crops and red and black teddies. Must admit it was a fun show to watch and sometimes have a starring role. Love watching thespians! I felt like Spencer Tracy in his version of Jekyll and Hyde...if you’ve seen the carriage scene you’ll know what I mean,....sometimes it was just your basic “( ½ Weeks” scenario only with two Kim Bassingers. She was Bohemian to the bone and had no qualms about going topless at the Folsom Street Fair. Ah the fair. It’s California's third-largest single-day, outdoor spectator event and showcase for BDSM products and culture with games, beverage booths and even spanking for donations to capitalize on the adult-themed exhibitionism. J as I will call her her and lady were always excited to participate...funny what a collar and leash will do to turn one human into Lassie! She liked to be in charge most times..but gawd help you if she was in a bad mood….ha...it got even more fun! We eventually went our own way...I ended up with another girl I moved in with. Yep...bi-sexual too...I learned to go with the flow….what the hell...Myrika, Sibyll and Olivia were also bi-sexual adn now that I think about it Bohemians too, but not into whips and chains..they were more whipped cream and roses. So if you run into any switch hitters….go with it. You only live once you may as well get more bang for your buck!
My Machete Girl
Having enjoyed the Disneyland world of diverse girlfriends when it comes to nationalities, one stand out as what I term..My Machete Girl. When I was enjoying the radio good life in Northern Michigan I got involved with a Tagalog/English speaking Filipina. She was witty...she was hot, hot, hot...she was electrifying….she was also married. When I met her didn’t know she was married. She ended up being my first bonafide “stalker” which I found ego gratifying at first, then the fear set in. Like a Roger Corman movie...it’s too late by the time the monster had appeared. Even then I was so mesmerized by her it could have been a legion of Zombies after me from Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” come for midnight snack! She was mid Twenties and came to the states with her retired older Air Force husband who by the by was one of those Northern Michigan hunters and deer carcass skinners who worked in the local meat packing operation and handy with a cleaver. Needless to say I made sure our trysts were discreet … except everyone at the station knew… Her husband it turns out was verbally abusive to her and treated her like a servant so I understood she needed an escape into another world on a daily basis...my world apparently. She also had a Filipina cousin who live in the area getting a divorce from her former GI husband. We’d meet at her house in the country outside of town, Rogers City where I was working at the time. We’d go there for dinner and both would enjoy as did I putting on a fashion show of mini skirts and bikini underwear while dancing as I sat on the couch anticipating the lap dance which they had down to a science...the best part was strip poker before meals of steamed rice and veggies. No matter who won the game, we all ended up nude at dinner and after. One night after dinner a knock at the door..damn...it was the cousins ex husband still jealous and checking on her...some guys just can’t give it up! So in a hurry the girls gathered up my clothes and put theirs on...tossed mine in the back room and hustled me to the basement where I sat on a bed in a makeshift bedroom complete with washer and dryer! I could hear the ex upstairs through the heat vent. If he came downstairs I was dead meat...naked and lying on the bed. What a way to go...help! He eventually left after an argument over something, probably her monthly allowance he had to pay. I felt it was safe and decided to emerge upstairs but imagine my surprise when I found the basement door locked. I knocked and could hear them laughing. Great, game time! To no avail were they going to answer my pleas. Eventually Rosa, my lady opened the door and ushered me back downstairs to the bed, she stripped and did her thing which was actually my thing too. When done she got up and told me to stay there. The cousin then came down after Rosa disappeared and bang bam...she did her thing too! Afterwards they let me come upstairs to eat dinner and was a pleasant night….things about to turn. From then on Rosa told me when to meet her there on a regular schedule and the basement follies continued once or twice a week. Not that I really minded but when it became a threat everything changed. I was told that I’ve i ever let her down she’d tell her husband about me and her cousin would tell her ex! Jesus H. Christ...now what. Simple I showed up when they told me to and kept my mouth shut. I got used to the basement and the rice...man, they could cook among other talents. They also enjoyed all things oral and had flavored creams they applied in a certain area. I got used to the taste of bubblegum and strawberry. Still do….wonder why? They also would do demonstrations naked with the cousin who could whip a pair of numchucks like a pro. As for Rosa she told me once…”I catch you with another woman, I cut your balls off with a machete!” Yes, she would brandish one often. This went on for six months at least twice a week or when they were bored, Rosa would call the studio and tell me the plan for the evening until I landed a job in San Francisco and made my escape… Radio can be a dangerous profession….an exciting profession...I never regretted radio...but leave the machete’s at home!
The Sound of One Jeff Clapping
Got a call from an old radio comrade of mine from a galaxy far, far away in 1977 or so. Jeff Allen. He was best man at my second wedding He was hired at the station I was working at and none of us were sure how he’d work out as he had a prosthetic hand to replace the one he lost in an auto accident in Detroit. He could however use it to fire off a turntable faster than Wyatt Earp could pistol whip a cowboy!! On air he was MR. rock and roll….perfect match for that daypart! His goal in life? Simple. He wanted to work for a record company as one of those PR guys setting up artists interviews and promotions at retail record stores. He eventually found employment at a Peaches Record Store in the burbs of Detroit’s eastside. We’d get together at parties and he’d have me at all the Peaches promotions with artists such as Eddie Money where these guys sign autographs, etc. Eddie was to play the next night at a venue-bar in Mt. Clemens and the night before we all went to the club check out the local talent. There was me, Eddie, Jeff and the Eddie’s PR guy from Columbia I think it was if memory serves well who was distributor of his album which I believe was on Bill Graham’s label. Not sure, but not important anyway to the story. Jeff was kissing ass that night with the Columbia rep trying to impress him with his vast knowledge of musical genres. The local band was great. Mix of genre’s and at one point Eddie got up to go to the bar and the Columbia guy went to the john. The band started into a short blues Butterfield number as Jeff kept saying…”Chicago Blues!” He wanted to impress the record guy so he runs to the mens room to impress the guy with his uncanny musical knowledge. How impressed you’d be with a guy yelling “The Blues” while your taking a leak in a bar is beyond me. I told Eddie when he got back to the table what Jeff was doing and Eddie and I worked up a prank. We went up to the bandstand, the band already knew this this new rock and roll star on the horizon and record exec where in the audience and they were all ears. Jeff and the suit were on the way back to the table when Eddie had the band break into “Help- Me Rhonda’ about as unbluesy as it gets. Jeff was perplexed so we got him drunk. What the hell. Blues, eh? Crash and burn!!! The Beach Boys ain't Butterfield!! Another time at the Ren Cen in downtown Detroit, myself my second wife, Jeff and his date from Peaches were sitting in the second story hanging bar pods drinking. Down below was a drum and fife high school band walking around in period costumes for the competition that weekend with other bands….I got up went downstairs and talked to the kids...they also had 1700’s period fake rifles and French flags. I stayed below as they went up the escalator, marched to the pod and said in a loud voice..”Jeff Allen..You are under arrest in the name of the crown!!” Amidst the laughter I also heard a voice yell..”Marino, you asshole..I’ll kill you!” Yet another time I had sent some Jehovah Witnesses to Peaches and ask for him. I heard about that too along with Christmas that year...one of the gifts I gave him was one glove..what the hell did he need two of them with one hand missing.. We are still friends to this day and as a testimony to his cool and calm...I’m still alive!
76 Trombones Led the Big Radio Parade
I’ve had some weird experiences in radio with many things that crossed my path including parades. Yes, covering a parade on radio is similar to giving Helen Keller directions to the ladies room at a ballpark. I was covering such a parade, Fourth of July in Mackinaw City. The town flush with tourists, tourist dollars, and enough fudge to give a sugar high to the starving children in Africa..or Angelina Jolie’s house whichever comes first. I had the parade cheat sheet of what float was what and what order, classic cars by year and model, cheerleading squads and bands from Michigan High Schools participating. During a parade there is lag time … dead air time… what the hell am I doing here time...I’d rather have a lobotomy time so to arrange for one of those “time stand still” moments I had my news director who was with me at the time enjoying the sunshine an tourist girls, track down someone from the Traverse City High School Band..they were state champs as bands go and I had a fact sheet on them just for the purpose of interviews. What the hell...I couldn’t tell a piccola from a peccadillo but could fake it. I said get someone anyone...it will be good copy as we say in the parlance of radio. Ward Cox, the news director disappeared in the direction of the TC band bus and soon returned with a guest...Ah great, the band leader I thought as the commercial break was about to end and I could launch right into the interview..damn….pro radio all the way. I had no time to introduce myself to the guest or vice versa but bang...you’re live now Mikey. So I greeting the guest and asked how long them kids had to practice to become state champs….”I don’t know,” he said. What, you don’t KNOW, I thought. A few more band questions and again all I got in return was I don’t knows...so finally I asked flat out…”what is your position with the band?” Proudly he beamed…”I’m the Bus Driver!!!” My fucking news director brings me Ralph Kramden when I’m expecting Lenny Bernstein! So I went into five minute dialogue about Blue Bird bus bodies and are American buses better than yadda yadda yadda….when I managed to bail out of my predicament I noticed that Ward was standing off to the rear with my girlfriend, Janice laughing…. I had to laugh too but somehow pulled it off…. The beer and lots of it were on Ward that night along with pizza at Mama Mia’s in Mackinaw!!! Another parade was in Colorado and I was able to drive and broadcast from the lead car...a cop car so sat next to the deputy sheriff and didn’t realize the mic was hot back in the studio control booth so over the air went me saying “Damn, I never rode in the front seat before and without handcuffs on!” It took a week on the air to live down the listener jokes and phone calls...fortunately I was friends with the sheriff’s department so they took it well too. In fact was at a bbq at the sheriffs house way out in the country on 10 acres where they were drinking and shooting at targets through one of the guys truck windows...drivers and passenger side rolled down and target beyond. The owner of the truck, a young deputy went in the house to take a leak so was the perfect time for the sheriff to go to the truck...roll up and close the passenger side window and when the deputy returned it was his shot and didn’t know the window was up...yep...shot out his own window!! ...and you thought the boys in blue don’t have a sense of humor…..as for parades….I pass on them these days but get misty eyed when ever I see a GM bus!!!
Puerto Rico: Everything Free In America
Do Journalism and Sex Go Together? You Bet your Ass! OK, I have to admit, after seeing “west Side Story” and the dance scene with hot blooded Latinas bouncing around like hot tamales, had always wanted to go To Puerto Rico and get a taste of the hot sauce and hot nights she had to offer. In 1994 I had the opportunity to go to Cuba, most expenses paid, so decided that after my journey into journalism at Guantanamo was finito...what the hell...back to Miami then onward to Puerto Rico at my own expense. I would go as a freelance journalist and do stories that may or may not sell...who cares...the Bacardi Rum plant was there and I still had some Cuban cigars and Puerto Rico had an island filled to the brim with Rita Moreno’s! I arrived in San Juan from Miami two days after leaving Havana. The weather was perfect, the flight was perfect and managed in my 7 days there to get a story filled on the onn going for decades vote the Puerto Ricans took on Statehood vs. Commonwealth vs Independence, the last vote taken at this time ws 1993 and as usual. Commonwealth status won hands down at 50% of the vote, Statehood 48% of the vote and 2% Independence) I arrived in San Juan and took a cab to the San Juan Condado Hotel that was recommended by one of the German journalists I met in Cuba and it was everything she said it was. I found myself stepping through the looking glass in ground zero of San Juan’s Condado District, filled with abundant nightlife and entertainment. I was also not completely uncultured as an individual and while I enjoy a grand display of bikini laden offerings of good old fashioned flesh I also got to explore Old San Juan's colorful architecture and historical museums. My room had a private balcony and a magnifico ocean view. That way I could scan teh ocean for pirate flotillas who got lost north of the Tortugas. On the work side of things I managed to get interviews with some of the department heads of the Election office regarding the Commonwealth vs Independance votes over the years except I already knew enough about it to file a story anyway but interview clips do help drive up the price of the filed stories. I did manage to take in a baseball game by the Liga de Béisbol Profesional de Puerto Rico at the Bithorn Stadium in San Juan in honor of the first Puerto Rican to play in the major leagues, Hiram Bithorn, who first played with the Chicago Cubs in 1942. Yes, I admit to paying for a couple of prostitutes available at a number of the strip clubs in the nightlife district. Hell, I was on my time and my dime. It was West Side Story all over again!! The girls were PR with a mix of African bloodline whose combo made for a muy caliente time sweating up then sheets in the humidity of the Caribbean….To be honest it was at this point I made the rounds of radio stations to check out any job openings...I was hooked by hookers. Alas, my Espanol was near nada...or empty on the lingo fuel gauge...if I was bilingual I had a shot but...not to be. I wanted to grow a grizzled beard, wear a floppy straw hat, go barefoot, drink rum and screw my brains out all day and all night in the Banana Republic meanwhile doing a radio show on the beach playing Latin music. But...as they say...At Least I tried…. I did manage to file stories on politics and sports and wrote articles for magazines as well on travel and culture so made my money back except for the bordello expenditures... Some of the attractions they grabbed me into this vortex of sin and gin appealed to the pirate in me. If Captain Jack Sparrow were alive today, he'd set sail for San Juan, Puerto Rico in less time than it takes to say Yo Ho Ho! and a bottle of Bacardi Rum. Puerto Rico, once a haven for plundering pirates, is a party hearty heaven heavy with nightlife, shopping, muy caliente cuisine and of course, a bottle of rum or two . If you're an American, good news. It's only a 3 and a half hour flight from NYC, no passports are required and the US dollar is the currency of choice. Spas specialize in pampering the visitor with soothing massages and enough mudpacks to fill the heavens of the Hedonist to the rafters. Sail the harbor of San Juan under the stars on one of the romantic dinner cruises with some beach side bubbly and you'll discover your own Club Paradise. In Puerto Rico, it doesn't take a full moon to bring out the party animal, but there are enough cabarets, disco's and nightclubs to keep the best of the bar hoppers shaking their party pirate booty. Lets face it, in Puerto Rico, life is a cabaret, Old Chum. One roadside oddity you'll encounter are the mobile gambling operations. It's legal and it's not unusual, as Tom Jones would say, to find motorized miniature horse races along the way called "picas". A tribute to distilled spirits is a visit to Bacardi Rum's Casa Bacardi..."The Cathedral of Rum" It's the home of the original rum and Coke, or Cuba Libre, as it's known in the islands, and you'll enjoy the tour of the distillery and rummaging through the gift shop for rum souvenirs and savory Bacardi products. The tour is free and ends up in a bat cave like bar where Bruce Wayne could leap out any moment and enjoy a free sample of the islands best with you. Holy Bacardi, Batman! Rum to Rumba....Puerto Rico has it all. So hoist a glass and set a course for San Juan and become a true party pirate of the Caribbean. Savvy? Once again, I managed to pull of a journalistic foray that disguised a delightful descent into delicious debauchery….just what you’d expect a pirate to do.
Bikers and Brando Bravado
Motorcycle gangs bring to mind a legion of doped up hopped up angst filled pissed off fuck society death wishing two wheeled badasses full of Brando bravado terrorizing some small hick town town revving engines, raping the local hick cheerleaders and pillaging the local hick juke joint draining every last cold beer in the cooler. One percenters on the proverbial highway to hell, leather bound and hell bent with handlebars and a tough “old lady” on back of the bike who could pull a train at the clubhouse before breakfast. They’ve been glorified in “The Wild One” and turned into cartoon buffoons in “Any Which Way But Loose.” When I left home and headed west at 15, according to my friend and fellow writer, Greg Michno who visited me last summer, the rumor around Fordson High School was that I had joined the Hells Angels. Yep..al 5’ 6” of me with my massive 135 pounds striking fear in the hearts of good citizens everywhere with my horned Nazi Viking helmet, Puerto Rican switchblade knife and a homemade Dago zip gun. No, I was not a Hells Angel nor a member of Detroit’s Highwaymen although I knew quite a few of them, and most times for some humorous run ins, as well as being good friends to know especially in Haight Ashbury when the neighborhood was going downhill with junkies and drunken sailors looking for fights with longhairs and a piece of ass from. Meanwhile in Detroit in the 70’s… you remember that decade, yes? I was working at a radio station by day and my nights were filled with bar hopping to catch all the local acts from Bob Seger to Iggy Pop as well as hitting the venues with acts from Tim Buckley to the New York Dolls. We had a club on the Eastside called Harpos, an old movie house in the days of Henry Fonda now a dive of nefarious and dubious infamy that was a mere two blocks from my house so got face down ass up many a weekend night. The one night of bikers to the rescue as when I went with a group of friends. We went to Harpos for the Leslie West concert with opening act of Frigid Pink, one of our bar bands in the Motor City. I had to at one point, as we all do, head to the mens room to do what men with too much beer do. Chase soaked cigarettes around the urinal trough with the accuracy of Wild Bill Hickock. If you were lucky you could even spell your name in a waterfall of cursive. Do both and damn it...that was Machismo!!!! Came time to get back to the music and of course had to comb my hair my pride and joy. Unfortunately the mirror on the wall had seen better days...such as when it was in one piece. The bottom portion had been long ago punched out and the remaining portion at such a height I had to jump up to get a look at my mane. To no avail. Then from out of nowhere, a big burly biker, named Timberwolf (whom I became friends over the next few months and by the way...his real name was George and as far as I knw the only person alive who could get away with calling him that.) came up behind me and lifted me up so I could see. My first reaction was great, I’m gonna end up with my pants down around my ankles and become a bikers bitch listening to Leslie West wail away, so color me relieved. Bought the man a beer and he joined us at the table for a few minutes, larned I worked at CJOM radio station and began my relationship with the Highwaymen Motorcycle Club of Detroit. My next run in was when my first wife and I were cutting through Rouge Park to visit my mom and dad with our new baby, Heather. Probaby 6 months old or so. Suddenly from out of nowhere 20 or so bikers came up behind us bearing down fast on my unsafe any speed Pinto. Could have been the Outlaws club or Devils Disciple, I wasn’t sure. Soon we were surrounded by bikers in frant side and back. The colors? The Highwaymen and damn...there was George. He knew my car and that we had had a baby recently. I pulled over on the shoulder and they all stopped too. Then with baby daughter in car seat looking out the window she and we witnessed two dozen bikers, mean father and mother rapers and their “old ladies” talking baby talk and waving at the kid….the Highwaymen were now the Brady Bunch going “Coo Coo, hello baby, etc.” After a few minutes of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, we told them where we were going, basic directions and we arrived at mom and dads...with a full motorcycle escort!!! Later I was co-producer and MC at a series of Free Concerts in Rouge Park on summer weekends. Chuck Petersen and myself worked the scheduling for a summer series of free concerts that featured the best of Detroit’s local bar bands from Salem Witchcraft to Toby Redd. We also had groups further up the food chain in Detroit. I had arranged for concert security with the Highwaymen. Free booze and they were the rowdy Pinkertons. During one of the shows I was on stage in Rouge Park in between acts as the next act was getting ready. We had a flimsy snow fence as barrier between the stage and the crowd and both myself and our biker "security" had been enjoying a bottle of wine behind the dressing room (U-Haul truck) and some fine Motor City weed. I made it to the stage for the obligatory announcements to kill time when an over enthusiastic concert goer in his 20’s drunk decided to breach the fencing and lept to the stage and tried to grab the mic from my hand. In a flash the Highwaymen and the drummer from Toby Redd flew out of nowhere, subdued the music lover and two other bikers then hauled him away..where and what they did to him I don't know nor cared to ask. The show went on. In the Haight when I was living on the corner in a second story corner facing apartment at Haight and Ashbury...doesn’t get any better than that! My neighbors a few doors away up Ashbury Street was the Grateful Dead house and across from them the Hells Angels house. Now those are neighbors. We’d sit on the grass smoking grass listening to Jerry and Company play while they were sitting on the steps outside. Private concert and block party all for free… I got to know some of the Angels, Papa Doc and Motorcycle Ritchie the two I knew best. Papa Doc was defacto leader and everyone on the street knew I was friends with them so basically I never had a speck of trouble when Hells Angels are your guardian angels the world can be seen through rose colored glasses. Of course I also bribed them with peace offering of free acid and mescaline...I’m not stupid you know…. I would have made a lousy Angel or Highwayman, but if the shit were ever to hit the fan….you definitely want some “wild ones” for back up!!
The Flood of ‘93
Meeting Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer
May, 1993….the year of the so called 500 year old flood and I found myself in the state of Missouri where the state animal seriously is the damned mule. I was there on vacation with my girlfriend at the time from California to see the land that Mark Twain built and begat Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. I had driven to Michigan first and picked up my two kids for a few weeks visitation to the Ozarks where a wedding present is a new set of truck tires and grits have replaced caviar as the delicacy most sought after. We arrived in late May and rented a small house for a months vacation and by June...the railroad tracks had disappeared under water. There was definitely a bad moon a’risin’!! I had also managed to introduce myself to the local radio station as I always did wherever I went on vacation to check out the tech and the people. Like vets do at the VFW was always seeking out my contemporaries and swapping on air war stories stories. You know, wiping out a machine gun nest and enemy bunkers, that sort of thing. As the flood water rose, the radio staff mostly lived across the river in Illinois and to get back to Hannibal was now a 200 mile one way detour trip. The station manager called me at the rental and asked a big favor….would I be willing to go on the air and do the emergency broadcasting. Damn….another journalism story just fell into my lap! I called my station back in San Fran who agreed to take reports and hooked me up statewide with the California News Network for news feeds as well, and would pay me per report. I also got the Hannibal station to pay me a decent wage as well seeing as I would be on for 12 hours a day straight and longer if major breaks in the levees happened. I was in hog heaven, actually mule heaven. I was given a key to the station by the engineer who lived in Hannibal itself and a crash course in operating the studio. I was going to field phone calls and play music to keep spirits up as the flood continued to rise faster and faster. I spent hours on end on the air directing crews to sandbagging operations, local and county and state police department warning and the Army Corps of Engineers for levee updates. Most important were the calls from panicked farmers and townies who would call and need assistance leaving the property as the flood waters rose. They would be in tears as homes and livestock were swept away. So I would give their locations out for rescue teams to rush to their aid. I took my kids to the top of the hill in Hannibal as I would take breaks from my marathon reportage. We watched Illinois literally disappear under a wall of water as the bridge in town and the highway across the river were lifted up and swept away. Houses and other buildings floated by. Animals were caught up and swept away along with a ton of debris. On one such recon we looked up river towards the city of Quincy, and on the outskirts of Hannibal there was a small station now almost under water when a river barge from Illinois broke loose from its moorings and careened across the river and hit the gas pumps which then ignited a huge ball of flame and the river was on fire. I would drop the kids off back at the house with my girlfriend who stayed behind to man the phones there as we were set up as an emergency info center as well if they couldn’t get through the jammed radio station lines. Then house fortunately was on the highest hill in town so we were relatively safe. The radio station too was on elevated ground overlooking the town and the river. People brought me food at the station and soft drinks and was starting to hear the wear and tear in my voice by the time flood waters began to recede in Hannibal eventually by late July. I also was involved in sandbagging and unloading bottled water at the red cross emergency shelters at the schools and churches..but it was the Hannibal locals that met the flood with a determination I could only marvel at. Strong, resilient people determined to fight the forces of nature and then the same grit to rebuild! Remember the “Unsinkable Molly Brown?” Strangely, on the Fourth of July the town still held a fireworks display firing them off of Lovers Leap Cliff up by the old cemetery made famous in Tom Sawyer where the murder by Injun Joe happened. We were sitting on the concrete portion of the levee and my son 10 at the time reached down with a small jar as the water was high and grabbed a jar full of flood water for his grandma...my mom. She kept it for years until the day she died. By late July I was able to get the kids back to Michigan by going north to Iowa and crossed over in Northern Illinois to get back to Michigan. Then...now that my job was over...back to California. This was a year before my Cuba and Puerto Rico journalism trip..but this even sparked the journalist in me...it was my epiphany… I’ve always enjoyed chaos….and Mark Twain as I always said...there’s a little Huck Finnin all of us...in some there’s more than others….
The Secret Lives of the Bisexual Female Bohemian
Where's Hayley Kiyoko when you need her??? Living with a Bisexual female is as amazing as scaling Mt. Everest. I’ve had the grand fortune to live or have relationships with four of them, but the weirdest one was in San Francisco that made a lasting dent in my psyche. We'll call her "J". She was, before a San Francisco bohemian, the sales manager at the radio station in Michigan I worked at. She went west and under her spell...I followed...wagons ho! Go west young man, go west and discover gold. She was 8 years older than I was at the time so she had two things going for her...Bisexuality and also, Bisexuality. The sexual version of splitting the atom and causing a nuclear reaction. I knew about her sexual persuasion when I met her. She was very open about it..at least to me other wise it was kept in the bi- closet of Northern Michigan where liberal attitudes took a back seat to bowling tournaments and bar room fights. In Michigan she would go out on the road to sell advertising while I was on the air adn before walking out the door for her car she’d come into the studio and ask for what she called a “wet set”, in others words two sexy songs in a row that she could masturbate to in her car before she left the parking lot! I’ve taken a few requests like that since from other listeners. One listener, again Northern Michigan had a baby and when her husband was at work would call the studio with her breast pump in full tilt boogie mode over the phone. The perils of being an on air dude! My Bi-babe and I had a nice apartment in San Francisco with great view. She also had a girl crush on a co-worker of hers at her new place of employment. They would go out to movies together and sometimes when they stayed in I was invited as one would order a piece of pie...but don’t get me wrong...I never complained. Strangely enough she would complain if a caller on the air on my San Fran show was too personal. Go figure! Together we would haunt North Beach strip clubs and adult toy stores on weekends. In the clubs they ahd fantasy booths that were two seaters where we enjoyed the action as the Ozzie and Harriet of Sin City. One of her games was when walking thedowntown streets and we’d see a group of females at a bus stop she had me try to guess which one she would go to bed with...our tastes ran the same so I picked a winner every time…..actually our taste was scarily close..we both had the hots for Lt. Yar on Star Trek! At Big Al’s sex emporium she buy “toys” to play with when her girlfriend came over. Without going into detail she had a thing for cuffs and riding crops and red and black teddies. Must admit it was a fun show to watch and sometimes have a starring role. Love watching thespians! I felt like Spencer Tracy in his version of Jekyll and Hyde...if you’ve seen the carriage scene you’ll know what I mean,....sometimes it was just your basic “( ½ Weeks” scenario only with two Kim Bassingers. She was Bohemian to the bone and had no qualms about going topless at the Folsom Street Fair. Ah the fair. It’s California's third-largest single-day, outdoor spectator event and showcase for BDSM products and culture with games, beverage booths and even spanking for donations to capitalize on the adult-themed exhibitionism. J and lady were always excited to participate...funny what a collar and leash will do to turn one human into Lassie! She liked to be in charge most times..but gawd help you or me if she was in a bad mood….ha...it got even more fun! We eventually went our own way...I ended up with another girl I moved in with. Yep...bi-sexual too...I learned to go with the flow….what the hell...Myrika, Sibyll and Olivia were also bi-sexual and now that I think about it Bohemians too, but not into whips and chains..they were more whipped cream and roses. So if you run into any switch hitters….go with it. You only live once you may as well get more bang for your buck!
What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up?
The one things I am asked most during radio and.or magazine interviews is this….How did you get into radio and what did you want to be when you grew up. I managed to combine the two answers into one. I wanted always since I was a kid about 12 to be writer. In Jr. High I worked on the school newspaper and after seeing a Godzilla movie me and my friend Charlie Mankus teamed up and wrote an atomic monster story. Instead of Tokyo getting wasted by a nuclear lizard, our monster emerged from the Detroit River and destroyed Hamtramck! The question always comes up as I had no formal training in radio or TV yet did both and had my own shows. I was terrible at English in school as old Mrs. Johnson my English teacher would have told you. So only fitting and proper I make my living as a writer. Ha. As for radio, I enjoyed listening to it as we all did in those days. The clever if not obnoxious wit of the DJ, certainly the music, and the dances where these “AM gods” would descend from some invisible rock Valhalla and spin the tunes so we could get lucky with Mary Jane or whoever and master the art of bra removal in one movement. When I got out of the army and returned to Detroit, I need a job so saw an add for MCHRD, or the Detroit “Mayor’s Committee for Human Resources Development” on West Grand Boulevard and Michigan Ave. I applied and got the job of doing intake for low income residents of the inner city and arranging for job training and or GED if they didn’t have a HS Education (Christ, I didn’t have one either but no one asked..well they asked and I put down Fordson H.S. as high school attended which I did for half a semester. Little did they know I didn’t graduate and dropped out in the first half of 8th grade. Did I miss having a prom because I dropped out of school? No. Even though I was in my late 20’s and early 30’s, a couple of my wives were young enough that I went to theirs. I was also spending one Saturday a month working for a food coop I belonged to. A dago will do anything for free cheese and eggs! Two Saturdays a month you would find me at the recycling center sorting greenware from clear, etc. Other projects were working with the University of Michigan, Dearborn Campus in their organic gardening project attached to the Henry Ford Fairlane Estate. Lots of volunteer work. In the meantime I was taking a course to pass the exam as a forest ranger for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and passed specializing in trail management, the biology of the black bear, the white tail deer and the rainbow trout. I was ready!! The wait however was to be 18 months on a waiting list! I still had the MCHRD job luckily and is also when I formed the Experimental Theater Workshop. The co-founder, my friend Emmett Coin discovered there was a free beer party every 2nd Thursday of the month at an apartment across from Henry Ford Hospital..mainly interns and nurses and such so we decided to crash it on day. While there and getting loaded we ran into a guy who worked at CJOM Radio across the river in Canada. Don Wentzel was his name and liked my humor and invited me to the station the next day to meet the staff and get a tour...I did and worked the room not realizing this was a job interview! Yep..got it and never looked back! Another question I get and have been ever since my radio days was how does one get into radio normally. As Program Director when hiring I make sure they had the basic raw material and have them audition live on the air...face there first fears and how they handled it and let them have free rein. The ones we tended to shy away from, as I would get input from the rest of my air staff, were those who were college DJ’s. Most of them sounded like cartoon copies of what they thought a DJ was...the PUKERS! We wanted “natural”, Most college dj’s sounded like public radio guys... low key, monotone which is fine for a 3 am jazz show but not a rock and roll show afternoon drive in San Francisco or Detroit. I like the natural sounding guys and girls I hired. They were human and had we all had a few things in common….we loved the music...we loved the audience...and we loved the freebies!
Journalism 101: Gitmo, Revolution, Sharks and Cuban Rum!
OK, the title is deceiving. It’s not about revolution...rum and cigars yes and the journey I made to Cuba as a freelance correspondent for the AP (Associated Press) in 1994. I went down at the request of the California News Network to cover the Haitian Boat People at Guantanamo Bay. As a journalist I was allowed to enter the island, visa in hand, passport, a few Aloha shirts and some khaki shorts. The journey to Miami and then aboard a Cuban airliner was nothing compared to the fishing line of red tape I had to deal with in the US in getting there. First off I had to get AP to issue me a Canadian Press Card which also meant all phone calls back to file reports with a portable Comrex broadcast unit and mic had to be filed through the AP office in Canada. America was still afraid of the boogie man Castro in thsose days. My General Manager at the radio station in San Fran gave them a letter of recommendation as well as one from the California News Network with copies of the letters and my Press Credentials sent to the Cuban Office of Information in Havana. Next...gaining permission to enter Guantanamo. Not so easy. More forms and copies of AP letters to the Naval Command Center in Norfolk, VA. As Gitmo is a naval base...the Navy had to issue me clearance andaain..copies of everything to Norfolk and thn to the commander at Gitmo, Commander Jim Boland who I immediately struck up a friendship with. I arrived in Havana, and the scene flying in was spectacular. Here I was in the vortex that held Hemingway sacred, Sloppy Joe’s (closed at this time) the closest thing to Oz I could think of and maybe I could pick up a cheap Che T-shirt made of hemp. (I did get a Che shirt but no hemp or weed). Shortly after we landed, (there were other journalists there covering Cuba general I was Gitmo) we were met by government officials and escorted to a press center. They let us stay in the country, but we were assigned a government “guide” (read “government agent” everywhere I went in Havana. My “guide” Enrique did know the best bars and where the real deal Kennedy type Cuban Cigars were and restaurants and managed to take in a few “decadent” shows. Not as decadent as the heyday of Meyer Lansky and the mob but good enough. I was in Havana for two days then was picked up in a military jeep (our military) and taken to Gitmo to meet Jim and the PR person who would be taking me around the complex. I was offered billeting on Gitmo but instead opted to stay in a small cheap hotel in Santiago de Cuba on the coast a stone’s throw away. Had enough of military life in the army and wasn’t about to spend this working vacation as a swabby! As for the refugees? I got my first look up close and personal the next day. A lot of the Haitians were already suffering from heat sickness and sunburn, and many had no food or fresh water on the journey over. I managed to talk to,some of the kids who were now being fed though still undernourished. Many of them were now orphans or had lost at least one parent on the trip over on rickety rafts and inner tubes. They told me talked that some of the mothers or fathers were eaten by sharks during the voyage. Several refugees died during the journey and numerous rafts were found completely empty or broken into several pieces. As for the refugee camps themselves...There were high heat conditions, water shortages, lack of restroom facilities, and large amounts of trash. The camps were secured using fences constructed of concertina wire. Refugees lived in tents, and slept on military issue cots. Portable restrooms were located throughout the camp, and Navy Seabees constructed concrete shower facilities within the camps. Camp security included interior camp patrols, exterior camp patrols, and fixed exterior towers. What I found most interesting 0on the lighter side of things were the camp soccer matches. OK, so it wasn’t baseball, my real passion but I got to play in one match with the kids...we lost...actually I was responsible for the loss. {reety sad when a team of 12 - 15 year olds hand you a devastating blow. Ha... Artwork was constantly being created by the refugees. With several of the drawings and paintings depicting shark attacks. That was a sobering event for me to say the least. At night I would set up my Comrex telephone box and microphone through the phone lines at Gitmo and fill my stories to Canada AP. I was there for 8 days and the impression these refugees left in my heart and soul are forever etched in me. The journey from poverty to what they hoped was a better life...the American dream. Sometimes the dream comes true...other times it drowns at sea or gets eaten by sharks….I will never forget those people..that soccer game… or those kids who lived through hell to make a new life...not all did but I hope at least one of them found redemption... p>Up a Rock and Roll Creek without a Paddle
A look at females and diversity that I’ve been up a creek without a paddle with show a weird roller coaster of relationships that could have easily derailed faster than a roller coaster ride at a California amusement park. First there was the unlikely pairing of myself and a lady who was a bank V.P. in Alpena. She was elegant, sophisticated and member of all the right clubs, for that sort of lifestyle...not mine, but our credit and debit, savings and checking planets happened to cross on day. I was doing my disco club gig in Northern Michigan when during a live broadcast she came up to the old radio booth and introduced herself. I wonder if they would have radio back in the day of the French Revolution if they would have had a live broadcast. “We’re broadcasting live from the Bastille gift shop and bakery. After this word from our sponsor \we’ll be back with some great giveaways a beheading or two.” Karen, came up to the bandstand where I was set up and started talking and flirting. She wore tan pants, always remember those and well, let’s face it...if she were the devil she’d wear Prada. She gave me her number and I called the next day and she had me over for dinner that night in a massive house on Lake Huron in town. In the driveway, perched and parked, her Mercedes. I had a Toyota hatchback. Not that my car would mount hers in the dark after my head was turned but I felt like my car was out of its league, as was I, but, the evening was a delight and if I played my cards right I might get a free pen from the bank or a toaster giveaway! We eventually became bed partners and I’d make nightly deposits and careful not to make any early withdrawals. Her ATM was open all night. Things were fine as I was juggling this relationship with a waitress and a waitress and daughter threesome at the club. Then it happened...there was to be a big party at the yacht club and she wanted to take me. Lord have mercy… she bought me a sport coat, slacks and tie, I still wore tennis shoes and off we went that weekend. I was never so out of place in my life with the creme de la creme of local business and political society as I was that night. Muffy’s, and Buffy’s, businessmen and their jewelry jangling cougars, and not damn ro9ck and roller in the crowd! I eventually cut it off as it wasn’t my world although a taste of it was refreshing in a comical sort of way. Another time, when I was living in Detroit, my friend Larry Roland and myself were dating twins we called the “pick-up sticks” as they were thin, not anorexic, and were easy and cheap. At the time my kind of girl. One night at the apartment they came over and after the evenings debauchery found out ...they had switched on us….I was banging Larry’s pickup stick and vice versa. It soon became a gameshow every night and we had to choose at the end, did we make it with door number one or door number two! Frankly, we didn’t give a damn which one we ended up with. Then there was the night of the big Bachman Turner Overdrive concert. My girl andI along with Frank P. a local rock photographer who I had later introduced to Aerosmith and he became their roadcrew photographer and moved to Boston. His girl and he were in the backseat and I drove us downtown to Cobo Arena where once again I had backstage passes as I was the show MC. After the brief introductions to the band my girl, Frank and his date took a seat in the front row while I did my schmooze backstage. I was having a bit of weed with Randy Bachman and went back out front for the opening act after I intro’d them. During the set change I had been smoking with my group, then headed backstage by the side entrance of the stage. I motioned covertly for Franks date to follow me and it wasn’t long until we had each other pressed against the stairwell in a stoned embrace...then like the mighty parting of the seas….my date, who eventually became my wife in spite of all this, appeared! Caught in the act...needless to say the ride home was cold and silent, but Frank and I remained friends..besides I owed him the Aerosmith gig…. In my Detroit days at CJOM and my theater group I met a girl named Trish (I called her Trish the Dish!) downtown, she worked at a law firm and we bumped into each other at Hart Plaza during lunch one day when I was downtown for a meeting. We joked and talked and found out she lived three blocks from me on Detroit’s Eastside. We began a relationship that was odd in the extreme. She was already having an affair with one of the married attorneys at her office who was also a well known and powerful Ann Arbor politician. She was also seeing the owner of a chain of stereo shops in Detroit and Flint, another rich dude. And then there was me. Torn jeans and sneakers. The worst part was being in her bed when the phone would ring and on the other end was one of the other two rich boyfriends and I’d have to lie there patiently until she got rid of them claiming headache etc… We both had bicycles and would ride around Grosse Pointe on Saturdays, have cookouts at my place, and go to dinner in Greektown. By now I was completely under her spell and wanted to marry her, be with her, fetch her slippers, bark, howl, anything...but it was not to be…..it was a line from a Meatloaf song…”two out of three ain’t bad!” So I was crushed as a rock in a hard labor prison and eventually drifted apart with my tail and ego between my legs….it was hard on me but as the song says….Two out of Three Ain’t Bad.
Rowdy Redneck Radio and Toby Keith
Radio has its share of moments good, bad and ugly. One of the weirdest guys I ran across while incarcerated on the airwaves was in the Midwest...the Mideast would be Iraq and other sand and rock paradise locations but must confess I never did Bagdad or Bagmom for that matter. I was hired at the station to be the Program Director. One guy, over night guy Ryan (or as he preferred Ry Ry!) was a little on the gay side and asked me when I was going on vacation to San Fran to visit some friends to pick him up a Wonder Woman costume the proceeded in the studio to do the Wonder spin! How could I say no? Ok, I did buy him one and when I came early to do my usual morning show at 5 AM damned if he wasn’t dressed to kill!!! To each his own I always say… Our midday guy was a real white trash prick no one liked who hailed from South Carolina. I inherited the entire staff so don’t blame me….I had enough on my hands keeping Wonder Woman under wraps! Dave, the redneck was jealous of most of us and especially me as I made full use of listener calls and he also knew I was the highest paid air staff member (even as a morning jock I was paid more than the PD’s and MD’s… ratings speak louder than theory. Anyway Dave asked the boss man for a raise and was turned down but the station owner instead instituted an Employee of the Month Award thing that hung in the main office with a name each month added to it. Dave came in bragging…”See, I’m the employee of the month!!” I guess he was put off when I said, “I was employee of the week every paycheck!” Grumble, grumble he walks away. The Night of Toby Keith...we were hosting and MCing the Toby Keith concert that night at the county fair and we were set up to broadcast. Staff and equipment in place. I decided to go to Toby’s bus to get an advance interview and our sales guy, short portly fellow wanted to tag along so what the hell...on the bus we go. Toby and the roadies were in a playful mood and began joking around Deliverance sexual style with my sales guy who was getting flustered...perhaps my laughter didn’t help or telling Toby my sales guy was inbred in the swamps! Anyway sales runs off bus embarrassed...obviously I didn’t get much of an interview but was getting close to broadcast time so rushed back to our broadcast booth. My sales guy all the way saying embarrassed…”please don’t tell anyone about this!” Yeah right, hell the first thing out of my mouth was “Hey, Toby hit on Luke!” Of course the mic was hot back in the studio so everyone back there heard about it. Dave, the hillbilly than said something that I have to admit was something that kept me laughing until tears came down. In typical southern bravado he said, “Hit on you? Shit, if I was there he would have offered me money to do it!!” Another time our news director was a huge Packers Fan and the local pizza owner was a Chicago Bears fan...they would go at it on the air every morning during teh sports cast. One time he called up with a trivia question that blew my sports guy, Doug away..Question: What do Wisconsin and Iowa have in common? Answer? “Neither has a professional football team!” On my going away show we broadcast from a local farmers spread with the local ag agent and farm neighbors...all friends of mine and would miss that crowd...they had me on the air artificially inseminate a cow...now if that ain’t sexual harrassment...I don’t know what is! Fortunately I returned to rock and roll radio so save me from watching pigs mate but I have to admit had more fun here….oh Dave..whatever happened to him. A rather large fellow from Dallas was hired to replace me when I left and we’d keep in touch...seems Dve pissed him off in the studio one day and he got cold cocked and laid out on the studio floor….and you think radio is for the weak….ha..Don’t mess with Texas!!! p>The Marriage Killer Behind Door Number Two
I met Wife #2, Janice when I was working in the UP, St. Ignace to be exact, she being a Mackinaw City senior in high school...I had already been seeing a couple other Cheboygan High School girls, two sisters, Kathy and Debbie K., as well as Kathy’s friend Marcia B. The north of Michigan was alive with young women who could man a snowmobile, ice fish with best of them, hunt, hike and shoot pool in a ladies league at the old VFW hall….
My radio brothers swore there were only three things to do up there...drink, fight and screw. There were Native American girls, tourist girls from down below in Detroit and Saginaw and plenty of hookers from Flint working out of trailers on the cinder block bar parking lots along US 23 near Cheboygan.
I was a 26 year old rock and roll DJ out of St. Ignace and Janice was an 18 year old cheerleader in Mackinaw High School and an avid listener of mine. We never met at first only by phone. She called herself the Silver Lady, in reference to a name I was given by a young girl Jill L. who referred to me on day on the air as the Silver Shadow after a Rolls Royce, yet my style was more Chevelle SS on the air..none of that fancy Brit tea and crumpets crap.
One day while doing a live broadcast that summer at the Old Fort in Mackinaw City I was on the air for four hours. I remember two older ladies came up to me and asked how to get to Macinac Island….I told them to drive on the bridge about half way then stop as the bridge would pivot to island and they could park anywhere. OK so I was having fun yet they did do it and explained to the Bridge Authority guys who came to the rescue, thinking they were out of gas...they always helped motorists that way. They said that nice young man from the radio station told us to park here….I heard about it from the bridge guys later when I went home to my cabin in the UP later. I used to tell tourists also that on the other side of the bridge (the UP) was in fact Canada! 50% believed it….
Back to Janice...as I was taking a break in between broadcasts this blonde shows up in a blue El Camino, cherry, with a ton of Fosters Ale in the back her older brother bought for her. She knew it was my fave and lemme see, blond, ale, El Camino...and damn...it was the Silver Lady!
After my broadcast we drove to the UP across the bridge, my old jeep followed by her El Camino. Dropped equipment off at the station and went to my cabin for a few hours of drinking and love making. She had to be home by 10..,damned curfew!!
We saw each other every day and yes, I went to her prom. My first one as I never finished HS so this was a bonus. In time I cut out seeing Kathy and Company and we told her parents we wanted to get married/ They came around and the wedding took place at a church in the shadow of the Macinac Bridge with my friend who worked at Peaches Records in Detroit as best man who also got me dead drunk the night before with a party at the Keyhole bar in Mackinaw but as the song says….Get me to the church on time. The reception was pure northern Michigan held at a bar where at one point a black bear came visiting peeking in the door of the bar… this was a land where every pickup truck has a shotgun rack!
Janice and I spent our time riding snowmobiles in winter and hiking in summer.We had matching plaid shirts and loved our weed and beer. I always felt funny buying for my wife because she was underage!
My first wife and I were divorced and she had moved back to the Motor City. Janice and I lived in my cabin in the woods. A blonde and an El Camino….I’ll follow you anywhere….
Radio Dazed: A Broken Leg and a Girl with a Machete
Music, Concerts, Groupies! Radio is much more than pure audio and carnal pleasure, although there is a plethora of promiscuous perks. The real fun is in the practical jokes where on air radio deviates deviate. When working at WHAK radio in Northern Michigan, the station owner, Ed and his,wife were off to Colorado on a ski vacation so we were left to our own devices. Ed was gone more than a week when we finally got a call from his wife that “Special Ed” which was what we called him, was in Alpena Hospital getting pins in his knee as he had an injury and would be laid up for a week. We thought it would be nice to send flowers, you know a gaudy arrangement you usually send to someone laid up. In radio, they generally have what are called “trade” accounts with florists, restaurants, etc. If the station gets 200 dollars worth of flowers, the florist gets in exchange 200 dollars worth of advertising on the station. No money changes hands but the station uses up valuable air time that could be sold for a profit. So, I called the florist in Rogers City we had a trade with and ordered a massive $200 arrangement to be sent to the hospital. We all signed the card and Ed called not realizing we had used the trade account and didn’t cost us squat! When he got back to work, the florist sent a bill for it’s trade out. Ed called me in the office and fortunately we were also the best of friends and said…”Goddamn it Mike, I end up in the hospital and now I gotta pay for own fucking flowers!!!”Yep….. When I was on the air Ed would start vacuuming in the background while the mic was on...no sense of Quiet, On The Air whatsoever so I made up a fake story as a joke that it was Eduardo, a Cuban refugee we had hired trying to earn money to bring his family to America. I let the story grow and damn at Christmas if all town ladies would bring up baskets of fruit, homemade jellies and pies and other goodies for poor Eduardo! I arrived at the restaurant where we were having the Christmas party with my car full of food for Eduardo….we were stuck...I couldnt at this point go on the air and say it was all a joke so Monday on the air, I announced that Eduardo had moved to Florida, and wanted me to thank everyone for their kindness….by the way we donated all the goodies to the Women’s Shelter in Alpena..ah yes….radio the theater of the mind! Ed was cool. When one of our radio competitors building burned down he let them set up with temp equipment in an old trailer we had on site by the tower. Now that’s what it’s all about….Ed was the best. My two kids would sometime come to the station and hang out when about 8 and 10 years old Ed would give them free pop from the Pepsi machine by opening it with his key...I asked one time..”Where the hell is mine?” Reply, “Fuck you, you get a pay check!” The station was to receive an award in Nashville for the Best Small Market Radio Station so Ed and I flew down to Nashville for the ceremony and checked into the Shoney’s Motel and we ran into Willie Nelson, Clint Black and the Bellamy Brothers. After the Awards ceremony and award we hit the strip clubs until closing time... by the way, the airline tickets, motel, meals, booze etc were all on Ed, including $300 he gave me extra for souvenirs for the kids and whatever else I wanted. Sure do Miss Special Ed. He eventually sold the station after I left for California. He sold to one of our other competitors, Dave Karshnik, whose daughter married Bob Seger. Dave and I knew each other well from drinking at the Hideaway Bar. I went to San Francisco on job interviews, got hired and called Ed and said I’d be back in two days but gonna take the job out there. My ratings at the station were excelento so part of the deal for purchase was if I was gonna stay. Ed told Dave as far as he knew I was, knowing better..devious ploy, ha… So I made the move to San Francisco. I went on interviews there as we had a female Sales Manager at the Northern Michigan station, Josie was her name and during a snowstorm where I couldn’t make the 20 mile journey back to my woodland enclave she said I could spend the night there. I did and ended up in bed with her and she eventually left the station for San Francisco for a job as I was also going with a Filipina lady who one time at a restaurant very romantically said, “If I catch you with another woman I’ll cut your balls off!!!” How Romantic! She had a cousin who lived in the area too and would have me over while both put on fashion shows in short skirts and lingerie that included dancing with both among other things….Northern Michigan isn’t all mounted deer heads and smoked cheese, you know I also learned how to steam rice the proper way and got to double my pleasure double the fun, Filipina style! I also learned not to piss one off with a machete close at hand….
Sex and Left Coast Radio Rant and Ramble
Living the radio high life in the city by the bay, baying at the moon, howling at the Golden Gate and humping the leg of North Beach was full mandala of madness. A madness that only those who have blown a mental circuit can enjoy completely and legally. It was while doing morning radio in San Fran that I became friends with a listener, a Black girl named Dawnita who sang in a local club and in fact, due to her coconut round monster breasts and ballsy blues country belt ‘em out voice won the radio stations Dolly Parton Look-a-like Contest we held when doing an all day outdoor concert series that included this contest. She was hands down the choice! Funny how color and race seem to fade into the nether region when sex is the criteria. She was also a morning workout exercise fanatic at the local; health club who along with two of her female friends would drop into the studio every morning at 7:30 on their way to sweat and aerobics and pick a song while on air with me and they would dance to it in the studio...of course being radio it was a theater of the mind sort of event so I urged my listeners, all to envision three strippers...the ladies would then leave with goodbyes and kisses and head out to sweat up the health club…. This went on even when I got hired by a competitor for mucho dinero...the girls came along for that ride as well… When it was time to leave SF and head to Colorado….Dawnita came on the show and presented me with a fresh sweat soaked towel framed as a reminder of those days...yep...still have it. It was also at this station where Dawnita and I joking on the air formed a Nude Volley Ball Team. The joke became a reality and twice a month in summer live on the air thanks to our mobile equipment we’d have prizes for spectators as we took on various challengers who were my listeners who showed up ready to play...our venue? Grey Whale Nude Beach. My team was part station employees and part listeners and mostly female so that helped distract the opposition who were usually 50 50. My news director and morning show co-hort would do the play by play and all were invited to come and watch but..when in Rome!!! In non-on air activity my girlfriend at the time, Josie and I would haunt the North Beach area shopping at Big Al’s and renting a double fantasy booth at times before hitting the bars. One time walking down the street we passed by a gay bar with door wide open, music blasting, crowd loud and convivial...as we passed by a young man saw us and according to Josie, was staring intently at me. Little short guy in cut-offs. I told her once we were a half a block away “Watch this..” and made my way back to the forbidden kingdoms doorway where my secret admirer came out and we shook hands then I walked down the street .. I looked at Josie and said in my best Clint Eastwood…”Don’t fuck with me kid...I have options...ha!” At another Saturday long outdoor live broadcast which I was MC’ing I ended up backstage dancing with a lady who was the wife of a Mare Island Naval officer and her daughter. Josie happened to round the end mid tango or whatever the hell we were doing as a threesome and blew up...all was peaceful later with a dip in the hot tub with all parties concerned….crowded, mucho wine as we were their house in Napa Valley and I brought the weed. The day I left for Colorado…,my last show in SF...the wife came to the studio to say goodby as did other listeners...the mic was on.,.song ended and cued up my last song...Leonard Cohen’s “Closing Time” when Angie (not real name of naval wife) said “We’ll miss you!” I said “You’ll miss the music and comedy not me I laughed”...then she sprang it on me on the air….”Oh yes I will...I’ve seen you nude!” I hit the record and Leonard covered my ass….I still have the tape of that show, or rather my daughter has all my tapes….and when I used to dig it out...it made me appreciate the career I had..it wasn’t a job...it wasn’t work..it was the best gig in the world….
Radio Nuggets: Pissed Off and Billy Joel and The 5,000 Dollar Computer Heart Attack!
This is a compost pile of radio refuse that has filled the landfill landscape of my trek across the continent of radio from California to Maine and every FM bordello in between. In no particular order this is more of a shotgun approach than that of a marksman.
General Managers of radio stations are fun the fuck with because, number one, they’re easy targets and you come out unscathed if you have the ratings. They know better than to bite the hand that feeds them revenue. I discovered a long time ago they are called “General” Managers because they lack “specific” knowledge of what radio is...a few exceptions to the rule of course.
The strangest interview for a radio job occured on the East Coast. I was contacted by the GM who wanted to hire me, Classic Rock/Oldies and he did. When I went upstairs afterwards to meet the Program Director, he stood up started unbuttoning his pants and said, So, Mike, have you ever seen “Deliverance?” Again, a sense of humor to match my own…
I was hired at the old KISS FM in San Francisco and we liked to play and work hard. (Great team to work with and I feel the best radio I ever did. The morning crew doubled the ratings in one ratings period and we were blasting away from San Francisco to Sacramento! My salary jumped to $65,000 now from the $45,000 I was making at the old station, so radio has fed me all my working days.)
I enjoyed turntables for those artistic segue’s I prided myself on and even enjoyed CD players but one day the “computer” entered my studos. Barbarians! No real control...I did strike a deal where they left me three CD players and I only used the computer to launch those dreaded commercial breaks that seem to drone on for hours.
The Computers are coming! The Computers are coming! The day of arrival our engineer arrived with 30,000 dollars worth of studio and production room computers...only the Station Manager was away that morning and didn’t know they were already in the store room awaiting to be set up but the empty large boxes were in the van below in the parking lot from our second floor studios downtown.
When the GM arrived back at the station we told him the computers were here and ready to be unloaded and brought up so he had me an my morning partner, Kevin go get the boxes and bring them up. Joe, the GM stood at the railing and watched as we unloaded an empty box we made appear heavy as hell. We struggled up the stairs huffing and puffing when we got to top I said I needed a rest and we set the empty box on the railing where it proceeded to crash two stories down into the parking lot.
Joe’s mouth dropped as me and Kevin began a screaming match at each other laying the blame on the other at the top of our lungs with F words flying like schrapnel...Jo’s face turned white….I swore he was gonna have a heart attack as the rest of the staff emerged from the station laughing….
Now he realized what was going on and he didn’t really have the call the corporate office to say we had destroyed a 5,000 dollar computer smashed to smithereens….OK, so my sense of humor was not run of the mill…..
Another time we had our all night guy dress up in a Barney the Dinosaur costume to stand on the street below the station during the morning rush hour to pass out passes to a kids movie coming the big movieplex…..many pulled over to grab them as prizes..others drove by and pelted our “Barney” with empty cans and trash...the local junior college college apparently didn’t like Purple Dinosaurs.
We changed everything there...our station identifier was not More Rock More Often or anything like that...we went with..”At Last...A Radio Station that doesn’t suck!” We also began an on air campaign to “flip off” the competition and “flip us on”
One promotion we did was having me and my morning crew broadczes to give away IF...they came up honked, and flipped us OFF giving us the bird. I have never been given the finger so many times, so eagerly ha, in my life at one sitting or handed out so many prizes….
We were a tightly knit family of stations..all competitors and friends so it was inevitable one Halloween that we should get together, 5 stations, jocks mainly, no suits, represented at one of the engineers homes. I went as a lesbian..that way I could go as myself as I hate costumes! My girlfriend went as a lumberjack!
We, perhaps 30 people, station people and dates spent hours drinking and smoking weed at the house in Petaluma, (Petaluma? Think Polly Klaas kidnapping and Wynona Ryders hometown) where the engineer fired up his low power pirate radio station. Completely illegal, but once a pirate always a pirate. I grabbed the mic first and never mind the seven dirty words you can’t say on the air...we did..seven and then some. We broadcast for a little under an hour then cut it off in case we were reported to the FCC. Didn’t want to get my broadcast license yanked and banned from the air waves. If that happened, I’d have to get a real job!
Next up … How i got in an argument as Music Director with Billy Joel’s record company, Columbia and Radio and Records Magazine. Radio station Music Directors send lists to Billboard and Radio and Records of what they are playing that week..new adds..drops, etc. I dropped Billy’s by refusing to play his what I call “wimp” shit in the 90’s..some crap off the River of Dreams I think along with anything by Michael Bolton and Richard Marx….the station was being revamped to Classic Rock and they had no place in it.
The Columbia record guy was pissed that I had added Tom Petty (Last Dance for Mary Jane) and Leonard Cohen (Closing Time) but dropped His Majesty Billy! He was yelling at me over the phone saying not to fuck with him as he is “a mean Jew from New York” I told him to “Fuck off, I’m a pissed of Dago from Detroit! And Fuck Billy Joel! ”
He calmed down and started to laugh, not used to being talked to that way I guess and then sent me a ton of Columbia CD’s to give away on the air and T-Shirts as a peace offering which also allowed Billy’s older stuff on but now as classic rock format change I didn’t report to the Record Mags now….Gawd I love a good battle!
My Disco Dumpster Daze
The glittering world of disco balls, Saturday Night Fever and Discotex and the Sexolettes. It was the 70’s after all and Grace Jones was writhing as a sleek panther on the airwaves and the Bee Gee’s were the Second Coming of Tony Manero! Remember him? “Don’t touch the hair!!” It was the nuclear winter of music..the Jurassic Jams period.
When I was working at CJOM Radio in Detroit/Windsor I made friends with the manager, Charlie Greco at Uncle Sam’s Nightclub one of the largest discos in the Motor City at the time with other clubs in NYC, Buffalo, NY and New Jersey...had to be a mob front, but Charlie would let me use the club to entertain two dozen or so guests, mainly promoters, booking agents, radio personalities all together to mix mingle and do business in the reserved Millard Fillmore Room which was like the owners box at a ballpark. Charlie liked it as it brought residual business to the club. He booked Grace Jones and Gloria Gaynor among others. He is also godfather of my eldest daughter. Yeah a dago from NYC with questionable “family” ties….
I hated disco, but actually did time in a Northern Michigan nightclub as the DJ on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, during one summer of the '70's while doing my regular radio program 90 miles away in St. Ignace the rest of the week commuting US 23 north and south. I did it for one reason. The Money.
The owner of the club was told about my show on radio and he got in touch with me to help open and work the new club...yes...money. He was the richest man in town so we got only the best equipment available for that summer.
Money. The root of all disco. He was paying me more on those three days ($750 in the mid '70s) than I was making every week ($350) at the small radio station I worked at 6 days a week...Monday - Friday Rock and Roll and a Top 40 Countdown Show on Sundays.
I’d wrap up my Thursday Show on radio and head down for the 90 mile drive, a part timer filling in for me on Friday, then drive back after the Saturday DJ gigat 3 AM to make it back to do my Sunday Show at Noon. Grueling? Yes. Profitable, Yes. Would I do It again? NO!
The club was large bar and lounge attached to a motel complex all owned by the same person, and my job was to design the sound system and get it delivered etc. SO I contacted the sound guys for the Salem Witchcraft band in Detroit, good friends of mine, drove down to meet Vic the sound maestro and we went to the pro shop that all the bands and clubs in Detroit used and we ended up with four massive ceiling mounted speakers, Marantz turntables and pro mic.
The only other benefit I was enjoying was a relationship with the hostess of the club, a Meredith Baxter Birney look-a-like in her early 40’s and ultimately also with her daughter, a 21 year old waitress at the club. (The hostess by the way was also involved with the married club owner and richest man in town whose family owned just about everything in the county. Old family old money.) He never found out.
The Club was part of a motel restaurant complex so for my few days a week there I had a free room.. When she wasn’t seeing him she was in my room. Her daughter was discreet and never showed up when mom was there….the mom was attractive as hell and slinky sexy and her manner of handling customers was pure art.
Both knew about the other so it was a weird relationship. I was also dating another waitress there. Names reserved to protect the not so innocent. I’d want to get her attention during the raucous party atmosphere I’d pop on Lou Rawls, “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” and she’d pop out of the kitchen or from behind the bar with a grin wider than Lake Huron. To set up a date for after the club closed so she could call her boyfriend at his house to tell him she was tired and “not tonight, honey” I’d ask her by playing Maxine Nightingale’s “Get Right Back Where We Started From.”
The only night I any kind of trouble, we did have a rather large bouncer on staff by the by, was when one of the big ass banker/developers from Southfield, Michigan who was developing the new subdivision at Presque Isle just north of town on Grand Lake.
He was drunk, walked over to the bandstand from his table of downstate friends, and banged on the table the turntable was sitting on causing a reverb sound that took me by surprise, needle jumped from the record, and I had a few drinks too….I jumped up grabbed him by his Brooks Brothers tie and yanked him forward almost off his feet…”If you ever do that again you SOB, etc etc.” He was pissed, the bouncer came over got him seated again and all was fine.
He came over later to the bandstand, and handed me a drink and we buried the hatchet, although I wanted to bury it in his head! He asked for a few dance songs and I obliged...compromise folks, calmer heads….works every time….alcohol helps….
The summer soon ended and I was happy to get back to my radio job in St. Ignace. No dancers, no drunks (except for the radio staff after hours) and my regular groupies.
The hostess from the club kept in touch for years and we remained friends until we lost touch as will happen. Her daughter got married to a guy who owned a septic tank company, and the Lou Rawls waitress...on my last visit up north when my folks were still alive, I looked her up. I knew she was married now (she and husband were friends as my dad was President of the Community Association so knew everyone from parties etc.) and I knew her last name My parents knew her but not our past. I said she was a waitress I met a long time ago...period!
We met for lunch that day….yep..at the restaurant where the club used to be...nothing happened as that is how it should be...just old friends talking about the old days...and what might have been that never was. It was the era that ended and I had to as Maxine Nightingale said “get back where I started from/”
Where The Hell Did I Leave My Car?
(The Lady and the Tramp)
Not many mornings have I forgotten where my car was parked the night before due to events of the night before that involved dancing and alcohol. Not many mornings did I wake up from the night before wondering how I got home nor who was the girl sleeping soundly next to me my bed, You’d think that would ring a bell or trigger a memory.
These things happen to the best of us and the worst of us during the best of times and the worst of times. This time began a chapter of the “best” of times on the horizon. The night I met Denise.
I was working at a radio station under contract doing a daily home improvement talk show Monday - Friday in the Motor City, D-Town, the Murder Capital, the Pain in Windsors Ass...whatever you want to call it.
The annual Christmas Party was coming at the country club of the station owner of Talk Station I was under contract to. Unlike my usual tennis shoes and casual look, this would be a suit and tie and hard shoes evening as the affair required such foreign attire that had not at this point sought refuge in my closet...land of fashion liberation....home of the plaid land of the hiking boot. My producer of my radio and my TV show, Gloria took me shopping a men’s store picking out suit, tie, etc. She had an eye for fashion. I was blind and fashion challenged.
Together we were all set for the party. She who ran the whole radio and TV gig show as I gave her full autonomy in production, guests, set design, research, etc...she however felt it meant in my personal life as well as you will see.
We drove separately to the fiesta and met in the parking lot before going inside. She knew for social scenes such as these which I detest I needed a little marijuana fortification. Now I was ready to go in play “star” and kiss babies and shake hands with some of the radio stations heavy spending advertising clients who were invited so their asses could be kissed, which I hated, and to mingle with my co-workers which I enjoyed. To me anyone not working in broadcasting was regarded as a civilian. We in radio were combat vets of the airwaves.
We looked around the room and there at one table through the crowd sat the tallest, most beautiful, elegant African American goddess I had ever seen. I was hailed over to the table by Yvonne, the blonde bombshell of the station we all wanted to boink. So for a chance to meet this most welcome vision sitting next to her I hurried over with Gloria in tow.
I sat next to to this new keeper of my heart and introduced myself. Turns out she was a friend of Yvonne’s named Denise and worked at the cosmetic and perfume counter at Hudson’s Department Store the holy Mecca of Detroit retail at the time.
Her face was a vision of pure elegance and I could tell she was tall even when in a sitting
position. When we danced she was a head taller than me, it didn’t bother her that this short white brash young man was dancing with her. In retrospect…all of sudden in retrospect I was David Bowie and she was Imam! This Imam however was not Ethiopian but purebred Motown!
The weird part of the evening was Gloria trying to sit between us and enter the conversation whereas I was doing my best flirt mode to engage this lovely beauty. Yvonne, the horny blond now seemed jealous of her friend and kept asking me to dance, which I declined..hypnotized by Denise with whom I did dance.
As the evening came to an end I was too drunk to drive so Yvonne pulled me into her car and Denise got in with some of the other girls all heading for a 1 AM party at Mikey’s house. Everyone had directions except Yvonne, OK she had been over a few times before alone. Ywonne peeled out of the parking lot in Farmington as though she were the Big Daddy Don Garlitz of Christmas Present. The other cars kept pace for awhile but thankfully ahd directions….by the way...that is how my car got left behind to fend for itself..a stranger in a strange parking lot land.
The party was going strong and by 4 AM began to break up. I asked Denise if she could stay and talk...she agreed. Yvonne started a pissing match with me and I escorted her physically outside to calm her down and called her a cab.
That night began a long relationship that was a paradox. She had a huge poster of Barry Manilow in her bedroom at home...I was Mr. Motown heavy on James Brown. I told her I’d make a Black girl out of her yet, but first Barry had to go.
Her mom liked me always a plus. No dad, but three sisters. When I’d go pick her up for dates the rest of the Black gents in their twenties would be on the porch across the street glaring at me. White boy dating the Block’s Black Bombshell. Maybe it was my car, sproty new Mustang...naw...it was the girl.
One night on our way to another media party we stopped at a Baskin and Robbins Ice Cream joint in lillie white Livonia. The white 18 or so girl behind the counter gave us a weird look, early Seventies remember, and proceeded to wait on a couple who came in after us….I was steaming, Denise kept her cool. Our turn…”What will you have?” (no smile) Denise said calmly. Two cones, he likes chocolate, I prefer vanilla” Bang Zoom! Perfect line!!! Shut the counter girl down in under 60 seconds.
I would pick my kids on rotating weekends from my third marriage which was now officially over. Denise wanted to meet the kids so went with me. My youngest daughter about 5 at the time was absolutely enthralled with Denise and in fact would fall asleep while Denise held her at night just before bedtime.
As we pulled up my ex’s parking lot at the condo complex I used to live in she came out with the kids and was introduced to Denise. I got out to help with the overnight bags and Number Three said…”What is this, your United Nations phase?” True I had been dating a Turkish girl, yep from Turkey, and a Native American girl and two other Black girls, Kim a model for catalogues and Alicia, a girl I met in a club in Bricktown jazz and blues district on Detroit’s waterfront. All casual….Denise had now knocked all the marbles out of the bag.
We were together for two years and marriage was on the table but she informed me she had a disease of the blood that was causing her pain now and numerous hospital visits. I was in a panic for her….she said she was moving with her mom and sisters to Chicago to be with the rest of her family, and she wouldn’t be able to have kids and marrying wouldn’t be fair to me...FAIR? Who cared about fair?
It was over but he mom had long talk with me and said she would keep in touch once Denise got beyond that from a standpoint of strength. They moved away...we wrote, called on the phone, then at the age of 26 Denise had become bed ridden and the calls stopped..the letters stopped...my world stopped…
There was no cure for the anemia and all the effects….it was a great time with her but we never realized our dream of a life together..but at least we had what time we had...and treasured it. Still do….in my new book, The Cabaret Conspiracy...Denise is the lead female character...she lives on through my words and memories….I can still see her that first night we met….the Lady and the Tramp.
Radio Dazed: A Broken Leg and a Girl with a Machete
Music, Concerts, Groupies! Radio is much more than pure audio and carnal pleasure, although there is a plethora of promiscuous perks. The real fun is in the practical jokes where on air radio deviates deviate.
When working at WHAK radio in Northern Michigan, the station owner, Ed and his,wife were off to Colorado on a ski vacation so we were left to our own devices. Ed was gone more than a week when we finally got a call from his wife that “Special Ed” which was what we called him, was in Alpena Hospital getting pins in his knee as he had an injury and would be laid up for a week.
We thought it would be nice to send flowers, you know a gaudy arrangement you usually send to someone laid up. In radio, they generally have what are called “trade” accounts with florists, restaurants, etc. If the station gets 200 dollars worth of flowers, the florist gets in exchange 200 dollars worth of advertising on the station. No money changes hands but the station uses up valuable air time that could be sold for a profit.
So, I called the florist in Rogers City we had a trade with and ordered a massive $200 arrangement to be sent to the hospital. We all signed the card and Ed called not realizing we had used the trade account and didn’t cost us squat!
When he got back to work, the florist sent a bill for it’s trade out. Ed called me in the office and fortunately we were also the best of friends and said…”Goddamn it Mike, I end up in the hospital and now I gotta pay for own fucking flowers!!!”Yep…..
When I was on the air Ed would start vacuuming in the background while the mic was on...no sense of Quiet, On The Air whatsoever so I made up a fake story as a joke that it was Eduardo, a Cuban refugee we had hired trying to earn money to bring his family to America.
I let the story grow and damn at Christmas if all town ladies would bring up baskets of fruit, homemade jellies and pies and other goodies for poor Eduardo! I arrived at the restaurant where we were having the Christmas party with my car full of food for Eduardo….we were stuck...I couldnt at this point go on the air and say it was all a joke so Monday on the air, I announced that Eduardo had moved to Florida, and wanted me to thank everyone for their kindness….by the way we donated all the goodies to the Women’s Shelter in Alpena..ah yes….radio the theater of the mind!
Ed was cool. When one of our radio competitors building burned down he let them set up with temp equipment in an old trailer we had on site by the tower. Now that’s what it’s all about….Ed was the best. My two kids would sometime come to the station and hang out when about 8 and 10 years old Ed would give them free pop from the Pepsi machine by opening it with his key...I asked one time..”Where the hell is mine?” Reply, “Fuck you, you get a pay check!”
The station was to receive an award in Nashville for the Best Small Market Radio Station so Ed and I flew down to Nashville for the ceremony and checked into the Shoney’s Motel and we ran into Willie Nelson, Clint Black and the Bellamy Brothers. After the Awards ceremony and award we hit the strip clubs until closing time... by the way, the airline tickets, motel, meals, booze etc were all on Ed, including $300 he gave me extra for souvenirs for the kids and whatever else I wanted.
Sure do Miss Special Ed. He eventually sold the station after I left for California. He sold to one of our other competitors, Dave Karshnik, whose daughter married Bob Seger. Dave and I knew each other well from drinking at the Hideaway Bar. I went to San Francisco on job interviews, got hired and called Ed and said I’d be back in two days but gonna take the job out there.
My ratings at the station were excelento so part of the deal for purchase was if I was gonna stay. Ed told Dave as far as he knew I was, knowing better..devious ploy, ha…
So I made the move to San Francisco. I went on interviews there as we had a female Sales Manager at the Northern Michigan station, Josie was her name and during a snowstorm where I couldn’t make the 20 mile journey back to my woodland enclave she said I could spend the night there. I did and ended up in bed with her and she eventually left the station for San Francisco for a job as I was also going with a Filipina lady who one time at a restaurant very romantically said, “If I catch you with another woman I’ll cut your balls off!!!” How Romantic!
She had a cousin who lived in the area too and would have me over while both put on fashion shows in short skirts and lingerie that included dancing with both among other things….Northern Michigan isn’t all mounted deer heads and smoked cheese, you know I also learned how to steam rice the proper way and got to double my pleasure double the fun, Filipina style! I also learned not to piss one off with a machete close at hand….
Is There Life After the Army? CJOM RADIO
Once I was released by the Green Machine after three years, I was ready to tackle the real world. I was going from Fuck The Army to the Civilian Cabaret of freedom. On my last day of military service I was in my dress uniform, no not a dress, I was not in a Drag Queen Battalion, but the Army wants you all purdy and spiffed up when you leave on the day of release. I hopped a bus for final goodbyes to some friends at the U District for two days of music, weed and comeraderie...then it was time to head home to Michigan.
First thing I did was toss my uniform in a campus trash can and in a more suitable pair of jeans and plaid shirt got aboard a Greyhound for San Francisco for another round of goodbyes. After three days of that...I was ready to ride the rails...grabbed a train out of Martinez, the California Zephyr route I would take many times over the course of the next 30 years.
Detroit! The Rustbelt Capital of Automobile Oz. I had decided on a career course on that trip...actually two choices. The first was that I wanted to be a forest ranger in Michigan and work in the National Forests of the state...preferable in then UP so signed up to take the test and son of a bitch..I passed the damned thing!
I wanted to specialize in River Habitat and Trail Management, with biology specialties that included the Black Bear, White Tail Deer and the Rainbow Trout. I waited for the results for an interminable amount of time for my test results. I dreamed of having that log cabin Ranger Station deep in the Huron Forest and the Au Sable River and perhaps a little store with topo maps, fishing equipment, lanterns, knives and wildlife books.
I waited and waited. In order the earn an income while I awaited word on passing or failing, bear in mind I only finished 7th grade so didn’t hold out much hope. Got hired at MCHRD in Detroit. The Mayor’ Committee for Human Resources Development. My Job?
To coordinate with three others job training programs and transportation for inner city youth.
It was typical government boredom but a job I threw my entire self into. My parents wanted me finish High School and get a GED then perhaps Henry Ford Community College, which is not more than a glorified High School..to make something of myself.
I was still awaiting word and left MCHRD and took a job at a garden nursery. I alway enjoyed working with trees and gardens, and besides it actually paid more.
Finally word came down….I passed! Hooray! Yes, but...but...there is an 18 month waiting period for placement! All was lost...or so I thought.
I used to got to the apartment district around Henry Ford Hospital in downtown Detroit meeting nurses and other medical types. I also met a man who would change the course of my life to this day. Don Wenzel.
Don worked at the Canadian rock station across the river in Windsor, he liked my humor and attitude which led to meeting with the suits at the station who within two weeks hired me..again no training….just attitude. From that day on…..my sails were set for a broadcasting career that included television.
At CJOM we were told we were getting a new GM, a real corporate guy from Toronto, Ray Greenspan. No nonsense, no bullshit.He was to arrive at the station at 7 or so to meet with upper management.
A bunch of us couldn’t resist and went to the bar down the street and got tanked on ale and made it back to the station just after Ray had arrived. He was in the studio being greeted and interviewed on the air live to welcome him..at that point the five of us decided to completely strip and walk in to introduce ourselves to him...live on the air.
The nighttime jock, Bill Robertson dropped his jaw as we entered drunk and naked...Ray turned around and without missing a beat said, “Must be my staff! Then described the scene for the audience. Great first impression.
We finally got dressed and took us out for a late dinner at the Viscount Hotel restaurant. We became good friends, all of us..and Ray gave the station the freedom we needed.
I may have left my heart in San Francisco, but I left my pants in the other room.. .
Dead Air Morsels
Decided to delve into the cranial archives to do a piece or two on radio morsels. In other words, left overs from a doggie bag of a career of flying the rock and roll radio air waves both on terra firma radio and on the web. It was those little things that made my journey an absolute rocket ride.
When I took over the morning slot at Kiss-FM in San Francisco, it was to replace Dr. Don Rose who was a Bay Area radio fixture for decades. I was working at a competitor station and when Dr. Don had a heart attack on the air (some guys will do anything for ratings!) I got a call from Kiss-FM management wanting to meet so I put together my portfolio and went to the meet with the suits. However, when I got there they didn’t even look at my clippings or listen to my tape...and was already hired before I got there if I wanted the job!
Easiest interview I ever had, but…..Dr. Don Rose? Some big shoes to fill...I felt out of my league, but accepted, gave two weeks notice to the boss and began work at Kiss-FM doing the morning gig at what was now a Classic Rocker.
Great team to work with and I feel the best radio I ever did. The morning crew doubled the ratings in one ratings period and we were blasting away from San Francisco to Sacramento! Salary jumped to $65,000 now from the $45,000 I was making at the old station, so radio has fed me all my working days.
We changed everything there...our station identifier was not More Rock More Often or anything like that...we went with..”At Last...A Radio Station that doesn’t suck!” We also began an on air campaign to “flip off” the competition and “flip us on”
One promotion we did was having me and my morning crew broadczes to give away IF...they came up honked, and flipped us OFF giving us the bird. I have never been given the finger so many times, so eagerly ha, in my life at one sitting or handed out so many prizes….
We were a tightly knit family of stations..all competitors and friends so it wa inevitable one Halloween that we should get together, 5 stations, jocks mainly, no suits, represented at one of the engineers homes. I went as a lesbian..that way I could go as myself as I hate costumes! My girlfriend went as a lumberjack!
We, perhaps 30 people, station people and dates spent hours drinking and smoking weed at the house in Petaluma, (Petaluma? Think Polly Klaas kidnapping and Wynon Ryders home town) where the engineer fired up his low power pirate radio station. Completely illegal, but once a pirate always a pirate. I grabbed the mic first and never mind the seven dirty words you can’t say on the air...we did..seven and then some. We broadcast for a little under an hour then cut it off in case we were reported to the FCC. Didn’t want to get my broadcast license yanked and banned from the air waves.
One of our competitors was KYVN/KVON Radio in Napa. I knew them well and they too were at the party. They had a Program Director, a Brit named Gareth was his name, he did afternoon drive there but...Thanksgiving vacation was coming and he called and asked If I’d fill in for him for 5 days. So now I would be doing a five hour a day morning show starting at 5 A.M in San Fran and then 3-7 P.M. in Napa. Money talks, so I definitely agreed.
They had a pretty tight playlist and not as free or raucous as my station in San Fran so my first day there began scouring the library for To-Rex and Edgar Winter kind of stuff and just played what I wanted….after a half hour of this and constant phone calls...the studio hotline rang...it was the PD, Gareth who hadn’t left town yet...oops!
The first thing out of his mouth with his Brit accent, yes he was from there, was “Hey, Mikey, you got any Led Zeppelin?” Then he laughed and relieved my fears. I asked if it was too much...he said No..go for it…I’m on vacation!!!
I rode the air waves for years in San Francisco and damned...had the time of my life….
The Rock and Roll Farm Bar
I’ve written many pieces about radio..mostly major highlights I experienced, but there were also those little pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that gave life to that career and not just a few laughs so I will explore my cranial caverns of memory to let them fall to the digital page, that is if they agree to….
Number One - Tim Buckley at the Rock and Roll Farm bar in Detroit. The Rock and Roll Farm was a small club and most importantly the house band was Bob Seger so that should give you an idea of its’ status in the Detroit Rock Scene of the ‘70s. I was also my dive of choice when working rock radio in Detroit-Windsor.
The owners, two brothers who in any other life might have been Jesse and Frank James were good friends of mine and on certain nights I would invite booking agents, record execs, band managers, radio people to the parties I held there. That way agents met bands, etc...and I was the facilitator..worked out fine and dandy...I made friends who made money and as a result along with my rock radio credentialsI got free passes to every major show in town and backstage..
One show in particular at teh Rock and Roll Farm was the Tim Buckley show...he and Terry Reid faves in those days, and still are. I made all the arrangements for the bash..my people paid no cover and drinks were half price at our pushed together tables of two dozen or so guests near the stage.
One of my guests was my lawyer and he was also the son of the owner of the grand old Fox Theater in downtown Detroit. He was also my cocaine dealer.
We excused ourselves from the party during the opening act...Salem Witchcraft, and headed for the restroom were we proceed to snow blow so to speak...just then one of the bouncers, a new guy stormed in and busted us and took us to the office to see Mike and Tommy, the owners...as we walked in bouncer behind us..we saw Mike bent over his desk snorting a rather long line. Had to laugh. He looked up and said to the bouncer, “What?”
His bust just got busted and he left the room to do his job which meant back off. We added some more coke to Mikes line and the three of us were in hog heaven.
We finally returned to our table and Buckley was due on stage in five or so minutes so took my place next to my Wife #1 the blonde bombshell who could dance the night away to rock and roll…
Once Buckley was about half way through his set on of the WRIF guys pulled out a joint and passed it around...I took a rather large drag or two and the room went haywire...it was some top grade weed with PCP added…
Once the show was over...I was helped outside and promptly fell of the cub into the Michigan Avenue at 1:30 or so in the morning. My car was parked out front and the other couple we came with got in front...Rick drove and I got placed in the back seat lying down head on wife’s lap...the next morning I woke up in bed and asked my wife…”How was the Buckley show?”
I had forgotten I was there...That’s why cocaine and PCP don’t mix. But Rock and Roll Does…..
Don’t touch that dial! The radio revolution was assaulting the gates of the Eisenhower kingdom of growing suburbia as rock and roll took to the streets with a Bolshevik back beat. It was amplitude modulation with an AM attitude..king of the radio dial until it was overthrown by the Frequency Modulators…the revolutionaries of secret FM cells.
It was against this backdrop that I became a radio addict..a junkie in search of rock and roll fix…a fix that after my release from the Army in the early 70’s during the Vietnam Era, lasted on air for 30 years and took me to radio stations across the country from Maine to California.
These are the confessions of a rock and roll radio disc junkie! A disc jockey for rock and roll and country stations that spanned the era of black vinyl discs to computerized play lists.
Our tale begins in the Detroit Rock and Roll Galaxy..far,far away in the age of Am Radio, greasers, leather jackets, penny loafers and poodle skirts. An era of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, before there was Smoke on the Water.
A child of the Baby Boom, born in post-war 1948, I was raised by my grandparents in the Fifties. They had survived two world wars and the great depression, the jazz and big band era..but a new age was on the horizon..Top 40 radio
I might have grown an affinity for Kay Kaiser had it not been for the fact that under the same roof I had two uncles..one in his mid-thirties and one in his early twenties..I’d sneak another rooms when they were at work and in one uncles room I’d put on his Platters and Luis Prima records..then after that would go to my other uncles room and put on his Chuck Berry and Elvis 45’s…The narcotic was strong and I was hooked immediately. I was doped up on doo-wop and reeled in by rockabilly!
1956. When I’d go for rides with my rock and roll uncle in his Chevy Impala convertible he’d crank the radio up..full volume as we cruised along the river in Detroit. The music and the manic presentation of the disc jockeys was infectious. Carl Perkins and his Blue Suede Shoes..Elvis Hound Dogging it and Chuck Berry wailing about school days and juke joints. Damn I was mesmerized. The music..the jocks…the keepers of the gate to uninhibited behavior…an unleashing of hormonal primal feelings not quite understood at the time.
The images of Brando as The Wild One and Dean rebelling without a cause and those motorcycles and leather jackets, the cars with class and balls, engines roaring with Bill Haley rockin’ around the clock in the background. It was all rock and roll.
The radio left it's indelible mark, fang marks from the bite of a Wolfman,Jack, and if one word can sum up the Fifties, that word is rockandroll!! We were growing up in an era of cold war nightmares of nukes, in a duck and cover with God on our Side America..but there was also a drum beat in the distance, it got closer and closer and seemed to be coming from the radio..the AM radio. Modulating like a stripper in cheap burlesque house on Woodward Ave in downtown Detroit. I remember thinking in good old fashioned atomic age logic, that the fission and fusion age had melded together to form a slag heap of music with a pretty steady back beat. The mediums and the messages were all undergoing McCluhanesque surgery, including music, including rock and roll, and soon Bill Haley and the Comets would liftoff from the launch pad of America's cultural menopause. Rock 'n roll was here to stay, any which way you choose it, but sometimes, that back beat, you could loose it.
The radio was a nightmarish tangle of tubes and transistors. Disc jockeys screamed at you from the front seat, platter patter catch you on the flipside hipster juke joint jive was a narcotic to me. I was hooked..These fuckers on the air were goddamned Gods. Zeus in a zoot suit ruling over a Motor City empire with drums and guitars at their disposal as weapons of mass teenybopper destruction. Hormonal injections of rock so young masturbators and nubile nymphs could feel something deep within, from the volcanic depths of hot groins.
Damn...I wanted to rule the radio universe. I'd call the station right after school and in that let's be cool laid back he ain't buying voice ask for a song to be played for some girl who didn't even know I wanted to unfasten her bra and cop a feel. Cop a feel to the hits..It was like going to confession and the platter priest would play your song after you silently confessed your sins and instead of calming down your sexual urges, Jerry Lee Lewis would come on the radio and it was like tossing gasoline onto a sexual campfire in your loins...Tell Laura I Love Her? Shit, I just want to fuck. Love is the B-side, lust is number 3 with a bullet. Rockandroll-a eventually led to payola. Takin' cash, fakin' the hit's and the "catch you on the flipside" cool and groovy radio hipsters whose voices puked with exaggeration and urgency, were caught up in an avalanche of controversy that buried their careers, and it wasn't long before the AM dial hung it's head in shame.
The industry was dirty, mean, and dispiriting, but the mighty Wurlitzer rocked on. Jumpin' jukes firing head shots from a full metal jacket of rhythm, blues, jazz and big band deep into the very souls and depths of white American youth, as race music, the negro sweet voice, grabbed us by the throat, mixed it up with a pinch of backwoods rock-a-hillbilly, a dash of swing, and badda bing, badda boom, it was time to give birth to the bastard child of inbred musical parentage. Rock N Roll, Baaaaby!!
45 rpm's, three plays for a quarter, and the beat goes on. Down to the juke joint you go in, as the music launched like a rocket and was about to break the Tin Pan Alley milquetoast sound barrier. It was all about energy and sweat, harnessed and then unleashed. Little Richard, resplendent, regal, raucous and downright rock 'n roll ravenous, bangin' the 88's and screaming across the sky like some flamboyant out of control, off the path meteor shower.
Chuck Berry, with no particular place to go, still searched high and low for Marie, still lost in Memphis. Even, the mighty duck walkin' Uncle Chuck was fighting the perennial battle royale against the mighty tag team of un-cooperative seatbelt and bra strap. A musical cattle drive was also underway from Lubbock, Texas, as Peggy Sue's bespeckled, horn rimmed musical boyfriend, gave us heaping plateful's of our buddy, Holly's famous American Pie, until the plate fell with a crash from the table and landed with a deafening silence
in a cornfield one cold, below zero Iowa night.
Memphis, too, was beginning to go into musical orbit with Beale Street blues cats and rockabilly stray cats circling the Sam Phillips Memphis Sun like planets in perfect synchronicity, while blue suede shoes tapped to a hillbilly beat.
A spectral vision was rising from the muggy musical mist swamps of Tupelo, swiveling and sneering, the gold lame truck driver who would one day become simply, The King. Viva Las Vegas!! Rock and roll was hear to stay, along with payola and American Bandstand with Dick Clark, the worlds oldest living teenager for years.
Of course today, Dick is dead, but the bandstand lip-synch legacy lives on. We got to know the dancers, the kids on the show and they had fan clubs themselves, like Mouseketeers, they rocked and rolled our world and we all wanted to be like them. Most anyway. I always wanted to be Dick Clark.
We bought the hits from companies like Sun Records, Verve, Stax and of course the holy Mecca of Decca. The Philly sound, the Motown sound and the Wall of Sound emanating from the west coast studios of Phil Spector and the sounds of hot, hot, hot Ronnie Spector and Darlene Love.
For the girls, there was the Righteous Brothers. You never close your eyes when I say da do ron ron only because your boyfriends back and I'm gonna be in trouble. The rock and roll syringe was laced with it's boom boom beat narcotic and was looking for veins. The drug was having it's narco effect
around the world, hooking the skiffle junkies of jolly olde England.
One young man, from Liverpool, John Lennon, heavily influenced by this leather jacketed rebellion, was forming his first group called the Quarrymen, who by the 1960's would change their name and in the process, change music forever.
...meanwhile, back in the States.
The Pez and Hulahoop generation was embracing this new music like a long lost lover. It was, and still is, the three chord trinity Holy Grail. We not only told Laura we loved her, and gave her one last kiss, as she smiled sweetly and took her last breath in our arms amidst the twisted and tangled metal wreckage, once a car, now unrecognizable. Our teen angel was gone, dead, zero to 60 in 14 seconds. Thank God the car was insured! However, amidst all the angst and the anger, Danny and the Juniors still had a positive outlook and invited us all to the Hop to dance the night away and forget our cares and woes.
We all got by with a little help from our friends in our rock and roll record buying days. It was an all out backseat 45 rpm orgasm to "School Days" by Chuck Berry. The spindle held the vinyl disc in place and in turn took it's place in rock and roll heaven as the record in all it's rpm glory got kicked in the balls and replaced by the compact disc, the CD, and yes, it also stands for cross dresser!
There was reel to reel when reelin' and a rockin' and cassette tapes and eight tracks, and quad, and then, today, now, the i-Pod. A disease parasite that eats away at the sound quality of the final product and the poof! there goes the disappearing album cover art work. Vinyl produced a sound quality still unmatched today, but the album cover art, damn Louvre stuff if you ask me...Led Zeppelin albums, the Janis Joplin Cheap Thrills album and of course, the Holy Grail of album cover art...Sergeant Pepper! Then again, there is also the White
Album...The sound systems were towers of power, along with turntables and amps, RCA plugs everywhere in and out of every electronic orifice.
Today, vinyl is making a comeback for a whole new generation that haven't experienced the almost Houses of the Holy Wall of Sound that was played by Sergeant Pepper and The Lonely Hearts Club Band. Marantz, TEAC, all the biggies can be found refurbished in repair shops in many major cities. "Record Stores" dealing in actual "records" are everywhere, especially college towns, which to me is encouraging as a new generation discovers the art and magic of sound of "My Generation"
Toss that fucking i-pod away and grab some black
assed vinyl..put headphones on, crank it up...real headphones with real music, real loud, real clear, real rock and real roll!
How Ernest Tubb Put Some Hilbilly in Me With An Electric Guitar
Radio is just one of those things that fill the air with obscure observations as to their origins. Radio did not just happen, it was an evolution and a revolution of entertainment and information. In the 19th century and prior information was relayed via newspapers, magazines, dime novels and the telegraph. On the horizon was new era that was about to explode. Electricity had been developed, the telegraph, the telephone, all for transmitting information and "voice" over wires. The age of the town crier and all is well was fast approaching it's zenith. A new force was on the electronic horizon...the transmission by way of wireless telegraphy as it was called.
The godfathers of radio were Marconi and Tesla, although Edison came close to adding radio to his extensive arsenal of invention. After numerous experiments the first radio station in the United States to be built was in San Jose, California in 1909 by Charles Herrold. The station was called simply, San Jose Calling. Call letters were to arrive on the scene later. That simple radio station was the first to accept advertising and it evolved into what today is one of the monster AM stations in San Francisco..KCBS. Broadcasting was off and running up and down the dial. Herrold trading advertising on the station with record stores to play music on the station.
The first licensed broadcast radio station and the first with actual call letters was KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Today radio stations east of the Mississippi River are designated with "W" whereas those west of the river are designated with "K" in an effort to regulate the airwaves which by now were crowding the airwaves from coast to coast. Most radio stations in those days were financed and owned by corporate entities who used them for advertising purposes. Powerhouse WLS in Chicago was owned by Sears-Roebuck whose slogan was "Worlds Largest Store" or abbreviated to WLS. WSM the Nashville powerhouse and home of the Grand Old Opry was owned by an insurance company who claimed "We Shield Millions!" or WSM. The history of call letters are in and of itself an airwave archeological dig worthy of the Egyptian tomb raiders, but without the curse of the mummy attached.
The Grand Old Opry was one of the first "programs" to hi the air in the 1920's and because of it's powerhouse 50,000 watt AM signal as most 50,000 watt giants beamed it's signal as far north as Detroit where I was growing up. The story is that the host of the show, The Solemn Old Judge was waiting for a New York broadcast of Grand Opera to end out of facilities in the Big Apple before they would link to the country show that was about to debut, without a name! The opera went into double overtime and the Judge was getting perturbed. Eventually when the grand opera broadcast ended and the cut to Nashville, a perturbed Judge said.."Well, you've been listening to Grand Opera, now get ready for the Grand Old Opry" in a sarcastic tone. It stuck and the rest is history. Opry History.
The Judge ruled his radio kingdom like a deranged Viking god and would allow jug bands and singers to perform for the radio and the live audience in the studio, but no drums or later, no electric guitars were allowed as that was not "country." when Bob Wills appeared with his Texas Playboys the Judge had the drummer sit behind a screen so he was not visible to the audience, and he only allowed the drummer on as Wills was blasting off the charts with more records sold than had been done before so the compromise was made. Later, Ernest Tubb went with an electric guitar. He discovered that in the honky tonks with Juke Boxes the noise of the crowd overrode the levels of the music, so to combat this he chose a louder guitar to compensate. Tubb as huge so the Judge had no choice..electric guitars were allowed from then on.
As a side note, the Opry stars would introduce new talent on Saturday nights to the Opry audience. Tubb had the pleasure of introducing a young singer by the name of Elvis Presley who did not receive a warm reception from the "country" audience. A depressed Presley was then told by Tubb, "Don't worry son, just keep on doing what your doing, it's your music and it will catch on!" Tubb gave the seal of approval to the emerging rockabilly sound and from that came the Sun Studio age of Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Narvel Felts, Jerry Lee Lewis and of course, the King of Rock and Roll.
When I arrived in San Francisco for my first west coast gig I was hired by one of my radio idols from my Haight Ashbury days..Stefan Ponik, a legend of the early underground FM days. He would play the records of local bands and have them on as guests to talk and play live. These included legends who became fast friends with him from Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin and Doug Sahm. Stefan was now general manager of a station in the Bay Area. I sent an audition tape as I was working in Michigan at the time in the UP..he liked it and hired me. I was in radio hog heaven...I could now work with my idol from those days and learn from the Master himself. When I arrived he said, "I hire you because you remind me of what radio was in Sixties, free form and loose, and I want renegade radio today and you're my radio renegade"
I didn't have to stick to format, play what I chose and he kept the Program Director, the Hitler’s of radio away from me. I was the French Underground fighting Radio Nazi tyranny. I was doing the Monday-Friday Morning show in San Fran at this point and on Saturday Mornings an older gent was doing a classic country show playing Tubb, Williams, Cline, etc. and he had a following, but he also had a heart attack and Stefan saw an opportunity to kill the show by putting me at it's helm to get rid of the old and keep the station current with the new country. I agreed not knowing much about old country.
The first Saturday I took it over to "kill it" the audience especially one gentleman, Bob Crane for Vallejo who was from Mississippi originally knew his classic country as I would call it. He called me and said, "There ain't no classic country..it's just country!" I didn't know that much so didn't argue. He then kept calling and requesting songs by artists I never heard of but we had an extensive vinyl collection and would leaf through them at super speed to find the goddamn song..I found them all and after finding three songs without getting stumped, he called and said, "Boy, you got some hillbilly in you" which I took as a compliment.
Bob then became a regular on the show in the studio, we'd talk music and whatever was on his hillbilly prophets mind. He became a dear friend and we'd drink and BBQ at his home and he gave me an idea. Take the oldie show and give it some form like ..the Opry. I called it the Roadhouse, saying we were broadcasting from the Roostertail Bar just out of town off the highway..I created live copy for the place that did not really exist. Softball tournaments, dance contests, etc and started getting calls from waitresses who wanted to work at this live music raucous venue that existed only in my mind. The shows also were thematic with featured artists such as Cash, Cline, Price, etc peppered with anecdotes of their histories that I researched.
Stefan cornered me one Monday soon after the live copy. He was in charge of advertising and wondered how this bar account get on the air and who sold it..I fessed up that was made up, theater of the mind and showed him hand scribbled notes that included bios of the waitresses and the owner, Stosh, a Korean War Vet who opened the club in 1959. I got a raise that week and the Roadhouse was off and running.
Borrowing from the solemn old Judge I put out a call to local country musicians who were listening each week would have them in the studio for interviews and play music from our other studio patched into the main studio. The station itself was built and went on the air in 1949 and the other room sound room was for big bands to play on the air. So now I had a theater of the mind west coast, left coast version of the Opry show that influenced me from an early age listening to WSM as it's tentacle signal reached out to the juke box blue collar town of Detroit.
I also attracted Bob Wills niece who was a fan and brought to the studio one Saturday morning six cassette tapes recorded of Bob Wills at his last show at a club in Reno. Although the quality was not good the historic value to me with Wills bantering with the audience, drink glasses clinking and the camaraderie of the band was and is priceless to me and I have those tapes to this day hermetically sealed. One of Bobs old band mates was a guest at one time and he told the story that Bob would record in studios near Coit Tower and that was his base now in the Bay Area. When they had an out of town gig, the bus would drive around and pick up the musicians. If the bus didn't come by your house...you knew you were out of the band!
I also got to interview Jett Williams, Ray Price, Leroy Van Dyke, and many of the older country stars as well as the new breed, Hank, Jr., Willie Nelson, Travis Tritt, Ricky Van Shelton, Kentucky Headhunters, Pirates of the Mississippi, Sawyer Brown and Tanya Tucker so my education was growing from zero to 60 in ten seconds flat.
The artists were and education in and of themselves..but the influence of Stefan Ponik was the greatest radio river that ran through my blood and does to this day. He is today in the Bay Area Hall of Fame..I am not, but Stefan is and well deserved as his peers honor his memory. This is more a tribute to him than to radio. He is radio, and thanks to him I did get an award from the Tom Donohue Bay Area for best commercial "roots" program in San Francisco.
Stefan was the last of the renegades and Clear Channel be damned!
Bob Seger, Free Concerts and a Toot & Toke Whistle
Dee-troit radio was a mixture of formats and talent. The Drake-Chenault Big Boss Jocks to Casey Kasem Top 40 shmaltz. The AM airwaves were a congested freeway of screaming Pukers as we refer to the "old school" of over enunciation and pseudo-hip chatter that not only came from somewhere deep in the cave of ego, dark and forbidding, but was delivered faster than bullets from a machine gunning killer of the old Detroit Purple Gang during prohibition.
The FM dial was different. It was laid back, the format was the anti-format Christ where The New York Dolls and Frank Zappa could could co-mingle and somehow segue flawlessly into each other, an ocean wave pounding the surf, with water and sand becoming one indistinguishable mass. WABX, home of Dave Dixon and the other Air Aces as they were called, formed their own wing command and ruled the airwaves reminiscent of the Flying Tigers over China in 1938. FM was the black sheep of the broadcasting family and AM thought nothing could breach their walls. They got smug..they got lazy and eventually they dropped their drawers and bent over and took it in the AM ass.
I worked for one of the legendary FM stations of the era at the dawn of Detroit Rock and Roll FM Radio. CJOM. A Canadian bastard child unfettered by the Gestapo tactics of the FCC. Which by the way we always pronounced phonetically as FUCK. I was living in Detroit and now working for a radio station across the river in Windsor, Ontario where words like "eh" permeated the subconscious until it sounded absolutely normal. I say it to this day and proud to say, "eh", eh? CJOM was governed by a much looser CRTC or FCC equivilent, but was more forgiving as to what was said on the air. For example our morning newscaster one days was talking about Nixon getting caught in one of his many delusional lies. Instead of say that...our newscaster started the newscast off with "President Nixon Fucks up again!" Ah yes I knew I had found a radio home worthy of my middle finger attitude towards American Politics.
CJOM eventually hit the bell in ratings and we were soon sponsoring just about every concert in the Motor City. New York Dolls, Aerosmith, Kiss, Seger, David Bowie, Elton John, Tim Buckley, Queen, Roxy Music, Van Morrison, Todd Rundgren, J. Geils, and the MC5. All shows that I also had the good fortune to MC and get blasted back stage. I ran into one of our listeners who was an inventor of sorts and he came up with an item called the Toot and Toke Whistle. It was a metal whistle with a screw in Hash Bowl do you could blow it at concerts instead of flicking your Bic and by placing your finger over the air vent you could inhale your favorite herb or tiny brick of hashish in screen. ...it was perfect for our station as a give away while others were giving away bumper stickers.
I arranged a meet with the Program Director, the Station Manager, myself and our inveterate inventor..the suits went bonkers and we ordered thousands and labels to stick on the sides that proclaimed to the concert going world..CJOM...Cream Magazine teamed up with us and for the next six months I was backstage at every concert in town passing this out to everyone from Alice Cooper to BTO to David Bowie. They would also be tossed out to the audience by radio staff members as I took care of the backstage mayhem, and perhaps added to it.
The next phase in CJOM's takeover of Detroit was to sponsor Free Concerts in Rouge Park on summer weekends. I ran into a young promoter, Chuck Petersen and between us we worked the scheduling for a smmer series of free concerts that featured the best of Detroits local bar bands from Salem Witchcraft to Toby Redd. We also had groups further up the food chain in Detroit such as Frigid Pink. I arranged for security and tapped into friendships I had made with the local motorcycle gang, the Devils Disciples especially one who became good friends named ...Timber Wolf..ok, George was his real name but it took some getting used to when he'd call the station.
During on of the shows I was on stage in Rouge Park in between acts as the next act was getting ready. We a flimsy snow fence as barrier between the stage and the crowd and both myself and our biker "security" had been enjoying a bottle of wine behind the dressing room (U-Haul truck) and some fine Motor City weed. I made it to the stage for the obligatory announcements to kill time when an overenthusiastic reveler decided to breach the fencing and lept to the stage and tried to grab the mic from my hand. In a flash Timberwolf and the drummer from Toby Redd flew out of nowhere, subdued the music lover and two other bikers then hauled him away..where and what they did to him I don't know nor cared to ask. The show went on.
After the second weekend free concert I was at the Rock and Roll Farm as usual, and during the break went next door with Bob Seger who was playing there that night. We hit a small burger joint and had some between set burger and fries. I asked if he could do the Free Concerts..what a coup that would have been. He smiled and said normally he would but he had just signed a contract with a new record company and was going out to the West Coast for some Hollywood Nights and wouldn't be in town..Bob had broken through the local wall and was about to explode nationally and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Beautiful Looser album. A more charming down to earth rock and roller is hard to find. But man..what a show that would have been. Later when Bob was back in Detroit at Cobo Hall where the live Bullet album was recorded..it was a backstage party and a half...Detroit..just give some of that old time rock and roll..and a toot and toke whistle slightly used.
Dude Looks Like a Lady! Dead Air Radio Dazed (How Aerosmith Popped my Cherry) One thing you learn to overcome when your working your ass off in morning radio is to loose your “fear of heights”..the radio waves that carry your voice...your persona on a magic carpet ride across the sky and into the A/FM radio of a regions listeners. You have to not let the fact that there may be thousands listening to your every word, move, and waiting for that inevitable live radio fuck up...equipment failure, tongue failure (more often than not) or unplanned mishap that may occur and following the law of Murphy..it is inevitable.
The other fear to overcome..is stage fright. Being on air especially a morning show (the Olympus of radio gigs) you will be asked to MC shows that come to town that the station sponsors..and you will be responsible for getting out in front of 10,000 or more screaming rock and roll (and country music) fans to scream louder, overflow with enthusiasm and intro the band...at ten decibels yourself with only a microphone to protect you from a crowd of adrenalin rushing drug infused audience who get carried away as you are the only thing standing in the way of that first note of “Stairway to Heaven”
I've had the pleasure in my career to MC some great shows including the new York Dolls, Todd Rundgren, Grand Funk Railroad, Ted Nugent, Brownsville Station, Aerosmith, J. Geils Band, Kiss, Little River Band, Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, BTO and the Tubes not to mention the parties afterwards. Parties attended while not the sponsoring station included Elton John, David Bowie, Kinks and Bette Midler.
I've also had the opportunity to MC country shows from Toby Kieth to Ricky Van Shelton, the Kentucky Headhunters, Bellamy Brothers, Tanya Tucker and Clay Walker.
...but...you have to imagine your fist gig in front of a concert crowd...it's like the first time you boinked your girlfriend or masturbated...it's asheer wall of terror...you're alone surrounded by massive walls of amplifiers, chords on the stage miles of chords that in your initial fear become so many snakes..cobras and rattlers waiting to do you in with the venom of terror...you grab the mic stand..cold metal in hand...it warms fast from your vice like grip...teh mic...you move in close to it as though you were going to give it mouth to mouth..clumsy at first...the squeal of feedback reverberates across the auditorium..an assassins bullet ringing out and winging out over the heads of the assembled faithful.
My rock and roll “cerry” was popped at the Flint IMA auditorium n Michigan. I was to MC and introduce Aerosmith in the early 70's..I had already introduced the warm up act..Salem Witchcraft from Detroit but now...the moment of truth..we are not worthy!!
I took my position the equipment in place..one spot on me...no band on stage..then it just happened...I started screaming out “Are you ready” in my best rock and roll voice..it's a standard opening line “are you ready”..of coruse we're ready you fucking puke...we paid big bucks for these tickets..are we ready? Fuck yeah...at least that is the conversation you have in your own head...then you blast the name out...”AEROSMITH” in all caps voice of course.. the band had already gotten into position during my short intro..all except Tyler..where the hell was he...then after my scream of intro..the lights flooded the stage Tyler bounds and leaps out and comes to the mic..gives me a kiss on the cheek, kicks the mic stand up into the air catches it and they launch into Train Kept a Rollin..I made my self invisible and left the stage and took my postion behind the curtains to watch the show...I was a virgin no longer...pride not fear rushed through me...I made it across the desert...I landed on Normandy...I could now face a crowd...the high lasted all night..after the show thre was a drunken aprty at the Holiday in...they ented the whold floor and it was room after room of beer, hard liquor, marijuana, groupies, radio people and of course ..the band..and let's face it..we felt we WERE worthy now...but Tgyler created a monster...now I couldnt wait to MC every fucking show in town! I was no longer a virgin..I was now a full fledged radio whore! Dude Looks Like A Lady!
Dead Air and Radio Dazed – Joe Walsh'd!
When I say I was Joe Walsh'd, I don't mean I was so taken with his music that I bought every last piece of vinyl of his from his James Gang days in Cleveland to his soaring Eagle days. By Walsh'd I mean I was bodily kicked out the backstage door of one of his concerts in Detroit. It was one of those the smoker you drink, the player you get moments in my radio career that went careening out of controlled orbit. Even Major Tom and his legions of space geeks at ground control couldn't help. HAL the computer had gone berzerkoid, and humanoid and in a Kubrick frenzy, space locked me out in the void of the black hole of the back door of the back alley's of Detroit by some of the largest Wash roadies on the road. Big hulking figures, who obeyed their employer as loyal followers to their rock and roll Imhotep.
Ok, I admit it. I deserved it. Once again, the Marino mouth open sesamed larger than Moby Dick crushing a shipload of wailing Bob Marley whalers without Capt Marley wailing.
CJOM radio in Detroit, a Canuck intruder in the Motor City rock and roll scene of the 70's. The wild child bad boy with no FCC leash to restrain it's airwaves or content from cross the river and the border..an illegal alien of monster music proportions. (FCC? Say it phonetically and then give me an “F” FCC! What's that spell? What's That Spell? Keep saying it, Joe MacDonald will love every moment and syllable) The radio station was sponsoring the Joe Walsh concert in Detroit that evening in the early 1970's. (Footnote: in May of 1968 James Gang with Joe played the Grande Ballroome in Detroit as the opening act for Cream)
Warm up act was local band Frigid Pink who painted the house of the rising sun a bright kelly green. I was as usual backstage smoking my favorite weed and consuming Detroit beer. Joe was from Cleveland and I was from Detroit and there was an industrial Midwest link between our two rustbelt hometowns. The old saying goes that Detroit would say to Cleveland..”Send us more steel” and Cleveland would answer, “We will but you send us more beer!”
Frigid Pink rocked and rolled and worked the crowd into a frenzy which in Dee-troit doesnt take much. On the Bob Seger live Bullet album recorded at Cobo Hall (Yes, I was there at that one too back stage drinking with Alice Cooper, (Vince Furnier from Pontiac which is a town north of Detroit named after the car, which was named after the Indian Chief who kicked Brit ass back in the day) Anyway on that album Bob says to the crowd and on record before he breaks into I believe “Nutbush” ...”They say Detroit audiences are the best rock and roll audiences in the world..(pause)..”Shit, I've known that for 10 years!” Applause, yells, Bic lighters, toot and toke whistles and bang..Nutbush City Limits!!!
Pink had shut down..and the crowd was awaiting the arrival of His Majesty Joe Walsh the First. The guitar god of the Midwest. I was just hanging around talking to Kelly Green briefly and then the announcement back stage..clear the area as Joe is ready to go onstage..clear the area...turns out Joe like Willie Nelson (I walked out on his gig as he was rude to the stage hands and crowd and appeared to be one of country musics complete assholes) Anyway..here comes Joe, and I just stood there as a rather Hulk like creature approached me and said I had to leave and go out into the audience..what? I said our station was sponsoring the concert, why did I have to leave? He replied, “Because Joe doesn't like people backstage when he was on way to the stage” I mean I wasn't going to go up to him to kiss the hem of his garment and ask him to turn water into wine or to raise me from the dead..so then it happened..the words came out that got me a one way ticket out the back door. “I looked the roadie in the eye..Joe was now backstage not three feet from me as I said..”when's the last time Joe had a hit?”
The planets then went out of orbit as I went into orbit into the back alley beer in hand. I was giving Joe an 'F” as loud as I could but of course was drowned out byt the drums and guitars inside that the crowd was enjoying. I calmed down, finished my beer which was flat now and made my way to my car and drove home..sorry as hell I had missed what was one hell of a concert by one hell of guitar player..but to this day in my vinyl collection I have everyone of Joe's albums..yep vinyl and even have a couple of James Gang vinyl to this day..and every now and then put one one to drift back to the radio daze of dead air and the night I got Joe Walsh'd! Dead Air & Radio Dazed - Daves Not Here! By Mike Marino
That's not entirely true. He's just not all there, or is he in actually, more here than there, more hither than thither and a half a mile of yon away. Maybe he doesn't exist in this demented dimension of dementia but rather he came from some distant spaced out orbiter from across the outer reaches of outer space in a far off far out intergalactic quadrant of the Second Dimension. Dave was all of these, and more, more or less. Hell. he was a paper boy for godsake. Boy? No, he was a man-child who got left behind in the Veetnam rice paddies of Sixties nostalgia. A true LSD-MIA real "Deer Hunter" type contrary to the huzzah and battle cry of no man left behind. Dave wasn't left behind...he joyfully stayed behind of his own accord to play Russion roulette in the bullet riddled Saigon of his mind, crash landing, he looked around, the colors had never seemed so blindingly beautifully beatific, so vivid and vibrating, so enhanced...as only Dave could see them and share with those around him through ceregral osmosis. Dave didn't need acid...Dave was acid. Purple double domed oranged wedged. A dilysergic M-80.
Dave was and is a by-product perhaps impure thought of another pure state of mind, California. If he knew the way to san jose, he would turn around and go the other way, forward towards the opposite direction...to say, old beat Bolinas or the anarchist enclave of Arcata. He never cared for Burt Bacharach anyway. Instead, Dave would head north, of Muir Woods, nestling in former dairy land north of the Gate. Once the Sixties began it's decline to a shabby bag of seeds and stems, the microbial refugee tidepool sprang to life, took shape and crawled out of the water and onto land to stake it's claim. Old and young hipsters relocated to Bolinas. The broke beat ones anyway, while the rich bitch beach hip moved to saucy Sausalito to ride side saddle on thousand dollar mountain bikes.
Sausalito is a haven, Ritchie, of voodoo houseboats and effeminate artsy gallerias and the bayside rich. The colony started simply enough in the eons ago in the finest traditions of "what ever floats your boat" era of nautical housboating homesteading where you could tie up and drop anchor in safe harbor. It welcomes the chosen few with open arms as tourists flock like seagulls to see gulls on wing and see girls in hot shorts walking the beachside strand, some hand in hand along the sand, this is California afterall. You need Diners Club to club here. Wine and cuisine and art are an artform in themselves and an affectation of the "damn I wish I really were sophisticated and not so damned sophmoric" self-proclaimed yuppie who professes to an overnight epiphany of jazz and all things sensitive. The same people who wear geekoid bicycle helmets when riding bicycles and tight pants with lo chastify belts to make a fashion statement and are afraid of the world at large. The helmet tells the whole story.
So now you know where Dave came from, and where he didn't come from. Now just what the hell is he? Dave was and probably still is a newspaper boy in the old tradition of delivering the news to your doorstep in rain, sleet, snow, sober or stoned. One of the legendary Hearts minions, turf wars in the Lindy Lands in Paris Twenties over circulation. "Read all about it" before the death knell sounded in the age of the internet and only the hells agers obit readers were left, merely waiting for thier own demise to be duly noted in the Records Section of this once mighty dinosaur, and the newspaper itself cancelled their subscription due to inability to breath anymore or pay the bill from six feet under.
In the Nineties, I was working at a radio station in San Francisco doing the morning show and like all good morning shows you have a newpaper delivered so you have early morning crap to make fun of, if the news warrants it. The obits were a particular favorite for us to use, but don't ask why. The gang was a perverse lot to say the least and we did and still do find them a plethora of humor. Dave, would deliver our paper to the station each morning at 5:30 a.m or so, jsut before airtime, and would engage us in conversation before he left to deliver more nasty newsprint to others and we had to disappear into the studio, put on headphones and get ready to rock n' roll. Dave too was a rock n' roller....he played Cream and Deep Purple songs on his forearm...and I'm not kidding. Using his fingers running up and down his arm, in perfect tune, humming as he went to emphasis the notes...you ain't heard nuthin' till you heard "Smoke on the Water" played with index finger and thumb on human flesh. "Da...Da...Da...Dadadada...da.da.da....da.da" Repeat Ritchie Blackmore riff half a dozen times and insert here or in that cerebral jukebox you wear atop your neck like fancy pansy headgear.
Dave did play in bands, once, maybe twice and kept plugging his lifes amp into the wrong socket, overloaded with chemical electricity in the brain that ate amino acids like candy, that eventually short circuited, causing him to burn out and explode due to his own faulty wiring, like the Challenger spacecraft ka-booming and crashing back down to earth..hard landing, incoming! The Sixties passed, the Seventies passed, (thank god) and then the V-Eighties and finally the Nineties emerged as hungry locust from a deep sleep and Dave emerged too, took a job that didn't require a whole lot of three dimensional thinking as Dave preferred the comfort and anonymity of the second dimension of which he spoke longingly all the time as though he had missed a bus connection in Amarillo and had to spend the night sleeping shotgun on a filthy Texan floor littered with bodies and thieves and tired old insects that had been stepped on over and over throughout the course of the day until the old black man would mop up the next morning and empty the garbage cans filled with old cardboard coffee cups with cigarettes floating in the bottom in the brown residue. On the weekends, this old timer got out of town and went fishing with his grandson.
Dave came inside the tto fill a bucket with water so he could dowse the smoldering pile of print black ink, sure, it would be one wet pile of shit, unreadable for the most part, but at least sparks and embers would be extinguished, as Dave may have decided to pull up to a gas pump, flames spewing to fill 'er up and blow 'er up. We lived in an area with numerous valleys with numerous names. Valley this, this valley and that valley. One of the valleys 30 miles away was hit with torrential rains and the newspaper Dave delivered had the headline emblazoned in huge font across the top..."Storm whacks valley!" I looked at it and knew Dave lived near there so showed it to him commenting on the destruction...he saw the headline and commented "Where's Whacks Valley?" I knew then he had the potential to commit murder on command from the voices inside his head. Another time, we had cut a Swatch watch from a magazine, glossy print perfect cut and gave it to him one morning as a joke to help keep him on time. He thanked us and tried to put it on his wrist and exclaimed. "This is cool. Is it solar or what?" Columbine would have looked like a pep rally by the time he was finished with a lunchroom full of jocks and cheerleaders at noontime.
But...Daves big claim to personal fame was as a songwriter with many unheard and unsold and unheard of original tunes to his credit that he played with zeal and mucho gusto on his bare forearm for hours while sitting in the dark rehearsal room of his kitchen as he had no equipment, no keyboards, no guitar, not even a metronome to keep the gnomes dancing in tune or in time to the beat. Just a forearm with invisible current and electricity and invisible stadiums of fams to play to. "We love you San Francisco!" Even though the venue may have been in the East Bay...nobody knows Hayward or Fremont, but everybody knows San Francisco.
Then it happened. "Dave, look. We go on the air in 20 minutes, how would you like to come on and play your new song on the air. Great exposure Amigo, and who knows, Cap records talent scouts might be listening in and you could end up on tour in a stage with smoke and fireballs and classic rockers like Gene Simmons lighting Bic's while high on crack. European tours would follow and culminate in Japan with Black Sabbath as your warm up act live at Buddokan." It was a Dave dream so he debuted that morning and I could only picture the incredulous faces of those caged in morning traffic snarled on the Golden Gate or Bay Bridge, rush hour in full tilt stalled boogie. That morning we unleashed a genuine genie genius from the rock n' roll bottle and there was no turning back.
Dave was an instant hit, like the hula hoop and Minute Rice. Just add water. The phone exploded with requests. Requests! He'd do classic rock, while mesmerized drivers, passengers and those at home getting ready to bang out to Sacramento on a lonely I-80 commute were kareoking all the way to the state capital. It was madness and insane and trying to understand it was like trying to explain mommies needless death in Iraq from a car bomb. Dave became a regular feature, and encores were not uncommon. One day on the air he gave a dissertation on thinking and living in the second dimension. He could have been a guru with a following, Charles Manson with a cult ready to kill on command. He was now one of those known by only one name...Prince...Bono...Madonna...Yanni, (yes, Yanni!) now, Dave, a real old testament Yaweh.
Dave was a delightful pipe bowl. He added laughter to mixture. Not at him, but with him, and he didn't even know it. He was not the court jester, but the holy seer of childlike simplicity. He retained that innocence of childhood, that perhaps only too much drug use can seal hermetically. I eventually moved on but ran into Dave many times before leaving the station. We'd drink, we'd smoke, we'd laugh, we'd joke. I was learning at the feet of the Master, the sound of one hand clapping was now loud and clear. Dave was zen, pure and simple. I was seeing the world simpler now, thanks to him. I guess you could say....I was now, through him, living and seeing in the second dimension in a three dimensional world. I don't know where Dave is today....but one thing is certain...Dave's not here...instead he's everywhere. I know that for a fact, because when I hear "Smoke on the Water" only one person comes to mind. Dead Air and Radio Dazed – The Rock & Roll Syringe 45 rpm's, three plays for a quarter, and the beat goes on. Down to the juke joint you go in, as the music launched like a rocket and was about to break the Tin Pan Alley milquetoast sound barrier. It was all about energy and sweat, harnessed and then unleashed. Little Richard, resplendant, regal, raucous and downright rock 'n roll ravenous, bangin' the 88's and screaming across the sky like some flambouyant out of control, off the path meteor shower. Chuck Berry, with no particular place to go, still searched high and low for Marie, still lost in Memphis. Even, the mighty duck walkin' Uncle Chuck was fighting the perennial battle royale against the mighty tag team of un-cooperative seatbelt and bra strap.
The radio's played loud, frozen dials set to 10 greaseball decibels as ducktails and ponytails moved to the rhythymic beat, in synch, and blended their voices as they sang along to the hormone harmonies of their youth. The radio's rocked!
The radio also left it's indelible mark on the times and if one word can sum up the Fifties, that word is rockandroll!! The fision and fusion age had melded together to form a slag heap of music with a pretty steady back beat. The mediums and the messages were all undergoing McCluhanesque surgery, including music, including rock and roll, and soon Bill Haley and the Comets would liftoff from the launchpad of America's cultural menapause. Rock 'n roll was here to stay, any which way you choose it, but sometimes, that back beat, you could loose it.
Rockandroll-a eventually led to payola. Takin' cash, fakin' the hit's and the "catch you on the flipside" cool and groovy radio hipsters whose voices puked with exageration and urgency, were caught up in an avalanche of controversy that buried their careers, and it wasn't long before the AM dial hung it's head in shame. The industry was dirty, mean, and dispiriting, but the mighty Wurlitzer rocked on. Jumpin' jukes firing head shots from a full metal jacket of rhythym, blues, jazz and big band deep into the very souls and depths of white American youth, as race music, the negroe sweet voice, grabbed us by the throat, mixed it up with a pinch of backwoods rock-a-hillbilly, a dash of swing, and badda bing, badda boom, it was time to give birth to the bastard child of inbred musical parentage. Rock N Roll, Baaaaby!!
A musical cattle drive was also underway from Lubbock, Texas, as Peggy Sue's bespeckled, horn rimmed musical boyfriend, gave us heaping plateful's of our buddy, Holly's famous American Pie, until the plate fell with a crash from the table and landed with a deafening silence in a cornfield one cold, below zero Iowa night. Memphis, too, was beginning to go into musical orbit with Beale Street blues cats and rockabilly strays circling the Sam Phillips Memphis Sun like planets in perfect synchronicity, while blue seude shoes tapped to a hillbilly beat. A spectral vision was rising from the muggy musical mist swamps of Tupelo, swiveling and sneering, the gold lame truck driver who would one day become simply, The King. Viva Las Vegas!!
The rock and roll syringe was laced with it's boom boom beat narcotic and was looking for veins. The drug was having it's narco effect around the world, hooking the skiffle junkies of jolly olde England. One young man, from Liverpool, John Lennon, heavily influenced by this leather jacketed rebellion, was forming his first group called the Quarrymen, who by the 1960's would change their name and in the process, change music forever.
.Meanwhile, back in the States. amidst all the angst and the anger, Danny and the Juniors still had a positive outlook and invited us all to the Hop to dance the night away and forget our cares and woes.
We all got by with a little help from our friends in our rock and roll record buying days. It was an all out backseat 45 rpm orgasm to "School Days" by Chuck Berry. The spindle held the vinyl disc in place and in turn took it's place in rock and roll heaven as the record in all it's rpm glory got kicked in the balls and replace by the compact disc, the CD, and yes, it also stands for cross dresser!
There was reel to reel when reelin' and a rockin' and cassette tapes and eight tracks, and quad, and then, today, now, the i-Pod. A disease parasite that eats away at the sound quality of the final product and the poof! there goes the disappearing album cover art work. Vinyl produced a sound quality still unmatched today, but the album cover art, damn Louvre stuff if you ask me...Led Zeppelin albums, the Janis Joplin Cheap Thrills album and of course, the Holy Grail of album cover art...Sergeant Pepper! Then again, there is also the White Album...
Music was originally called "old timey" with a touch of hillbilly, bluegrass and rhythm and blues, all played live in hoe downs or juke joints, before there were juke boxes, just joints. Player piano's with rolls were the first automated music machines and eventually Mr. Edison came up with the music rolls for home listening that rolled off his assembly line in Menlo Park, New Jersey in 1887, based on an idea that a Frenchman developed in 1857! Edison took out patents on his "talking machine" and "sound writers" which eventually became the Phonograph!
In 1887 Emile Berliner, discovered a method of recording onto disc, and he more importantly, he discovered the method of mass production of these "records" and it caught on like a musical forest fire! Eventually, the records appeared as 78 rpm behemoth records and when they appeared on the scene, they were as large and as heavy as a 57 Buick. Along with records a new industry was created..the public needed something to play the records back on. The Victrola was one of many type machines, but by far the rock star of recorded playback! You had to had to hand crank it, like firing up a Model T, for enough juice to hear the recording, Enrico Caruso, Al Jolson, Uncle Dave Macon, Vernon Dahlhart and the like.
Volume control was attained by opening and closing the speaker doors, half way or full open wide open blasting of Jimmie Clanton singing Tell Me A Story in a duet with Frankie Lane. (That was one of my favorites) I'd go into my grandparents basement and play with the Victrola which may account for my 30 years in radio. Along with Story, there was a collection of Old Black Crows comedy albums, all stereotypical, not stereophonic, of black culture, of course then it was Negro culture.
Today we complain about the technological changes in our lives, new tech replacing old tech faster than tossing away a used condom. Not much as changed, as far back as 1902, the age of the cylinder was toast. The record had emerged on top as the heavy weight champion of the recorded music world. Remember MTV and the song, Video Killed the Radio Star? Well, radio itself reared it's amplitude modulated head in 1923, and now the public could hear recorded music on the box..for free! Record sales started to take a nose dive, but did re-emerge eventually. Other recording innovations surfaced in 1934 with the introduction of recordable tape, not quite replacing records yet. Glenn Miller and his band received the first gold record in 1942 for their recording of Chattanooga Choo Choo. By the 1950's 78's were tossed into the landfill of nostalgia, it was the age of the 33 1/3 and the 45 rpm.
The next phase as the music world was a fornication of sounds, rockabilly emerged, rock and roll, race music, country western, and all of sudden there was music for every taste and pocket book and there was gold in them thar gold record hills. The 45 rpm was the compact disc of it's day but you were lucky to have only one song per side, sometimes two per side as an Elvis record my uncle had. One uncle was in his twenties in the Fifties and it was Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Elvis.
My other uncle was strictly big band, the Platters, and Sinatra so my musical education was multi faceted. I never got into classical music, as to me, it was songs without words..go figure. As we aged into our teen years we bought our own 45's racing to the drugstore every week for the latest top 40 fare according to Billboard Magazine.
Rock and roll was hear to stay, along with payola and American Bandstand with Dick Clark, the worlds oldest living teenager for years. Of course today, Dick is dead, but the bandstand lip-synch legacy lives on. We got to know the dancers, the kids on the show and they had fan clubs themselves, like Mouseketeers, they rocked and rolled our world and we all wanted to be like them. Most anyway, I always wanted to be Dick Clark. We bought the hits from companies like Sun Records, Verve, Stax and of course the holy Mecca of Decca. The Philly sound, the Motown sound and the Wall of Sound emanating from the west coast studios of Phil Spector and the sounds of hot, hot, hot Ronnie Spector and Darlene Love. For the girls, there was the Righteous Brothers. You never close your eyes when I say da do ron ron only because your boyfriends back and I'm gonna be in trouble.
The music begat dances too...the Twist, the Mashed Potato, the Locomotion and we stumbled and fumbled through them at sock hops hoping to not only dance with the new girl in school but enjoying her many gifts under the bleachers after the dance!
The 33 1/3 album. More than one song, more than on hit, holy shit, 12 songs for the price. Surfing albums, the British Invasion and that mop top fab four group from Liverpool who managed hit after hit on one album at a time. They also introduced us to the "concept album" in the guise of Sergeant Pepper...the whole album a novel, a story line, interesting characters from Billy Spears to Mr. Kite, Lovely Rita the Meter Maid to Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.
Later interviews with John Lennon had him say he got the idea from a Beach Boys album that was "a unit of one" and also attributed the original Beatles sound to the producers of Annette Funicello's music, the over dubs, the simplicity. He was also a fan of Phil Spector and had him handle the controls on Hey Jude, the end result a classic and their longest running Number One in the charts. Paul hated it by the way, but what the hell, the rumor said, "Paul is Dead" anyway. The Stones followed suit with "Her Satanic Majesty's Request" as their dark and moody concept album. There we now whole sections of "live" concerts on the platter's.
The cassette tape was introduced to the music buying masses in 1963 and the first 8-track developed in 1965. The first CD was rushed off the assembly line in 1978 but not introduced to the masses until 1983, by 1988 the CD was spelling the doom of the vinyl era. By 1998..MP3 technology was introduced and today we have the i-pod. I refer to it as I-pos for Internet-Piece of Shit! They lack the clarity and punch of vinyl.
The best part was not only the quality of sound vinyl produced, but, the album cover artwork. It was everything from Robert Crumb to Picasso and the more ethereal covers of the Moody Blues and Led Zeppelin. The artwork was extraordinary in many cases. The Sergeant Pepper album in particular featured a compost pile of celebrities, present and past, from Lenny Bruce and Gandhi to Shirley Temple. Honest, it did, it does, look at it. The albums sometimes were framed as "domestic" artwork in dorms on the campus of just about every university in America. Ok, it wasn't the fine art hanging in the Guggenheim, but it was a new art form, for a new generation. Besides, university students don't eat quiche or Sirloin with crab leg chasers, it's MacDonalds and Domino's all the way. In the arena of food, they have no taste buds, but when it came to album cover art, there was a voracious appetite for it.
The albums also had "liner notes" little tidbits about the album, the art, the artists, and generally written by writers who were literary rock star themselves, such as Ralph Gleason, Ben Fong Torres and the like. Music journalists from Jazz Mags to Rolling Stone. We knew most of the groups individual members by name after the Brit Invasion from the Beatles and Stones to the Dave Clark Five and Herman’s Hermits..I defy most of you to name a Jordanaire or a Gladys Knight Pip, let alone one Cricket, besides Buddy Holly.
The sound systems were towers of power, along with turntables and amps, it was the age of the Rock and Roll Borg. You Star Trek fans will identify with the Borg, and you should agree...RCA plugs everywhere in and out of every electronic orifice. Today, vinyl is making a comeback for a whole new generation that haven't experienced the almost Houses of the Holy Wall of Sound that was played by Sergeant Pepper and The Lonely Hearts Club Band. Marantz, TEAC, all the biggies can be found refurbished in repair shops in many major cities. "Record Stores" dealing in actual "records" are everywhere, especially college towns, which to me is encouraging as a new generation discovers the art and magic of sound of "My Generation" Toss that fucking i-pod away and grab some black assed vinyl..put headphones on, crank it up...real headphones with real music, real loud, real clear, real rock and real roll! AM Radio: Lujack, Boss Jocks, & A Groupie Under the Turntable Console Cold air, night air, open window, rosary hanging like a bobble head of Jesus on a cross from the rear view window, cool air supplied by the cool night, a jazz cat in Harlem kind of cool, sunglasses in the dark, dank room at 1 a.m. wee smalls kind of cool. The open road, opens wide, as Kerouac's ghost rides shotgun next to a manic Neal he...ading west coast blues west on asphalt trails tanked up and gassed up and jazzed up with a full tank of late-beat-boheme unleaded gas and nuthin' but an AM radio to amplitude you through the night with bouncing signals from Boston and George Michaels holding court in NYC on WABC..Lujack high on amplitude attitude on WLS or WCFL..who the hell knows, he switched dial positions more times than there are Kama Sutra positions available to nubile darlings, brown eyed, brown skinned, sweating, dripping and glistening in the Indian heat, and inviting as a Bombay whorehouse. AM signals travel like bullets ripping through flesh in the night, they are the equivalent of today's smart bombs seeking out your dashboard radio to keep you company through the long nights journey. Radio is a blind persons best friend. A voice that creates visuals for all to "see" in the absurd "theater of the mind" that radio allows to exist.
Scranton, Ohio....Indianapolis, Indiana...Bowling Green, Kentucky...crackle in and out of range, overlapping, making for a compost of confusion and creating irritation until you get close enough to someones radio tower to take over and take the lead and come in loud and clear, for awhile until you pass the station and head away from it in the same direction..then it fades and disappears like the perfume on a whore after turning too many tricks in one night. The radio keeps you company..every now and then, a song comes on that you sing along too...bang on the steering wheel to keep time to the tune, half-way through it disappears, fades out and you never got to finish the song.
The old Buick was built as tough as an Oldsmobile, which at the time were as tough as Buick's, it was a tank, a panzer, a formidable mode of transportation worthy to compete head to head gasket with the Trojan horse. The backseat had seen passionate action in the past at the pits of passion and science fiction. The debris of burger and fries, not to mention double date sex in the back have left their stains on the fabric, eventually forgotten adventures of conquest of gastronomical and pubescent comical fumbling with female apparatus that held their ground as long as they could, soon secumbing to the siege of male teen hormones who thought they had won. In reality the forbidden female fruit unleashed was too powerful a foe for the male of the species who bowed in submission to the conquering genii in the bottle who was now free to dominate those around her who were more than willing to admit defeat at her feet. Ever traveled through Nebraska? Kansas? Flat as a punctured tire and rectangular to boot. Long stretches of corn and haystacks, some square, some round, grain silo's dot the landscape, corrugated metal skyscrapers reflecting the shine of the full prairie moon, saucers from another planet ready to take off, dominating a small agricultural town, rich in ag, poor in culture. The signals are scratchy as you try to tune in something, anything on the lone prairie. Static fills the speakers, and you're having trouble tuning anything in. Farm reports, drawling voices slow on the draw, folksy wisdom spewing forth like milk from a cows full udder. Some little piss ass station creeps into the dial position and it's some Friday night football game between two teams you've never heard of but damn it, one team won a championship in 1986 and their name is on the town water tower to prove it. It's small town gospel once you've made it to the water tower. It's a veritable Book of Revelations that the town swears by.
Mostly it's country music on the plains, forget that rock and roll shit you're used to in the city..this is George Jones and Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, "Highwaymen" and "Poncho and Lefty" doing up a jug of white lightnin' just before hitting the cantina in Marty Robbins' El Paso. It's an oldie but a goodie, says the on air guy, then breaks into a litany of the weekend events in town including the ice cream social and the horseshoe pitching contest down at the Roostertail Roadhouse Bar and Grill with it's parking lot full of pick-up trucks and mud and gravel and half a flickering neon sign that says "Bar" but then, it didn't matter if it lit up or not, everyone knew it was a bar, and damn thankful for it too. The bar is where they sponsor the local little league team with mismatched shirts and dirty ball caps and that guys wife carries on with that girls husband when given the opportunity, in between the shots and rack 'em ups of the ladies pool tourney, then they drink and smoke, flirt and touch and end up in the parking lot in the front seat of a pickup truck with bra and panties removed, followed by orgasm and finally by regret and fear of discovery and reprisal. Saturday ends drunk, and Sunday begins with a hangover...and then...fire meets brimstone, and the faithful cram into a wooden church no bigger than an outhouse to praise the Lord and grab the brass ring of atonement..for those shut in, as they are called, there is the radio. Along with the grain silo's every now and then..the tower of a lonely AM radio station sitting just off the dirt road somewhere where Swap Shop is king and you can sell dogs, tractors, winches and tires. The polka show airs on Sunday morning, right after the church service (paid for by the congregation)..Just because it's Jesus, there ain't no free pass in radio.
The station owner is poorly dressed, a slave to fashion if it were 1956 and white bucks were in fashion. He did his own engineering work, fixed turntables, did the plumbing, did the meter readings as required by the FCC and scrimped enough money together twice a month to meet his meager payroll. The day timers are real day trippers, yeah. Dependent on the sunrise and the sunset, is when you had to crank it up and on, and crank it down and off at night. Had to make room on the band width for that monster AM station coming out of Portland or Terra Haute who shared your dial position but weren't allowed to Godzilla it until after sunset..then bam, baby...all the way to the tip of Florida from Downtown Chicago. The entire roost is ruled by the Federal Communications Commission. The Comintern as I called it. The initials are FCC..say it phonetically and you get the message that our hands were tied somewhat and we were FCC'd. Carlin did the Seven Dirty Words you can't say on Radio, but that was then, and now you can to a certain degree.
The nemesis of radio, from the station standpoint is ... dead air! The record ends while you're outside smoking, or in the bathroom otherwise ore-occupied. If a jock needed some time in the can is when you would usually crank up the radio as the first notes of Hotel California or The Wreck of the Edmund Fitz came on...to you it was time to get your radio game on and sing along..to the jock..it spelled relief in some form or another. During the turntable days, either side of the control board was flanked with these behemoths, underneath the control board and the extra room allowed for the turntables there was ample room to stash a worshipful groupie underneath on her hands and knees to perform her own peculiar radio show with mucha gusto and to the jocks satisfaction. That is generally when you heard four or five songs in a row with no banter. When the young stashed groupie had completed what she had set out to do, she would lie down on the floor underneath to rest and gain composure before leaving to go home for dinner. Now the banter would punctuate the airwaves, and if you noticed, they were high energy at this point. Relief is spelled many ways in a radio studio!
Radio is all but dead today...shot dead by the i-Pod and Satellite Radio in a street fight, but for those who remember the lonesome night cross country trips in America racing through the dark with the radio muse at your side, it was a golden age. I worked in radio for many years, small towns, large cities like San Francisco and Detroit, and got to enjoy the hey-day of rock and roll radio..which I do miss...I also miss that groupie under the turntables! Rock on!
Radio Dazed – Mike Marino Gets Caught Smokin' in the Boys Room with Brownsville Station- Part One
In addition to my audio addiction to radio, I also took a stab in my other guise as a concert promoter along with my partner, Ken Lavise, who is Mitch Ryders brother. I knew both brothers well so it was only natural that we team up to promote some of the best bands of the Detroit area at the time and take our show on the road from the Motor City to other venues in Michigan. (Go Blue! for all you Ohio fans!) The bands were cranking out rock from an assembly line of talent. Grand Funk Railroad, The MC5, Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder and of course, one of my favorites, Brownsville Station with the inimitable Cub Coda. Mitch was always on the road, and besides...he wanted to much money! Yes, he was well worth it, but I wasn't about to earn it by posing as a Devil in a Blue Dress down on hooker row on John R. and Brush streets.
Ken and I decided on Brownsville, as he had the in with the band. Brownsville, like the MC5, were spawned in the Peoples Republic of Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan and the largest annual Hash Bash on the planet. Their biggest hit, Smokin' in the Boys Room released in 1973 charted in the US and the UK. Hell, even Motley Crew covered it in '85. It's an anthem, a classic. Hard drivin' guitars and vocals with head banging drums keeping the pace that would make a paraplegic get up and dance.
Ken and I targeted our first show in Northern Michigan, or Up North as we called it, in a town called Alpena. Michiganders use there hands as a map to show where they are from, or where the are going. It's a secret society of Hand Mappers, but it's an easy art to master. Hold your right hand, palm up, facing you. Detroit is approximately where your thumb joint is. Alpena is at the tip of your index finger. As a side note, Mackinaw City is prominently placed at the tip of your middle finger so when in Michigan if you flip someone off, merely say, "How do I get to Mackinaw" and you'll be best friends and have a new drinking buddy.
We worked out all the details with the band, rented the local National Guard Armory, hired the local security firm, had tickets printed, bought radio time to advertise, had posters and tickets printed, and to insure a success, hired the best local area band to open which we lucked out turned out to be Hartman, Riggs and Ostrander. They played weekends at the local dive called the Hideway Bar, which later when I worked in radio up north, I would pass out in on a frequent basis. I qualified for frequent flyer miles if those were given for drunken stupors.
The only problem we faced was the fact that there is there was no stage in the armory, and unlike Detroit where anything can be rented, (legally and illegally) Alpena only had stores carrying booze and ammo with deer heads mounted on the wall with that proverbial deer in the headlight look just before they bought the bullet. So, what the hell, we rented a small portable stage that had to be put together at the other end, 280 miles away, and we had to rent a trailer to haul it on. Neither Ken nor I had any experience hauling anything except ass, so this was a 4 and a half hour asphalt nightmare with Ken at the wheel. My job was to keep the beer flowing and the joints rolled for the long and winding road to the land of the plaid and proud in Northern Michigan.
We got up there two days early as we could unload in the Armory, had to arrange for motel rooms for the band, and did a series of on air interviews at three radio stations complete with ticket give aways, and album giveaways. We met with the local band at the bar for lunch and arranged for them to meet Brownsville when they were scheduled to roll into town the next day. Ken and I crashed hard that night, ok, passed out after rolling a few more and finishing our beer..the breakfast of champions.
The stage was set...Brownsville Station rolled into town and were ready to get the place fired up and partied up...as their one song says...We're the Kings of the Party...and party hearty we did....
Brownsville Station – Part Two Backstage, Beer and Flying Knockers We spent the afternoon of the concert in the armory, getting both bands equipment set up in a fornication of wires, mic's, amps, and other electronic paraphernalia that made the stage area look like Dr. Frankenstein was ready to electro-charge his beast and bring the rock and roll animal to life. Roadies ran around unloading heavy equipment, lights for the show, mixing boards, and other mysterious items that were necessary to produce the sound that would create orgasmism in young teenyboppers that would give them wet dreams for years to come.
Ken and I were running around town keeping up with last minute radio station interviews and making sure our security would be there by 5 pm for a 7 pm showtime, and all those last minute details dealing with the local band and introducing them to Brownsville so everyone would play nice together and share their toys. We also had to make sure there was enough beer and cold cuts for sandwiches for backstage consumption before the Really Big Shew..as uncle Ed Sullivan would say.
Around four that afternoon the Brownsville came in to look over the venue and the roadies handiwork which they had done many times in the past and had ultimate faith in their roadcrew. Roadies are like hookers. They know how to get the job done quickly and efficiently. Ever hooker I've ever been with has been professional and believe me, when it comes to completion of the job at hand, they are pure professionals and very creative when it comes to the sexual canvas laid out before them. They know how to use your "brush" to it's ultimate advantage. So too with band roadies, every plug, every wire, every instrument and every amp goes perfectly into place without a hitch.
Ken and I took Brownsville for brief tour of Alpena, as I had spent my childhood years in the lake area just north of town called Presque Isle, land of smoked whitefish and deer heads on knotty pine walls and ladies pool tourney teams whose main attraction wasn't how they held a cue stick, but how their bums were packed tight into faded jeans as they bent over the table to pop a two ball in a corner pocket. After the tour we ate dinner at a little dive cafe, as that is all there was in town at the time. Little diner with great food however. We gorged ourselves on massive burgers with enough grease to cover a locomotive, then headed to the armory for the pre-show set up and sound check.
Cub Koda and I were checking the beer supply and all was well...hear ye, hear ye! The band was getting ready as the doors would open at 6:15 and shazaam..the ticket carrying public came in, as did those wonderful you'll pay more at the door types. We sold out in zero to sixty. First things first. We already had the cash to pay the band before we even got to Alpena so had to make any profit we might see out of ticket sales. (We did, modest, but enough to finance our next show) We went backstage and were gonna cut checks for each band, but the locals wanted and needed cash so we accomodated them and got a receipt for tax purposes. Nothing like a paid band before performance to relax things and get the best out of them.
The doors opened and in they came. Groupies a'plenty. Cub and I were walking inside the stage area which was sectioned off and with a compliment of burly security guards that would have made Elvis proud. All security guards for stage work should be burly. Sure, they can't run fast but their sheer bulk make for an impregnable wall of fat tissue and flesh that quite frankly you don't want to piss off. Sort of like having Jaba the Hut's family waiting to charge an unruly crowd.
As walked the inside perimeter, a group of young girls called out to Cub. "Hey, over here, can you take our picture?" You know, the girls posing with the band singer, that sort of thing. The rest is pure Koda. He smiled and we walked over to them, she had a small camera, probably one of those 110 Instmatics if memory serves well with built in puny ass flash that you always see go off from high balconies at concerts that do absolutely nothing as their range is only 10 to 15 feet at best. Cub asks to see the camera, she complied and handed it to him, "After all, a rock star is not going to abscond with a piss ass camera after I bought a ticket hoping to meet the band and hop in the sack with the singer, right?"
Well...almost right. Cub has the camera steps back to where I am and aims it at the girl and her companions and takes THIER picture...minus Cub surrounded by the local flesh pots. He hands it back to here..their mouths are open wider than the Holland Tunnel in New York. As he handed it back he said, 'You should have said, can WE take YOUR picture." Fortunately the girls laughed, or rather giggled and all they were missing for a pure sexual experience in addtion to the giggles were Catholic school plaid skirts above the knee.
We disappeared back stage getting ready..the clock was ticking and finally show time. I went out and took my place on the stage to intro the opening act and we were rockin' and rollin' from then on. The local band was quite good actually and did a version of "Headknocker" that would blow our head off, or your knockers, but of course if knockers were blown off and rolling around there would be stampede with an auditorium yelling "Dibs! Those are mine!"
Brownsville took to the stage and did a few warm up tunes from Kings of the Party to Barefootin' (a Sixties Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames song) and then..the magic of the moment..the Boys Room door kicked in the band was indeed smokin' as the audience jumped from bleachers and were dancing their asses off for the rest of the show.
Lets face it, a good rock and roll concert is like orgasm. It punches every button and has an animal feel to it. In the case of the Brownsville show, it was one of the best times I had with a band with a remarkable sense of humor and of course, Cub Koda, the man who gave me hope that there may be a spare pair of knockers laying around with my name on them.
Radio Dazed - J. Geils Rocks Michigan's UP
When working in Detroit radio I had the opportunity to MC many concerts, a dream come true for an air guitar wanna be, from The New York Dolls to Aerosmith to the J. Geils Band and the Tubes. Eventually I moved to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where the flags are plaid and the food stamp is the currency of choice. unemployment checks are referred to as "rocking chair money" and every third person works for a septic tank installation company or a pin monkey at a bowling alley. I had an opportunity to be Program Director there so it was a great opportunity to “make my bones” and the experience came in handy later programming stations in New Mexico and San Francisco.
Doing Morning Rock Radio in the shadow of the mighty Mackinac Bridge in St. Ignace, we didn't have many concerts come to the land of swampers and Yoopers. It was a bleak landscape of polka bands and deer hunting and dive bars with pinball machines. I had a lot of contacts in Detroit from my radio days there. I went north for an opportunity to do Morning Radio and be the Program Director, to make my bones in the industry.
One of the concert promoters, Brass Ring Productions who had put on the Frigid Pink shows in the Motor City among others, were putting on a J. Geils concert in Marquette, Michigan at the University..home of the Snow Cows as coeds were referred to. (Any port in a snow storm, eh?) Brass Ring had kept in touch and called the station to see if I wanted to MC the show which it turns out was 3 hours from St. Ignace as the crow flies, a little longer when you travel by car, a Levi Denim Gremlin owned by my morning show co-host and news director, Ward Cox (an excellent marimba player by the way...he had the Northern Michigan Marimba Market in his back pocket!)
The concert was to start at 8 in the university auditorium and we left Swingin' Iggy as we called St. Ignace at 3 that afternoon to get there, and get situated and of course, get bombed. When you're in your twenties you are immortal, as well as immoral. I trouble deciding which I liked better. We stopped at a place called Doc's Bar along the way, situated elegantly near some railroad tracks belonging to the Grand Trunk Railroad..and yes, that is where Grand Funk took their name. From locomotive to locomotion I guess. A few drinks, some smoked white fish and we were smokin' to get to show.
Market is your typical small college town. It's influence is everywhere, and the coeds are long legged flesh pots that soon would be able to vote, but lets face it we weren't staring at their ballot boxes. We got to the auditorium, checked in with Brass Ring and were taken backstage to greet the band. I had already met them twice in Detroit MCing their shows so it was like old home week. Peter Wolf brought a long a visual treat with Faye Dunaway so, we got to meet her and drool.
The sell-out show crowd were pouring in and soon the place was packed to the rafters. I know it's impossible to actually do that but I like the image of people stacked up like cord-wood ready to rock and roll in the rafters and the bleachers. I was to introduce the opening act and Geils, and at this point can't remember who the original opening act was supposed to be but they had a last minute change and kicking off the show was The Little River Band. Now, I like the Little River Band, but warming up for the J.Geils Band is something else. It was certainly an odd pairing, similar to one show I attended at the Ford Auditorium on the Detroit Riverfront, with Janis Ian opening with her dark depression and near suicidal poem-songs giving flowers to herself just before the main attraction, Neil Sedaka for Christ sakes! From Suicide to Mr Happy and his Calendar Girl in one stroke. Ouch! Comma, Comma, Comma..she's my calendar girl...and to Janis..comma, comma she's my cadaver girl!
Show time and intro's and the bands did what they do so well. Entertained the crowd. The Geils band hit the stage with an explosive opening and it was full tilt boogie all the way from there. After the show we all decided to check out the local college bar scene and all piled into three cars and headed for the bar district where we found one with a live band. Imagine the crowd when they noticed Peter Wolf and entourage walking in..the house band stopped dead in their tracks, knowing who the band was and invited them to the stage to take a bow..the did and then Peter whispered something in the singers ear and the house band struck up "I Must Have Got Lost" and the two did a duet together of the Geils classic. It turns out it was one of the songs they covered!
We drank until closing time, long before Leonard Cohen penned the tune of the same name, and it was time to head out, hit the road, and be back in St. Ignace by 5:30 am to do our morning show. Fortunately Ward had a lead foot and the Levi Gremlin buzzed the two-lanes, as we consumed a few joints to keep us awake. Finally we saw the radio station tower lights and the lights atop the Mackinac Bridge from the high ground on US 2...it was now 5:15..fifteen minutes to show time. Fifteen minutes to spare and fired up from all night drinking, smoking and a J. Geils rock and roll high, not to mention Faye Dunaway erections.
We hit the air on time, and somehow, professionalism took over we put on our best sober voice faces. It was a remarkable academy award performance of two stoned morning radio rats executing the show as though we had not been on an all night bender. I have to admit, I always enjoyed working the phones on my morning shows, and bantering with listeners between songs..however...this show was minus on air phone calls and I must have done a segue marathon of song sets, and the hits just kept on coming. Eventually as the station manager arrived we were sobering up somewhat, but had smoked another joint earlier during a Frampton set..they are long enough to finish a whole bomber, just to maintain the final one hour of our show which we thought would never end. But it did and Ward and I left the station as we usually did, stopped by my cabin, grabbed a six pack and small bag of weed and hit the Lake Michigan beach by my cabin to sit and reflect on one hell of a night with bar bands and the Geils band..and all those coed fleshpots! Coeds are easy when you're with the Geils band or any band like them..strike up a conversation with one in a a bar and merely say.."I'm with the band!" and world is your oyster..or at least her oyster is yours..... The Rape of Radio or Did Radio Fuck Itself?
Newton Minnow referred to television as "the vast wasteland" a phrase which he may well have resurrected again were he alive to describe the current state of radio today. It's not healthy...it is a patient at the Leper Colony of media. Voice tracking...the sterility of satellite jocks ..one size fits all programming...the lack of opportunity for indie artists at getting a shot at scoring a bullseye at the penny arcade of the airwaves. When I worked in country radio in California..we played more “indie” artists than any other commercial station around. The only ones who played more were late night public radio Saturday night blues shows. Most commericial stations wouldn't touch an idie with a ten foot penis...we did..Wylie and the Wild West Show and other “cowboy” acts and people like Hank III before he was fashionable...
So, was it indeed the MTV video that killed the radio star? Was it the I-Pod and the internet that fired the final shot into the body of the electronic upstart? No...radio in the 90's was on a self-destructive path to kill itself, to eat itself, and in a final act of self gratification......so to speak...Radio Fucked Itself!
Clear Channel, the Attila the Hun of radio...Satellite...the evil empire that killed local radio by homogenizing it's sound and offerings with some of the blandest talent imaginable. Voice Tracking....syndication...local radio didn't stand a chance... but every now and then..you'll fine some local oldies show where an aging boomer who remembers radio and rock and roll as it was..and as it should be...goes local...takes calls...talks to you..plays your request and radio is a passion..a labor of love....a love affair between radio and the listener.
The radio revolution of the 20's -40's as family fare was passe by time the telly tube and TV dinners exploded in a cathode frenzy in living rooms across America. Commercial radio in it's heyday filled the airwaves with live orchestra's, live drama and comedy, from the Shadow and the Green Hornet to Jack Benny and Burns and Allen, and everything in between. The Grand Old Opry blasted out of the hillbilly studios of WSM radio in Nashville, and WXYZ radio in Detroit was giving birth to the adventures of the Lone Ranger. Families gathered around the radio to listen to the next adventure of some damsel in distress or some beat up Raymond Chandler radio detective in a what can only be termed as a murder for hire whodunit offering of audio noire.
Music was the sound of big bands, Glenn Miller and Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, and crooners like Sinatra and Hope. Ernest Tubb went electric and Hank Sr. died in the backseat of a Cadillac, but not after leaving a lasting imprint on the medium of radio. Country Western was here to stay. Then along came the Bobby Soxers and Zoot Suiters who were ruling the radio roost when it came to the music, fashion and lifestyle. Eventually shows like Your Hit Parade hit the airwaves with it's watered down offerings of "music". If music is sex, then the Hit Parade was the missionary position.
Early versions of popular soap operas began appearing on radio networks, a flashback to the old days of radio drama complete With sound effects of horses clip clopping and newsprint being balled up gently to create the effect of a roaring fire consuming an apartment building that the murderess had just torched to disguise the crime scene of the illicit lover she had just offed with a stolen gun from a gumshoes desk to cast the blame as far from her as possible.
The commercials...they were in a class by themselves as well..Live..before disc transcription was introduced and later tape via cart machines and reel to reels and eventually to the computer hard drive. No nets in those days...no second chances..you botched it you lived with it. No crash helmets to soften the blow.
Live orchestra's would perform in massive studios with an actual audience as the music of Mozart drifted through the microphones across the expanse of airwaves and into the living rooms of American families. In the early days the radios were kits and you had to listen through headphones giving the visual impression of a French Freedom Fighter in the underground of WWII listening for messages from Britain that the invasion was underway.....Eventually records appeared and the studio musicians disappeared in a puff of orchestral smoke.
Race music, OK, black music or better to the point of the era...Negro Music was hot stuff...but not for white radio stations. Then along came Sam Phillips and a little record company who was about to rise above the radio horizon to usher in a new age of race music with a musical makeover by white artists, names you may recognize such as Elvis Presley. Then along came new batch of cats who had country influences and created a new sound with a mixture of hillbilly and country with a new back beat...it was the birth of Rockabilly and eventually...ROCK AND ROLL...Radio was now on a rock and roll track...never mind the early days...it was back...and it was stronger and more powerful then ever...it was live..it was local...jocks had trademarks and gimmicks...and colorful names...in Detroit it was "The Weird Beard" ....you're city had theirs too...think back...who did you listen too...who did you call for requests for that new girl in school..or that guy you wanted to meet? It was interaction on overdrive...The radio and announcer were the penis...the audience was the vagina.
Then along came Clear Channel...the Lee Harvey Oswald of electronic media...poised on the Grassy Knoll ready to fire the bullet...to kill local radio...to put radio in a cookie cutter blender that even Drake Chenault and it's Boss Jocks couldn't dream existed....Radio didn't fight back and went along with it like a lemming with a death wish....radio wasn't killed...it committed suicide....tight play lists...obnoxiously short rotations, lack of indie exposure....radio wasn't killed...it committed suicide......and in the end...we all got fucked! Local Radio Highway 101: Voice Tracking – Self Abuse by Radio Class is now in session! Listen up! Turn the radio on to your favorite station...get ready for the antics of your favorite radio personality...absorb the songs and put up with the commercials. Get ready to be the 50th caller to dial an win..something..cash, concert tickets, free music..oh, forget that..this is the digital age where artists don't make money anymore..it's download time at the OK Corral and most of the artists promote this fact! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot! It's time now for the Local Radio Highway 101.
The good old days of local live radio are gone forever, as it has morphed into something unrecognizable, but resembling the austere sterility of George Orwell's giant 1984 screens that beams an image of a sinister Big Brother who leers at this subjects. In days of yore in a galactic world of modulation of AM and FM starships, there was no voice tracking. Voice Tracking is radio going up the lazy river without a paddle. The jock, goes into a studio and using microphone and computer which is programmed for the "shows" and he or she records "bits" that will fall into place in between songs, that by the way, the computer picks..not the jock at the controls..there is no jock at the controls..only Kubrick's HAL...in other words the radio station is out of control of any human contact...especially at night, the 7 to midnight and overnight shifts are voice tracked or satellite fed...no one is there. Hell, perfect time to break and enter and strip the joint clean, eh?
Those two shifts in particular were the training grounds for up and coming talent. Making their bones so to speak to attain the rank of made man in the radio Mafia. Eventually if any good they work their way into a Midday Slot..housewife time it's called, don't yell at me, that is just what it's called which is a carryover from the olden times of the 1950's..like voice tracking and the empty studio, the husband was away at work before ERA and she would carry on a adulterous affair with a mere voice.
The main drawback to voice tracking from the listener standpoint is you can't participate or call in to win nifty radio shit like CD's or records, when they gave records away. The tracked voice doesn't know you exist or care if you live or die. You can't get an accurate weather forecast as it was pre-recorded at the dawn of time when creatures were emerging from the ocean depths to walk on land. You can't request your favorite song because the computer will play what if damn well pleases..or actually damn well programmed to play.
How about those loving lavish promo's, you know..."I love your station, I listen to it all the time" then pow bang whiz..station jingle identifier and positioner for the P1's in the crowd with the aim of converting P2 demographics into the highly coveted P1's...a young woman coming of age as a P2 in a training bra to a ravishing advertiser prized Carol Doda boulder holder.
Those promo's you hear like that..they never give a name..a town...or business name...why? The answer is simple and not blowing in the wind but blowing out the commercial radio stations ass...they are pre-recorded in some studio by voice actors in Muscle Shoals perhaps, and shipped to radio stations across the country..the station then puts them together with their jingles trailing at the end like Neanderthal knuckles dragging on the ground.
They are designed to make you feel that if you don't listen often..you're a looser..plain and simple and you'll be left in the dust. Speaking of which, it used to be after a commercial set...the station jingle would play..then into "more music"..now you hear it and it leads into more commercials! Commercials take over more of a stations music clock than music does anymore, yet the station keeps harping at you...More Music all the time...less commercials..and like Big Brothers legions..the masses eat it up, believing it...unbelievable!
So the next time you turn on the radio, the one with dials and knobs not Listen Here buttons....pick up the phone..call the station...see if there is anybody out there...anybody in there...if not..grab your burglar kit and get some new equipment...radio today has robbed us all of a pleasant experience...it's time to get something in return... The Radio Roadhouse
Country music radio! I was brought up in the midwest listening to rock and roll dj's out of Detroit and Chicago with those big ass AM signals that blasted the big boss jocks out of the speakers with the power of an earthquake. But is was a country station in Nashville, WSM and the Grand Old Opry that would leave an impact on me as though a meteor crashing into the planet. I'd listen to them on the weekends at night when the signals are pure as a perfect diamond. Little Jimmie Dickens, Ernest Tubb and Marty Robbins. A lot of stations had country music, but these cats were honky tonk live and the steel guitars and high twang factor of their voices were mesmerizing to me. I also loved the fact that the announcer would read "live" copy for advertisers, not pre-recorded. Grain and feed stores and Cracker Barrel restaurants with a full menu of hillbilly fuel food.
When I started working in San Francisco at KNBA country radio I was doing Mornings with a heavy plate of contemporary country music in the 90's..Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt to Allan Jackson and Pam Tillis. On Saturday mornings one of those relics of radio past played classic country for four hours in the morning. Buck Owens and Hank Sr. He had a small audience and the station manager, Stefan Ponik hired me as a radio "renegade" ...he referred to me as the "gunfighter" and told the Program Director to give me room and not interfere with my morning show.
The old gent on Saturday mornings eventually had a heart attack and Stefan wanted me to step in and "kill the show" or get rid of that old shit and bring the programming into line with the current crop of country music. He had inherited the program when he assumed his duties as Station Manager but now he saw an opportunity to get rid of it. To shed it like a snake sheds it's skin.
I took over that first Saturday and the phones were ballistic...from San Fran to San Jose and Sacramento to Redding. I realized one thing when the four hours were up...the old gent had something here..something no one else was doing at the time and all it needed was a "tune up" in it's format from just playing records to giving it a personality all it's own...I had a Grand Old Opry Flashback and began to develope the show. I would do feature artists with background notes and bio material..Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline..all the icons..all the biggies...all the pioneers.
I wrote live copy for imaginary advertisers including a faux bar and saloon called the Roostertail that I made up complete with line dancing contests on Friday Nights, baseball batting cages and chili cookoffs. It didn't exist and I gave it's location simply as "Just a few miles out of town just off the highway" What Highway? What town? I even developed characters at the bar...the owner, Stosh, a Korean War vet, and a cast of bands that would play there from the Pacific Northwest including imaginary polka bands. The first Monday after I did the fake show, Stefan came up to me in the studio while doing my normal morning show, and wanted to know who signed the bar up for advertising without his approval! I explained what I did, how it was all merely radio reality, theater of the mind..he started laughing and said..."Damn you got me..." I told him the show had potential..the audience was huge and hidden..if we can only draw them out which we were beginning to do it would be a money maker and something no one else was doing" I got the green light and we were off and running.
I started to incorporate local country bands who would come to the studio on Saturday mornings and set up in the auxillary newsroom and play live on the air...yep, that Opry influence again. Then do the interviews and open the phones for requests that the band were more than happy to perform. Live copy, live bands, and at times we had people show up as an "audience" and also as guests. Buck Owens came by one time and through him got in contact for phone interviews with legends such as Hank Thompson, Little Jimmie Dickens, Mel Tillis, and Merle Haggard. They all talked about the old days of touring, the other stars on the tours and Opry and was a great mix to the music being played. Jett Williams, Hank, Sr.'s daughter joined me one day and we talked about the bickering between her and her half brother Hank, Jr. and the court battles over her claims to the Williams legacy.
Two artists who stand out were Narvel Felts and Ricky Van Shelton. Narvel is one of the original Sun Studio's singers from the Bootheel in Missouri and his big hit was "Reconsider Me" which I did a duet with him on..the high notes were not easy Amigo's. Ricky and I did some rockabilly duets together and Mac Davis and I did "It's Hard to Be Humble" while I also sang along with Charlie Daniels and Howard Bellamy fo the Bellamy Brothers.
The Roadhouse Show took off and then the Pandora's Box was opened...I started getting calls from females in the audience wanting to know where the Roostertail was so they could apply for jobs as waitresses and others who wanted to enter the dance contests..at that point like a true Mafioso, I spilled the beans and told them it was all make believe...the reaction was not what I expected..I thought they would be pissed..instead..they loved the charade and were sworn to secrecy..they were now part of the Inner Circle!
It was true theater of the mind...real radio where a listeners imagination fills in the blanks. Live local bands, an imaginary saloon that was party central and the fact that I impressed Stefan Ponik my personal hero from my days in the Haight and his days at KSAN radio as the underground night time jock. The listeners in the know kept the faith and the secret but soon it got out of hand and it was time to kill the Roostertail..Too many calls..too many people wanting to know about how to find it...I couldn't keep it a secret much longer so my news director and Stefan came up with an idea..a fake newscast in morning and afternoon drive that the Roostertail had burnt to the ground over the weekend and Stosh was going to retire now and his son's had no plans to re-open the joint. The Roostertail, located just out of town off the highway was no more, but the Roadhouse Show had a life of it's own and it went on for three more years, garnering the Tom Donahue Radio Award for best niche program on a commercial station in the Bay Area.
I loved that show and the audience and the music. Eventually I left the station to work at a classic rock station across town and it was time for Last Call for the Roostertail. I started working at KISS FM replacing local legend, Dr. Don Rose and with my staff created a Saturday Night Show called The Blue Suede Cruise...oldies rock and roll. No doubt about it..San Francisco Radio was indeed the best days of my radio life. Somewhere in my mind to this day though, I can still hear the beer bottles clanking at the defunct Roostertail while someone goes to the jukebox and plays Buck Owens "A-11" while the honky tonkin' goes full tilt boogie until 2 AM somewhere...someplace..in the imaginary theater of the mind of local radio. The Radio Interviews: Leonard Cohen, A Chimpanzee and Jerry Mathers as The Beaver! Contrary to listener belief, there was more to radio than music. Granted, radio was a vinyl whorehouse, a rock and roll bordello where you entered the realm of pimps and prostitutes in the guise of DJ's and records. You can't tell me that the open hole on a 45 rpm isn't the equivalent of a vinyl vagina with that small spindle disc acting as a condom before it mounts the spindle and slides ever so sexily to the turntable to be rotated and spun as the needle penetrates her waiting groove. Both move in tandem until finally orgasm is achieved in an explosion of sound.
Radio was also a garden of interviews with the famous, infamous and not so famous or infamous. In my radio career I conducted over 100 interviews that ran the radio gamut from Leonard Cohen, Harrison Ford and Jimmie Carter to Danny Bonaduce, Red Green, Mystery Science Theater, Melanie, Alex Trebeck, Roller Derby Girls, mob boss godfather turned grandfather Bill Bonnano to a crazed chimpanzee that was a last minute Bay Area fill in for a no show Jerry Mathers as the Beaver. Quite honestly the Chimp was more exciting. I have all these taped and in my possession and when I need a reality check and humility fix..I put them on and enjoy the flubs, bloopers and operator error fuck ups.
Leonard Cohen was my favorite. I was nervous to begin with. The Great Cohen, like the Great and Powerful OZ. While we were waiting to go on the air with mic's off, the station was running the last of the commercials and my station jock id came on..."The Semi-Fabulous Mike Marino" that my morning partner did as a joke. Not FABULOUS mind you, only SEMI-FABULOUS. Cohen started laughing which I did too as I hadn't heard it before and lets face it, Lenny likes words and their creative uses.
I began the conversation with a foot in mouth moment speaking of the Sixties and the music. I said "You know we never did put your albums on at parties" ...why I blurted that out is beyond me but Lenny laughed and said.."I wouldn't have either so we were probably at the same parties. Eventually the interview ended and I closed the segment with Lenny's "Closing Time" which had been just released. He gave me one of this books he had just written and inscribed the flyleaf with these immortal words...."To the Semi-Fabulous Mike Marino, from the Almost Perfect, Lenny Cohen" It was zero to zen in under 10 seconds. Actually when we first met it was "Mr. Cohen this, Mr. Cohen that..." when he paused for silence and said...."Call me Lenny" Whatever I call Leonard Cohen....icon, sage, wit, he is above all....almost perfect!
From Leonard Cohen to Jerry Mathers....you all know him as "The Beaver" (insert jokes here) I had just interviewed the actor who played Eddie Munster the week before, and Jon Provost of the old Lassie show so was on a nostalgia TV show binge so decided to track down Jerry Mathers. It wasn't hard ..he was schlepping condo's and timeshares which is what most has been TV types end up doing. It's the graveyard of showbiz that has replaced the numerous guest appearances former A-stars used to do on "The Love Boat" a sort of of Hollywood purgatory until the great "comeback or death" whichever comes first.
I tracked him down and got his agents address and phone number..exchange after exchange I finally got the green light and go ahead...as the week began it was 4 days until showtime. Mathers calls me himself and says he wants $600 for the interview...$600 for a goddamn has been! He wasn't even that big when he was big! I guess Ward and June didn't give him a big enough allowance and the royalties must have dried up for syndication. No way was the station nor I going to spring for $600 bucks for beaver...I never paid that much for real beaver in Okinawa!!!
I called Jerry and tried to explain that we didn't have the money and all guests on my show appeared for free. This ain't Hollywood I explained. He said that was what he wanted or he wouldn't do it...I have a bit of a temper as those who know me will attest to, but I kept my cool and just before I slammed the phone down...I yelled into the mouthpiece a line that "Wally Cleaver" used to repeat when he was Beaver perplexed..."$600! Gosh Beav!"
So my radio partner behind my back, as usual..(he kept things lively and me on my toes) booked another guest for that Friday Show to fill in...he didn't tell me who or in this case..what it was. It was a surprise he said and knowing my abilities to go with the flow and ad-lib I didn't care as I would always work without a net and that was the rush for me.
Friday morning...just before 8 a.m...the phones were still off the hook with requests and comments as Fridays were Insensitive Politically Incorrect Fridays so the gloves were off..the audience was great and were as insensitive as a Bay Area crowd can get...my partner Kevin did a big lead in with our mystery guest on the air...had the old drum roll ch boom ready and bang..the studio door opens up and in walks a trainer form Marine World in Vallejo with...a fucking chimpanzee!!!
I held the chimp and it laid down on my lap..face up with it's head at my knees and hit's feet curled up around the sides of my head covering my ears...I was describing this on the air as best I could, when my female traffic reporter was on the hard line and said for all the world to hear..."when the chimp is done..it's my turn!"
The interview was decidedly one sided and eventually he had to leave the studio and wouldn't let go of me and started that Cheetah the Chimp wet kissing as only a chimpanzee can do. His trainer took him away and it was kind of sad...when you spend a half hour with someones head in your lap fondling your head with their feet ...you kind of get attached...but when it's something fondling your head..it's not the same...but...I did go out with the traffic reporter who offered to simulate the simian...and you know....with her head in my lap it was showtime. Radio Interviews: How I Met Danny Bonaduce and Star Treks Commander Data in the Red Green Ring of Radio Death on Mystery Science Theater As mentioned in the kick off to this series...radio ain't always about rock and roll. I...t's about surly pop culture surely, Shirley, and it doesn't get any more pop weird than Danny Bonaduce, pronounced Do-chee as it should sound and not douche as he acts. Danny realized in his little red head that the Partridge bus had run out of gas long, so he no longer could come on a long and get happy, so he followed the modulation road and found and made his way to the mystical realm of the microphone kingdom...Radio. He was broadcasting out of Chicago, perfect windy city for a windbag indeed. He then went into semi-syndication and moved to Detroit to host his show from the metal realm of rust and assembly lines. Brazen, brash and outspoken I liked the guy so figured why not have him on my show to interview so made the necessary calls and arrangements, like coordinating the peace talks for Vietnam and all we were missing was old Henry the K himself.
Danny came on the show and started with the story of him boxing Donny Osmond on some celebrity TV crap show that I avoided anyway. I asked if he would tackle Marie and he said in true Bonaduce fashion..."I've always wanted to punch any Osmond I could..." Gotta love it. Then we got around to his show in syndi-land..he stated he was now a true blue "Michigander" to which I replied "Danny you're wrong..get it right now that you live here it's Michiganian, Danny, not Michigander!" (Actually it is both but wanted to yank his Partridge chain a bit) and it worked...we got into a mock yelling match and faked a fist fight on the air...then we argued over who won..naturally it was my show so said I did and if it was his show, then he did. He probably in reality would have kicked my ass badly but what the hell..it's only radio eh? Theater of the mind and in Danny and my case it was theater of the mindless..two outspoken big mouths going at it..it was a rush all in all..then...it happened...I asked about the transvestite episode...he got silent, thinking, hand doubling into a fist...with freckles..somehow a fist with freckles is not so frightening...unless the freckles land a right to the jaw...
Danny got up and said in a hurried voice..."Hey, man got a limo waiting, they're waiting for me and I gotta go, been great dude, thanks for having me on..." and that was it....I didn't think the transvestite thing would get him...hell, we've all run into them right? Right? C'mon get happy! Now if that transvestite were Susan Dey, hey, you might, right? Of course you would...a Susan Dey a day keeps the trannies away..
Another notable and strange but absolutely delightful interviews involved my plaid and proud hero Red Green from the frozen wasteland of Canada, wet or dry, it's me roots. I have been an avid fan of Red (real name Steve Smith) for years on PBS. The things you can do with duct tape are many and creative in the garage (and in the bedroom too).
I contacted Steve through his wife who is also his manager and agent and calming influence. We set the date for the interview by phone and they had also sent a box of one dozen Red Green Possum Lodge T-Shirts to give away. We decided we would have Steve on in his Green persona..believe me, his actual voice is nothing like the way he speaks to Harold at the lodge. Steve would then be the judge of the callers who would call in do their Red Green voice imitations and win a T-shirt and certificate stating they were card carrying members of the Possum Lodge..complete with oath!!!
The phones lit up and the impersonators began...it was non-stop Red Green action for a half hour with banter and everyone trying to out-Red Red himself...ha..never happen Amigo's and we had female Red impersonators..who added a sexual touch to the whole duct tape thing and quite frankly when it came to duct tape while the males talked about cars and fishing boats, the lady impersonators had a whole different bedroom mindset going...talk about stoking and stroking the imagination...Red and I lost it a few times laughing but all in all he was one of the most enjoyable interviews and he really is down to earth...in fact...as one with Canadian blood in me myself...all I can say is. Red Green is one hell of Canadian..he closed the interview segment with his famous "Keep Your Stick on the Ice" I can imagine what the lady impersonators were thinking probably what I was thinking....so in the words of Red Green gents, "If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!
Then there was the time I was visited by Brent Spiner of Star Trek (Commander Data) in the studio in San Francisco, and on the phone simultaneously with the robots and cast of Mystery Science Theater. Brent was co-hosting actually that day as there was a Trek Convention in Foster City south of San Fran so he jumped in and between us we did alien battle with the space invaders from MST ...Tom Servo and Crow..more on that in next retro radio moment...
Radio Interviews - The Talk Show
My radio career wasn't always rock and roll and country music. For a four year period in Detroit in the 80's I was signed to a multiple contract to host a daily home improvement talk show on Detroit Radio (Monday - Friday) as well as a spin-off radio show in Toledo on Saturday Mornings in our dear neighbor to the south in Ohio (Go Blue!) There that ought to piss off the ridge runners of Lake Erie!
In addition to the daily radio show I was also signed a contract to host a weekly television version of the program and also writing a weekly column for the Observer Newspaper Chain on home improvement, and of course the radio, TV and newspaper cross promoted each other. Hey, that is how you get rating, eh?
The television show as written up by one of the major paper as "The first home improvement program with a sense of humor" and very proud of that. Bear in mind our show was available on the tube in Bloomfield Hills north of Detroit, where there dwelled a local stand up comic by the name of Tim Allen who later went onto fame as host of Tool Time on the network show Home Improvement. As an aside our show was three years prior to his ... coincidence? I was a ten thumbs kind of guy but did shows with experts (landscaping, roofing, home builder finance, home decorators, etc.) who did know what they were talking about and had me doing everything in the field from roofing, to installing wood foundations and building a Timber Frame home in Ohio. We also took our crew into the Federal Prison in Milan, Michigan to do a segment on the prisoner home building program where inmates were learning trades to gain employment upon release. Good jobs too..high paying electrical, concrete, plumbing etc.
We entered the prison and after a rigorous check of our equipment..video cameras, sound equipment, etc we were allowed in. One guy I kept in touch with over the years was convicted of second degree murder in Indiana and serving time in fed custody in Milan. He specialized in Victorian architecture and had a small scale home he constructed complete with lighting, insulation, etc. He eventually did get out and went to work in Indianapolis for a Victorian renovation company. Who says crime doesn't pay.
On one show we had a group of high school students involved in a student home building program in Ann Arbor. These kids took me on site and I never saw so many plaid shirts in my life in one group..it was definitely Michigan! I dubbed them, The Plaid, The Proud, The Many! I had a great crew. My producer, Gloria took care of arranging the guests, the locations and coordinated with my film crew, an all female production company from Ann Arbor. They were the best to work with...on time, talented to the max and of course, not hard to look at either.
We shot segments daily and when we did the "studio" scenes for interviews when not in the field, we used a kitchen remodeling shop. They guy had complete kitchens set up and we traded advertising for space use. Unlike most local TV shows with crappy studios with old chairs and funky curtains for a backdrop we had a pretty elegant Amish Kitchen setup we used so we looked classier than we actually were..ah showbiz..it's all perception.
The radio show was a daily 2 hour talk fest with guest experts and listener call ins. My most frequent guest was Bob Vila of This Old House and when he left the WGBH show in a contract dispute he was not scheduled to be on again until the following week. That night my phone rang and it was Bob saying he left PBS and was going on his own and backed by Sears. This had been in the works for awhile so we hastily rescheduled Bob for the next days show to talk about it. He was always a delight. (Side note, I did try out as his replacement, demo tape and all but lost out to Steve Thomas who I also had on the show when that announcement was made, along with Norm Abram who choked on a donut during the interview and was gagging in the background!)
Other guests we had included Harrison Ford which was not easy to get. He was in Detroit at the time filming some flick and made the arrangements with the caveat we do not talk Hollywood..he wanted to talk about furniture making, which I knew was his hobby and why I contacted in the first place so we discussed furniture making and carpentry, his other passion. Alex Trebeck was on talking about acting as his own builder constructing his new home in LA. Jimmy Carter was another frequent guest discussing Habitat for Humanity, and even had the CEO of Pepsi Cola, John Scully on talking about building his own barn and outbuildings on his estate in Virginia. (He eventually took over the helm at Apple Computers). Get these guys away from the boardroom and the lights cameras and glitz of Hollywood and they really take off on a verbal frenzy about their outside passions.
We had a co-hostess who did our decorating segment who was a model for the Detroit Auto Show..OK, sex appeal sells dammit and we even went so far as to put together a demo and approached K-Mart in Troy, Michigan to sponsor us nationally on PBS. There I was in the boardroom with Gloria and my full crew, in jeans and sneakers talking to suits and they were very patient with us. They liked the style and said they were in the developing stage to produce a similar show and perhaps I'd like to try out, and if I got it ..I would the co-host with hostess, Martha Stewart who was just coming into her own. Besides it would have been a good pairing..we both did jail time! I auditioned and in the end they decided to go solo with her so the bright lights of fame and fortune eluded me yet again.
The schedule was grueling with both TV and radio six days a week, plus getting interviewed by other TV hosts and radio shows that Gloria arranged for me and had me on. My favorite interviewer was Russ Gibb who had a talk show as well. He was one of the former owners and promoters of the Grande Ballroom in Detroit. As the interview progressed, my own radio instincts came to the surface and I started asking him questions and turned the interview around to the Grande Days...He was more than happy to talk about it and at the end..said, “Thank you for having me on YOUR show..it's been a pleasure!”
The strangest one was a show in Garden City, Michigan. We arrived and the young cable crew volunteers were setting up the set for the show..the "host" came in and started yelling at everybody...kids..he's yelling at volunteers trying to be the big shot me thinks..and both Gloria and I were appalled..the kids were intimidate to say the least and it was now show time...live and local..I was sitting on the dais with him (Gloria ever present on my right)
The credits and music rolled and he put on his best host face and started to introduce me...live remember..at that point and I was waiting for it. ..looked at him and said, "You're an idiot" and walked off the set..to mucho applause from the crew and a bewildered look on Glorias face...he started ranting about how I'll never be on his show again...I corrected him and said.."I wasn't even on now" Gloria was pissed and I had to hear about it all the way back to Detroit. Then we both started laughing..she said, "I was afraid you would do something like that!" ...and she was right..as usual...Eventually the show had run it's course as I was getting run down and there were no more shows to do without repeating ourselves so when the contract ran out I took a month long road trip and decided to get back into music radio...but have to admit I missed the daily talk fest and most of all doing things that would make Gloria rant and rave...she was beautiful when angry...then would soften up...and we'd move on to the next project. God help me if she is standing guard at the gates of hell..she won't let me in..I guarantee it! The Ghost of Lenny Bruce (George Carlin) George Is Coming! George Is Coming! The city of Detroit, especially the radio community was duking it for the Heavy Weight Title of who would sponsor the George Carlin Concert at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Michigan. George coming to college..the ultimate seven dirty words substitute teacher and class was in session. CJOM, WABX, W-4 and CJOM were all co-sponsors of the event being treated as the one in line with the big bang theory..however was more in line with Darwin's Theory of Social Comic Evolution.
Read the book of Genesis..it clearly states "The Lord created the world in six days, on the seventh he took a break from breaking his ass and went to see Lenny Bruce" which is why people to this day attend a church service...to worship Bruce in the sanctity of a burlesque dive disguised as a holy sanctuary. Lenny did pose as a certain Father Flotski, did he not? During this first phase of comedy as a anthropological mirror of our disgusting species, there also dwelt the Sahlosauras. Mort Sahl...laid back sweater never let them see you sweat cool. Be-bop milk and cookies compared to Lenny's cooked spoonful of venim.
Busted constantly for profanity (?) why? To Cum IS a verb in any form it is practiced from fornication to masturbation, there is a certain physical activity associated with it to reach ejaculation..praise God! So Lenny does his schtick and gets busted for talking boobs...one guy who hung with Lenny back in the day of the well hung, was one George Carlin. George was a young standup just starting out. He wore suits and ties..as did Lenny. He mimicked his routines to get the pattern and flow and found you can shock people into social reality with the placement of a few dirty words...planted in the saloon room like so many landmines. Not to shock, not to say them to say them, but to puncuate unlike the braindead shock comedians of today...besides...it's all been done before and at great cost. Arrests, imprisonment, career damage...Lenny was the Li Po of dark comedy, wandering in the wilderness of comedy Zen. George worshipped him.
I met George twice and had dinner once with him in Detroit and he relayed a story about his days hanging with Bruce, but will save that for dessert. George was booked at the college and all four stations mentioned above were co-sponsors, which also met the staff gets free back stage passes..one thing about radio..you didn't pay for anything. Tickets, movies, food, it was all free...I never paid for movie ticket until 2005! (and the film sucked!)
We all met at the concert, me and my girlfriend, the guys from WABX, W-4 and WRIF and got our seats. No one was allowed back stage prior to the show. Made sense. George was in a mental seance to contact the spirit of his dear departed mentor the wise and powerful Bruce. George came on stage, (no, not that way, to come on stage is a verb though! as would be to cum on stage at the Black Cat Topless club I used to frenquent with the other stations one Friday a month on the westside of Detroit for beer, boobs and at time, bare bottoms and fronts) Radio people..can't take them anywhere there are naked girls)
George did the Hippy Dippy thing and all his best routines...seven dirty words, blue food (my favorite) and eluded to Lenny in his set. Once the set was done he left the stage (another verb in reverse if to come is on direction and to cum is caused by an erection, then to leave is a reverse verb. You can un-come but you cannot un-cum..try it..see if you can fit it all back in, I double dog dare you..if not go stick your tongue to a cold pole...with a pole dancer attached or a Pole attached. Those Eastern Europeans will warm it up first) We all took advantage of our backstage pass and with girlfriend in tow made it to the innner sanctum. George was completely “on” still and completely charming. My girl at the time was a statuesque Nordic blonde two inches taller than me which wasn't unusual considering my height. She would have looked good with a SS officers hat, riding crop and Das Boots! George was taken as well and in an act of chivalry bent low as he took her hand to kiss it. He was ready to "verb" I think right on the spot.
The others made their "gee great to meet you Mr. Carlin" and left, Cindy and I, and Jeff and his wife from WABX stayed behind at his invite, as we were talking to him about Lenny and such, and not fawning. He said he had a story about Lenny but first lets grab a bite to eat, and that we were from Detroit, we better know a goddamn place to chow. I did..I smiled and said.."We're going to Greektown downtown for saganaki in flames! Oompa! We popped in the limo the college had provided for him for a 24 hour period and on the way into the city smoked a couple of joints George had on him..the california stuff...the good stuff probably from south of the border down Mexico way.
The story is that at one nightclub in NYC Lenny was busted by the cops, again, and the patrons were also up against the wall for I.D. when the cops came to George and asked for is identification..he leaped to the top of a table, dropped his pants and started waving his schlang in the cops face.."Here it is, here it is!" Never wave a cock in a cops face. For one thing it's probably like looking in a mirror for them, second, it gets you busted too...George was taken in and in the tank Lenny was surprised. "What are you in here for?" George said, "They wouldn't accept my ID"
We hit Greektown...did Greektown...drank ouzo and beer, (arghhhh) and smoked some more after we got back in the limo for the ride back to the college where my car was. We emerged from the limo and as we were getting out, George kissed Cindys hand one more time and reached out to shake mine..I reached forward, and he said, "Oh what the hell" and kissed it too..I felt like the goddamned pope and started laughing so hard I couldnt stop...the limo took off and George disappeared into the comedy night..(I did meet up with him two years later at the Fisher Theater Concert in Detroit)
I had never had the opportunity to see Lenny in person. One of my absolute idols, but thankfully I got to meet his re-incarnation, George Carlin and learned a valuable lesson..there is no blue food, and when you do cum, by remote control or do it yourself, it IS a verb. Beam Me Up Scotty! Just Not In The Middle of a Star Trek Convention! Radio has it's perks. Free concerts, free music, free this and free that. Free Huey! Sorry, had a flashback through the worm hole of the second dimension of Black Panthers and Freedom Marches. I attended many concerts, and met a lot of celeb's and for the the most part wouldn't trade that life for all the opium in Afghanistan, but attending two Star Trek conventions tested my limits of breaking the sound barrier of reality. A Chuck Yeager I am not, and for me I truly was going where no man, at least I, had gone before.
The first one was when working at CJOM in Detroit-Windsor in the 70's. Trekkies from across the nation were beaming into the Motor City for a Trek Fest at Cobo Hall (the same place the Bob Seger Concert recorded live was held among others) The rock and rollers stepped aside as Star Trek came to town with phasers set on stun. If you've never been to one let me try to describe it as more frightening than being in a jail cell with five Klingons on Viagra and steroids with attitude. I walked in and saw half the crowd dressed as their favorite Trek characters. Red shirts and logos and in character to boot. How many Capt. Kirks can one stomach on a hangover from the George Carlin show the night before? I truly felt I had entered the Federation version of Alice in Wonderland meets Tim Curry in Rocky Horror.
Too many Kirks and Spocks and not enough Uhura's. Hoorah for Uhura the sex vixen of communications and could take control of my console any day. On screen..fire photon torpedo's..get me the hell out of here. I tried my best to avoid the Trekkies or engage in any conversation. If I had a cloaking device like a Klingon war bird I would have activated it. My Gawd, I was under dressed..jeans and boots, and not form fitting Mens Warehouse Space Fashions. I guarantee it!
Vendors were set up with paraphernalia of all things Trek. Little model USS Enterprises, action figures with pointy ears, and Klingon vessels. It was a galactic cornucopia of space the final frontier. I beamed around taking it in as I was assigned to cover it from a pop culture standpoint and do a couple of telephone call-ins to the station. I did interview a few of the attendees who under any other circumstances would have appeared to be escaped mental patients from a Ken Kesey cuckoo's nest.
Part of the perks of radio was also being able to avail myself backstage at concerts and in the hospitality suites at these Trek type of conventions and such was the case and the circumstances that I got to meet and get photon torpedo drunk with James Dohan and Nichelle Nicols and George Takai. Jimmy Dohan was the first I ran into and interviewed him live for a station feed. I liked the bombs away Jimmy immediately and he introduced me to Nichelle (Uhura) and together we went back into the hospitality suite for cold cuts, beer and whiskey. I stuck to the beer and had smoked a joint before I entered the convention so was going at warp speed anyway.
Jimmy is a Scotsman...he can hold his own and then some and is one of the funniest men I had ever met. He was Scotty. Uhura was sexier in person and I managed to keep my cool and wits about me while salivating over the Betty Page of Space. They were in costume so not only got to see the real deal from the show as far as clothing but ample Uhura legs as well, and yes, they were sexier in reality than on the small screen.
We got pleasantly plastered, our shields were down and George Takai walked in, Mr. Sulu himself! Aye Captain...firing torpedo's now! George was a delight as well. It was amazing...for what they became embedded in our pop culture and that of the world, there was no sign of massive ego explosions or implosions. (Kirk and Spock did not attend this event by the way so didn't get to do my live long and prosper routine and my Shatner impersonation. He probably would have tossed me in the brig anyway and banned me from coming aboard the bridge!)
We were now all pleasantly in our cups and it was time for the kick off of the convention. The Q and A session. Jimmy, Nichelle and I took our seats in the front row just in front of the podium and George took his spot on stage to deliver the opening speech. As we was talking, Jimmy kept yelling out "Ah So, George!" and doing Karate movements like some deranged Bruce Lee with a Scottish accent. I sank down in my seat a bit to keep from being noticed but Nichelle squeezed my arm noticing my embarrassment and said, "It's just part of their act, whenever they get together and drink they rib each other in private and in public" so I relaxed and waited for the damage report. George shot back with kilt jokes and the games were afoot.
The evening wore on and as I was done with my radio reports decided to hang out and have a few more drinks with the crew. Crew? Christ I guess I got into even more than I thought. It was like witnessing peace in the Federation as the evening wore on. Klingons talking to Romulans, Earthlings and Vulcans mixing with the crowd working the room of mesmerized Trek Faithful. If George told the crowd to have a glass of Jim Jones Kool-Aid I'm sure they would have had a second glass before passing into the Forbidden Zone.
The second convention was in San Francisco when working at KISS-FM. Dr. Don Rose was supposed to go but had a heart attack weeks earlier and I was hired to replace him so beamed to the convention center. This was the newer Trek with Commander Data's with pasty faces abounded. Not Patrick Stewart at this one of Number One, but Brent Spiner had the room in the palm of his hand. His opening line was something to the effect of "I see a lot of colorful costumes that would make Liberace proud. Tight fitting pants and shirts, but then again, this is San Francisco!" To which the crowd went wild with thunderous applause! Let's face it if you go to the Castro District you'd think you were in a Trek movie anyway or at the very least, the Rocky Horror show...there was one transvestite who arrived as Uhura but he/she didn't have the same effect on me as the real deal, but did arouse and attract a crowd..after all ...this was San Franciso!
I had few hospitality room drinks with Data and Michael Dorn who was also there so I was now drinking with a reformed Klingon and an artificial humanoid. It was at that point I realized..I wasn't in Kansas anymore...after all..it was San Francisco. So Scotty, beam me up, but please, just not in the middle of another Star Trek convention. I've already gone where no man has gone before.! Plum Street & The Grande Ballroom: Plum Crazy Rock and Roll in the Rustbelt! by Mike Marino
The Sixities were a societal kaleidescope of communal and carnal experimentation. Old funky junky neighborhoods in cities across the country were now being inhabited by modern day hobbits on a personal journey to attain enlightenment, or to simply Lewis and Clark it to find the path to their own inner Northwest Passage, but … be careful what you ask for.
Others flocked to these various urban and concrete gardens of socialist edens for nothing more complicated than to get stoned and to jum into the raging seas of all things psychedelic. Sex, drugs and rock and roll were the the major addictions of this rag tag generation of boomers and bongers on the move...m-m-m-my g-g-generation! Marijuana and LSD flowed freely for the more esoteric turned on - tuned in - dropped out residents, while some hipster hobbits developed habits that were more destructive.
From London to New York to San Francisco they came. By thumb, by van, by bus...runaways and those we should have run from came forming a melting pot that included artists, politico's, musicians, street performers, hustlers, sinners and saints. New York, the flash point of the Beat Generation and it's nuclear explosion of Kerouac's and Ginsbergs. Folk music and politics engaged in a fornication of action -re-action. Bob Dylan was walking hand in hand in drag with Pete Seeger and Woody Guthries ghost. Change was in the air and the answer my friend truly was blowin' in the wind.
The Village was now morphing into the paradise found then lost of the new pioneers...the Rucksack Generation of Hippies. It was “folk you” time for the overflowing folk music scene with a Peter, Paul and Mary limp wristed lilt that was only missing happy faces tattooed on Mary's ass while she puffed the magic drag in...and Peter and Paul formed a folk music menage a trois with Mary in the middle heating up the folk music sheets. Mary Traverse blowing in the wind..so to speak! Folk was fading like an old pair of favorite jeans that have been patched too many times with frayed cuffs and rusted zippers. If folk was effeminate...and that 90 pound weakling in those body building ads in old comic books (do they still run those?) was being replaced by steroidal stereophonic vinyl filled with tales of brave Ulysses, Casey Jones and white rabbits.
The not so hip anymore effete beret crowd and its literary cafe posers of an outdated generation were being swallowed whole and replaced by gargantuan legendary barefoot legions of young people who were living in the moment, the future did not exist and all was not "woe is me we are beat" Kerouac as defeatist crap. Existence was existential and an extension of the cold war. There may not be a tomorrow afterall so what the fuck...lets not blow today!
It was a new dawn.. a new age..of hope..peace..community. At least that is how the script was written and the street theater critics were criticising.....who needs mimes and artists? The curtain rises...it was...Show Time at the Sixties Theater of the Absurd!
New York had the Village and all it's old beat venues, San Francisco had the Haight Ashbury and of course the rock icon of them all, the Fillmore Auditorium..meanwhile in the rock and roll heart and soul of the Rustbelt Capital blue collar Deee-troit...there was Plum Street...and the granddaddy of hometown pride...the Grande Ballroom... it was the 9th Gate to Rock and Roll Heaven/Hell preceding it's future spawn such as The Michigan Palace, Harpo's, St. Andrews Hall, the Eastowne and others. The Grande kicked ass and jams Mother Fuckers!
Deee-troit was the Rustbelt Mr. Hyde to San Francisco's Dr. Jekyll. The chemistry in Dee-troit was the bad acid that circulated at Woodstock. The Haight was an old ethnic neighborhood in the "good old days" and was evolving into the vortex of the arts and counter culture. Victorian architechture was the artistic frame work of the community and its' head shops, galleries, coffee houses and music venues that moved into the area gradually at first as the Counter Culture of Flower Power was giving birth. Unlike Detroit's Plum Street District, the Haight was larger. It had evolved naturally into a psychedelic community and was magnetic north for the rucksack compass.
Plum Street was a Mexican community in the 30's and 40's. Zoot Suit City baby!!! As the residents moved to the westside of Detroit as they became more affluent the neighborhood started to fall apart...urban renewal, new freeways gobbling up the real estate on it's borders. (Today it is the site of the massive MGM Grand Casino! Not a trace left!
As a Haight Ashbury or Greeenwich Village, it was a wannabe knockoff like a bad imitiation Rolex watch on the black market. It was promoted by real estate developers to emulate the Haight and become it's brother in rust, and all for a profit without any prophets. The differnce between the Haight and Plum Street was the difference between Led Zeppelin which evolved as a group and the Monkees who were manufactured on a studio back lot and just as mundane, or to put it another way it was the difference between a $500 call girl who take you "around the world" versus a $5 blowjob in a back alley by some smackhead skank loaded with heroin and syphillis.
Dee-troit did not have a peace symbol attitude, in fact it had a middle extended finger attitude that resulted in the corrosion and corruption of the Peace and Love Generation in the Motor City. Plum Street itself was an old neighborhood that had fallen by the wayside of time. Decrepit as an old junkie, she was about to be fixed up for an retail infusion of what was called "Hip Capitalists" to capitalize on the counter culture...not to promote it but to fleece it. It was so opaque that John Sinclair who had his Trans Love Energies media company headquarted here was referred to as "The King of the Hippies!" Sorry, John, but Hippies have no kings your Highness...emphasis on the "high" Eventually Plum Street collapsed as it lacked the "heart and soul" of the counter culture of the times. (Haight Ashbury is still a tourist destination, Plum Street is forgotten and in ruins)
Plum Street was over by '69 thanks to an overdose of drugs and violence, motor cycle gangs, and police harrasment. One of the promoters, Bob Cobb said in an interview, "It would have worked if only we could have had the hippies without the drugs..." What? Hippies without Drugs? When Plum Street officially "opened" even the fucking mayor, Jerry Cavanaugh came down to make a speech and cut the ribbon!!! Hip Capitalists? Capitalists Yes...Hip, No! Plum Street was a bad imitation. When I was living in the Haight and hitched to Detroit on one of my two hitchhiking trips back east I went to Plum Street and was horrified. It had the appearance of one of those fake Warner Brothers studio backlot sets for gangster films or bad westerns with John Wayne. It was not sad to me...it was embarrassing.
Sinclair (The King of the Hippies! I'm sorry I couldn't resist that!) also not wanting to be left out of the San Fran avalanche of cool was impressed by it's Be In, so he organized a Love In on Belle Isle park in the middle of the Dee-troit River. Obviously not in tune with the “real” Motor City, John felt it would be a day of flying colorful kites and sunshine and community all for the benefit of Mr. Kite....which by the end of the day had motorcycle gangs beating up bystanders, cops beating up motorcycle gangs and bystanders, and drunks from the suburbs beating each other up. The biggest mistake Dee-troit made in the Sixties was the impression that they were a international destination of peace and love..like the Haight Ashbury. Instead it was only the weekend hippies, boozers and gangs that congregated..not looking for inner illumination but only a few heads to kick in. The Beatles didn't hang out on Plum Street as they did in the Haight and Scott Mackenzie sang about San Francisco and "wearing flowers in your hair" ...later to sum it up..David Bowie sang..."Panic in Detroit" which fit the mood of the times more appropriately.
The '67 Riots didn't help and before the national guard invaded Kent State...Dee-troit had them and their tanks on Woodward Avenue after a blind pig was raided by the Detroit Police...buildings burned, snipers shot cops, cops shot back and the city was in ruins...Peace..Love..and Understanding? Fuck..lets just say it was a massive failure to communicate.
But then...there was the Grande Ballroom..a no bullshit music venue that was the Grand Old Dame of Dee-troit rock and roll..peace and love in Dee-troit..no! Rock and Roll..it doesn't get any better. So stick in your thumb and pull out a Plum (Street) and throw it on the compost pile..it's time to rock, roll, and remember the Grande Ballroom. She was beautiful, opulent, overwhelmingly gorgeous..if she were a movie star it would be the Lauren Bacall of venues while it played host to the Bogarts of rock music from Cream to the MC5 and the Who.
Grande Ballroom: Detroit's Rock and Roll Bordello The Grande Ballroom is part of the rock and roll roots and psyche of the Motor City. It's as much a part of us as the Detroit Tigers, the auto industry and labor unions. You can cannot extract one of those elements without a fight. In the Sixties the Grande erupted into second life as a entertainment venue headlining the top rock acts of the era from the volcanic sounds of Cream to the street fighting chutzpah of the MC5. The Who exploded on stage, Hendrix sent the crowd into a hormonal frenzy and fire with his incendiary guitar playing, while Iggy and Stooges and Ted Nugent rallied the rock and roll testosterone and if the MC5 were kicking out the jams...then Ted and Iggy were kicking them in the balls. It was the predecessor of Detroit’s live rock and roll era and in it's wake emerged the Eastowne Theater, the Vanity, Harpos and the famed Michigan Palace. These venues saw everyone on stage from Aerosmith to David Bowie and Queen, Roxy Music and The Velvet Underground.
But..but...the Grande was the grand dame...the other venues were prostitutes in a house of rock and roll ill repute but the Grande was the elegant madam who you respected but couldn't fuck. This classy lady was not for sale...actually she was when promoter Russ Gibb teamed up with real estate mogul Gabe Glantz to reopen the venue which had fallen into disrepair. There is the Grand Prix race but when the business venture started to fall apart they referred to each other as the Grande Pricks! (Gabe and Russ had a falling out and Gabe's son, Steve took over concert promotions in the city at the venerable Michigan Palace Theater. Russ Gibb faded into the background and it was the age of Glantz. Steve and I became good friends thanks to my work in rock and roll radio at CJOM radio across the river from Detroit..but that is another story! Meanwhile ...back to the Grande.....)
The Grande was an architectural work of art. Classic terra cotta building in the Renaissance Revival style while the interior was pure ornate Moorish art deco decadence. It opened in 1928, at a cost of $223,000 and that just a year before the stock market crash of '29 fronted as the opening act of the Great Depression where brother can you spare a dime was the at the top of the hit parade while the stock market bottomed out never making the top ten....this all followed by the Dustbowl and Steinbecks nomad Okies on the move as the banks took their homes and properties and threw whole families out in the street and on the road...
The Roaring Twenties were about to exit stage left and the curtain began to rise on the Bonnie and Clyde gangster Thirties. Add prohibition on top of it all making for a "how dry I am" era and the Grande is just what the doctor ordered. It housed retail shops on the first floor at ground level while upstairs was the wooden dance floor and emporium that had a capacity of 1,000 jitterbuggers and bobbysoxers and during the war years..zoot suits filled the joint to capacity. Dancing hard to forget your troubles or engaging in dance marathons to win cash prizes had an allure in depression and war climates of the times of the 1930's and 1940's.
The Grande exploded like an entertainment artillery shell during WWII...Detroit was the arsenal of Democracy pumping out war material to defeat the Axis and knock them on their asses...tanks, bombers, artillery, jeeps, ammunition all filed out of the factories as Henry Ford was commissioned by President Roosevelt to organize the assembly lines of Detroit and the town went to work, three shifts, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week...the factory workers put their heart and soul into their work and worked hard..but ...all work and no play...you know the rest so being Detroiters..yes we work hard..but goddamn it we know how to party and when the work day or week was done...the workers put on their dancing shoes and headed for the Grande Ballroom to kick up their heels while they relaxed from the work of manufacturing Axis ass kicking material.
The Post War Years took their toll on the Grande as well as Detroit’s inner city strata. The affluence of the Motor City was in hyper drive and while the suburbs acted as a sponge to absorb the city residents, the city atrophied and along with it, many of her architectural wonders as it underwent a demise I call the decline and fall of Edifice Rex. The burbs blossomed and the city's concrete jungle became overgrown with debris and ruins. The Grande faded as fewer people ventured into downtown Detroit for their entertainment. It was multi-plex theaters, snobby dinner theater and ballroom dancing held the same interest level that a paralytic might have in running a marathon.
As the Fifties came and went..the Sixties emerged. A caesarian birth of dubious Beat parentage. Music was more important than ever and venues were needed for it's presentation. Russ Gibb along with his partner Gabe Glantz together re-opened the old Grande that they used to frequent. Russ had traveled to San Francisco and ended up at the Fillmore Auditorium and a dream was born. (Russ was a DJ in Detroit as well who started the "Paul is Dead rumor..also later he had a TV talk show that I was invited on to be a guest. (I got so carried away talking about the "good old days" that within 5 minutes I took over as "host" and interviewed Russ for the remaining 20 minutes of the program!)
Russ not only was impressed by the groups he saw but the light shows and artistic playbills that were handed out announcing which groups would be playing on which dates and of course the massive floor with patrons dancing to the psychedelic music illuminated with black lights and the lava lamp effects of the light show as images danced along with the patrons and filled the room along with the smoke of marijuana.
Russ felt he could duplicate the San Francisco Experience in Detroit...but as the wise sage asked.."Are you Experienced?" Remember, the Motor City is not San Francisco just as Gary, Indiana is not Rome. He remembered the Grande on Grand River and Beverly Street...not the best part of town anymore day or night. Would people come and brave the neighborhood to catch a few acts? Maybe..if he had the right ones.
The old girl was in ruin but a little make up and the old girl could be a fraction of what she used to be. The proscenium stage and the wooden dance floor along with full length promenades were still in relatively good shape and he had a vision that the old second floor was funky enough to add to the delightful experience for his "bohemian" patrons who would descend from the suburbs back to the inner city to see groups like Cream, Hendrix and the Who along with local acts, Iggy and the Stooges, The MC5 and Bob Seger...an he was correct in that assumption.
To put the rock and roll blitzkrieg into motion he needed the help of the local hipster community and he found it in John Sinclair..he had the in with all the musicians, artists, writers and photogs on the fringe and a marriage made in rock and roll heaven emerged from their meeting.
At the same time..Plum Street the pseudo Haight Ashbury was beginning to flower with head shops, incense, LSD and marijuana. The only thing missing from the equation is that in Haight Ashbury, we came from all over the country, and Europe to form a community. In Detroit, Plum Street was small and merely attracted people from Ann Arbor and Birmingham! Hardly hippies, hardly hip, and not a runaway in the bunch..when Plum Street closed or the Grande Shows ended..you went home to mom and dad safe in the arms of suburbia.
Sinclair invited Russ to hear his group The MC5 and also there that night at rehearsal was Jerry Younkins, who developed a light show, that was also demonstrated. Rob Tyner of the Five introduced Russ that night to his high school buddy Gary Grimshaw, and artist who designed all the Grande posters and playbills. All was in readiness and the curtain would rise on the old Grande (now fixed up and painted like an old hooker on speed, or Herman Goering at a cabaret with full lipstick and rouge treatment) was ready to rock and roll. Local bands had already been lined up as were a host of international acts, or at least would in time be international. D-Day was set for the rock and roll Normandy Invasion during the first weekend of October in 1966. The light show was promoted on the posters and the first act was to be the Jam Kicking Mother Fuckers, the MC5 and a group called the Chosen Few.
The word was spread they came in herds from the burbs...but..not being familiar with the area and also fearful of it did manage after a few wrong turns make to the Grande. The parking lot was something out of Nightmare on Elm Street and the side door entrance on Beverly was like opening the 9th gate to hell.
When you entered the building you paid a cheap admission and would head up the stairs to the second floor. The stairs were as wide as small surf boards and once inside the ballroom...they had stepped through the looking glass to the Mad Hatters party, hosted by Uncle Russ Gibb! You cold almost see and hear the ghosts of the past..a scene right out of the ballroom sequence in Kubricks "The Shining" only now, Russ Gibb was the caretaker and not Jack Nicholson. Leave your axe at home, Redrum! Redrum! Redrum! On the wall, stage left you could buy a soft drink and in back there was a small store to buy posters, underground newspapers, books and poetry along with incense and peppermints the color of time or thyme...and you couch potato it on the right on one of the couches set against the wall.
The music pounded...the crowd was typical Dee-troit...loud and proud and danced in time to the music. The patrons were also fueled by drugs and the pulsating light who that projected from the wall of scaffolding erected in the back. Gary Grimshaw and Leni Sinclair, Johns wife manned the light show from slide projectors and color mixers, while oil was poured along with diverse pigments to augment the effect. Top is all off with left over glitter light balls from the 20's and it was a hallucinogenic dream scape that transferred the patrons onto another plane of reality that was not plain by any standards.
The crowds swelled from that night on as word spread that something was happening at the Grande Ballroom, and you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones? Southbound Freeway, the Spike Drivers, Gang, the Wha, Walking Wounded, the Woolies and Jagged Edge, all local got gigs a the Grande and brought their fans along to join in the fray of hip, hipster and hyper cool. The MC5 became the defacto house band. Friday and Saturday Motor City evenings would never be the same again.
Soon it's fame went national and outside groups joined the lineups from Jeff Airplane to the Grateful Dead who were to embark on their first ever national tour, the Grande was the first stop on that journey. If you build it, they will come..and they did, Jeff Beck, Big Brother and Joplin, Procol Harem, the Fugs, Butterfield, Cream, and the Who. On average there were over 1,000 patrons packed in this assembly line of hip. But as all things that go up..it must come dawn. Newtons Law...by the mid-70's the counter culture had changed, and the heyday of the Grande, once again..was over...newer venues opened, such as the Michigan Palace and the Fox Theater...today the Grande is a hulk, from a historic standpoint in counter culture lore it is an Incredible Hulk..in ruins...alone once again..forgotten by the newer generation who if they drive by the area, would only see one more of Detroits ghetto ruins on their way to the mall...The Grande was the center of gravity for the Detee-roit music scene...it was the Grand Dame of Rock and Roll..Deee-troit style. One thing for certain..she may be gone..but not forgotten and goddamn if that place didn’t' kick out the jams Mother Fuckers!