Category: Radio

Guerilla Lawsuit Day

It was supposed to be Gorilla Suit Day, and instead it turned into Guerrilla Lawsuit Day!

The spin machine is working. There’s lots of tough talk, and an arrest has been made in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force “guerrilla” advertising campaign.

Artist arrested for planting marketing figures

By Maria Cramer and Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff

The man who sent city and State Police rushing to defuse what they believed were explosive devices around the Boston region was arrested tonight.

Attorney General Martha Coakley scheduled a 9 p.m. press conference to announce the arrrest of Peter Berdvosky, an Arlington artist.

What stopped the city was the way the situation was handled. Here’s audio from WBZ radio. You’ll hear some of a news report, the beginning of Paul Sullivan’s talk show, and part of the opening statement at that 9 p.m. news conference by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. Lots of talk about getting tough, along with the usual compliments about how well all of the various agencies cooperated, and what a great job everybody is doing, blah, blah, blah…

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JAN07/WBZBostonTerror.mp3]

The Boston Globe has posted this editorial, and I’m glad it includes the following comment:

Homeland Security experts will need to review the response of local law enforcement. Public safety personnel may have overreacted; local bloggers apparently identified the guerrilla advertising campaign early on.

The fact that the promotional campaign was orchestrated by an advertising agency on behalf of The Cartoon Network isn’t incidental or irrelevant, but these mysterious objects could have been a stunt by college kids. Does this mean that ANYthing out of the ordinary, no matter what it is, can result in an emergency response of such magnitude? If so, then we’ve lost the war on terrorism.

Turn Me On Deadman

Roby YongeMy twin sister Jean and I caught up with the “Paul is Dead” phenomenon when it was picked up by WKBW in Buffalo, NY. The rumor got traction when Roby Yonge on WABC (about which there is more here) in NYC got himself fired for promoting the idea that Paul McCartney had been killed.

The audio player below has an aircheck of Yonge from October 21, 1969. Part 1 starts with his first mention of the speculation that Paul McCartney was dead, and part 2 ends with the moment he was replaced on the air by Les Marchak.

Yonge, working the overnight shift, was fired for breaking format, as it’s called in the radio biz. But ‘KBW followed ABC’s lead by running with the story, presenting every single alleged clue, in a heavily-promoted special presentation. I didn’t believe it, but I learned a valuable lesson about how easily people can be misled into believing something that is completely untrue when conjecture is presented as fact.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JAN07/pauldead.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JAN07/pauldead2.mp3]

One of the clues was the infamous “turn me on dead man” that was heard when “Revolution 9” was played backwards. Here is the first minute of the track, presented backwards, followed by the opening seconds with George Martin and Apple Corps publicist Derek Taylor apparently having a disagreement.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JAN07/Revolution9.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JAN07/GeorgeMartin.mp3]

DeSouze, Glick, Maynard, LaPierre

lapierre

You’ll recognize the names in the subject of this post only if you live around Boston. Gary LaPierre, the morning man on WBZ 1030 AM, is the fourth major ‘BZ radio announcer that I can think of at the moment to retire since my family moved to Massachusetts when I was 13.

Carl DeSouze, Dave Maynard and the uniquely quirky Larry Glick all called it quits many years ago. I believe DeSouze is now deceased, but the voices of Maynard and Glick can still be heard from time to time as guests.

LaPierre’s last day on the air was Friday. At 64 he’s still in fine form, but he had coronary bypass surgery last year. A couple of years ago he was cornered into making the embarrassing admission that during the winter he was rattling off the school snow cancellation lists from his home in Florida.

I admire anybody who can make a lifelong career in the radio business, let alone become something of an institution in a major market. Gary LaPierre is a top-notch announcer who I enjoyed listening to, and he deserves a long and comfortable retirement.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/DEC06/GaryLaPierre.mp3]

The audio player has some of LaPierre’s farewell, and a three-minute tribute. Take note of the Acton and Acton-Boxborough (the regional junior and senior high) school cancellations. What a perk it was, going to a school that’s always first on the list!

Christmas Eve 1906

fessenden

It was exactly 100 years ago, Christmas Eve 1906, that Reginald Fessenden first transmitted audio, rather than just telegraph sounds, over radio. There is controversy surrounding some of the details of the event, but nevertheless it was a monumental achievement. The transmission was made from Massachusetts, as told in this radio report.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/DEC06/fessenden.mp3]

Picking up the story from there, American Radio Works has a 1-hour radio documentary on the history of music on radio, that you can get to by clicking here. If you have trouble listening to it let me know, and I’ll post it here.

Feeling Queasy

I’m sure you heard this bit of news …

WASHINGTON – Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson (news, bio, voting record) of South Dakota was hospitalized after becoming disoriented Wednesday, weeks before his party is to take control of the Senate by a one-vote margin.

The audio clip is of WBZ radio talk show host Pat Desmarais, an arch-conservative, who points out that if Senator Johnson is unable to serve in January, Governor Mike Rounds would undoubtedly appoint a Republican to the post. This is a prospect that makes me feel very uneasy.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/DEC06/WBZ.mp3]

At the moment, Johnson is reported to have not suffered from either a heart attack or a stroke. Perhaps they should check him for polonium-210 poisoning? 😉

Technical note: WBZ 1030 is an AM radio station in Boston with a great signal. But it doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as this 64 Kbps sound clip I captured. Live audio streams are getting very good. For a while I was thinking about getting an HD Radio for bedside use, but now I’m wondering if an Internet radio might be a better choice.

The Jazz Decades

WGBH.gifI’m not a huge Jazz fan. Somewhere along the line, for my taste Jazz became so much about improvisation there wasn’t enough structure left to hang onto. Sunday evenings there’s a radio show on WGBH in Boston I enjoy, called The Jazz Decades, hosted by Ray Smith, who by now must be in his 80’s. He specializes in music from the 20’s and 30’s, playing both original recordings from then, as well as more recent renditions of old songs. When necessary, Smith resorts to vinyl, as he did tonight.

The audio player below has 35 minutes of The Jazz Decades show. I was going to offer only 10 minutes of it, but tonight’s selections were interesting, so I let it roll. I was surprised to hear my town, Hopkinton, MA, mentioned. Apparently, there was a legendary place here called The Sticky Wicket, that featured live Jazz until about 15 years ago, which is news to me.

There are some splices in this recording. The first 24 minutes were taken from the FM tuner in my PC. Then, for contrast, right after he says, “This is Ray Smith,” I switched over to WGBH’s live streaming Net audio. For the 1930’s recordings, the loss in sound quality isn’t all that apparent. But I still look forward to the time when all live Net radio is at least 128 Kbps.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/DEC06/JazzDecades.mp3]