John H Garabedian's greatest hits

[Varulven]

As Simon Kirke (of Free, Bad Company and Ringo Starr's bands) was coming through town yesterday I interviewed him for Visual Radio on his new Uni DVD re: the band FREE and his Drum instruction DVD (all the Bad Company/Free hits and how to play them!). My opening line was "When John H. Garabedian fused "------ Tonk Women"'s "divorcee" line with "Let's Move Before We Raise The Parking Rate" from All Right Now, it was hilarious.

Does John H still have fun with editing two songs together? He took the two risqué parts of both songs (that had the same similar riff; in the case of "All Right Now" it was a mondegreen (parking rate sounding like..."f..ng rate). Simon said the BBC made them pull out the 24 track master and isolate the word to make sure Paul Rodgers was singing a clean word!

Boy could we use Garabedian programming today instead of just his house party. As a fan of John H - I'd love to hear more anecdotes about his antics

John Garabedian's site
http://www.openhouseparty.com/

p.s. Radio-Info automatically edits hawwwn key tawnk women. Wow. Talk about mondegreen! A computer mondegreen. Wonder how the radio-info computer would translate "Louie, Louie"???

 

[Ron Jippey]

They're called "mash-ups", Joe and have existed for years.

 

[raccoonradio]

Some songs sound so alike you could mash them together...
--ROCK in the USA--John Cougar Mellencamp
and
--WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU--The Romantics

 

[Varulven]

You are right, Raccoon, my point was that John H. Garabedian was doing it in 1970 with some questionable lyrics and it worked very well. I'm looking for other anecdotes about John H. - how he broke Maggie Mae by Rod Stewart, pioneering stuff that is much needed in the new millennium.

 

[Smoke]

Stop looking to the past to find the future.

 

[Garrett]

As Simon Kirke (of Free, Bad Company and Ringo Starr's bands) was coming through town yesterday I interviewed him for Visual Radio on his new Uni DVD re: the band FREE and his Drum instruction DVD (all the Bad Company/Free hits and how to play them!). My opening line was "When John H. Garabedian fused "------ Tonk Women"'s "divorcee" line with "Let's Move Before We Raise The Parking Rate" from All Right Now, it was hilarious.

Does John H still have fun with editing two songs together? He took the two risqué parts of both songs (that had the same similar riff; in the case of "All Right Now" it was a mondegreen (parking rate sounding like..."f..ng rate). Simon said the BBC made them pull out the 24 track master and isolate the word to make sure Paul Rodgers was singing a clean word!

Boy could we use Garabedian programming today instead of just his house party. As a fan of John H - I'd love to hear more anecdotes about his antics

John Garabedian's site
http://www.openhouseparty.com/

p.s. Radio-Info automatically edits hawwwn key tawnk women. Wow. Talk about mondegreen! A computer mondegreen. Wonder how the radio-info computer would translate "Louie, Louie"???

What IN THE WORLD could this Possibly have to do with Boston radio!?!

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Boy could we use Garabedian programming today instead of just his house party. As a fan of John H - I'd love to hear more anecdotes about his antics

John Garabedian's site
http://www.openhouseparty.com/

What IN THE WORLD could this Possibly have to do with Boston radio!?!

Garrett, this board is open to Boston radio listeners of all ages, to discuss all eras and people of Boston radio, past and present, from it's rich history, to today's latest programming, gossip, trends, and rumors.

From your posts, I gather that you began listening to Boston radio in the mid-1980's. There's nothing wrong with that. We have people here who have been listening or involved in the area for a lot less time than that.

The problem is that whenever someone brings up someone or something whose heyday in Boston radio was before your listening time, you become annnoyed and protest that the person or the subject discussed has nothing to do with Boston radio, either because you're not familiar with the person, or because it's simply irrelevent to you personally and to your own personal time-frame of reference.

Yes, it's true that John H. Garabedian now syndicates a national show, but he was a very influential person specifically in Boston broadcasting for a couple of decades. First off, he was on WMEX in the 60's, a station which may be history book material to you, but was legendary in it's day for those of us who grew up here listening to it at the time.

He was on WBCN at various times in the late 60's and 70's back when it was Boston's pioneering, innovative, and groundbreaking album rocker, and he also returned to WMEX in the early 70's and established an unusual hybrid Top 40/AOR mix on AM radio which briefly beat Top 40 leader WRKO in the ratings despite their far superior signal.

Garabedian also founded and ran his own Metro-West Top 40 station WGTR in Natick in the mid-70's (the frequency which is now WBIX), and built 50,000 watt 96.3 FM in Nantucket (now CHR WRZE "The Rose"), both of which he sold to help finance his building of Boston's only over-the-air music video TV station WVJV Channel 66 in the mid-80's, which for a few years locally surpassed the ratings of the early MTV before cable TV became as widespread.

He could've retired after selling the TV station for millions to Home Shopping, but his efforts since then have been radio on the national scale with his SuperRadio syndication and satellite service and his own national CHR show "Open House Party" (which began at first as a live weekend shift on Kiss-108), all of which he now does from his Southborough home.

Garabedian was quite a presence in Boston broadcasting. As well, even Howard Stern was local at one time. His first radio experience was at WTBU, the closed-circuit student station at B.U., and his first on-air work was at WNTN in Newton when it was a progressive album rocker on AM radio in the mid-70's (catching the AOR audience who had cars with only AM radios, still common in those days, and so couldn't hear WBCN).

Please let people here talk about people and things in Boston radio that may be irrelevent to you or whose local involvement may have been before your time frame of reference. If it either bothers or bores you, you can always scroll by instead of protesting arrogantly. There is no one making you read any posts.

 

[Varulven]

Eli, Thank you for the great John H. information. Didn't know about 96.3 THE ROSE being one of his properties! Last time I saw John H. was a Thanksgiving at Joe Perry's place many moons ago. He is a legend and this is important Boston radio stuff. A national critic who you saw at the Steppenwolf Oldies 103 concert thought the John H. story opening the Simon Kirke interview was a very cool idea.

Garabedian is a very sharp businessman as well as a major radio talent. Despite the money he (and presumably Arnie Woo Woo) made on V-66, he always found OPM (Other People's Money) to invest in newer ventures like Open House Party.

Also, Eli, thank you for speaking up about John Garabedian's importance to Boston radio. The 178 hits on this thread so far seem to indicate people are interested in his legend.

 

[broken headphones]

WOW, play nice kids...............

 

[everyday magic]

There's usually good Boston radio chatter in here. You get the occasional thread disrupter like Django. Just tune it out.

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

Eli:

Thanks for the information on John, I learned a few new things today so that's cool

Notice the complainer didn't have a rebutal for ya?

 

[Garrett]

Boy could we use Garabedian programming today instead of just his house party. As a fan of John H - I'd love to hear more anecdotes about his antics

John Garabedian's site
http://www.openhouseparty.com/

What IN THE WORLD could this Possibly have to do with Boston radio!?!

Garrett, this board is open to Boston radio listeners of all ages, to discuss all eras and people of Boston radio, past and present, from it's rich history, to today's latest programming, gossip, trends, and rumors.

From your posts, I gather that you began listening to Boston radio in the mid-1980's. There's nothing wrong with that. We have people here who have been listening or involved in the area for a lot less time than that.

The problem is that whenever someone brings up someone or something whose heyday in Boston radio was before your listening time, you become annnoyed and protest that the person or the subject discussed has nothing to do with Boston radio, either because you're not familiar with the person, or because it's simply irrelevent to you personally and to your own personal time-frame of reference.

Yes, it's true that John H. Garabedian now syndicates a national show, but he was a very influential person specifically in Boston broadcasting for a couple of decades. First off, he was on WMEX in the 60's, a station which may be history book material to you, but was legendary in it's day for those of us who grew up here listening to it at the time.

He was on WBCN at various times in the late 60's and 70's back when it was Boston's pioneering, innovative, and groundbreaking album rocker, and he also returned to WMEX in the early 70's and established an unusual hybrid Top 40/AOR mix on AM radio which briefly beat Top 40 leader WRKO in the ratings despite their far superior signal.

Garabedian also founded and ran his own Metro-West Top 40 station WGTR in Natick in the mid-70's (the frequency which is now WBIX), and built 50,000 watt 96.3 FM in Nantucket (now CHR WRZE "The Rose"), both of which he sold to help finance his building of Boston's only over-the-air music video TV station WVJV Channel 66 in the mid-80's, which for a few years locally surpassed the ratings of the early MTV before cable TV became as widespread.

He could've retired after selling the TV station for millions to Home Shopping, but his efforts since then have been radio on the national scale with his SuperRadio syndication and satellite service and his own national CHR show "Open House Party" (which began at first as a live weekend shift on Kiss-108), all of which he now does from his Southborough home.

Garabedian was quite a presence in Boston broadcasting. As well, even Howard Stern was local at one time. His first radio experience was at WTBU, the closed-circuit student station at B.U., and his first on-air work was at WNTN in Newton when it was a progressive album rocker on AM radio in the mid-70's (catching the AOR audience who had cars with only AM radios, still common in those days, and so couldn't hear WBCN).

Please let people here talk about people and things in Boston radio that may be irrelevent to you or whose local involvement may have been before your time frame of reference. If it either bothers or bores you, you can always scroll by instead of protesting arrogantly. There is no one making you read any posts.

I am well aware that John worked in Boston. But heck, if that's the criteria we're going to use, we could talk about almost any show in here, simply because somebody on the show "worked" in Boston.

The trouble is, your post wasn't about anything related to Boston. I'm sick and tired of reading about every syndicated show just because "it happens to run on a Boston radio show" or because "the host once worked in Boston in the 1960s." At least if you are going to do that, say how it relates. But yoiu know? There's a National board for talking about syndicated fair.

So if you want to lecture me like a little 2 year old, hey, go ahead. But if we are going to talk about every single thing here just because a staff member worked in Boston once upon a time, then we might as well rename the board, because A LOT of people worked here once. If you are going to talk about someone who worked here, at least say why it matters.

Geez, nobody follows the rules anymore...

 

[Varulven]

It's a syndicated show, yes, launched on Kiss 108 by a local personality. This also turned out to be a highly popular thread today. Like Paul Walker, I thank Eli for his amazing knowledge of Boston radio.

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

I think the subject line "John Garabedian" says enough and no one needs to state "why it matters"... but Garrett seems to think he's in charge.

John, from what I can tell.. made a huge impact and big difference in Boston radio/tv long before I was alive....

 

[Varulven]

Paul Walker - I can remember John H's voice in my ear when the news about Jim Morrison came across the wire. John H (Garabedian, he was known as John H on WMEX) was just a fantastic personality willing to take chances.
I wasn't too happy about Dick Summer's "The Loving Touch" on MEX - very chick oriented la la stuff, but Garabedian ran a good ship and they made WRKO (and probably WBZ AM) go on records that 680 AM would never have gone on if they didn't have competition that they did. When the owner died and his brother ruptured everything at 1510 AM Top 40 radio in Boston was never the same, in my opinion. Garabedian influenced many of us. Nice guy in person too.

 

[salesdawg]

Geez, nobody follows the rules anymore...

I'm gonna take my ball and go home. :

 

[Eli Polonsky]

I am well aware that John worked in Boston. But heck, if that's the criteria we're going to use, we could talk about almost any show in here, simply because somebody on the show "worked" in Boston.

The trouble is, your post wasn't about anything related to Boston. I'm sick and tired of reading about every syndicated show just because "it happens to run on a Boston radio show" or because "the host once worked in Boston in the 1960s." At least if you are going to do that, say how it relates. But yoiu know? There's a National board for talking about syndicated fair.

So if you want to lecture me like a little 2 year old, hey, go ahead. But if we are going to talk about every single thing here just because a staff member worked in Boston once upon a time, then we might as well rename the board, because A LOT of people worked here once. If you are going to talk about someone who worked here, at least say why it matters.

Geez, nobody follows the rules anymore...

Some people reading the Boston board may be interested in hearing about what some popular, formerly local Boston personalities are now doing on a national scale without having to go to the National board. It's of interest to people on this board to know what people they grew up listening to in Boston are doing now.

Should we not mention on the Boston board the fact that Charles Laquidara is doing a weekly show streaming on a volunteer non-comm 100 watt community station in Hawaii? Or should that only be posted on the Hawaii board and nowhere else, despite the fact that Laquidara was an extremely popular local Boston air personality for over thirty years?

If a thread is truly irrelevent, the moderators will move it to somewhere else appropriate such as the National board or the Off-The-Air board. That is their function.

Since you complain frequently about the alleged irrelevance of many threads, perhaps you should apply to become a moderator and enforce the rules in an official capacity, instead of being a self-appointed armchair topic-cop. The job does require some tolerance, tact and diplomacy.

Garabedian influenced many of us. Nice guy in person too.

I met Garabedian in 1973 when I was a teenager. A couple of friends and I visited him at his Natick station WGTR. It was pretty funny. He thought we were outdated 60's hippie kids because we were still into jamming out to the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers. He was saying those hippie bands were already passé, and heavily produced progressive rock like the Moody Blues, Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, etc... were what was happening in national AOR-style rock in 1973. He was really nice and hospitable to us nonetheless, and he seemed really interested in hearing our feedback about his station.

 

[Varulven]

Eli, close to 500 people have read this popular thread. Your knowledge, Garabedian's contribution to Boston radio, all important and - obviously - of interest to half a thousand people in the past couple of days. I've said it before, chats on a Star Trek board get invaded by people who don't even like Star Trek, within the wild frontier that is the internet there's a superhighway of information and a lot of anonymous people with nothing better to do. I'm a little surprised Garrett pulled his trigger on this thread - Laquidara, Garabedian, Bud Ballou, Dale Dorman, all great topics even if all 4 are not on Oldies 103.3 every morning from a Boston based studio.

 

[sp113]

Geez, nobody follows the rules anymore...

I didn't realize you were the moderator!

 

[RexManning]

does john's open house party still originate in mass?