Imagine yourself “rockin’ out” to J Geils and all of a sudden you hear: “It’s time for Braves Baseball on FM92!!!”
“WTF!!! I’ll just turn it to Z93 then, by God!”
How likely do you think you’d be to turn your dial back to 92.1?
See what I mean?
But apparently it generates very good revenue, so they do it - even today.
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Yes.
41 years doing this. Okay?
Were there any songs you said “I’ll never play that” to your bosses? Why? Who won those arguments?
If your station reported to Billboard or similar magazines, did you really list what you played or could you be swayed by swag?
What’s the longest song you remember playing, either during daytime or nighttime?
Okay, and may you do it 41 more years. Some folks are very good in broadcasting. I wasn’t.
Small world. I was a radio DJ in the late 70’s, and in recent years I’ve been the party dj for company events.
Free’s “All Right Now” is one which comes to mind. We were given the option of muting the lyric “let’s move before they raise the fuckin’ rent” at the f word or letting it play on. I let it play, a few others didn’t. I have to say that of all my program directors Bob Stone (not his real name) was the best at his job.
Now, there’s 2 schools of thought on that word. Some of the jocks thought the singer (don’t remember the name) garbled the first syllable (“huh”-kin"), others thought he really did say “fuckin’”. Didn’t matter, if the public perceived it as the latter, the former would be a pretty weak argument.
The “no” refers to the fact that letting it “go”, made me uncomfortable and caused me some grief with my church and some of the listeners who knew me from telethons. I don’t believe in censorship and stood my ground.
Never understood what made “damn” okay and “fuck” not okay. Back then, if you were to say the word “piss” on the air you’d get a reprimand. Today it’s no big deal. As best I can remember, I never butted heads with any of the PD’s. They were pretty cool guys
The second part of that question caused me to ponder a bit, **InstallLSC **. By “swag” do you mean the free records/t-shirts that we got periodically? We used them as “10th caller giveaways” and some we kept for ourselves. So if that’s what you meant, then yeah, I was.
Those records were hit pretty hard in the rotation but I have to say if they didn’t come with swag and it was a “tuff” tune we’d play the hell out of that as well.
RamJam’s “Black Betty” comes to mind, as an example our PD at the time received a gold record and the station was credited with “breaking” it out.
I was always kinda proud that I was the first jock (at our station) to play ABBA’S “Dancing Queen”. I remember preparing the audience for its beginning lines by telling them to roll down the windows and “crank it up!”
If you meant did I or any others accept money for pushing a song, I’ll say “no” for myself and “I hope not” for anyone else. I logged EXACTLY what I played.
In the daytime, I believe it was “Life In The Fast Lane” (Eagles), but remember - upthread I mentioned we borrowed a copy from a competing station which was “fudging” the length by making it shorter so more commercials could be played? As I remember, we did play the original version till we played the shorter one.
I hope that answered your questions, InstallLSC. Thanks for making my night. It’s fun to reminisce about those days and I have to admit if y’all hadn’t “prodded” me a little with the questions, I would have probably thought of those days in spurts. So to speak.
Q
I remember those days, when FM was cool, and they played “album rock” - the stuff you wouldn’t hear on AM.
Gee. I thought you guys played that because you were cool, not because you “had to go”. 
Well, go or… uh…
Quasi
Man, these DJs. Don’t know if they’re coming or going, but they sure are rockin.
Enjoyable thread. I haven’t had time to read the whole of every post, but I’m enjoying your reminiscing, Quasi, because your career arc seems to parallel mine in many ways (FM “underground” jock, AM jock “hitting the post,” talk show host, newsman with the teletype chatter, etc.).
A few random observations:
The Cruisin’ series is great fun, but it should be made clear that these are all re-creations of the jock’s shows, rather than original airchecks. I always particularly liked B. Mitchell Reed’s, and it must have been a kick for him to do it, because by the time he did he had been an underground FM jock in California for several years.
I have honestly never heard of the line in Free’s “All Right Now” being thought to be “before they raise the fucking rent.” It was always clear to me that it was “before they raise the parking rent,” so you must have had station managers hearing what they wanted to hear instead of what was there. No way A&M records would put this out as a single with that line in the song.
In my “underground” DJ days (1972-73), I could play absolutely anything I wanted to, as management had no clue about the music. I made some concessions to current popular taste, even if it was stuff I didn’t personally care for. But most of the time, I played what I liked, even if it was hopelessly obscure at times. I very definitely played The Velvet Underground; in fact, I remember one particular night when I really got on a roll with high-energy, the-hell-with-everything kind of stuff…just one song after another of rave-up material. Right in the middle of this mix was “European Son (to Delmore Schwartz).” I got calls complimenting me on what I was doing.
I never got in trouble for playing anything, but the guy who had the shift before me got a lot of grief for playing Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher” due to the “goddam the pusherman” line when the station manager happened to be tuned in and heard it. On another occasion (I was with him in the studio when this happened), he put on a live Mothers of Invention album without previewing it, and we were all treated to Frank Zappa saying “We’re all just so fuckin’ glad to be here” on the air. I can still picture my fellow DJ gingerly reaching over and taking the tone arm off the record! Fortunately, management wasn’t listening that time.
My friend ultimately did get fired, though – the evening he was doing his shift with his girlfriend sitting on his lap and the station manager, a woman, showed up unexpectedly with her ladies’ club in tow to give them a tour of the station.
“Radio stories” are legion among those of us who’ve plied the trade. I’ve often toyed with the idea of publishing a book of them.
Heh, DChord568.
That’s interesting about “fucking” vs “parking” rent. Guess all our minds were in the gutter back then, but yeah, you’re right, Alpert & Moss did have some scruples, didn’t they?
Be that as it may, (I just love that phrase), every band I was in played it with the former lyric and sometimes, we’d just stop playing right there, while the Greeks yelled it out for us at their rush parties.
I “did some time” at my college radio station as well and got into a bit of a “snit” with the young, very religious PD who objected to my playing Wilderness Road’s “The Wilderness Road Gospel Hour” (“with the Vibromatic Bible Belt”).
One thing I noticed we jocks have in common: we’re real “wordy”, huh?
Thanks
Q
I’ve read a lot of times that when the music charts were based on phone calls to radio stations, a lot of times stations would report songs they weren’t even playing. They instead reported in favor of the record promoter that gave them the most free t-shirts, tickets, or artist interviews. Nice to know your station was telling the truth.
I had the pleasure of working with both of these guys:
Alan Duke, now with CNN as an entertainment producer
Chris Clackum, NBC news correspondent.
I worked with Alan the longest. Tried to find a website for y’all but couldn’t. Same with Clackum. He’s on Wiki, but it doesn’t mention his employment with WLBB/WBTR.
Think of Alan as a Cary Elwes double. Same wispy moustache and some of the mannerisms.
Chris was with the stations only a short time (maybe a year), and we all knew he’d set his bar very high.
Alan was a friend. He and I had some great ideas together and did some funny skits. He also knew his politics and at election time it was him you’d want at the polls.
There were a couple of others who made it out of the medium market, and are celebrities here in Georgia:
*Matt Cook * is now with GNN, the Georgia News Network, where he’s a news editor and news director.
Rick Zeisig (“Ziggy”) hosts a tv talk show in Dahlonega, Georgia.
There may have been others, but those are the ones whom I remember most clearly and with whom I had pleasant interactions.
I wish them all much continued success! They all “paid their dues” along with me on Sunday mornings with the screamin’ preachers!
Thanks
Quasi
… because I had a very pleasant afternoon today meeting a fellow radio-guy. He is our own The Chilean Blob’s father-in-law and we had us a big time talking over old times (his a bit older than mine! ;)), old DJ’s and bygone radio stations.
Interestingly, Don knew of the WLBB troubles I mentioned upthread, knew all the jocks on the old WLAC out of Nashville, remembered the old WQXI out of Atlanta and knew the call letters and frequencies of numerous “clear channel” stations in the US.
After his DJ years, Don was an engineer and has plenty of experience under his belt. I told him he needs to write this stuff down and create a “history”, and I hope he takes me up on my suggestion.
Don also knew “Big Hugh Baby” (Jarrett - one of Elvis’ original Jordannaires) of the old WPLO (Atlanta) and had some interesting interactions with him.
One other thing I wanted to mention was that the antenna for the old WLBB was behind the station in a partial swamp! There was a walkway out to the antenna, but unless the area was bush-hogged regularly, you couldn’t have paid me enough to go out there and fix anything.
Great to meet both of you today!
Quasi
Why does every radio station with a music format always have these yakkity yak D.J.s in the morning who barely play music, who spend most of the time talking bullshit about nothing at all? It’s a music station, play some music. If I want to hear talk, I will change the dial to a talk radio station.
I abhor these morning driveby radio programs and every last goddamn rock and Top 40 station has them.
Did you like WKRP in Cinncinati?
^I assume because the more music you play, the more licensing fees you have to play. Or so it seems that way on a lot of specialty stations.
Quasi, do you remember how that worked? And do you know how it works now?
Oh revered spinner of wax:
Didja ever put a song on so you could get a biological break, and mis-time the event, resulting in DEAD AIR?
ministryman, never that, although I did have several instances where the record would skip, and skip, and skip…
My colleagues and family always knew that:
a) I was getting laid
b) was on the crapper
Captain, I like a little comedy now and then (phone calls, etc), but I too miss the music. If there’s going to be talk let it be billed as such. Don’t make me have to wait to hear a song. Yes, I liked WKRP.
BigT, I wasn’t in on that end of things, but there were several times a year we’d have to log exactly what was played, and that’s how royalties were paid. I don’t know how it’s done these days.
Thanks
Q
As one might expect, our stations, like others, had their own vehicles which were used to travel to and from “remotes” (those live “on scene” events usually at car lots or shopping centers) or just basic errand-running.
We had two and I wish I had pictures of them, because they were truly a sight to behold.
Imagine one of those “box” style milk delivery vans. This was the “remote” vehicle. It of course had the station call letters painted on it, but that was probably it’s best feature, because mechanically it was a piece of shit and dangerous to drive. Slick tires and weak brakes made it a real crap-shoot as to whether you’d survive a trip to do a live show, but management just would not pay to have it serviced. The only way we could get any work done was if it could be “traded out”. That is, go to a repair shop and offer them x amount of ads for whatever the repairs cost.
There were a couple of problems with that.
One, most repair shops in our area didn’t need to advertise and two, those who did were too poor to spend the money on parts and mechanic time.
That left the “shade tree” mechanic. You know. The guy with a mouth full of chewing tobacco who answers “Well, how much you got?” when you ask how much the repairs will be?
The other vehicle was a circa 60’s Volkswagen Beetle with manual transmission, insides all torn to hell and a big bee painted on both sides.
The “B-Mobile” (a clever use of both stations’ call letters - WLBB and WBTR), and guess who got to drive that thing?
Right. Me.
Here again, we had a mechanical nightmare, and if I had to use it to make a public appearance, I’d more often than not take the back roads, because if it broke down, there I’d be: standing there waiting for a tow while people would pass by, blowing their horns and waving, hollering “Hey Bill! Broke down again? Haw-haw-haw!”
It was a good thing the competing station was on the other side of town. As far as I know, they never saw us broken down on the side of the road, because if they had, you can bet it would have been talked about the next morning during “drive time”.
“Drive time” are those times of day - early morning and early evening - when people either go to or come home from work/school and when listening is at its highest number. This is also where you want your ratings to be as high as possible because it’s a great sales tool if you can provide good numbers to an potential advertiser.
Our stations used Arbitron to measure our ratings.
Back to the B-Mobile: I once broke down with it on a back country road going to a local high school to speak to some journalism students’ club. The engine just began to sputter and finally quit (“Good luck, Bill” when I left the station wasn’t meant for my appearance, but for my safe arrival there.) and the nearest house was about half a mile away. It was summer. And it was HOT!
So off came the coat, tie and shirt and on went one of about 50 t-shirts I had to give away. Away also went my pride.
So I get to the house, knock, introduce myself and tell the lady who answered the door my problem.
“YOU’RE Bill Craig!!! Oh my gosh! We listen to you all the time! Me and my husband on the AM and the kids on the FM. We just love you and think you’re just the funniest thaaaaaaang! Come on in! You look like you could use a nice cold glass of ice tea!”
Okay. Now this is rural Georgia, all right? Our coverage may extend over into East Alabama for both stations on a good day, but we were just not that big a deal. We provided news, sports, weather and hopefully a laugh or two, but compared to the Atlanta stations, we were Burger King to their Four Seasons.
So I was a bit taken aback with all this attention.
Long story short, the lady’s husband got the B-Mobile running enough so I could make my appearance and get back home (cleaned some plugs, I think), I had a delicious lunch, got to meet some nice folks and learned that I was appreciated more than I’d thought.
They (wouldn’t take money) got 10 t-shirts and a bunch of rock and country albums meant for give-aways at the school. (There were plenty to go around).
I would see these folks every now and then in town or at the supermarket and they always stopped, said “Hey, Bill!” and never once mentioned that day and what they’d done for me.
One of the nicer memories of my “radio days”.
Quasi
Maybe you remember these - they were both parodies-I cannot seem to track them down:
-a parody of the Rolling Stones “Under My Thumb”-I think it as called “I Got You Under My Thumb”
-a parody of Stevie Wonder’s “Just Enough For The City”
Thanks in advance
Well, ralph124c, looks like you’ve stumped the ol’ DJ!
Both of the originals are from my era of course, but after searching my “memory bank” and then google (which I’ll bet you have already done as well), I got nuthin’.
I even “braved” a few song lyrics sites with their incessant pop-ups to check stuff by Weid Al Yankovic, but struck out there as well, sorry.
Maybe one of our “hip” (;)) Doper friends will know.
Again, sorry I couldn’t help ya’
Quasi