Time to face reality :)

[stoshman]

No static at all

 

[waunderlust]

WOW! FM. I think I only saw that once, but it left a lasting impression. Especially when "swan" locked himself in the control room and kept repeating his sob story that nobody loved him on the air. (How many people have YOU worked with that were just one step away from that?)

On the other hand, the 2 Lp soundtrack came in REAL handy at bar gigs/parties where they expected the Top 40 jock to have some classic rock. Remember carting around Lp's to gigs in milk crates? You put the junkiest records on the outside to cushion the better ones on the inside.

I gotta rent that movie.

 

[yonkstur]

I first got hooked on radio at a remote that Jim Ward and Johnny Murgas ran at what is now the Bonton at the Midway Shopping Center, Wyoming. They let me hand out records (you know those demos no one wanted) but people snatched up at a remote. The next day in school it was all over that I was on the radio. 6th Grade and all of a sudden the decent looking girls were talking to me.
Another Ward story, this was when he was on WBAX. There was an appliance store in Shickshinny that I think is still there on the corner. He was talking it up so much I convinced an uncle to drive me there. Now back then, as you headed down Rt. 11, ‘BAX faded. Anyway, we got there and two people were there. One was the jock. A guy named Pete Rinker, did noon to 4pm back in ’66. My uncle asks the guy, much to my embarrassment, “how’s the pay?” Pete says, “Really bad but people know you and think you’re a celebrity”. We get back in the car and my uncle says, “Go to college! Be anonymous!”
There was an ice cream in the ‘60s called Leightman’s. One day Ward, Johnny Margas and Lee Vincent were at a remote on the hottest day of the year. Don’t remember where but I want to say it was that carwash, Mr. Kleen in Exeter. Ward is touting how delicious the ice cream was and how he had gallons and gallons of the stuff to give away on the hottest day of the summer. Now in your mind, you pictured Ward, Johnny and Lee scooping up the delicacy to hot listeners. I persuaded my buddies to ride their bikes from Pittston to get this delicious ice cream because Jim Ward said so. When we got there, we were given coupons for a gallon of ice cream. One of my friends let fly with his very first “F bomb”, “we got a ******’ piece of paper!” We later found out the coupon could only be redeemed in supermarkets in Berwick!

The Tire Giant! Yep, that would be it. Geez, after one remote, even I bought four new tires from him. Nice guy, anyone recall his name?

Ed Grescavage.

Play Misty for Me is the only one coming to mind. The story of an overnight jock making a ton of money in a tiny town didn't wash worth turd.

The town was supposed to be Carmel, California. Eastwood later became Mayor there. Saw it at the old American Theatre in Pittston. At age 17, couldn’t imagine him passing up Jessica Walter no matter how crazy she was.

I gotta rent that movie. FM

You should. Or buy it. It was great.

Yonkstur

 

[Tom Woods]

The best story about Jim Ward was him doig a remote at Kurlanchiks Furniture on Carey Ave near the Crossroads in Hanover Township...It was a Polka Weekend and he was telling everybody that people were doing the polka on the showroom floor...It must have sounded great because in about and hour and a half he had about 150 people dancing all over the store.

 

[Zenith Transoceanic]

A quote usually attributed to Hunter S. Thompson, and fittingly enough considering the topic, neither entirely true nor entirely his words, that is when he said it he wasn't talking about radio but television and the "negative side" remark was added by someone else, but still appropos, "The radio business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

Funny... Rolling Stone once ran that quote, saying it was "The music business". (the recording industry)