The Dreaded Seven Words You Can't Say on Radio (Part 3 of Radio Daze)

The third installment of Radio Daze involves my time with Y-95, an Album Oriented Rocker in Rockford, Illinois. I was working Saturday mornings there while pulling a full-time shift in Lake Geneva, about ninety minutes away, so I had to get up around 3 AM on Saturdays in order to get there for my 6 AM show call.

The PD there was heavily into all the latest research techniques, and pretty much pre-selected most of the songs to be played on air, but we did have some latitude on a several cuts per hour.  Since I was from the “progressive radio” school of thought, this really rubbed me the wrong way.  I hated having to play more slick stuff like Billy Joel, Foreigner, and E.L.O. ad nausea—I liked mixing it up more, and getting creative with themes and musical flow.  But, this was a gig to help pay bills and develop more connections within the industry, and hence I tried to grin and bear it.

When I arrived my first day the overnight jock who was on before me was hardly in the mood to hold the new guy’s hand.  He was toast, and really wanted to get home and crash.  So he gave me a cursory overview of reading the transmitter, their logging system, song charts to follow, etc.  I commented to him that they had the exact same board that we had at WMIR, even down to the colors on all the pots (dials for volume).  You see, each microphone, turntable, tape deck, and cart machine had its own sound channel. What was especially interesting (and challenging) was that the entire control room was set up the opposite of what I had been using for close to a year in Lake Geneva.  All the turntables were on the left instead of right, all the carts were to the right instead of left.  And, most amusing  of all (as it would turn out), the microphone levels were opposite of the turntable volume, but, as I said, everything appeared exactly the same.

We are creatures of habit, are we not?  We get used to tying our shoes a certain way every day without even thinking about it.  Just for fun one morning, slow the process way down and actually try to think about what you’re doing as you lace knot your shoes—you’ll suddenly screw it up.  Or think about how you brush your teeth—you open the cabinet the same way (perhaps just missing the tip of your nose by and inch without even realizing it), squirting the toothpaste on in the same motion, and utilizing the same amount of strokes, rinsing technique, etc. day after day.  When you use your car, think how close your head is to banging into the edge of the door opening every time you lunge in and leap out.  One could easily suffer a major concussion if everything was changed by just a few inches.

So, here I was, my rookie day on the Number One station in Rockford.  Saturday mornings are one of the more listened-to day parts in rock radio—lots of people running errands and listening in their cars.  I’m fumbling about trying to keep everything on a good pace, and noticing that the phone lines are almost constantly blinking with requests—something we didn’t often see in a smaller market like southern Wisconsin.  I had to try to answer as many of them as possible, because Armand, the PD there, was going to call in regularly from pay phones (this was way before cells) as he was out and about to give me pointers on how I was sounding—so I couldn’t blow them off.

I was feeling relatively good about things when the transmitter began to beep just a little after 7:00 AM.  We were getting a bit of lightning, especially to the north where the broadcast tower was.  I suddenly noticed that we were flat lining on the amp meter. We were off the air, and I was the only person in the building! The previous jock had pointed quickly to main equipment and vaguely mentioned a few things, but dismissed it all by saying, “Nothing ever goes wrong—don’t worry about this stuff.” 

I frantically called the previous guy, but he must’ve taken his phone off the hook so he could sleep.  I tried calling the chief engineer, but no answer.  Finally, through some reasoned thinking, I tried toggling a few switches, and somehow got the station back on the air (all the while wondering if I would hit the absolute wrong button and crash the system completely).  I’m guessing we were off the air for a total of about five minutes. I got a fair amount of calls, but none from the PD.  He must’ve been in the shower or something. If he wasn’t going to ask, I certainly wasn’t going to tell.

As the next hour went along, I felt like I was getting in a groove, although I was certainly chagrined about the lame music mix they employed.  I really detested some of the songs in the rotation, and found myself almost gritting my teeth as I would announce swill like “Baby Come Back” by Player or “I Wanna Kiss You All Over” by Exile.  Yuck.  Patooie.

Not very long into the nine o’clock hour, when the listenership was really beginning to peak for Saturday mornings, a cart tape player jammed while running a commercial.  A grinding, distorted, drugged-out sounding voice track was agonizingly drawing out words to ten times their normal length.  For several seconds I froze because second nature was for me to deal with everything on the opposite side of the control board.  Finally I gathered which channel to “pot down” and then quickly fumbled to push another one in the secondary slot and crank it up. When I began to pull the first one out, tape was wrapped around an inner head, and began to unravel and tear.  If I didn’t fix this one, I would be down to one machine to operate up to six spots per break.  This would sound horribly choppy—especially because most carts were a bit longer than the actual spot length, and you had let them play out so they could automatically re-loop to the beginning for the next time they were to be aired.

During the next song, I was frantically trying to pull all the creased and spooled tape out of the damaged tape player using my plastic comb, a pencil, and anything else not metal so as to not get an electrical shock.  After several minutes of arguing with the inanimate object, and barking some rather spicy commentary in its direction, I realized I hadn’t cued-up my next record…and “The Grand Illusion” by Styx was beginning its fade-out.  I quickly looked at the index card system for what track I was supposed to play next, but couldn’t find the Fleetwood Mac Rumours album that I had played a cut from just the previous hour—I had already filed it back in the library outside the studio not realizing it was going to come up again so quickly (in my primary life at a progressive radio format it was a cardinal sin to play the same artist, let alone the same song by an artist, in a four hour shift…diversity was paramount). 

Now I was really getting vexed.  No time to race out and locate that record, I thought.  So I grabbed an album from my “DJ’s choice” pile that had some longer cuts on it: the Jethro Tull Bursting Out Live album.  I quickly pulled out disc two, lined-up “Locomotive Breath,” and let it fly just as the last notes of Dennis DeYoung’s keyboards were fading into the nether world.  They had a great sound system in the studio, and I had it cranked. 

I turned my attention back to the cart machine and further berated it.  My ongoing woeful commentary was inclusive (but not limited to) phraseology on the variations and permutations on the depths of Sheol, the Puritan judgment For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, unwanted pregnancies, God’s eternal sentence to those who choose to live outside His will, the male offspring of a female canine, illegitimate children, the partial vacuum formed with the lips, bovine excrement, equine waste product, bowel movements of nocturnal flying mammals,  and not-so-clinical descriptors of reproductive organs of both genders.  All were liberally peppered with demonstrative pronouns. A goodly amount of this was being articulated with extreme prejudice, and quite vociferously.  

As Martin Barre’s familiar riff was wailing over Ian Anderson’s lament about the downfall of human condition, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that all sixteen lines of the phone system were blinking like a Christmas tree.  On top of trying to be a technical engineer, and electrical repairman, and a radio host, now I was gonna have to be a switchboard operator and figure out quickly which one of these might be my boss calling in about the weird sounding commercial.  To put it mildly, I was losing it.

More indelicate obscenities and accompanying scatological adjectives were hurled in between each hastily answered call while I simultaneously battled with the jammed playback unit.  A couple of the folks were complaining about the quality of the sound on the air—making me think that there still might be transmitter problems.  One wondered if we were jointly broadcasting with some talk station.  I had no idea what the hell they were talking about.  As I hung up each line, it was quickly replaced by a new incoming call.  Was there some sort of contest going on I was unaware of? Why were so many freaking people calling all of sudden?

Then, on about the eighth call, as I had a ruler and a plastic letter opener wedged deep into he recesses of the cart machine’s mouth, the guy on the other end of the line was laughing robustly as he said, “This is the most interesting version of Jethro Tull I’ve ever heard!” 

“How so?  It’s right off their Live album,” I smugly replied.

“Well, it sounds like you’ve got George Carlin’s “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” playing at the same time.”

That’s when it dawned on me in a millisecond…while I was so distracted with the technical malfunction I fell into being a creature of habit, and instead of turning the second turntable up for the new song, I had turned my microphone back on full volume.  But because Y-95 had such an awesome sound system, even when turntables were in “cue” setting, it sounded fantastic.  So the music the listeners were hearing was actually coming out of the in-house speakers and being picked up by the LIVE microphone, which, coincidentally, was absorbing the manic and unmannerly play-by-play of my plight. 

I immediately dropped the phone, lunged at the sound board and reversed all my ill-advised motions, putting the turntable directly into the mix, and “potting down” my open confessional.  Gathering myself, I quickly thanked the chortling caller, got the next song cued-up, and finally ripped the final strands of wayward tape out of the cart machine, quickly testing another commercial tape—in audition mode—and then looked apprehensively at those sixteen flashing phone lines. 

One by one I answered them with an apology about technical difficulties.  Around the tenth line I heard my Program Director’s surprisingly calm voice.  “Mark?” he queried, “Do you have everything under control now?”  He was actually chuckling. 

“I am so, so sorry!” I exclaimed. “I’m guessing this is my first and last day.”

“Listen, it’s happened to all of us at one time or another,” he reasoned.  “I’m just glad you had music playing underneath it all.  If you were right on the microphone, we would probably both be fired and the station would lose its FCC license. But it was buried enough in the mix that it was flowing in and out of Jethro Tull.  Overall, besides that incident, you sound pretty good—keep up the fine work.” 

I was amazed.  I’ll never forget his grace under pressure.  Nor will I soon forget my lack thereof. 

The subsequent week Armand told me he only got a few comments from listeners, all of them rather funny, about the “swearing DJ.”  They all thought it was hilarious. Since they were of a good-natured quality, there were no further implications.  I stayed on there doing weekends for another few months, then took a job in Chicago, which I’ll go into during the final chapter coming soon.  

Radio Daze

Every now and then, it is fun to look back at my time as aradio broadcaster about thirty-five years ago.  Here is the first in a series that will feature some of my escapades…

We’ll start at secondary market station, WMIR in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin (a bustling resort town midway between Chicago and Milwaukee). Where I was combo Program Director/Music Director, and also hosted the afternoon/early evening drive-time slot.  When you wear multiple hats at small operation like that, it’s not odd to put in seventy-hour weeks.  I took my M.D. job seriously, and since our format was Top 40 during the day and A.O.R. (Album Oriented Rock) at night/weekends, I had lots of music to consider. It was not odd to preview dozens of albums (sometimes over a hundred) per week, as well as loads of singles, and then all the dealings with numerous promo guys from all the labels.  On top of that there were meetings with concert promoters, critiquing air staff air checks, training new jocks, and cutting endless spots for this station that saw nothing wrong with running upwards of twenty minutes of commercials per hour during peak periods (disgusting). 

But since it was a high-falootin’ area where rich folks from Chicago would come for playtime (the first Playboy Club Resort was across the street from the studio), a guy who earned $110 a week in take-home pay had few choices.  As one of my co-workers said, “Without cash, there’s not much to do around here ‘cept go bowling and make babies.”  I’ve never been much for splitting the pins (at least not as a nightly endeavor), and I had very little coinage for trying to woo the opposite sex—so my life was pretty much my work, except for going to loads of concerts in Chicago, or Milwaukee, or nearby Alpine Valley Music Theater via the backstage passes I earned for my position.

These were also the days where you had to select all the music for your show, pull out all your pre-recorded “cart” spots (a version of old 8 track tapes), organize all liners (verbal spots, PSA’s, and teasers to be read on air), phone-in reports from on-site “remote” locations, thoughtful segues, etc. No computer touch screens existed back then to simply trigger the next item on the pre-planned agenda---we had to produce our own shows from top to bottom every day. And there was certainly no such thing as voice tracking where I could get all my breaks sounding completely smooth and “heartfelt” over numerous takes and then load them on the system (what system?).  It was all “live” babeee!  If I got the hiccups, or a record skipped, or had a sneezing fit (not out of the ordinary considering the station was located in a huge field of ragweed that made my sinuses go into hyper-drive during spring and late summer), or a cart jammed, or a mic shorted out, it all had to be dealt with pronto with ease and charm…supposedly.

One area that was usually pretty low on the checklist before any air shift was preparing the newscast (yes—we had a GM that insisted we have hourly news, weather, and sports on top of everything else we had to orchestrate).  Hence, it was the norm for most of us D.J.’s to “rip and read”…that is, go into the teletype room (once again, this was eons before internet news feeds) while a song was playing, and quickly tear off various stories that were coming in from United Press International or Associated Press. We would race back into the studio and quickly glance over the headlines, and edit a newscast on the fly—often with no time whatsoever to actually proof-read what it was we were about to relay to our listeners—with occasionally humorous results.

One particular afternoon, I was just at the top of my shift, and Ron, who was our mid-day host, was still filing carts and LPs in the shelving immediately behind me as I was cold-reading a story about a group of Dairy State elementary kids who had been lost on a field trip expedition. Ron nonchalantly leaned over my shoulder and set the teletype paper on fire with his cigarette lighter.  These kinds of hijinks were common, and I normally could deal calmly with the disruption by adlibbing and moving on to another story while simultaneously tramping the paper out quietly on the floor with my foot.

However, since I hadn’t previewed the article, I had no idea what the outcome was…and it happened to be the last story I had in my stack.  With listeners quite concerned about the fate of twenty-eight second graders who had somehow been “misplaced” I had to pull a Paul Harvey by stating the “the rest of the story” would be given to them in the next hour.  Unfortunately, the article never repeated on the wire service, and I had nothing further to work with since the copy I had was burnt to a crisp. I just blew it off and hoped all my listeners would do the same. But, I’m sad to report, that I got at least a dozen calls wondering what had happened to the cute kiddies. I told each one that due to “technical difficulties” the rest of the cliffhanger was lost, and perhaps they should—horror of horrors—go to our competing news/talk station up the dial in Kenosha to listen for further developments.

Another instance happened during what was supposed to have been my last week on the air.  I had given my notice earlier that month for another radio gig in Chicago. We had some rowdy guys on our sales team, and they felt it was their calling in life to try and get the staff to crack up while on the air.  Knowing that I had not wilted under the pressure of any of their stunts in the year I had been there, they were always concocting new ways to try and get me to lose my composure.

After most of the front office crew had already departed on a Tuesday evening drive-time, these clowns marched into the production room which was on the other side of a large window from the main studio while I was reading the news.  Cranking up Ted Nugent’s “Wango Tango” on the speakers in the adjoining chamber, each dropped their trousers, then their shorts, and began hopping around like little bunny rabbits…their giblets bouncing and swinging hither and yon.  This was not just for ten seconds…it lasted several minutes.  Seeing three chubby twenty-something guys with dress shirts and ties flailing about (as well as….ummm…you know), Hagar slacks bunched around their ankles while pogoing, and colliding into each other like kangaroos on acid is quite the image, let me tell you. 

One of them jumped up on the control board immediately on the other side of the glass and pressed his spotty behind against the surface, flattening the cheeks to the beat of the Motor City Mad Man, while the others were grabbing their own fifth appendage and somehow acting like they were flailing away on “air guitar”…except with their own “instrument,” a unique interpretation of the “whammy bar” if you will.  Concentration can be challenging in a scenario like this, especially when you’re attempting to cover news items like anti-nuclear proliferation treaties, a flu epidemic, and an airline hijacking.  But, as always, I was able to keep collected and focused. Maintaining a straight face, I even nodded, winked, and gave them the thumbs-up for their attempts as I read my stories with all the professional journalistic acumen of Walter Cronkite. 

After about three minutes of this, they realized they had failed once again, and when their ridiculous enterprise sunk in, they sheepishly began pulling up their pants, shaking their heads at their own stupidity while sulking out of the room. As my newscast continued I moved from international affairs to state/local items. 

I shall never forget what commenced as I was reading a sad story about a young guy who had met his demise by sliding off an icy road in the next county and wrapped his brand new Camaro around at tree trunk.  Just as I was heading into the last line or two of the account, one of the salesmen wandered back into the adjacent room, apparently looking for his keys that had fallen out during their escapade.  After he collected them, he looked up and we made eye contact.  Without even touching his belt or doing anything rude, he simply made four little jumps up and down. 

Who knows exactly why, but I started to smile…and just like the phenomenon where laughing at a funeral can feel so wickedly wonderful, I started to chuckle while essentially giving an obituary live on the air. Of course I tried bringing my microphone volume down a time or two, acting as if I was clearing my throat…but it was obviously more pernicious than that.  There is no way to mask laughter, especially in what should be a somewhat somber moment in a broadcast. 

Knowing that I was finally breaking, the other sales guys all quickly rushed back into the room…but rather than disrobe, they simply stared at me with glum faces as if to say, “You wouldn’t possibly go to pieces now would you?”  It was classic.  And it was potent.  The previous twelve months of bottling-it-in through all their shenanigans came sweeping through my mind, and I just started giggling, then chortling, and then stifling howls while I was talking about the deadly accident. Tears were beginning to trickle down my cheeks.  One of the guys quickly scribbled a note on a paper and held it up saying: “Please don’t laugh—you’re talking about a dead person.”  This clearly did not help. I tried explaining to the listeners that something was going on behind the scenes, and bypassed weather and sports to exit into the first song of the hour as quickly as I could…but the damage was done. 

Within fifteen minutes, the General Manager came storming into the building, and burst into the studio screaming, “What the hell is your problem?!  When your shift is done, gather up your crap, turn in your keys, and leave!” 

Oh well…I had grown weary of the joint anyway.  It was on to more radio revelry in Chi-town starting the next week. More of these stories to come, featuring AC/DC’s Bon Scott, rude prankcalls to call-in shows, the dreaded “open mic that should’ve been closed,” and more will grace these blogs in the near future.