We didn’t get an end-of-summer show from the Back of the Station Wagon, but Tom Hanks is here now to DJ his way with a Happy Halloween special from Boss Radio 66!
Category: Radio
Endfull Summer
Staying on the subject of DJ’s and beaches, Tomboy Hanks will be returning soon to Boss Radio 66 with his summer wrap-up show.
Play it Again
Denro’s brother is living the radio DJ dream I lived for a while, but gave up, so long ago. He’s covering the overnight shift on MVY Radio, on Martha’s Vineyard. Yeah, the island off the Cape Cod shore where the Obamas have an expensive house, but without any top secret documents in the basement.
Monday night Rich played one of my very favorite “recent” (2010) tunes, and I didn’t even request it.
This one you can click (or tap).
Intro for Denro
Radio, Radio
Somebody says that today is National Radio Day. So be it.
In 1978, after my DJ shift at the radio station, where my net pay was $100/week ($450 today), I’d be in the production studio working on writing and recording commercials. I’d return to my $25/week rented basement room and listen to an amazing new album.
Correction: I checked, and I was taking home $97/week.
WABC Loyalist Gives Nod to KHJ
Airchecks from Los Angeles station KHJ provide the music bed (to use a radio term) for Once Upon a Time… in HOLLYWOOD.
On February 9, 1969, while Rick Dalton was filming the Lancer pilot, and his buddy Cliff Booth was surveying the decaying remains of Spohn Movie Ranch, KHJ was preparing to air The History of Rock & Roll on February 21. Created by KHJ program director Bill Drake, the documentary was the subject of a lecture given by Matthew Barton of the Library of Congress.
Forgive me for re-telling a story. Besides being relevant here, it’s one of my favorite stories.
I was doing DJ duty on August 16, 1977, when news hit the AP teletype that Elvis had died. On 10-inch reels of tape the station had a copy of the syndicated 1969 edition of Drake’s The History of Rock & Roll.* I’d hang around the station on my own time to listen to the series in the production studio.
As soon as I saw that first terse news bulletin about Elvis, I pulled out the LP set Worldwide 50 Gold Award Hits Vol. 1. Slip-cueing “Heartbreak Hotel” on one of the Russco/Micro-Trak turntables, I announced the tragic news over the air. As the song played I ran out of the studio, grabbed the History of Rock & Roll tape about Elvis, ran back to the studio, and mounted it on the old Magnecord deck.
As updates came across the AP wire, for the next hour I broke format and threw together an ad hoc Elvis tribute. While songs and commercials played, I frantically searched the tape for good sound bites, with surprising success. Breaking format is usually a BIG no-no in radio, but to my surprise the program director liked my Elvis tribute. Starting at 16 minutes into the video, you can hear some of what I used.
It all worked out perfectly, thanks to — ahem! — my very skillful engineering, and that tape. My long overdue thanks go to Boss Radio KHJ! At that same time Drake was in the middle of updating the documentary. He immediately began working on a dedicated Elvis tribute tape.
* Narration of the syndicated edition of the HRR was by Humble Harve Miller. Who had, to say the least, a checkered history in radio.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-me-humble-harve-miller-dead-20190606-story.html