SOIREE LAST NIGHT

What a nice soiree I was invited to last night. Hung out with old friends from Pineville, LA, talked about radio, met some new friends from Ville Platte, talked about radio, had a meal that couldn't be beat with all of them (pictured), and even divulged into cooked animal parts (ribs, my second time ever), I am sure I will be paying for it today, my internal system isn't used to that kind of food!
Had a great time trying to eat some animal flesh once again (although the red wine was excellente') and talking about radio with my Canadian Foreigner friends Ron and Libby (pictured at left with me) last night. Ouch, a monster is growling in my intestines, DAMN THOSE RIBS, either that or my spleen is giving way...
Oh, and ratings for Alexandria will be released tomorrow for this past Spring survey, too bad it's embargoed again, probably just as well.

"SH_T ! Let's re-take that!"

Goot gosh, a sportscaster on channel 36 in Charlotte does a bad pre-recorded take for the early morning sports segment and does another take to make it right (this was the night before it was to air), but a production and/or master control screw up causes the bad take to air, and WHO gets egg on his face and ultimately resigns? The sports guy who wanted the correct take to air. He had been a sportscaster with the station for ELEVEN YEARS, his photo is no longer on the WCNC website. Screw up ONE time and the brass never cares how many years you've given them.
At 5:51 am this past Thursday, July 27, 2006, Chuck Howard (pictured) had recorded his sportscast the night before, and, as we all do in radio and television, had a "flub" or "bad take", so he decides to re-do it. He said "Sh_t, let's re-take that". Plain, simple, common in broadcast, but uncommon for someone to mistakenly air the bad take with the "S" word in it. That's exactly what happened. Now the sports announcer has left a bad taste in the viewers mouths and the person or persons responsible for airing the wrong take are probably wiping their brow thanking their lucky stars they didn't get the blame.
Now, don't start getting images of Janet Jackson's boob in your mind, chances are, it will be forgotten by next week, if not already. The mishap took place before 6:00 am, "safe harbor" time for broadcast, a time when children are not normally watching TV, plus this is a program customized for adults, not children. Add to that the fact that it is reported that NO ONE has called the station to complain and all should be well, except for the embarrassment of the sports guy and losing his job.

In all my years of live morning shows with live phone calls, rarely on delay, I have had a caller, or an unsuspecting song, drop the "F" bomb on my show, I panicked every time, but you know what? We never received one single complaint, or even any calls about it for that matter, at all! And two of the three times it happened my show was in the #1 slot at the time! Once in New Orleans (Contest caller's name was "Dana", a guy, I asked him if anyone ever picked on him 'cause he had a girls name, he said he said "I never let 'em F_CK with me", once in Myrtle Beach (A caller trying to be caller number 98 to win Rolling Stones concert tickets was number 97, before I could get to the winner he said "Well F_CK!"), and once in Alexandria, LA (A Pinkard and Bowden song I had been playing forever "Propane", a take off of Eric Clapton's "Cocaine", I had been playing the concert version which was clean, we had just gotten the studio version in, I played it as soon as I got the cellophane off of it without previewing it, WRONG!). No one complained. I do remember the station Manager and 50% owner was in the control room at the time of the "Propaine" song incident, he was leaning over the edge of the counter talking about something that I was not paying attention to (his lips were moving but I was listening to the song), and I was listening for the end of the song, since it was the first time I had played it and it was a CD, not on hard drive with a secondary tone, I would have to fire the next event manually, and when the "F" bomb dropped, I froze, he stopped talking, there was about three seconds where we both just gazed at each other's eyes as I quickly turned the monitors down, I thought "Holy sh_t, I'm gonna' get it now." He just paused and then continued on with his very imnportant conversation about a remote broadcast coming up and never heard it. I got lucky.
That's me in this photo from 1995 around the time of the "F" bomb-in-the-song incident, I remember the song in question was playing in the top-right Denon CD player. The station manager was leaning on the countertop just to the right of the control board. I was NOT in such happy spirits at the time of the incident.

TODAY'S ROCKIN' DATE IN 1955

Rock and Roll begins! It was on today's date in 1955 that the very first Rock song to make it to #1 was Bill Haley and His Comet's "Rock Around The Clock", spending eight straight weeks at #1. It would be the next year that Elvis Presley would finally have a number one song. Rock Around The Clock would go on to become the biggest selling Rock single in history (even to this day, according to the RIAA and Guiness Book Of World Records), although a Christmas song and a Princess Diana Tribute song sold more in categories other than Rock and Roll.
That's Bill Haley in the pic with lead guitarist for The Comets, Frank Beecher, who just announced last week that he is retiring from touring with the Comets, he ranks right up there with Chet Atkins and Les Paul, he even played with Benny Goodman before joining The Comets, what a career! The picture is from their first German movie, from 1958.
Bill Haley and His Comets also had the very first million-selling Rock single the year before in 1954 with "Shake Rattle & Roll".
And, synonymously, Tom Hanks turns 50 years old today, it has been reported that Hanks is working on a motion picture about the life of Bill Haley, he has been quoted as saying "...Haley's life is one that needs to be told..."
Oh, and it was also on today's date, the same year, 1955, that Pat Boone debuted on the charts with his version of "Ain't That A Shame", just thought I'd throw that in there.

BILLBOARD buys R&R

Geeze, after The Bobby Poe Survey shut down, I didn't think Gavin would EVER fold, but it did. Now Billboard's parent company, VNU, has purchased R&R Magazine. The two last major radio trade publications that have not yet yielded to an all digital on line radio magazine will soon be one magazine, sort of like the end of an era. I can say that I think I have read every issue of Billboard and R&R since 1979, and have been featured in several issues of both, woo hoo! So I guess it is like the end of a good, long run for those of us in the biz that used to depend on those two publications for our much needed window to the radio world outside of our own towns. Allaccess.com has sort of taken away the "eagerness" to get that new issue of R&R or Billboard each week, especially the "Vox Jox" section in Billboard (my favorite column), since allaccess.com has all the radio world news bright and early before 11am every weekday.
There are pros and cons to this merge, many say that R&R has turned into a 'Rag magazine" over the years, others say that Billboard is a joke. Either way, it is what you make of it, if they keep all the main components of R&R, the new combo will continue to be a tool of the trade for this radio buff.