• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

DISCO!;MARK SIMONE RE WRITES (HIS) HISTORY ON ABC OLDIES

L

lalumia

Mark Simone just played "Who Loves You" by the Four Seasons on the WABC Sat.Nite.Oldies,and went off on Disco, and the people who hated disco in the 70s,and how much he liked Disco:
I recall this very same Mark Simone, at the time doing mornings at WPIX FM(punk/new wave at the time,78/79) introducing Jimi La Lumia & the Psychotic Frogs on stage at the Diplomat Hotel in NYC behind the underground sucess of the single "Death To Disco-Disco Sucks",and bashing disco with great regularity at the time..
"Death To Disco" wound up being the only 'punk' record to ever get played on Music Radio 77WABC 2 years later,when we snuck it onto the Top 9 at 9 with Howard Hoffman;one night, one spin only, but still the ONLY punk record ever played on the biggest Top 40 station ever...
 
Mark Simone was a disco DJ for several years. He did the first big disco show on New York radio -- Disco 102. 8pm-Midnight on WPIX 102 in the 70's. They played a lot of the great club mixes and 12 inch versions you couldn't hear anywhere else on radio.

I also saw him appear as a special guest club DJ, once in Studio 54 and once at a big club in Long Island (can't remember the name).
 
well, then he kept it in the closet during the PIX punk years(78/79/80)and had no problem doing the intro for us at our gig in 78
 
radio mike said:
Mark Simone was a disco DJ for several years. He did the first big disco show on New York radio -- Disco 102. 8pm-Midnight on WPIX 102 in the 70's.
Click to expand...

However, Howard Hoffman did that show prior to Simone's arrival at WPIX.
 
lalumia said:
well, then he kept it in the closet during the PIX punk years(78/79/80)and had no problem doing the intro for us at our gig in 78
Click to expand...

Well, duh! A good jock will always make it sound like he's really into what he's playing, even if he hates it. It goes with the territory. How long do you think he'd have lasted coming out of the Clash & going on about how much he loved Donna Summer? Or vice versa.
 
A radio professional is just that. A radio professional. Mark also played adult standards for a period of time.

During the so-called "hippie era" DJ's were often into it because it was the music that mattered. Those same DJ's soon discovered that if you wanted to survive in the business, your love for radio had to be greater than your love for a particular form of music. One day your station could be B/EZ, the next day country. If you wanted to survive, you adapted. Period.

That is why Mark still has a job, and can also do talk shows!
 
Listen, Simone is what he is, talking out of any side of his mouth he can in order to feed it. There is much better fare on Saturday nite to listen to.
 
However, Howard Hoffman did that show prior to Simone's arrival at WPIX
WRONG; Simone was on PIX in 78, and Hoffman was on WABC in 1980,thanks for playing
b]fortunately, I save stuff; I have the half page ad in the village voice for the diplomat appearance in 1978;
and then,this, from NEWSDAY,Part 2,page 67, in the Wed.,June 18,1980 issue
"PSYCHOTIC FROG DOES IT"
The Psychotic Frog did it.The local band and a host of friends programmed WABC-AM/770 last Thursday night:they put the Frogs "Death To Disco" into one of the big top 10 powerhouses.They did it by having a lot of people phone in to DJ Howard Hoffman's Top 5 at 10 show, in which listeners vote for the records they want to hear at 10 PM.Now, 179 people voted from the Record Stop in Ronkonkoma and people were supposed to be voting elsewhere,but WABC recognized only 120 votes.Still,it was enough to give the Frogs song "Death To Disco"a fourth place and about four minutes of air time.And WABC even had the record,no mean accomplishment.But the 'censors' got a crack at it and what went over the air were a lot of 50,000 -watt bleeps ,and the word they were bleeping was not on the procribed list,although it's not used in polite company.Hoffman wrapped it up by saying "The opinions expressed by the preceding record are not those of WABC or it sponsors"[/b]

they got a lot of it wrong, but what they did get right was that we did get played, between Blondie "Call Me' and Pink Floyd's "Brick In The Wall" in June 1980 on WABC on the Top 9 at 9 on the Howard Hoffman show,;he still recalls the incident, look him up, he'll tell you all about it.
Our 'ballot box stuffing' stunt was also covered in the Daily News, Billboard etc, and that night, WABC annnounced that you could vote for any record THAT WAS IN THEIR MUSIC LIBRARY(we had express mailed them a copy of the single with delivery certification,and announced it in advance to NEWSDAY< DAILY NEWS,etc as a challenge to the credibility of the Top 9 at 9, at a time when radio took such challenges seriously-THANK GOD...lol
and by the way, we had A LOT more than 179 votes; there were over 500 unique votes just from Record Stop itself(people came to vote from all over after reading about it in NEWSDAY etc, we had enough votes to be #1 that night, which was the plan, but they placed us at 8, between Blondie and Floyd;
nonetheless, the ONLY real PUNK record EVER played on the most legendary Top 40 station in history, in prime time, no less..even if it was only one spin!
 
lalumia said:
However, Howard Hoffman did that show prior to Simone's arrival at WPIX
WRONG; Simone was on PIX in 78, and Hoffman was on WABC in 1980,thanks for playing
b]
Click to expand...

WRONG! Howard Hoffman was at WPIX in 1976 doing DISCO 102!

Disco 102 was on a couple of years before 92.3 WKTU signed on with their disco format in July of 1978.
 
I'm sorry, I thought you were stating that Howard did the WABC evening show prior to Simone's PIX stint(thereby insinuating that I was making up my own time line)...having re read the original statement, I see that I mis read it...it's all good
www.myspace.com/thejimilalumia
 
Somewhere I have an aircheck of Simone talking up "Ding Dong Disco's Dead". I'll have to dig thru the stacks to find it.

jp
 
I heard Mark's anit-disco comments last Saturday night. While "Who Loves You" is a decent dance record, I wouldn't call it disco. As for Mark's disco past and then switching to Punk rock...so what? There's a funny line between disco and New Wave. Tell me that The Clash "The Magnificent Seven" isn't disco. How about Ian Dury & THe Blockheads "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick"? Mark seems like someone who bash Punk rock on WABC, if he had a reason to.
 
"The Magnificent Seven" is in no shape or form, "Disco". It could easily be classified as DOR (Dance Oriented Rock) which was very big at the time.

jp
 
not to mention the fact that I was THE ORIGINAL disco bashing punk(My nationally reviewed single which sold quite well with no (triple xxx) airplay,was out and high profile nationally a year and a half before steve dahl thought I had a good idea) and then I converted to disco/dance as a retailer, a DJ,and then a series of non-Psychotic Frogs Top 20 singles on the Billboard Dance Saleschart in the past decade....
don't tell anyone, but I never really hated disco, there was an exploitive door to be opened,and I opened it
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom