National DJ Day

Today is a day to celebrate the Disc Jockey. I was lucky enough to be both a radio DJ and a Mobile DJ. I have mobile DJ stories, but they aren’t as interesting as my radio DJ stories. This is an adaption of an earlier blog. If you are a newer follower, these will be new to you. If you’ve been around since the inception of this blog, enjoy these again.

In my over 30 year radio career, I have (like all of my radio friends) a gazillion stories. There are some that I just can’t share here. But, here are some that I’ll share off the top of my head. I am sure there are plenty more, but for now – enjoy these:

WKSG –

My career started here. I was a lowly intern ripping news and sorting it. I then started to intern with Paul Christy, the morning guy. He eventually was responsible for me doing overnights full time.

Keith Who?

I only used my real name once in my entire career – and almost didn’t. Every hour at the top of the hour we had to play our Legal ID. The FCC requires the station to identify itself and where the signal originates from. Our Legal ID had was what we called a “donut” in the middle of it. The voice guy gave the station slogan, followed by the Station ID. After that there was a 2-3 music bed where the DJ would say what time it was and their name. I’d heard it a hundred times. “It’s 10 O’clock and I’m Jim McKenzie”, “It’s 3 O’clock and I’m John Bailey”, “It’s 7 O’clock and I’m Johnny Molson” – every jock did it. My first night ever on the air, I hadn’t decided what name I was going to use yet. The ID played and I had no choice – “It’s midnight and I’m … (brain fart – and real name)”. I really had no intentions of using my real name, I just hadn’t decided on my on air name yet. A gal I went to high school with was listening that night. I remember her calling and asking if I was Keith (real name). It freaked me out. She told me that she heard my that first night and thought that I had said my real name. I used Keith Allen every day after that and have never been anyone else.

Thinking Inside the Box

Speaking of those live ID’s, Johnny Molson was on before me each night. It seemed that he and his crew always were trying to mess with me when the ID played. They would make weird noises, bang on cart racks, or knock over my music stack. They would do all kinds of things to try to get me to mess up when I turned on the microphone. . Sometimes they’d get me to crack up and sometimes I was able to keep it together.

One night, the time was ticking away to the ID and they were all out of the studio. The ID started and I heard the studio door behind me open fast. They had found a huge box and as I started to talk, they threw it over my head. My hands, thankfully, were still by the mixer board so I could see what button I had to push next. I didn’t know what to do, so I just continued to talk with the box was over my head. Listeners heard nothing but a muffled voice and the music bed. Johnny was cracking up the whole time. He told me, “I can’t believe you just kept going”!

Saturday Snooze

At one point during my time at Kiss-FM, I was doing Friday night and Saturday mornings. This consisted of me being on air from 12a-6a doing my own show. Then running Paul Christy’s show on tape from 6a-10a.

I don’t recall why I hadn’t slept much the day prior, but I was tired. I finished my show at 6. I got about an hour into Paul’s show, and I was feeling exhausted. I had started a song, put my elbows up on the board, my fists to my cheeks, and nodded off. About 20-25 minutes later, my head fell from my hands and I was startled awake. I had no idea where I was. The phones were all lit up, and nothing was on the air!

In a panic, I grabbed the first song on the music stack and jammed it into the machine. Fittingly, the song was “You’ve Got Your Troubles” by the Fortunes. Once the music started, the phones stopped ringing. I, however, knew that Paul was always listening! I dreaded the call that I knew was coming. I was sure to get fired for messing up his show! 10 minutes later the “PC hotline rang”.

I answered it and as usual, Paul was chomping on something (he was always eating when he called). “How’s it going?”, he asked. There was no way he didn’t hear the silence! He had to have heard it, I knew he did. Why wasn’t he saying anything? I finally blurted out that I had fallen asleep for a couple minutes and awaited the verbal beating. Nope. Not Paul. He laughed and said, “You Asshole! I remember this one time I fell asleep while I was at Super CFL in Chicago….” and told me his sleepy story. That was the kind of guy Paul was … a damn cool dude!

Hot Java

One more Paul story for you. He drank coffee all throughout his shift. He liked it black and hot! One time he had Vince, a morning show member, get him some coffee. It sat next to him for awhile while he was doing other things. He finally grabbed it and took a sip. He was disgusted.

He yelled, “What the hell is the matter with you guys?! You call this hot coffee?! I could piss warmer than this!! Get me some fresh stuff and make sure it is hot!” So Vince went to the coffee pot, filled the cup and then put it in the microwave for about 2 …or 10 minutes. I don’t remember, but it was in there for a good while. He took the steaming cup to Paul. Well, rather than setting it down as he normally did, put it to his lips and took a sip. Needless to say, it burned the hell out of his tongue and lips! Paul yelped, “Jesus! What is wrong with you?!” Holding his tongue in pain, he continued, “I use this thing for a living!!” I think every one of us broke a rib laughing so hard. I can still see him holding his tongue with one hand and fanning it with the other!

WMXD

I followed Paul here to do some part time work after being let go from Kiss-FM. The format started as a mix of Urban/R&B music and Pop. Eventually it went all R&B and Urban. It was here that I met The Electrifying Mojo.

Keef

I had known of Mojo for years. He was a Detroit legend. He had this mysterious persona on t he air. I don’t know that there were any photos of him anywhere. So when I saw him for the first time, I was taken aback. He was much shorter than I had imagined.

I have to say, Mojo was one cool dude. He played most of his stuff off vinyl records. The thing I remember most about Mojo was that the studio was always like a sauna! It was always SO hot when I came in. I don’t know how he was able to work with it that hot.

The studio was always a mess, too! Not garbage messy, but music messy. There were always vinyl records all over the studio. He’d have them stacked on the reel to reel tape machine or on the counter tops. Sometimes, there were stacks of them on the floor of the studio. With the records everywhere, it was hard for me to get in and gather the first hour of music for my show. You could barely move in the studio.

He always called me “Keef” or “Baby Keef” when he got ready to wrap up his show. He had a signature line that he always said at the end of his show:

“Hold on tight. Don’t let go. Whenever you feel like you are reaching the end of your rope – tie a knot. Don’t slide off. Keep hanging. Keep remembering that there ain’t nobody bad like you.”

I had heard him say this on the radio many times, but to watch him say it live in the studio … I was in awe.

WHND

Honey Radio! I grew up listening to this station and I was honored to have the chance to work with radio legends! Richard D, Jon Ray, Boogie Brian, Ron Tavernit, Bill Stewart, Greg Russell, and so many others were such an influence. Honey was the first oldies station in the country – and I got to be there as they turned out the light…..

Worst Five Minutes of Detroit Radio – EVER

You can read all about my buddy Rob in a previous blog. I am not sure if I tell this story in that blog or not, so I apologize if I did. It was the last week Honey was on the air – the week of Thanksgiving 1994. Our listeners knew that this was Honey’s last week and we had been given free reign to have fun.

We had a listener who used to call up and his name was Mitchell. I had gotten to the point where I could do his voice pretty well. I had been doing a character based on the real listener and I called him “Mitch”. True story – Mitch would call and talk to us and really never have anything to say. He’s jump from topic to topic. If you let him, he’d never stop talking. So I decided to prerecord some calls as Mitch where I just rambled about nothing and then hung up. Afterward, we’d say something like “He’s a nice guy, but ….” kind of a thing. It was ridiculous.

So now it’s the last week we are on the air. It had become clear that some people were upset the station was going off the air. They were calling us in the studio and calling the managers to voice their anger. I said to Rob, “I bet Mitchell is really angry about the station.” He said, “They better lock the doors, man. That guy is likely to come in here with a gun or something. That was the idea. So we planned a bit.

I was going to do the character live on the air. I was going to come in and say how upset I was the station was going off the air. I would yell and scream and (using the theater of the mind) pull out a gun and start shooting it (keep in mind this was 1994 and public shootings were not as prominent). At this point in the bit, our bouncer character (loosely based on Charles Bronson) was going to come in and grab the gun. He would then beat up “Mitch” and throw him out the studio window. To accomplish the bit we needed sound effects (to make it sound real on the air).

To help you understand what happens next, here is a picture of a studio. It is not the WHND studio, but the Cart machines in the picture are like the ones there.

If you look at the left side of the picture, you will see the machines above the headphones. There are three machines on the left, a stack of carts in the middle and three machines on the right. At Honey, the machines went like this:

1 4

2 5

3 6

Ok, now to the mess.

We had these 6 cart machines and every song, commercial, or sound effect was on its own cart. So in cart player #1 was the song we just played. Cart #2 had the door closing sound effect for when Mitch comes in. Cart #3 holds the gunshot sound. Cart #4 is the “fight scene” – the sound of two guys beating each other up. Cart #5 is where the sound of glass breaking (the studio window) for when Mitch gets tossed out . Finally, Cart #6 had our first commercial.

The plan was that after Mitch was thrown out the window, we would go to a commercial break. I would have already put the commercial we were going to play first in Cart player 1. Once the glass breaks and we wrap up the bit, go to commercial and proceeded with the show. That however, is NOT how it happened on the air.

As soon as I began to do the character live on the air, I saw Rob crack a smile. That is all it took. Seeing him smile made me start to laugh hard. As his Elvis character, Rob tries to save the bit. So I once again try to do the “Mitch” character – which only made me laugh harder. By this point we are both laughing so hard that we have tears in our eyes. Rob, as Elvis, says “That takes care of that bit, man!”

Because we are totally losing it on the air, my first thought is PLAY THE COMMERCIAL! I go to start the commercial, but the commercial never made it to the machine! So the button I pushed was the gunshot sound effect, which only made us laugh harder….you hear us dropping carts and shoving the commercial in the machine and finally we went to commercials. I have often called this the worst 5 minutes of Detroit radio. To me it is also the funniest 5 minutes of our show.

Update: I found the Audio and made a YouTube Video:

My apologies ahead of time …

Becoming The President

The late Richard D was one of the funniest men I ever worked with. He gave me lots of direction and I have talked about him in previous blogs, as well. I was producing his show the Top 12 at 12. This was an hour of his show which featured the Top 12 songs in Detroit on that day. They found those 12 songs from local charts from radio stations and newspapers. Each day featured a different year.

It was a fun show to produce. It included new stories, TV and movie clips, old commercials, info about how much things were from that year, etc… Richard had to play that day’s 12 songs from the chart. Every now and then there was extra time because of short songs. We would then give him songs that were on the charts from that week to play as “extras.” Usually it was a song that was just being released or had been a hit earlier in that year.

On one show, the countdown was from 1966. I had put a Dean Martin song in there as an extra and he played it. After the song, he made some comment about it not being the greatest song or something and moved on. So I went into the studio, as I often did, to give him crap. I said something along the lines of “Why are you messing with Italians! Dean was Italian and so I am I! Look here you “old bastid (a term of endearment), If I were you, I’d watch what you say about Dean Martin … and Frank Sinatra for that matter!” The whole time he laughed. I left the room as he continued to laugh hysterically.

I thought that would be the end of it, but Richard loved an opportunity to make me the butt of a joke. After the next song he said on the air, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I must offer an apology. A little while ago I played (whatever the song was) by Dean Martin and made some negative remarks about it. Immediately after that, Keith Allen came in here with about 12 goons who roughed me up a bit and told me that my comments were distasteful. So I must now publicly apologize. I really had no idea that Keith Allen was the President of the Dean Martin Fan Club!”

From that day on, I always tried to find a way to sneak a Dean Martin song into my show. After each of those songs I would say I was President of the Dean Martin Fan Club.

Related side story

When Honey went off the air, I received a package from a listener named Sandy. She and I remain friends with to this day. The package was a complete surprise and it was awesome. Sandy had sent me a membership to the REAL Dean Martin Fan Club! To make things even better, there was a note in the package. It read: “I thought you might actually want to be a member of the Fan Club you claim to be President of….”

The Sign Off

For years I listened to Boogie Brian rhyme as he talked up song intros until he nailed the post (where the vocalist starts to sing). He would do this with no effort at all. His energy was constant and the smile in his voice was ever present – until November 25, 1994. That was the day Honey stopped broadcasting locally before eventually signing off. My partner Rob and I were listening to his sign off from the other room. The day had already been full of listeners wishing us well and many tears were shed. The biggest tears came as Boogie signed off that day. A powerful memory that I will never forget.

WWWW

My Worst Prediction

In 1994, I had just come back from working on the west side of the state. It was there that I did country radio for the first time. After I was hired at W4 Country, there was a change in management. The new PD, Tim Roberts, would take the chair and offer some advice that I still use today. Every year, Tim was responsible for booking acts to the Downtown Hoedown. It was a huge three day festival with many stages and many acts. At the time took place in Hart Plaza in Detroit.

We worked at the Hoedown in shifts as I recall and mine was over. I was waiting in the blue W4 Country Suburban to go back to the station with Tim Timmerman. The Dixie Chicks were an up and coming act who had a very traditional sound. Their music was really not like anything on the radio at the time. While I loved it, I didn’t think it would do as well as it did. Tim looked out the window of the Suburban and said “Dude, it’s the Dixie Chicks! We should go get a picture!” I was exhausted and I told him that he could go if he wanted to. I then said something about them being way too traditional and that “they probably won’t go anywhere”. Boy, was I wrong! There’s an opportunity I missed and regret to this day!

Thanks for reading, it’s always fun to share radio stories. There are plenty of my DJ Heroes mentioned above, too. That’s fitting for National DJ Day!

30 Years Ago – The Final Week of Honey Radio Began

While surfing Facebook today, someone posted that it was Lorna Luft’s Birthday. Why did that strike a chord with me? As soon as I read it, I could hear my old morning show partner saying her name in his Elvis voice. We were talking about her birthday on the air and it jogged the memory. 30 years ago today – it was the beginning of the end.

What follows is an update of the blog I wrote five years ago:

Monday, November 21, 1994. 6:00 AM.

My partner Rob Main and I walked into the studio of WHND to begin what would be the last week of live broadcasts from Honey Radio. We had heard the news weeks prior to this that the radio station was going off the air in favor of Spanish programming. When the station was not broadcasting from our studios, we were airing satellite programming from the Cool Gold Network, which was no longer going to providing services. Honey was no longer financially viable.

At the time, Honey Radio was the oldest Oldies station in the country. While there were stations that played oldies in the Detroit market, none were focusing exclusively on the “first decade of rock and roll”. We primarily focused on the songs that were hits from 1955-1965, while occasionally playing some of those earlier songs from the 1950’s, too. I think that was one of the reasons I loved working at this station so much. When you think of the music from that decade it included rockabilly, doo wop, surf music, Motown, British Invasion music, songs from the “Brill Building”, and early soul and R&B.

We not only played the hits from this decade, but we also played songs that were local hits from local artists that were not being played anywhere else! We played music from Nolan Strong, The Dynamics, Gino Washington, Jack Scott, and so many other local acts. We did a daily show (The Top 12 at 12), which focused on a different year of the decade and counted down the Top 12 songs in Detroit from that particular day. We always used a local chart to count down the hits. Those charts could be from The Detroit News, WJBK, WKNR, WXYZ, or other charts. It was unique to our station!

Today’s radio is what many refer to as “liner card radio”. (Update: In the last five years, radio has now lowered itself to using AI DJ’s with generic content. Can it get any more boring?) The DJ’s on the air rarely have any content and read things from cards in the studio (usually promoting station events, station appearances, or sponsor information). The most entertaining DJ’s are usually the morning show hosts, but even they are overloaded with sponsor reads and liners. One of my radio mentors, Jay Trachman, used to say “People say that DJ’s talk too much. This isn’t true. The truth is that DJ’s tend to waste their listener’s time by not having anything to say. They don’t have any REAL content to share.” This is where Honey was different.

Honey Radio DJs were “personalities” – each unique. Boogie Brian was the “Bard of Lincoln Park” and often spoke in Rhyme. Richard D. was the “Silly DJ from Savage Minnesota” who now lived on Lack Of Drive in Warren with his wife Oldielocks and kids Doo Wop and Bee Bop. Other personalities included Bill Stewart, Ron T., Greg Russell, Dr. Bob, “Young” Jon Ray, Scottie OJay, Rob (and every one of his characters), and me. Each of us had our “features”. Scottie hosted the “Soul Patrol” show, Richard had the “Off the Wall Record” and “Poor Richard D’s Almanac”, Boogie had “Cruise Casts” and “Boogie’s Forgotten Favorites”, and the list goes on and on. There was always something fun and unique happening on Honey.

Another thing I loved about Honey was the jingles. Our jingles were PAMS jingles. They were many of the same tracks/jingles that were used by local radio stations all across the country during the 60’s. They were just re-sung with our call letters. These jingles were just awesome! Today, you can hear many of these same jingles on Sirius XM’s 50’s on 5 and 60’s on 6. I am lucky to have many of these jingles that were taken from the master tapes on CD in my collection.

With Honey going off the air, many of us would be out of a job. Rob and I had been working together off and on whenever I was on air for a while. After Honey went off the air, we hoped to find a job doing mornings somewhere. In order to do this, we needed some more “tape” of us together. Richard D gave us permission to go on the air instead of the satellite show in the morning that final week. We had free reign to “play around” and have fun on the air. At the same time, we’d be getting hours of material that we could potentially use to try to get a show somewhere.

(Updated) 30 years ago today, Rob and I hit the studio with a few ideas, many voices, many characters, some great music, and had the best week of our career! It was Thanksgiving week. Music was scheduled for Monday-Wednesday and Friday. Thursday we were supposed to air satellite programming. Instead, we were on for 6 hours that Thanksgiving and played songs with a different theme each hour (Number songs, Songs with girls names or guys names, Instrumentals, Songs with body parts in the title, etc…) Originally, those shows were recorded to cassette tapes. Those tapes were called “Skimmers”. The tape recorded only when the microphone was turned on. Some time ago, I took those tapes and recorded them digitally and transferred them to CD. I still pop them into my car and listen to that final week whenever I need a laugh. I am guessing, I will need to pull them out to honor the 30th anniversary of Honey’s end.

The only CD I have a difficult time listening to is the last show, from November 25, 1994. It was the last day of live broadcasting. We had friends visit us in the studio (South Bronx Johnny, Helen & Beverly, my dad, and others). The calls we got from listeners that day were very emotional. They made us feel so loved. The last break of our show, Boogie’s wife had recorded a message for him that we played right before he went on the air. He did the final four hours of live programming. He had prerecorded a sign off that lasted about 15 minutes with his personal reflections on the station, the staff, the listeners, and the end. I remember Rob, his girlfriend Mary, and I all listening to this and just sobbing. Boogie expressed what everyone was feeling and it was the perfect ending to an amazing station.

It is hard to believe that it has been 30 years since that last broadcast. When I look back, I can’t believe I was lucky enough to work with those legends! I can’t believe I was lucky enough to be a part of such an amazing station. I had only been in radio about 6 years when I started at Honey, and I learned SO much from watching and talking to Boogie and Richard! What an honor to have had them as coaches, mentors, and friends.

(2024 Update) I believe my buddy Rob had already passed away when I wrote that blog. South Bronx Johnny passed away shortly after that. In 2022, Richard D passed away. I am so glad to have those tapes to hear them all again.

The Late, Great Richard D!

The one thing that I will always remember about working at Honey – is the laughter. There was always laughter whether you were in or out of the studio. There was laughter whether you were on air or off air. I always seemed to leave the building with my cheeks hurting from smiling and my sides hurting from laughter. Today, I can pop those shows in (or some of the Richard D shows I have on tape), and still laugh!

(Update) 30 years later, Honey is no more. That makes me sad, because the world could sure use some laughter!

Tune Tuesday – Wash Out

Today is the birthday of one of the “Three Kings of Blues Guitar.” The best known of these three is most likely B.B. King, followed closely by Albert King, and last but not least, the birthday boy, Freddie King. All three Kings – but no relation to each other. Freddie was born today in 1934.

Freddie was not just a great guitarist, he was also a songwriter and singer. His voice has been called “soulful and powerful,” but today I’ll focus on his guitar playing.

He was taught to play by his mother and uncle as child and eventually moved to Chicago. There he formed a band called the Every Hour Blues Boys. He tried many times to get a record deal at Chess Records (the home of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf), but was rejected every time. They told him that he “sounded too much like B.B. King.”

Persistence paid off for him as he finally landed a record deal with Federal Records in 1960. In August of 1960, he recorded his debut single, “Have You Ever Loved a Woman.” At that same session, he recorded an instrumental that has gone on to become a blues “standard,” “Hide Away.”

Hide Away reached number five on the R&B Chart and number 29 on the Pop Chart, an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences.

While at Federal Records, Freddie became good friends with Sonny Thompson, a pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati’s King Records. Federal Records was a subsidiary of King Records. After the success of Hide Away, Thompson and Freddie recorded over 30 instrumentals (including today’s pick). Yes, they recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released the tunes as instrumentals on albums.

On the last day of local broadcasting at Honey Radio, my partner Rob Main and I were given 6 hours of the day to play whatever we wanted. We had decided to do have each hour focus on something different. Hour 1 was songs with Male names. Hour 2 was songs with Female names. Hour 3 had songs with body parts in the title. Hour 4 focused on instrumentals. That hour got a ton of requests for more and we did an extra hour of them.

Rob was a guitar player and he was the guy who introduced me to today’s Freddie King song. He had the “Let’s Hide Away and Dance Away” album his favorite cut was called Wash Out. I remember he told me he thought it had an “early Elvis” feel to it. The repeated guitar lick does remind me a bit of Elvis’ Blue Christmas.

He handed the song to me on a cart (what we played songs off of before CDs) and I played it on air without ever hearing it. We both sat with our headphones on listened. When it was done, we cracked the microphone and he asked me if I liked it. I remember telling him that it sounded like I was just listening to a couple guys sitting in a room jamming together. That’s what it felt like to me, improvising the blues.

Freddie was always out on the road. He toured with guys like Sam Cooke, James Brown, and Jackie Wilson. He was on the road almost 300 days out of the year. All the touring caught up with him. In 1976 he began suffering from stomach issues. Painful ulcers and acute pancreatitis led to failing health and he passed away just after Christmas in 1976 at the young age of 42.

In 2012, ZZ Top inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A year later, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him 15th on their list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Happy Birthday to Freddie King!

Tune Tuesday – My Honey’s Lovin’ Arms

The fantastic actor Robert Mitchum was born today in 1917. Mitchum appeared in over 110 movie and television roles over the course of his career. The American Film Institute places him at #23 on their list of 50 Greatest American Screen Legends of All Time. He was in so many great films like the noir classic Out of the Past (1947), the noir thriller Night of the Hunter (1955), the psychological thriller Cape Fear (1962), the western 5 Card Stud (1968), the World War II film Midway (1976), and the holiday favorite Scrooged (1988) just to name a few.

So why am I writing about Robert Mitchum in a blog about music? One of the lesser-known aspects of Mitchum’s career was his foray into music as a singer. Critic Greg Adams writes, “Unlike most celebrity vocalists, Robert Mitchum actually had musical talent.” Even Frank Sinatra had nice things to say about him. Frank said, “For anyone who’s not a professional musician, he knows more about music, from Bach to Brubeck, than any man I’ve ever known.”

Many films will overdub an actor with a professional singer’s voice when the character has to sing. Mitchum’s voice was often used instead of that of a professional singer when his character sang in his films. He can be heard singing in Night of the Hunter, One Minute to Zero, The Sundowners, and he sang the theme to the film Young Billy Young.

Robert Mitchum recorded two albums. The first was recorded after he heard some calypso music while filming in the Caribbean. In 1957, he released “Calypso – Is Like So,” on which he emulated the calypso sound and style, even adopting the style’s unique pronunciations and slang. Personally, I didn’t care for this album. He has such a cool voice and by singing this way, it just sounded like a joke to me.

In 1958, he starred in the movie Thunder Road and sang the title song, “The Ballad of Thunder Road.” It was included on the rerelease of Calypso – Is Like So as a bonus song. The song never cracked the Top 40, but it did get to #62 on the charts. Although Mitchum continued to use his singing voice in his film work, he waited until 1967 to record his follow-up record, That Man, Robert Mitchum, Sings.

The album featured songs that had a country feel to them. His first single from the album, “Little Ole Wine Drinker Me” (which has a minor hit for Dean Martin) was a top-10 hit on country radio, reaching number 9 there, and crossed over into mainstream radio, where it peaked at number 96.

When I worked at Honey Radio in Detroit, my partner Rob would bring in songs sung by various celebrities. He’d play a clip of a song sung by William Shatner, Sebastian Cabot, Telly Savalas, and folks like that and have listeners call and guess who it was. One day he brought in Robert Mitchum’s version of My Honey’s Lovin’ Arms. At the time, I had no idea that he’d ever cut an album! Once I listened to it, I loved it. I couldn’t believe it was him!

The song was first recorded by a group called the Virginians in 1922. There have been many cover versions of the song since then. Bing Crosby, Barbara Streisand, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Guy Lombardo, Kay Starr and (I think) Jeff Healy have all recorded the song. It is interesting to hear the various takes on the song to be sure.

As far as Mitchum’s version, it’s just …fun. It’s got simple instrumentation and some harmonious background singers and when it all comes together with Bob’s voice it just makes me smile. I remember the first time I heard the background singers sing “Doodly-op” before Mitchum comes in with his vocal. I lost it. I thought it was kinda corny, but as the song went on, I liked it more and more.

I would certainly not classify Mr. Mitchum as a great singer, but he does alright on this one. Happy Birthday, Robert!!

My Honey’s Lovin’ Arms

I love your lovin’ arms,
They hold a world of charms,
A place to nestle when I am lonely.
A cozy Morris chair,
Oh, what a happy pair!
One caress,
Happiness
Seems to bless my little honey.

I love you more each day,
When years have passed away,
You’ll find my love belongs to you only,
‘Cause when the world seems wrong,
Then I know that I belong
Right in my honey’s lovin’ arms.

I love your lovin’ arms,
They seem to hold a world of charms,
A place to nestle when I am lonely.
A cozy Morris chair,
Oh, what a happy pair!
One caress,
Happiness
Seems to bless my little honey.

I love you more each day,
When years have passed away,
You’ll find my love belongs to you only,
‘Cause when the world seems wrong,
Then I know that I belong
Right in my honey’s lovin’ arms.

Oh, when the world seems wrong,
Then I know that I belong
Right in my honey’s lovin’ arms.

Friday Photo Flashback

Its time for another edition of my Friday Photo Flashback. I stumbled upon a photo that brought back many memories making me happy and sad at the same time. Take a peak:

If I was going to put a date on this, it is probably around 1996 or 1997. It looks like it was taken at a home I lived in with my then girlfriend and future ex. It is a terrible picture of me, as I am obviously caught by surprise here. I still have hair and am still wearing glasses. I’m also sporting one of the T-shirts I had made for my DJ business. But it is not me (or the big honking computer monitor) that catches my attention – it is the stuff I can see in the background.

A lot of it I can make out just by looking at it. However, I viewed it by zooming in and a lot caught my attention. The bookshelves alone are full of fantastic memories! The book shelf on the left side of the picture holds a boat load of VHS tapes. On the top shelf I can make out some Soupy Sales Show videos and some videos we must have recorded off TV (hand made lables). On the shelf below that I can make out the VHS tapes of the Three Stooges shorts, Jack Webb’s Dragnet movie, and the Jack Palance version of Dracula. Each shelf would hold two rows of VHS tapes. So I can only see the front rows of what is on the shelf. It seems like the third shelf down is also holding video tapes, but the three hole punch on top of the computer monitor is blocking it.

This photo is obviously taken after 1994. That is when Honey Radio went off the air. Honey stuff is all over this room! Right above the three hole punch, you can make out a black and gold Honey Radio coffee mug. On the top shelf of the right book case, I can see the the Billboard Top 100 Chart book and Pop Singles book. These were part of the Honey on air studio. Behind me on the wall is a chalk caricature that was drawn of me while I was out doing a remote broadcast. I LOVED that thing, and it is long gone now. (This may be the only photographic evidence of it). Next to that is a wooden sign with the Honey Logo on it. Below that sign are two frames. One contains one of the last Honey Happenings newsletters (which has my picture in it) and the other is a shot of me and my old morning show partner.

On the wall behind me in the photo is a beautiful framed photo of the Three Stooges. I received that for Christmas one year from my parents. Under that is the top of a Blues Brothers concert poster. At one point, I used that when my partner Steve and I would don our Blues Brothers hats when we DJ’d. And right below that are the Three Stooges dolls I wrote about in a previous Friday Photo Flashback. You can see the tag on the Curly just behind my ear.

Heading back to the bookshelves. The bookshelf on the right has SO many books that I wish I still had. There is a book on Bugs Bunny, a book on World War II that I had given my grandpa, a few books with Three Stooges scripts, an amazing biography on Curly, and the wonderful Ted Sennett book on the Art of Hanna Barbera.

On the second shelf, I can make out the Milton Berle Joke books I used when I was on the radio, biographies on Stan Freberg and Jackie Gleason, and books I had forgotten about. One example of this is when Thomas Chastain offered up a new Perry Mason novel –

Another example is the books by William Harrington series with Columbo as the star –

The next shelf contains books about movies and TV shows. I had books on Get Smart, Batman, Perry Mason, The Munsters, and more. The coolest of the TV show books were two with trivia and scripts from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

There are other little trinkets and treasures on the shelves I can see, but the ones on the top of the book cases are ones I wish I still had. I can see my prom glasses up there (yes, they gave high school kids in 1988 wine glasses!), I had two because I went to prom with a gal in my junior year and then my senior prom.

On the left, you can see the boxes that contained limited edition Blues Brothers dolls. I had both Jake and Elwood.

Also on the top of the shelf are Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton figures – limited editions, as well.

I had no idea there was an Alice figure that went with those two until I was searching for pictures.

Finding the photo with all of these memories was such a treat to me. I am sad to remember so many great books and things that are no longer in my possession, but the memories of them remain.

Looking back 25 years – WHND

Monday, November 21, 1994. 6:00 AM.

Today’s radio is what many refer to as “liner card radio”. The DJ’s on the air rarely have any content and read things from cards in the studio (usually promoting station events, station appearances, or sponsor information). The most entertaining DJ’s are usually the morning show hosts, but even they are overloaded with sponsor reads and liners. One of my radio mentors, Jay Trachman, used to say “People say that DJ’s talk too much. This isn’t true. The truth is that DJ’s tend to waste their listener’s time by not having anything to say. They don’t have any REAL content to share.” This is where Honey was different.

Honey Radio DJs were “personalities” – each unique. Boogie Brian was the “Bard of Lincoln Park” and often spoke in Rhyme. Richard D. was the “Silly DJ from Savage Minnesota” who now lived on Lack Of Drive in Warren with his wife Oldielocks and kids Doo Wop and Bee Bop. Other personalities included Bill Stewart, Ron T., Greg Russell, Dr. Bob, “Young” Jon Ray, Scottie OJay, Rob (and every one of his characters), and me. Each of us had our “features”. Scottie hosted the “Soul Patrol” show, Richard had the “Off the Wall Record” and “Poor Richard D’s Almanac”, Boogie had “Cruise Casts” and Boogie’s Forgotten Favorites”, and the list goes on and on. There was always something fun and unique happening on Honey.

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25 years ago today, Rob and I hit the studio with a few ideas, many voices, many characters, some great music, and had the best week of our career! It was Thanksgiving week. Music was scheduled for Monday-Wednesday and Friday. Thursday we were supposed to air satellite programming. Instead, we were on for 6 hours that Thanksgiving and played songs with a different theme each hour (Number songs, Songs with girls names or guys names, Instrumentals, Songs with body parts in the title, etc…) Originally, those shows were recorded to cassette tapes. Those tapes were called “Skimmers”. The tape recorded only when the microphone was turned on. Some time ago, I took those tapes and recorded them digitally and transferred them to CD. I still pop them into my car and listen to that final week whenever I need a laugh. I am guessing, I will need to pull them out to honor the 25th anniversary of Honey’s end.

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It is hard to believe that it has been 25 years since that last broadcast. When I look back, I can’t believe I was lucky enough to work with those legends! I can’t believe I was lucky enough to be a part of such an amazing station. I had only been in radio about 6 years when I started at Honey, and I learned SO much from watching and talking to Boogie and Richard! What an honor to have had them as coaches, mentors, and friends.

25 years later, Honey is no more. That makes me sad, because the world could sure use some laughter!

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For the Record: Famous Monsters Speak

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Happy Halloween!!

While I don’t always plan ahead what I am going to blog about until a day or so before, today’s Halloween Blog was something I planned on writing about a few months ago. I was reminded of the topic after listening to one of the shows I did with my partner, Rob, on Honey Radio.

Somewhere down the line, I plan on writing an entire blog about “drops”. In the radio biz, a “drop” is a snippet from a movie, a TV show, or some other form of audio that is used in pieces of production, or on it’s own. So how do you use a “drop”? Above, you see a picture of The Three Stooges. In their short “Micro-Phonies”, the boys end up in a recording studio. Moe stands at the microphone while Larry and Curly make noise. Moe yells, “Quiet, numbskulls! I’m broadcasting!” I used this drop all the time. I would use it with stuff our voice guy sent us. The piece would be produced and it would play between songs. The entire piece would start with some sound effect, then the voice guy saying “You’re listening to Keith Allen! (Insert drop – “Quiet, numbskulls! I’m broadcasting”!) Then the voice guy would tag it by saying the station – “on Flint’s Classic Rock Authority – 103.9 The Fox!” (or whatever station I was at).

My buddy Johnny Molson, who I worked with at my first radio job had a bunch of funny drops. Some were from movies, while others were from listener phone calls. He had one he’d play that always made me laugh (some guy yelling “Listen kid, why don’t you just beat it!”)

Rob and I spent hours watching TV and movies looking for little lines that could be taken out of context to play on the show. He had plenty of drops from the Steve Reeves Hercules movies, Star Trek the original series, Spencer for Hire, Batman, Dragnet, and so many more! When we were live on the air, I used to purposely throw drops in when Rob was talking as one of the characters just to make him laugh. He was so good, he rarely did. As a matter of fact, he would often just react to the drop. There were, however, a few drops that would crack him (and me) up. They came from a record album that he had growing up. Which, incidentally, is the topic of this blog.

Famous Monsters Speak

When I think about monsters, I think of the Universal Studio Monster movies from the 30’s! Bela Lugosi will always be Dracula to me!

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…and in 1931, Boris Karloff was the Frankenstein monster!

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In 1963, screenwriter Cherney Berg (who is the son of actress, screenwriter, and producer Gertrude Berg), wrote the script for the album Famous Monsters Speak. Side 1 focused on a story that featured the voice of the Frankenstein monster. The story is set at some scientist convention and they are playing the tapes of the Frankenstein monster. Side 2 focuses on a story of Dracula, when someone stumbles on his crypt. The voice work for the entire album is done by Gabriel Dell.

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Gabriel Dell (on the right in the photo above) was an actor who starred in movies with the Dead End Kids, the East Side Kids, and the Bowery Boys. I have often said that a good actor is one who can act by just using their voice (which is why I really love listening to old radio shows). The entire album is voiced by Dell. As the Frankenstein monster he is terrifying, while as Dracula he is equally creepy! Keep in mind this was an album that would be found in the children’s section of the record store! Rob told me his dad had bought it for him as a gift for a birthday or Christmas or something!

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When Rob and I worked together, he had a few drops from this album. As a morning show, we often looked for drops that talked about waking up, drinking coffee, etc… On this album, Dracula simply said, “I command you – Awaken!” We often used that. He also says, “Stupidity has always been my best protection”, which we used when saying that one of the characters on the show was stupid. Then there was this clip of Dracula gaining the trust of an unsuspecting victim by asking for directions. In context, it is not funny, but out of context … (In a Transylvanian accent) “I beg your pardon, but I am a stranger to your city and have lost my way. Can you tell me pleas – the bus to Kensington Gardens?” (This was one that I would throw in on occasion and would make him laugh – just because it was so bizarre). On the Frankenstein side of the record, there is a 4 or 5 second clip of the monster making a growling/howling/yelling noise. We used to promote that Richard D. was coming in after us, and we’d say the sound was Richard “warming up in the next studio”.

Those short clips/drops were all I knew of this album, until long after we were off the air. I knew where they came from. I had just those audio clips and would laugh when I heard them. Then one day I was out at some used record store. I found the album! I called Rob and told him that I had found it and was going to listen to it. He laughed like hell. “I can’t believe you are so excited to find that damn record! I guess that’s why I love you, kid!” I can still hear him saying that to me.

When I listened to the album, instead of laughing (ok, I did when the monster made the “Richard D” noise), I was genuinely freaked out. I couldn’t believe that this was a kids record! It was done in the same vein as so many of those “Headless Horseman” and “Superman” records that had stories and a book. There was no book with this album, and really, you didn’t need one! Dell’s performance on the album is brilliant. A guy named Hal Johnson is listed as the sound effects man and those effects are awesome! The album is just as good as an old episode of Suspense, The Mysterious Traveler, Lights Out, or The Whistler. Gabriel Dell’s performance makes me tired just listening to it – he really get’s into it!

So, here for your Halloween listening enjoyment – turn down the lights – and listen to Famous Monsters Speak.

Side 1 – The Voice of the Monster

(The Richard D “warming up” sound can be heard at 4:50-4:54 of this clip)

Side 2 – Dracula Returns

(Kensington Gardens line begins at 10:44 – they way he says “Kensington Gardens” always made Rob and I laugh)

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You can read a bit more about this album here:

Cherney Berg “Famous Monsters Speak”

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Voices of the Past

This weekend, I DJ’d homecoming dance. For high schools, all my new music is on a hard drive and I play it from the computer. When I do weddings or parties, I still bring some CDs. Recently, I have been going through boxes of CDs in hopes of putting what I don’t have on my hard drive, on the drive.

While most of my CDs are professional ones containing albums and music, I have some homemade CDs of things that I have burned to CD from various places I have worked. I found 2 CDs marked “B95 Stuff” and “More B95 Stuff” in a box and took them with me to listen to in the car. I was unsure if these CDs were data or audio CDs. When I popped them in the CD player, I was happy to find they contained audio clips.

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Most of the audio was phone calls from listeners. I used to do an “impossible question” every day for prizes and there were many phoners of listeners guessing the answer. One of my favorite calls was on the first disc. A woman caller simply asked, “Yes, is the answer poop? Going poop!?” Like the word poop wasn’t enough … she had to explain “going poop”! There were also many requests, as I did a request lunch show.

I also found some interviews with Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tim Rushlow from Little Texas, and Terri Clark. Some of the phoners were just silly things, I used to have listeners say things like “Keith Allen? They let him out on parole?” or “I love every thing about this station, but Keith Allen!” or “Keith Allen? Turn that radio off!” There were a couple calls that took me by surprise.

Call #1

The first one was hearing a call with my friend, Marie. If you read my previous blog, Marie was my friend who just passed away last week.

That blog is here: https://nostalgicitalian.com/2019/09/21/time-life-death-ripples/

There were actually 2 calls from her on that disc. One of them she wins a contest I was doing, and another she called to talk about watching Trace Adkins rear end when he was in concert. (There were other females who called to talk about his butt, as well.)

She was one of those friends who would do anything for you. When my oldest son was born, she had this beautiful blanket made with his name on it and also had a small photo album made with an engraved nameplate. When my youngest was born, she bought him one of my favorite outfits. I spoke with her just a few days before she passed and she was asking what we needed for the baby. She was always doing things for her friends. While it was nice to hear us joking around about Trace’s butt on the CD, it was sad to remember that she has just passed away. Her funeral is Wednesday.

Call #2

The second call was one from my friend Pat. I always called her Pat, but I think most people called her Trish. I also met Pat while at B95. She was forever trying to win prizes. She always came up to our remote broadcasts and talked with us. She was a HUGE fan of the band Alabama. She used to call up and say that she was lead singer, Randy Owen’s wife. I used to kid her and ask is his wife knew about that! She and I had a lot in common, and became good friends. She was a huge Elvis fan and we often talked about him and his music. I remember how excited she was when she told me she was going to Graceland. I had been there while in Memphis for a St. Jude visit, and I told her how much she was going to love it.

The first time Pat won a prize from me she was SO excited. “I won?! OH MY GOD!! WE DID IT! WE WON!!! THIS IS AMAZING!!! (Laughter) I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!!” It was such a great response that I used to use that call as my “stunt winner”. If we ever had someone win a prize who was not excited about it, I’d say “Bring in the stunt winner” and play Pat’s call! The call on the CD was when she won some hockey tickets and she kept saying how much her boys were going to love it. She passed away suddenly in 2014, leaving behind her four boys and a granddaughter who she spoke of so often. She was such a wonderful person and we shared many laughs together.

Call #3

The third call that got me was a call I made to my grandma. Phone calls from my grandma were a staple on the show. I used to call her every Christmas Eve (if I worked on the holiday) or the day before. Christmas Eve was ALWAYS at her house – I wrote a blog about it here:

https://nostalgicitalian.com/2018/12/24/the-ghost-of-christmas-eve-past-and-yet-to-come/

The phone call would consist of me asking grandma what was for dinner. She would go on to talk about homemade ravioli, breaded steak and ammoglio (pronounced moy-gyoo) sauce, the many varieties of cookies, cakes, and cannoli, and the other items featured in the Christmas Eve Feast. This call, however, was NOT about Christmas Eve, which is what made it even more special.

This call actually helps me date the CDs. This call was made July 24, 2001. How do I know this? I was calling grandma to wish her Happy Birthday. During the call she offers up without hesitation that she is 77. She goes on to talk about how my dad was razzing her about something and then asks when I am coming over. She then went on to tell me how I needed to come see her “while my eyes are still open” because “I’m not going to be around much longer” as she often said.

It was emotional to hear her voice. She was sharp as a tack for so long. She was your stereotypical strong willed Italian woman. Knowing that shortly after that call, she would develop dementia was sad. She passed away in 2007, at age 83. Hearing her say “I love you” one more time on the phone – was priceless.

A Recovered Memory

I must have been doing a phone topic about teddy bears. There was probably a story about people sleeping with Teddy Bears or something, which led me to ask “Who still sleeps with a Teddy Bear?” or “Who still has their Teddy Bear from their childhood?”. The calls were about bears and toys that they had growing up. I don’t remember what the caller is talking about, but I respond about something I had growing up that I had totally forgotten about. This has a tie-in to my grandma, who I just mentioned.

It is funny how you can forget about things. I will forever remember a Teddy Bear that I had when I was little. I had it with me in the hospital when I had my tonsils out at 3 years old. The thing I had forgotten about is something I probably had around 5-7 years old. It was a hand puppet of Ernie from Sesame Street. Today, PBS has tons of kid shows. As I remember, Sesame Street, The Electric Company and Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood were pretty much it on PBS. On CBC there was Mr. Dress-up and The Friendly Giant, but that was it. Sesame Street was my “go to” show. I think somewhere there is a picture of me with Ernie and Bert slippers!

What do I remember most about this Ernie puppet? First, the head was not felt like the real Muppet. It was a hard rubber/plastic. This helped when you went to make him talk. I guess I took him everywhere. I remember I’d bring him over to my grandma’s house and she would tease me. She’d put a lit cigarette in Ernie’s mouth and make him smoke. I hated that! “Ernie doesn’t smoke, grandma! That’s bad for you!” Grandma never said his name right. She always called him “Arnie”. I remember her telling me when I was older that when my brother and I stayed overnight there I used to make her kiss Ernie goodnight! “I had to kiss that dirty old Arnie!” I literally just chuckled out loud as I wrote that because I can hear her saying it!

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In Conclusion

I have CDs of my Honey Radio shows with my partner, Rob (https://nostalgicitalian.com/2018/04/26/get-a-load-of-this-guy/), which I listen to often. I still laugh along with them. He always made me laugh. While I am sad that he has passed away, I think he’d be happy to know that I still listen to those shows and they are still funny 25 years later!

I’m glad that I decided to pop those CDs in and give them a listen. Much like the CDs of Rob and me, these also made me chuckle, but also made me sad. At the same time, they are a reminder of good friends and family, who continue to make ripples (see previous blog) long after they have gone.

Time. Life. Death. Ripples.

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The longest song I ever played on the air was Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie which is just over 18 minutes long. We played this on the classic rock station (and sometimes on the oldies station) every Thanksgiving. To those who love the song, it was the perfect length. To those who hated the song, it went on too long. Their feelings about the song depended on their perception of time. (Incidentally, the shortest song I ever played on the radio was Her Majesty by the Beatles. I think it clocks in at just over 20 seconds long.)

Time. I have found myself thinking a lot about time over the past month or so. I have had the word “time” written on my list of blog topics for a while, but have never felt that I am ready to blog about it. In all honesty, I am still not ready, but I had to write something to clear my head.

There is no shortage of great quotes about time:

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst” – William Penn

“Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing” – Miles Davis

“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted” – John Lennon

“Lost time is never found again” – Benjamin Franklin

Time is one of those things that is constantly moving. It moves second by second. Hour by hour. Day by day. Year by year. The truth of the matter is that time is constant. 3 minutes is 3 minutes. How one perceives that 3 minutes depends on the situation. In some cases, 3 minutes can feel like 10 minutes. In others it can feel like just 1 minute. Think of an 8 hour work day and compare it to 8 hours on vacation. Vacation time is flying by while the clock at work moves slowly.

Earlier this month, Facebook was flooded with “First Day of School” pictures. My friends posted pictures with captions that read: “Where did the time go?”, “Wasn’t she just in kindergarten?”, “How did he grow up so fast?”, and “Last First Day of School”. I can relate to that last one as my oldest son started his Senior year this year. My Facebook “Memories” feed has been full of my own kid’s “first day of school” pictures, and I, too, have wondered those same questions.

So why am I rambling about time??

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In my 49 years on this planet, I have lost many people close to me, many at a young age. Some of them, I have blogged about: my mom (who was only 58), my grandpa (mom’s dad, also 58), my radio buddy, Rob (only 56), and my Uncle Tom (just 68). This week, I found out a good friend passed away unexpectedly at only 47 and another friend was basically told her days are numbered – she is 48. I can’t imagine how time will proceed for her.

I understand that death is a part of life. I am reminded of a quote from my psychology class that said, “The hardest part of losing someone isn’t having to say goodbye, but rather learning to live without them – always having to fill the void, the emptiness that’s left inside your heart when they go.” This is so true. Leo Buscaglia said, “Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time.” Also true. Bruce Lee, who died at the young age of 32, said, “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”

I sit here staring at this computer screen and my thoughts are all over the place. Is this blog about Time or Death? I don’t know. I guess they both tie together somehow in my mind. I guess Life also ties in with them. “Live every day as if it were your last. Someday, you’ll be right.” That quote, which I read on the band room announcement grease board 31 years ago, will always remain with me.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that those three things (life, death, and time) do all go together. Looking back at the people I have quoted, they have all passed away, yet their words are still here making an impact. I guess this proves the quote of another person who is no longer here. The late author Terry Pratchett says this: “No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.”

I still talk about my mom – ripples.

I still tell stories about my Uncle Tom – ripples.

I still laugh along with Rob when I listen to our old shows – ripples.

Thinking of my buddy Rob, I remember ad-libbing a poem on the air about an upcoming station event. He looked at me and his Elvis character voice he said to me, “Man! You’re a real Carl Sandburg today.” It’s probably a coincidence that I have a Carl Sandburg quote about time to share:

“Time is the coin of your life. It’s the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” – Carl Sandburg

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As I re-read this blog, I realize that it is a jumbled mess of thoughts. For that I apologize to anyone who has ever read my blog and said “You’re a good writer.” Usually my blogs have a point to them, I am not sure this one does. Hell, I don’t even have a title yet! I really wish I had planned this out a little better. Tell you what, for now, let’s say this blog is a “tease” to the “real” blog about “time” to come at a future date. And as far as the point, or moral, or lesson? Uh….how bout this….

Make good use of your time and live your life so that you will be forever causing ripples.

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Some old radio stories…Part 1

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Yesterday was National Radio Day. Many of my radio friends shared pictures and stories from their careers throughout the day. Looking back, I really wish I had taken more pictures! I am not sure why I didn’t. I absolutely loved seeing many of the old pictures of old studios and old friends on Facebook! If any of my friends have pictures of studios we worked in, prod rooms, etc…. please let me know, I would LOVE to see them!!!

In my almost 30 year radio career, I have (like all of my radio friends) a gazillion stories. Here are some that I’ll share off the top of my head. I am sure there are plenty more, but for now – enjoy these:

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My career started here. I was a lowly intern ripping news and sorting it. I then started to intern with Paul Christy, the morning guy. He eventually was responsible for me doing overnights full time.

I only used my real name once in my entire career – and almost didn’t. Every hour at the top of the hour we had our Legal ID. There was what we called a “donut” in the middle of the music where the DJ would say what time it was and their name. I’d heard it a hundred times. “It’s 10 O’clock and I’m Jim McKenzie”, “It’s 3 O’clock and I’m John Bailey”, “It’s 7 O’clock and I’m Johnny Molson” – every jock did it. My first night on the air, I hadn’t decided what name I was going to use yet. The ID played and I had no choice – “It’s midnight and I’m … (brain fart – and real name)”. I remember a gal I went to high school with was listening that night because she remembers hearing me use my real name. I used Keith Allen every day after that and have never been anyone else.
Speaking of those live ID’s, Johnny Molson was on before me each night. It seemed that he and his crew always were trying to mess with me when the ID played. They’d make weird noises, bang on cart racks, knock over my music stack, and all kinds of other things to try to get me to mess up. Sometimes they’d get me to crack up and sometimes I was able to keep it together. One night, the time was ticking away to the ID and they were all out of the studio. The ID started and I heard the studio door behind me open fast. They had found a huge box and as I started to talk, they threw it over my head. My hands were still by the mixer board so I could see what button I had to push next, so I just continued to talk as the box was over my head. Listeners heard nothing but a muffled voice and the music bed. Johnny was cracking up, he told me, “I can’t believe you just kept going”!
At one point during my time at Kiss-FM, I was doing Friday night/Saturday mornings which consisted of me being on air from 12a-6a doing my own show, and then running Paul Christy on tape from 6a-10a. I don’t recall why I hadn’t slept much the day prior, but I was tired. I did my show, and about an hour into Paul’s show, I started a song, put my elbows up on the board, my fists to my cheeks, and nodded off. About 20-25 minutes later, my head fell from my hands and I was startled awake. I had no idea where I was. The phones were all lit up, and nothing was on the air! I grabbed the first cart (what songs were on) in the music stack and jammed it into the machine. Fittingly, the song was “You’ve Got Your Troubles” by the Fortunes. Once the music started, the phones stopped ringing. I, however, knew that Paul was always listening! I dreaded the call that I knew was coming. I was sure to get fired for messing up his show! 10 minutes later the “PC hotline rang”. I answered it and as usual, Paul was chomping on something (he was always eating when he called). “How’s it going?”, he asked. He had to have heard it, I knew he did. Why wasn’t he saying anything? I finally blurted out that I had fallen asleep for a couple minutes and awaited the verbal beating. Nope. Not Paul. He laughed and said, “You Asshole! I remember this one time I fell asleep while I was at Super CFL in Chicago….” and told me the story. That was the kind of guy Paul was … a damn cool dude!
One more Paul Story. He drank coffee all through his shift. He liked it black and hot! One time he had Vince get him some coffee. It sat next to him for awhile while he was doing other things. He finally grabbed it and took a sip. He yelled, “What the hell is the matter with you guys?! You call this hot coffee?! I could piss warmer than this!! Get me some fresh stuff and make sure it is hot!” So Vince went to the coffee pot, filled the cup and then put it in the microwave for about 2 or 10 minutes…LOL. I don’t remember, but it was in there for a good while. He took the cup to Paul, who rather than set it down as he normally did, put it to his lips and burned the hell out of his tongue and lips! Paul yelped, “Jesus! What is wrong with you?!” Holding his tongue in pain, he continued, “I use this thing for a living!!” I think every one of us broke a rib laughing so hard.

WMXD

Mojo was a cool dude. He played most of his stuff off vinyl records. The thing I remember most about Mojo was that the studio was always like a sauna! It was always SO hot when I came in. There were always records all over the studio, so I rarely was able to pull the first hour of music for my show. I have to admit it was so cool to watch him say his closing line every night I worked: “Hold on tight. Don’t let go. Whenever you feel like you are reaching the end of your rope – tie a knot. Don’t slide off. Keep hanging. Keep remembering that there ain’t nobody bad like you.”

WHND

Honey Radio! I grew up listening to this station and I was honored to have the chance to work with radio legends! Richard D, Jon Ray, Boogie Brian, Ron Tavernit, Bill Stewart, Greg Russell, and so many others were such an influence. Honey was on the day I was at the drive in to see Smokey and the Bandit in 1977 – the day Elvis died. Honey was the first oldies station in the country – and I got to be there as they turned out the light…..

You can read all about my buddy Rob in a previous blog. I am not sure if I tell this story in that blog or not, so I apologize if I did. It was the last week Honey was on the air – the week of Thanksgiving 1994. Listeners knew that this was Honey’s last week and we had been given free reign to have fun. We had a listener who used to call up and his name was Mitchell. I had gotten to the point where I could do his voice pretty well. I had been doing a character based on the real listener and I called him “Mitch”. True story – Mitch would call and talk to us and really never have anything to say, so I prerecorded calls as Mitch where I just rambled about nothing and then hung up. Afterward, we’d say something like “He’s a nice guy, but ….” kind of a thing. So now it’s the last week we are on the air and it was clear that some people were upset the station was going off the air. So we planned a bit. I was going to do the character live on the air. I was going to come in and say how upset I was the station was going off the air, yell and scream and (using the theater of the mind) pull out a gun and start shooting (keep in mind this was 1994 and public shootings were not as prominent) it. At this point in the bit, our bouncer character (loosely based on Charles Bronson) was going to come in and beat up “Mitch” and throw him out the studio window. In order to accomplish the bit we needed sound effects (to make it sound real on the air). We had 6 cart machines and everything was on its own cart. So in cart player #1 was the song we just played. Cart #2 Door closing sound effect for when Mitch comes in Cart #3 – gunshot sound. Cart #4 – The sound of two guys beating each other up. Cart #5 – The sound of glass breaking (studio window) . Cart #6 – always had the weather music in it. After Mitch was thrown out the window, I would have already put the commercial we were going to go into in Cart player 1 and proceeded with the show. That is NOT how it happened on the air. As soon as I began to do the character live on the air, I saw Rob crack a smile, which made me start to laugh hard. As the Elvis character, Rob tries to save the bit, so I once again try to do the “Mitch” character – which only made me laugh harder. By this point we are both laughing so hard that we have tears in our eyes. Rob, as Elvis, says “That takes care of that bit, man!” and I go to start the commercial – but the commercial never made it to the machine, so the button I pushed was the gunshot sound effect, which only made us laugh harder….you hear us dropping carts and shoving the commercial in the machine and finally we went to commercials. I have often called this the worst 5 minutes of Detroit radio, but to me it is also one of the funniest. Yes, I do have audio, and it still cracks me up.
(This is not the WHND studio, but it will give you a visual for the last story – Cart players are on the left in this picture)
Richard D was one of the funniest men I ever worked with. He gave me lots of direction and I have talked about him in previous blogs, as well. I was producing his show the Top 12 at 12, which was an hour of his show which featured the Top 12 songs in Detroit from local charts from different years. It was a fun show to produce. It included new stories, TV and movie clips, old commercials, info about how much things were from that year, etc… Richard had to play the 12 songs and sometimes there was extra time and we’d give him songs that were on the charts form that week to play as “extras” if he needed them. He was doing a countdown from 1966 and I had put a Dean Martin song in there as an extra and he played it. He made some comment about it not being the greatest song or something and moved on. I went into the studio, as I often did, to give him crap. I said something along the lines of “Why are you messing with Italians! Dean was Italian and so I am I! Look here you Old Bastid (a term of endearment), If I were you, I’d watch what you say about Dean Martin … and Frank Sinatra for that matter!” and left the room as he laughed hysterically. After the next song he said on the air, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I must offer an apology. A little while ago I played (whatever the song was) by Dean Martin and made some negative remarks about it. Well immediately after that, Keith Allen came in here with about 12 goons who roughed me up a bit and told me that my comments were distasteful. So I must now publically apologize. I really had no idea that Keith Allen was the President of the Dean Martin Fan Club!” From that day on, I always tried to find a way to sneak a Dean Martin song into my show, so I could say I was President of the Dean Martin Fan Club. When Honey went off the air, I received a package from a listener named Sandy (who I remain friends with to this day), who sent me a membership to the REAL Dean Martin Fan Club with a note that read: “I thought you might actually want to be a member of the Fan Club you claim to be President of….”
For years I listened to Boogie Brian rhyme his talks up song intros until he nailed the post (where the vocalist starts to sing) with no effort at all. His energy was constant and the smile in his voice was ever present – until November 25, 1994. That was the day Honey stopped broadcasting locally before eventually signing off. My partner Rob and I were listening to his sign off from the other room. The day had already been full of listeners wishing us well and many tears were shed. The biggest tears came as Boogie signed off that day. A powerful memory that I will never forget.

WWWW

I had just come back from working on the west side of the state, where I did country radio for the first time. It wasn’t long before a new PD, Tim Roberts, would take the chair and offer some advice that I still use today. Every year Tim was responsible for booking acts to the Downtown Hoedown (which at the time took place in Hart Plaza).

We worked at the Hoedown in shifts as I recall and mine was over. I was waiting in the blue W4 Country Suburban to go back to the station with Tim Timmerman. The Dixie Chicks were an up and coming act who had a very traditional sound. This was really not like anything on the radio at the time, and while I loved it, I didn’t think it would do as well as it did. Tim looked out the window and said “Dude, it’s the Dixie Chicks! We should go get a picture!” I told him he could because I was tired and “they probably won’t go anywhere”. Boy, was I wrong! There’s an opportunity I missed and regret to this day!

So many stories….so little time….

The more I write, the more stories I recall. Tell you what….More to come in the next blog…..