#Charles Laquidara

[aboutoriginality]

IYKYK

[airchexx]

Boston Morning Radio Aircheck PART 1 | July 1990

 Boston Morning Radio Aircheck PART 1 – WZOU WCGY WXKS WBCN WROR WJIB WODS WZLX WMJX WHDH – July 1990 Here are some clips of Boston area morning radio shows I recorded on a trip to New England, including: WZOU, WCGY, WXKS, WOKQ, WBCN, WROR, WJIB, WODS, WZLX, WMJX, & WHDH from July 1990. You’ll hear Matty Siegel, Charles Laquidara, Joe & Andy, Jess Cain & more. This was a great time…

[woodsteingirl]

i forgot how much i loveeee airchecks sorry for being mean to old radio yesterday….

[sdog1blog]

It was a Thursday morning in late November, I was driving into Boston for an afternoon class, planning to spending a few hours in the library, on the car radio was Charles Laquidara of 'BCN.

He had news that Dylan would play a previously unannounced concert in Cambridge that evening. After a bit more chatter a couple of records and a commercial, he came back on the air to casually mention that Dylan would be playing at the Music Hall, the next evening.

I can't remember what the ticket price was, but it couldn't have been more than $20-$25, I guessed that I had nearly $100 in my checking account, so I figured I could afford three, as I'd sell the others. Having just come off I93 on to Storrow, I pointed my car toward the theater district.

While driving in Boston has always been a pain, in those days it was still possible to get around and the Music Hall had a pair of 10 minute limit parking spaces in front of the box office. To my delight and surprise, they took my check.

It was a great show.

Bob Dylan singing together with Joan Baez during the Rolling Thunder Revue!

[harrisonstories]

George Harrison turns his amp back on after police attempt to stop the rooftop performance. (Get Back, 2021)

George Harrison v.s. the police

“In Cleveland, without asking us, two senior police officers marched on stage and stopped our show completely because they said the crowd was getting out of hand. The safety curtain was pulled down, and we were ordered to our cars. With the cops shouting, ‘The show’s over, fellows, this is where we take over.’ It’s never happened to us before. But that’s the trouble with American cops – they’re over-enthusiastic, whether it’s for stopping shows, hurling us into cars, baton charging the crowd or just asking 30 autographs at a time." - George's column in The Daily Express (1964) [x]

"We've been and played here in Sydney, and it was the biggest drag of all time. The stage revolves every three minutes and we have to walk right down the aisles like boxers to get to the stage. At the first house I punched a policeman because he was shoving me like mad and some kids had a hold of me all at once and I was trying to get off the stage. I was swearing my head off at one policeman (sorry), and later the chief came and apologised to me." - George in a letter to his parents (1964)

“I noticed a police car. It says, written on the door, ‘To serve and to protect’, and that really sort of buzzed me. I was starting to wonder like, who are they serving, and who are they protecting? I mean that’s where it’s really at because maybe they do serve and protect, but you know…themselves or? Like, who? […] That’s the trick you see. They say, ‘It’s not me. It’s somebody up there telling me what to do,.’ and you can never find like, who is the guy at the top? Because they shift the load, you know? Take a load off Annie.” - George interviewed by Don Hall and Charles Laquidara (1968)

“George arrived home, with Mal Evans and Derek Taylor in tow. All the detectives instantly leaped from George’s settees to converge upon their quarry as he stormed, ranting and raving, into his kitchen. 'The foxes have got their lairs,' George shouted, 'and the birds have their fucking nests, but man doesn’t have anywhere he can fucking go without people breaking into his house!' Ignoring this tirade, the Drug Squad, charging him with possession of cannabis, produced two pieces of incriminating evidence. 'That one’s mine!' George snapped. 'But I’ve never seen this one before in me fucking life! You don’t have to bring your own dope to me house, I’ve got plenty meself! And you didn’t have to turn this whole fucking place upside down, I could have shown you where the stuff was if you’d asked me!' Their only response was to ask George to accompany them to the police station. 'Well, I don’t care where the fuck we go,' George retorted, 'just so long as you get all these fuckers out of my house!'" - Pete Shotton on the 1969 drug bust at Kinfauns [x]

"The prosecution had stated then that Harrison drove his car on to the busy junction of Wigmore Street and Orchard Street blocking traffic. When stopped by the Pc, Stephen Gardner he drove the car forward with the constable walking alongside and twice refused a requestion to drive to the offside of the road. Pc Gardner walked forward and stood in front of the car and Harrison advanced the car slowly and it hit the officer's knee. He drove against the officer three times. Police spent 15 minutes trying to get his name and address, but Harrison, who was heavily bearded, was finally recognized. Mr. Polden told the magistrate yesterday that Harrison was trapped in the boxed area. He was driving his wife's Mercedes, and drove slowly forward. He heard a hammering on the car roof. ‘Mr. Harrison's lot has been to find people hammering on the roof of his car and he did not associate it initially with police action.’

The policeman believed the driver was taking no notice of his signal. Harrison had the car radio on and did not hear the officer speak to him. When the policeman ran in front of the car Harrison realized for the first time he was being requested to stop ‘for reasons quite obscure to him.’ He decided to pull in to the near side and started to turn not realising he was being discourteous. ‘He should have stopped, but it stemmed from a misunderstanding. That is why he pleaded guilty.’ ‘Mr. Harrison's nature is such that the arrogant level of driving does not really enter into it. As far as a man in his position can have, he has a sense of humility. He is not capable of deliberately driving into a police officer, causing him to hurt. He took the whole business impassively rather than arrogantly.’” - Guy Rais, Ban on Harrison (1971) [x]

"George gives me a souvenir as I leave -- a baton belonging to the Chief Constable of Liverpool, which GH took off him at the Liverpool premiere of A Hard Day’s Night!" - Michael Palin, Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980–1988

"I was 15 and then uh...had some little run-in with some policemen, and he told the policemen to fuck off. And that was when I realised he was actually cool, on my side, and not just a scary dad, y'know?" - Dhani Harrison, Living in the Material World

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Captain Beefheart - WBCN, Boston, Massachusetts, 1972

Beefheart in Boston! We checked out the Captain speaking with Dr. Demento a few months back and it was so nice that I’ve been listening to this WBCN interview from the early 1970s. Very cool, laid-back stuff, Don rapping with DJs Norm Winer and Charles Laquidara, plus a few off-the-cuff solo performances — including a harrowing “Black Snake Moan” (which I believe showed up way back when on the Grow Fins rarities set). 

[alphaneptune]

[bearlyrambling]

Three Best DJ Voices

Three Best DJ Voices in my experience

This is a slight update to a posting from March 22, 2009 on the old blog.

When I first started listening to radio it was on the BBC Light Program, they didn’t have DJ’s in those days. Just variety shows, comedy shows and the news. Later I started listening to Radio Luxembourg, but usually only on Sunday nights, they would have the current pop music with vague DJ’s. In fact DJ’s in England were…

[jazzlunatique]

Almost 40 year old cassettes have got to go. But this cAssette and the others of Dr. Demento and Charles Laquidara of WBCN and the Big Mattress set me in the path of radio that has led me to where I am now. I look at this and see a whole scope of my life. I will miss it. But I did digitize it. https://www.instagram.com/p/CDSiv-DFqxn/?igshid=1ebsghrxdz5sp

[danbusler]

Charles Laquidara at The Extended Play Sessions - Dan Busler Photography from Dan Busler on Vimeo.

Charles Laquidara was one of Boston's "Last DJs". He got to choose what to play and what to say and in that he gave a generation their voice. He helped change the face of radio. Charles dropped by The Extended Play Sessions at The Fallout Shelter in Norwood MA on March 23, 2018, to talk about his autobiography "Daze in the Life" a video book that was released in April 2018.

[airchexx]

Boston Morning Drive Radio Dial Sweep | June 1984

Boston Morning Drive Radio Dial Sweep | June 1984

  In summer 1984, I made a trip to Boston… with my boombox. One morning I got up early, and started recording morning drive from up & down Boston’s radio dial. This aircheck features clips of Boston area morning radio shows including: WXKS-FM (Matt Segal) WROR (Joe & Andy) WBZ (Dave Maynard) WBCN (Charles Laquidara) WRBB WMRE (Norm Nathan) WILD WVBF (Loren & Wally) WCAS WRKO WCOZ WHTT ..…

[woodsteingirl]

i love archived radio footage like yes Charles Laquidara on The Big Mattress show on WBCN in Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts..,…. this is soo funny

[bostonmylove-blog]

Tweeted

https://t.co/Y7lkdLCxA9 Charles Laquidara coming back to town for a farewell; might bring Duane Glasscock https://t.co/PLu2h8TuSY #Boston

— Phillip B. Reeves (@bostonmylove) December 5, 2019

[javleech-blog]

New Post has been published on Jav Leech

New Post has been published on https://javleech.com/the-fans-d-mac-unplugged-big-als-pal-on-his-bumpy-denver-radio-rise/

The Fan's D-Mac Unplugged: Big Al's Pal on His Bumpy Denver Radio Rise

  Darren McKee, who is higher regarded to listeners of 104.Three The Fan as D-Mac wasn’t exactly an overnight fulfillment. Today, The Drive with Big Al & D-Mac, the afternoon show he co-hosts with former Denver Broncos exceptional Alfred Williams, is many of the highest-rated packages, sports activities-related or otherwise, on any metro-area radio station, as it’s been for the maximum of the pair’s almost eight years collectively. But as McKee tells us within the following in-intensity interview, his profession route previous to combining forces with Williams become marked by using as many downs as ups, and in all likelihood more.

In verbal exchange, McKee sounds loads like he does on the air. He speaks so passionately that his phrases seem to come with their very own italics and exclamation factors, and he pulls no punches. Among the ones he roughs up below are a former software director and a widespread manager for radio large Clear Channel who fired him twice — once at KBPI, in which he mixed speak with rock, and later at My99.Nine in Colorado Springs, throughout a duration that he portrays as a protracted and laborious adventure through the media wilderness. He also puts longtime Denver speak-radio icon Mike Rosen on blast and shares the moment when Willie B, his onetime teammate at KBPI, become so annoyed that he hurled a pen at his head.

As for Williams, McKee praises him effusively. But he also famous that once they had been first partnered, Big Al didn’t speak to him — and hadn’t achieved so for three months.

With the Broncos at the cusp of a key pre-season match-up day after today, August 19, against the San Francisco 49ers, at some point of which quarterback Paxton Lynch will make a bid to come to be a starter (and attempt to keep away from turning into considered one of the larger busts in nearby sports history), it is the best time to fulfill certainly one of Denver’s most opinionated broadcasters. And do not worry about McKee retaining lower back: As he effortlessly admits inside the following collection of highlights from a top notch ninety-minute chat, “I love to talk!”

Westword: Where are you from at first? And who could you recollect to be some of your early influences in radio?

Darren McKee: I grew up in a suburb north of Boston, and my range-one impact became a man named Charles Laquidara, who labored at WBCN in Boston. He did something referred to as The Big Mattress on WBCN, which become a rock station; he did mornings, and, yeah, he performed statistics. But he additionally had comedy, he talked about politics. It changed into just a mix of the whole lot. And it really is how I grew up taking note of radio. I loved the funny stuff, I cherished the social observation on matters. It wasn’t your conventional morning-zoo form of FM snicker-a-minute form of deal. There was wondering to it. They talked to athletes, they talked sports, and they performed rock track. Even even though it wasn’t a talk show, it was everything that I loved, and I loved it at a young age. I turned into like ten, eleven years antique when I started out being attentive to him, and I in no way genuinely stopped. And I turned into fortunate sufficient to definitely intern for him when I became two decades vintage and I turned into between my sophomore and junior yr of college. I went to Syracuse, however, I got here back home because I got that internship. Man, he becomes it….

The progression of sports activities talks, to me, advanced from the roots of that form of radio inside the beginning. I became not a track-radio fan; I didn’t like track-radio guys despite the fact that I became one for many, many years. But that’s how you start. Because who inside the international desires to pay attention to a 21-, 22-, 23-yr-antique kid speak approximately something? But it really is the way you get into radio….

There become no sports speak returned then, no longer actually. A pre- or a put up-game show or multiple hours on the weekends, something like that. But there has been not anything like there’s now. When you heard people speak me on the radio, it changed into your normal morning-display radio, possibly. But no Howard Stern. I didn’t concentrate to Howard Stern at all developing up as a kid. I was in Boston, and he wasn’t in Boston. It wasn’t till I was given to Syracuse that I even found out approximately any person like Howard Stern. I actually have a super deal of recognition for Howard Stern, but he wasn’t an influence; I didn’t recognize something about him. Didn’t realize some thing approximately Top 40 radio. Boston became a rock market. New York City changed into more of a hip-hop/Top forty market. And after I was given to Syracuse, everything modified. My college radio station at Syracuse, WJPZ, Z-89, became a modern-day-hits radio station, which I idea become lousy.

D-Mac in movement. D-Mac in motion.Facebook What have been the modern-day hits whilst you have been in faculty?

Oh! We’re speaker Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Madonna, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses. Top 40 radio returned then performed everything. It’s so segmented now. You had a George Michael or whatever the hits of the day have been — Rick Astley, all that shock. It changed into 1987 after I was a freshman, and I labored at that radio station for six years, that is loopy. My spouse was my female friend then, and he or she changed into a year at the back of me — and I got a job at a rock station after I graduated. But once I graduated, I still worked on the college radio station. I labored there for a complete 12 months and trade, just doing an expansion of things.

Were you paid? Or became it for a laugh?

It was truly for fun, but we didn’t deal with it like that. If I’ve had any quantity of achievement in what I’ve accomplished, it’s because I went to a college where kids took the media and broadcasting so seriously. Yes, it becomes a laugh. But we, the scholars, got no investment from the college, so we had to go out and sell sponsorships. It changed into non-industrial, so you could not sell conventional classified ads, however, you may say, “This hour of a track is brought to you via XYZ.” It’s just like NPR…. We had been like that. You could not run 9 advertisements an hour; you could run one. However, the policies had been looser on what you could do for merchandising. We ought to do an advertising and say, “Hey, we are going to provide away a trip to Florida” or something. And then you could roll out the sponsors, say, “It’s introduced to you via Pepsi, and it’s delivered to you by way of this, and it is introduced to you with the aid of that.” And you may sell it like that, too. And because we sold our personal sponsorships, we stored the radio station on. We paid the lease, we repaired anything we had to repair. There became no virtual programming in the one’s days. Some of the songs were on information, if you may trust that, however, most of the tune became on carts, which look like 8-track tapes. You could place every person music on these carts; the classified ads, the sponsorships, the imaging — all of it would pass on carts. And the DJ needed to make sure all of this stuff fired. That became paintings! If you cross right into a radio station now, there are not any CDs, there are no carts. Everything is digital, and I’ve completed plenty of that, too, and I’m no longer in opposition to development. But I’m telling you, if you desired to genuinely get worried, desired to get at the air again then, you had to prove that you may run the radio station itself. You had to hit the buttons, you needed to be on the air live. We did not tape anything. And we stayed on 24/7, 365.

My thirty-12 months anniversary of my first on-air shift ever is arising on Thanksgiving. I stayed at Syracuse my freshman 12 months to do the 2-to-6-a.M. Shift on Thanksgiving night time and the next night time as nicely. That’s how busy the station became in terms of getting air shifts. That’s what I needed to do that allows you to get on the air for the first time at my university radio station. But the cause I’m pointing this out is that the environment was so competitive, and I labored with so many talented kids. Newhouse, the school of communications at Syracuse, was noticeably overestimated, due to the fact all of these professors, all they taught become principle. And I desired to do it; I wanted to be in the mix. I wasn’t the greatest scholar, it is for sure. But I changed into locating my competitive spirit at the radio station, due to the fact anyone changed into pushing all people else. And that lesson has served me well through some United states and downs, for positive. It’s a brutal commercial enterprise.

Syracuse is widely recognized for having lots of alumni who have been large in sports journalism. Did you figure with or take lessons with any oldsters who’ve long passed on to the one’s forms of careers?

I worked with Mike Tirico [longtime host of Monday Night Football now with NBC]. Mike by no means worked at WBJZ, however, he becomes a senior when I become a freshman, and we virtually crossed paths due to the fact he started doing sports activities reports at the professional radio station I ended up working on KIX-FM, a conventional-rock station. He did a sports activities-speak display on WFBL, a station that became called Music of Your Life — which became Frank Sinatra track. For anything purpose, the general supervisor offered this one-hour sports-communicate show, however, Mike would get no calls. As well-known as Mike is now, he became just a youngster then.

KIX-FM changed into in the equal building, and I changed into doing the Sunday night six-p.C. On the rock station, where you just put on the CD and you did not anything. You just permit the CD tune through. You’re like “Here’s Tom Petty, and there you cross,” or “Here’s Led Zeppelin, and there you move.” But Mike and I literally shared a pane of glass, and whilst the CD turned into gambling, I’d call in as Fred from Solvay and speak approximately anything Syracuse element was occurring. And he liked it, as it becomes an hour to kill….

A lot of different people went to Syracuse once I did, too. Ian Eagle, who’s been on CBS for a long time. Howard Deneroff, who is in fee of Westwood One programming. Craig Carton, who is the sports activities-communicate host on WFAN in New York City with Boomer Esiason. Mitch Levy was there; he’s been in Seattle for 35 years. And there had been lots of other men sort of like that. So the surroundings in phrases of broadcasting were extraordinary. We failed to realize what all and sundry could grow to be, and most of the people who labored at the radio station haven’t stayed in radio. There’s absolutely best a handful folk who have remained broadcasters during the years. But the matters those human beings have executed have been unreal in terms of their professional lives. It’s the whole iron-sharpens-iron element. Not to head all biblical on you, but that simply become the case at that radio station. It taught me how hard you had to paintings in an effort to move after what you need to do, and it taught me that in case you don’t have the coronary heart for it, in case you do not have the gumption for it, you probably should not be on this commercial enterprise, due to the fact it is so hard. And it turned into difficult for me early on. It wasn’t easy.

What else did you do at KIX?

I was a morning-show producer, after which the morning-show man left — he went to a competitor — and that they employed me as a 22-, 23-yr-vintage, simply out of university, to host the morning display with a pal of mine, Ed Wenck. Ed’s were given a funny call, but he is been in broadcasting all the time; he is a massive name in Indianapolis now. And I didn’t understand that the cause they hired me was to hearth me. They were a small corporation, and that they had been solving to promote the radio station. I idea I turned into extremely good, and that is why I become hired. But when I look back on it, the purpose I changed into employed turned into due to the fact they had been going to promote the radio station and they needed someone to literally hold it in the air. They had no purpose of doing something with me in the future. So they bought the station, became the USA, fired each person, and I ended up getting an activity as a manufacturer at a rock station in Buffalo.

That becomes a big mistake for some time because I went backward. I went behind the curtain. I become a producer, not a number, and I stayed in that producer role for extra than ten years. Yikes. I become presented a task at State College, Pennsylvania, however I concept, “Ah, it is too small.” And going from Syracuse to Buffalo changed into truly a huge deal. I went around and around the mill in Buffalo, however, I got into talk radio. My first actual communicate-radio gig becomes a display known as Infomania. It was on from 10 p.M. To midnight Sundays, and I worked with Dr. Jenny Bagan — and it changed into loopy. Aside from cursing, you could talk approximately something. It becomes billed like a health display, a public-service display. But I became the comic remedy. Jenny becomes the extreme man or woman. And this turned into earlier than Loveline with Adam Carolla. He came on once we had been doing what we had been doing. We were copying a show out of New York City, which was way earlier than Loveline.

[lavleech-blog]

The Fan's D-Mac Unplugged: Big Al's Pal on His Bumpy Denver Radio Rise

New Post has been published on https://javleech.com/the-fans-d-mac-unplugged-big-als-pal-on-his-bumpy-denver-radio-rise/

The Fan's D-Mac Unplugged: Big Al's Pal on His Bumpy Denver Radio Rise

  Darren McKee, who is higher regarded to listeners of 104.Three The Fan as D-Mac wasn’t exactly an overnight fulfillment. Today, The Drive with Big Al & D-Mac, the afternoon show he co-hosts with former Denver Broncos exceptional Alfred Williams, is many of the highest-rated packages, sports activities-related or otherwise, on any metro-area radio station, as it’s been for the maximum of the pair’s almost eight years collectively. But as McKee tells us within the following in-intensity interview, his profession route previous to combining forces with Williams become marked by using as many downs as ups, and in all likelihood more.

In verbal exchange, McKee sounds loads like he does on the air. He speaks so passionately that his phrases seem to come with their very own italics and exclamation factors, and he pulls no punches. Among the ones he roughs up below are a former software director and a widespread manager for radio large Clear Channel who fired him twice — once at KBPI, in which he mixed speak with rock, and later at My99.Nine in Colorado Springs, throughout a duration that he portrays as a protracted and laborious adventure through the media wilderness. He also puts longtime Denver speak-radio icon Mike Rosen on blast and shares the moment when Willie B, his onetime teammate at KBPI, become so annoyed that he hurled a pen at his head.

As for Williams, McKee praises him effusively. But he also famous that once they had been first partnered, Big Al didn’t speak to him — and hadn’t achieved so for three months.

With the Broncos at the cusp of a key pre-season match-up day after today, August 19, against the San Francisco 49ers, at some point of which quarterback Paxton Lynch will make a bid to come to be a starter (and attempt to keep away from turning into considered one of the larger busts in nearby sports history), it is the best time to fulfill certainly one of Denver’s most opinionated broadcasters. And do not worry about McKee retaining lower back: As he effortlessly admits inside the following collection of highlights from a top notch ninety-minute chat, “I love to talk!”

Westword: Where are you from at first? And who could you recollect to be some of your early influences in radio?

Darren McKee: I grew up in a suburb north of Boston, and my range-one impact became a man named Charles Laquidara, who labored at WBCN in Boston. He did something referred to as The Big Mattress on WBCN, which become a rock station; he did mornings, and, yeah, he performed statistics. But he additionally had comedy, he talked about politics. It changed into just a mix of the whole lot. And it really is how I grew up taking note of radio. I loved the funny stuff, I cherished the social observation on matters. It wasn’t your conventional morning-zoo form of FM snicker-a-minute form of deal. There was wondering to it. They talked to athletes, they talked sports, and they performed rock track. Even even though it wasn’t a talk show, it was everything that I loved, and I loved it at a young age. I turned into like ten, eleven years antique when I started out being attentive to him, and I in no way genuinely stopped. And I turned into fortunate sufficient to definitely intern for him when I became two decades vintage and I turned into between my sophomore and junior yr of college. I went to Syracuse, however, I got here back home because I got that internship. Man, he becomes it….

The progression of sports activities talks, to me, advanced from the roots of that form of radio inside the beginning. I became not a track-radio fan; I didn’t like track-radio guys despite the fact that I became one for many, many years. But that’s how you start. Because who inside the international desires to pay attention to a 21-, 22-, 23-yr-antique kid speak approximately something? But it really is the way you get into radio….

There become no sports speak returned then, no longer actually. A pre- or a put up-game show or multiple hours on the weekends, something like that. But there has been not anything like there’s now. When you heard people speak me on the radio, it changed into your normal morning-display radio, possibly. But no Howard Stern. I didn’t concentrate to Howard Stern at all developing up as a kid. I was in Boston, and he wasn’t in Boston. It wasn’t till I was given to Syracuse that I even found out approximately any person like Howard Stern. I actually have a super deal of recognition for Howard Stern, but he wasn’t an influence; I didn’t recognize something about him. Didn’t realize some thing approximately Top 40 radio. Boston became a rock market. New York City changed into more of a hip-hop/Top forty market. And after I was given to Syracuse, everything modified. My college radio station at Syracuse, WJPZ, Z-89, became a modern-day-hits radio station, which I idea become lousy.

D-Mac in movement. D-Mac in motion.Facebook What have been the modern-day hits whilst you have been in faculty?

Oh! We’re speaker Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Madonna, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses. Top 40 radio returned then performed everything. It’s so segmented now. You had a George Michael or whatever the hits of the day have been — Rick Astley, all that shock. It changed into 1987 after I was a freshman, and I labored at that radio station for six years, that is loopy. My spouse was my female friend then, and he or she changed into a year at the back of me — and I got a job at a rock station after I graduated. But once I graduated, I still worked on the college radio station. I labored there for a complete 12 months and trade, just doing an expansion of things.

Were you paid? Or became it for a laugh?

It was truly for fun, but we didn’t deal with it like that. If I’ve had any quantity of achievement in what I’ve accomplished, it’s because I went to a college where kids took the media and broadcasting so seriously. Yes, it becomes a laugh. But we, the scholars, got no investment from the college, so we had to go out and sell sponsorships. It changed into non-industrial, so you could not sell conventional classified ads, however, you may say, “This hour of a track is brought to you via XYZ.” It’s just like NPR…. We had been like that. You could not run 9 advertisements an hour; you could run one. However, the policies had been looser on what you could do for merchandising. We ought to do an advertising and say, “Hey, we are going to provide away a trip to Florida” or something. And then you could roll out the sponsors, say, “It’s introduced to you via Pepsi, and it’s delivered to you by way of this, and it is introduced to you with the aid of that.” And you may sell it like that, too. And because we sold our personal sponsorships, we stored the radio station on. We paid the lease, we repaired anything we had to repair. There became no virtual programming in the one’s days. Some of the songs were on information, if you may trust that, however, most of the tune became on carts, which look like 8-track tapes. You could place every person music on these carts; the classified ads, the sponsorships, the imaging — all of it would pass on carts. And the DJ needed to make sure all of this stuff fired. That became paintings! If you cross right into a radio station now, there are not any CDs, there are no carts. Everything is digital, and I’ve completed plenty of that, too, and I’m no longer in opposition to development. But I’m telling you, if you desired to genuinely get worried, desired to get at the air again then, you had to prove that you may run the radio station itself. You had to hit the buttons, you needed to be on the air live. We did not tape anything. And we stayed on 24/7, 365.

My thirty-12 months anniversary of my first on-air shift ever is arising on Thanksgiving. I stayed at Syracuse my freshman 12 months to do the 2-to-6-a.M. Shift on Thanksgiving night time and the next night time as nicely. That’s how busy the station became in terms of getting air shifts. That’s what I needed to do that allows you to get on the air for the first time at my university radio station. But the cause I’m pointing this out is that the environment was so competitive, and I labored with so many talented kids. Newhouse, the school of communications at Syracuse, was noticeably overestimated, due to the fact all of these professors, all they taught become principle. And I desired to do it; I wanted to be in the mix. I wasn’t the greatest scholar, it is for sure. But I changed into locating my competitive spirit at the radio station, due to the fact anyone changed into pushing all people else. And that lesson has served me well through some United states and downs, for positive. It’s a brutal commercial enterprise.

Syracuse is widely recognized for having lots of alumni who have been large in sports journalism. Did you figure with or take lessons with any oldsters who’ve long passed on to the one’s forms of careers?

I worked with Mike Tirico [longtime host of Monday Night Football now with NBC]. Mike by no means worked at WBJZ, however, he becomes a senior when I become a freshman, and we virtually crossed paths due to the fact he started doing sports activities reports at the professional radio station I ended up working on KIX-FM, a conventional-rock station. He did a sports activities-speak display on WFBL, a station that became called Music of Your Life — which became Frank Sinatra track. For anything purpose, the general supervisor offered this one-hour sports-communicate show, however, Mike would get no calls. As well-known as Mike is now, he became just a youngster then.

KIX-FM changed into in the equal building, and I changed into doing the Sunday night six-p.C. On the rock station, where you just put on the CD and you did not anything. You just permit the CD tune through. You’re like “Here’s Tom Petty, and there you cross,” or “Here’s Led Zeppelin, and there you move.” But Mike and I literally shared a pane of glass, and whilst the CD turned into gambling, I’d call in as Fred from Solvay and speak approximately anything Syracuse element was occurring. And he liked it, as it becomes an hour to kill….

A lot of different people went to Syracuse once I did, too. Ian Eagle, who’s been on CBS for a long time. Howard Deneroff, who is in fee of Westwood One programming. Craig Carton, who is the sports activities-communicate host on WFAN in New York City with Boomer Esiason. Mitch Levy was there; he’s been in Seattle for 35 years. And there had been lots of other men sort of like that. So the surroundings in phrases of broadcasting were extraordinary. We failed to realize what all and sundry could grow to be, and most of the people who labored at the radio station haven’t stayed in radio. There’s absolutely best a handful folk who have remained broadcasters during the years. But the matters those human beings have executed have been unreal in terms of their professional lives. It’s the whole iron-sharpens-iron element. Not to head all biblical on you, but that simply become the case at that radio station. It taught me how hard you had to paintings in an effort to move after what you need to do, and it taught me that in case you don’t have the coronary heart for it, in case you do not have the gumption for it, you probably should not be on this commercial enterprise, due to the fact it is so hard. And it turned into difficult for me early on. It wasn’t easy.

What else did you do at KIX?

I was a morning-show producer, after which the morning-show man left — he went to a competitor — and that they employed me as a 22-, 23-yr-vintage, simply out of university, to host the morning display with a pal of mine, Ed Wenck. Ed’s were given a funny call, but he is been in broadcasting all the time; he is a massive name in Indianapolis now. And I didn’t understand that the cause they hired me was to hearth me. They were a small corporation, and that they had been solving to promote the radio station. I idea I turned into extremely good, and that is why I become hired. But when I look back on it, the purpose I changed into employed turned into due to the fact they had been going to promote the radio station and they needed someone to literally hold it in the air. They had no purpose of doing something with me in the future. So they bought the station, became the USA, fired each person, and I ended up getting an activity as a manufacturer at a rock station in Buffalo.

That becomes a big mistake for some time because I went backward. I went behind the curtain. I become a producer, not a number, and I stayed in that producer role for extra than ten years. Yikes. I become presented a task at State College, Pennsylvania, however I concept, “Ah, it is too small.” And going from Syracuse to Buffalo changed into truly a huge deal. I went around and around the mill in Buffalo, however, I got into talk radio. My first actual communicate-radio gig becomes a display known as Infomania. It was on from 10 p.M. To midnight Sundays, and I worked with Dr. Jenny Bagan — and it changed into loopy. Aside from cursing, you could talk approximately something. It becomes billed like a health display, a public-service display. But I became the comic remedy. Jenny becomes the extreme man or woman. And this turned into earlier than Loveline with Adam Carolla. He came on once we had been doing what we had been doing. We were copying a show out of New York City, which was way earlier than Loveline.