When on-air personalities offer fiction instead of facts

[hellohello]

Rivers wanted some "facts" regarding on-air jocks and false information -

a J.J. Right saying "That was Big Brother & The Holding Company with Me &
Bobby McGhee" (actually, that was two bands ago - Joplin formed Kozmic Blues band then Full Tilt Boogie Band - NO members of Big Brother were on the Full Tilt sessions).

Howie Carr calling Davey Jones of The Monkees "Peter Noone" - or blaming the Oklahoma City bombing on "Towel Heads" (a much more egregious "error") -

or the Sunday afternoon WZLX jock (male, 10/16/05, didn't get his name)
who said NBC TV bought the name "The Dream"
from Extreme. Not entirely correct - The Dream's manager had trademarked the name and had to send the old cease and desist and go through a settlement process. The weekend jock was rambling on about The Dream being a Monday night fixture at Bunrattys and suddenly, some TV network hands them a lot of cash.

In most professions you have to have your act together. This board will bash Clea Simon for "retyping" press releases, why is Clea held to a higher standard than disc jockeys?


Jayson Blair, Patricia Smith, Mike Barnicle may have made it up as they went along, but they also gave a black eye to The Boston Globe or New York Times. Why does the radio profession - with people in the shadows on this board (in particular) - getting so uppity - give people a pass.

By the way, I like J.J. Wright. He had another flub a few weeks back which escapes me at this moment - but being an On Air Personality means having your facts straight. And in this day and age of Google there's just no excuse for telling Diana Ross that your favorite song by her is one she never sang - as one poster put on this site ahile back (along with the above Carr information).
So there - crediting a source I can't remember, but responding to "Rivers"

 

[Smoke]

Reality Check

> a J.J. Right saying "That was Big Brother & The Holding
> Company with Me &
> Bobby McGhee" (actually, that was two bands ago - Joplin
> formed Kozmic Blues band then Full Tilt Boogie Band - NO
> members of Big Brother were on the Full Tilt sessions).

OK, a DJ makes a mistake with a band name.

> Howie Carr calling Davey Jones of The Monkees "Peter Noone"
> - or blaming the Oklahoma City bombing on "Towel Heads" (a
> much more egregious "error") -

Is that the most serious offence, getting the name wrong of some hack actor? Many people, not just Carr, assumed Arabs were responsible for the OK. City attack.

> or the Sunday afternoon WZLX jock (male, 10/16/05, didn't
> get his name)
> who said NBC TV bought the name "The Dream"
> from Extreme. Not entirely correct - The Dream's manager
> had trademarked the name and had to send the old cease and
> desist and go through a settlement process. The weekend
> jock was rambling on about The Dream being a Monday night
> fixture at Bunrattys and suddenly, some TV network hands
> them a lot of cash.

Oh noes, not that!

> In most professions you have to have your act together.
> This board will bash Clea Simon for "retyping" press
> releases, why is Clea held to a higher standard than disc
> jockeys?

Clea Simon is supposed to be edited and fact-checked, not only herself reviewing her work, but editors as well. She's not live.

> Jayson Blair, Patricia Smith, Mike Barnicle may have made it
> up as they went along, but they also gave a black eye to The
> Boston Globe or New York Times. Why does the radio
> profession - with people in the shadows on this board (in
> particular) - getting so uppity - give people a pass.

Radio is entertainment, newspapers are supposed to be news. A comedian can bomb in a club, but a paramedic better not make a mistake; there's different expectations. You're lumping everything together as "the media" without any differences.

> By the way, I like J.J. Wright. He had another flub a few
> weeks back which escapes me at this moment - but being an On
> Air Personality means having your facts straight.

Being a news anchor or reporter means getting your facts straight. Being a DJ isn't a critical information job in most situations, and so it's not held to those standards that hard news does.

> And in
> this day and age of Google there's just no excuse for
> telling Diana Ross that your favorite song by her is one she
> never sang - as one poster put on this site ahile back
> (along with the above Carr information).

You don't get humor.

 

[raccoonradio]

Sometimes there are mistakes which could be honest mistakes. A couple times
during ESPN Radio's coverage of the White Sox-Angels series, an Angels
pitcher was replaced and the organist at US Cellular Field played "Na Na
Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)". ESPN's Jon Miller said, each time, "And
there's organist Nancy Faust playing the traditional..."

Problem: Nancy went up to Wurlitzer Heaven a couple years back. Not sure who is playing keyboards over at what-used-to-be-Comiskey Park, but Nancy (whose
rendition of the Steam song helped make it popular at sports events) is no
longer with us. Maybe Miller was just unaware that she had passed away...
Am sure it was a live rendition of the song and not a tape of Nancy but who knows.
<P ID="signature">______________
I am the REAL raccoonradio (2 c's). Accept
no substitutes!</P>

 

[Eli Polonsky]

I think Patrick Callahan's "Thursday Night Countdown" is perhaps the best feature show on WODS. He plays the actual Billboard Top 20 for that given week in of one the years of WODS's musical era (usually a year from the mid-60's to the mid-70's), including songs that were Top 20 then, but still are not in their everyday rotation now.

To pad extra time in the two-hour feature, he plays what he calls "chart extras", songs that were below the Top 20 in that given week of that year. Sometimes they're bigger hits that were new and still climbing to the Top 20, or ones that had left the Top 20 and were decending, but sometimes he pulls out some surprises for "chart extras" that never made the Top 20 at all.

Anyway, the show is full of trivia about the artists, songs and music, obviously very well researched and practically all correct, but I caught one mistake, and it's a fairly common one that I've heard elsewhere. When the hit "One Toke Over The Line" by Brewer & Shipley came up in a countdown, Patrick announced that the guitar in the song was played by the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, but it wasn't.

The original album that the song was from had a listing of guest musicians on the album jacket, and Garcia is listed, but the list never specified which tracks the guest musicians appeared on, only their names.

People just assumed that it was Garcia playing on the hit song "One Toke", but he actually played only on one obscure track on the album called "Oh, Mommy", which got no commercial airplay past WBCN's early "underground" years. I tried to call to correct him, but he wasn't answering the listener line at the time.

Another gaffe I've heard on WODS concerns the fact that there are two completely different songs that they may play in a countdown or specialty feature called "Games People Play", a countryish-rock hit by Joe South, and an R&B hit by The Spinners, both different songs with the same title. I've heard them get tripped up by playing the wrong song after talking up the other one a few times, I'm assuming after calling it up by title on a computer.

 

[ChuckIgo]

> I think Patrick Callahan's "Thursday Night Countdown" is
> perhaps the best feature show on WODS.
> Anyway, the show is full of trivia about the artists, songs
> and music, obviously very well researched and practically
> all correct, but I caught one mistake, and it's a fairly
> common one that I've heard elsewhere. When the hit "One Toke
> Over The Line" by Brewer & Shipley came up in a countdown,
> Patrick announced that the guitar in the song was played by
> the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, but it wasn't.
>

there are those of us in radio who rely on many sources of info & trivia in order to freshen up an intro or backsell. among the sources, there are websites that often list artist or recording info that may or may not be credible.

in just about every studio, however, is a source on which we have all come to accept as close to gospel as possible: Joel Whitburn.

in the Top Pop Singles, 1955-1999, page 74, Mr.Whitburn does indeed credit Brewer & Shipley's "One Toke Over The Line" as having peaked at #10 (14 weeks on the chart beginning 2/13/71) "Jerry Garcia(of Grateful Dead; steel guitar)"

for the price we (or our stations) pay for these books, we expect a higher level of accuracy, for sure.

 

[WizardofProd]

Re: Reality Check

> > a J.J. Right saying "That was Big Brother & The Holding
> > Company with Me &
> > Bobby McGhee" (actually, that was two bands ago - Joplin
> > formed Kozmic Blues band then Full Tilt Boogie Band - NO
> > members of Big Brother were on the Full Tilt sessions).
>
> OK, a DJ makes a mistake with a band name.
>
> > Howie Carr calling Davey Jones of The Monkees "Peter
> Noone"
> > - or blaming the Oklahoma City bombing on "Towel Heads" (a
>
> > much more egregious "error") -
>
> Is that the most serious offence, getting the name wrong of
> some hack actor? Many people, not just Carr, assumed Arabs
> were responsible for the OK. City attack.
>
> > or the Sunday afternoon WZLX jock (male, 10/16/05, didn't
> > get his name)
> > who said NBC TV bought the name "The Dream"
> > from Extreme. Not entirely correct - The Dream's manager
>
> > had trademarked the name and had to send the old cease and
>
> > desist and go through a settlement process. The weekend
> > jock was rambling on about The Dream being a Monday night
> > fixture at Bunrattys and suddenly, some TV network hands
> > them a lot of cash.
>
> Oh noes, not that!
>
> > In most professions you have to have your act together.
> > This board will bash Clea Simon for "retyping" press
> > releases, why is Clea held to a higher standard than disc
> > jockeys?
>
> Clea Simon is supposed to be edited and fact-checked, not
> only herself reviewing her work, but editors as well. She's
> not live.
>
> > Jayson Blair, Patricia Smith, Mike Barnicle may have made
> it
> > up as they went along, but they also gave a black eye to
> The
> > Boston Globe or New York Times. Why does the radio
> > profession - with people in the shadows on this board (in
> > particular) - getting so uppity - give people a pass.
>
> Radio is entertainment, newspapers are supposed to be news.
> A comedian can bomb in a club, but a paramedic better not
> make a mistake; there's different expectations. You're
> lumping everything together as "the media" without any
> differences.
>
> > By the way, I like J.J. Wright. He had another flub a few
>
> > weeks back which escapes me at this moment - but being an
> On
> > Air Personality means having your facts straight.
>
> Being a news anchor or reporter means getting your facts
> straight. Being a DJ isn't a critical information job in
> most situations, and so it's not held to those standards
> that hard news does.
>
> > And in
> > this day and age of Google there's just no excuse for
> > telling Diana Ross that your favorite song by her is one
> she
> > never sang - as one poster put on this site ahile back
> > (along with the above Carr information).
>
> You don't get humor.
>
Smoke is correct as for Clea Simon I dont remember anyone giving her grief for re typing a press release, if she did that she might get something right for a change. Clea writes her stories on radio which she has been doing for over 15 years now she should at least be familliar with call letters and frequencies, which she is not becuase she makes errors with those pretty often. Jocks make mistakes yes, Production directors make mistakes, PD's make mistakes.......So what of it?.

 

[fccfight]

All good points, Eli. Patrick Callahan does a great job, as does Barry Scott.
It is amazing that some people give on-air jocks a "slide" - be it the
woman on WZLX 15 years ago who - when reading the songwriting credits on a Beatles record said "Who is this Richard Starkey?" - it wasn't a joke.
But the jock who called her on it asked Alvin Lee what it was like playing with John Mayall's band - pot calling the kettle black. Lee wasn't in Mayall's band, The Stones' Mick Taylor (there were 2 Mick Taylors in England prior to the Stones/Mayall/Dylan Mick Taylor becoming famous) and other great musicians were.

The spreading of misinformation is bogus. A professional jock should have the voice and the knowledge. The excuse that standards should be higher for Clea Simon because she has editors is lame.

Music Directors are supposed to know their stuff.

Carter Alan is a great wealth of knowledge, he's just not a very good on-air voice, in my opinion. So there's the trade-off. But I'll take his adequate voice AND knowledge over someone trying to be a know-it-all and giving radio listeners the wrong info. The few listeners left may actually believe it.

> I think Patrick Callahan's "Thursday Night Countdown" is
> perhaps the best feature show on WODS. He plays the actual
> Billboard Top 20 for that given week in of one the years of
> WODS's musical era (usually a year from the mid-60's to the
> mid-70's), including songs that were Top 20 then, but still
> are not in their everyday rotation now.
>
> To pad extra time in the two-hour feature, he plays what he
> calls "chart extras", songs that were below the Top 20 in
> that given week of that year. Sometimes they're bigger hits
> that were new and still climbing to the Top 20, or ones that
> had left the Top 20 and were decending, but sometimes he
> pulls out some surprises for "chart extras" that never made
> the Top 20 at all.
>
> Anyway, the show is full of trivia about the artists, songs
> and music, obviously very well researched and practically
> all correct, but I caught one mistake, and it's a fairly
> common one that I've heard elsewhere. When the hit "One Toke
> Over The Line" by Brewer & Shipley came up in a countdown,
> Patrick announced that the guitar in the song was played by
> the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, but it wasn't.
>
> The original album that the song was from had a listing of
> guest musicians on the album jacket, and Garcia is listed,
> but the list never specified which tracks the guest
> musicians appeared on, only their names.
>
> People just assumed that it was Garcia playing on the hit
> song "One Toke", but he actually played only on one obscure
> track on the album called "Oh, Mommy", which got no
> commercial airplay past WBCN's early "underground" years. I
> tried to call to correct him, but he wasn't answering the
> listener line at the time.
>
> Another gaffe I've heard on WODS concerns the fact that
> there are two completely different songs that they may play
> in a countdown or specialty feature called "Games People
> Play", a countryish-rock hit by Joe South, and an R&B hit by
> The Spinners, both different songs with the same title. I've
> heard them get tripped up by playing the wrong song after
> talking up the other one a few times, I'm assuming after
> calling it up by title on a computer.
>

 

[fccfight]

Good Point on Joel Whitburn

Chuck,

I think Mr. Whitburn has a webpage - but you might want to contact
Billboard's Watson Guptill division (Carter Alan was published by them,
if you know him he can give you a contact).

Finding an error in a Joel Whitburn book is
amazing. Good catch there.

PAMRA in the UK uses the All Media Guide as its
research tool. With so much information there is bound to be errors,
especially with the same name - not only "Games People Play" by
The Spinners / Joe South, but names like Paul Williams (producer is different from the singer/actor, and there are many Paul Williams) - and when a computer
assigns the information by default it takes human ingenuity to process it
correctly.

> > I think Patrick Callahan's "Thursday Night Countdown" is
> > perhaps the best feature show on WODS.
> > Anyway, the show is full of trivia about the artists,
> songs
> > and music, obviously very well researched and practically
> > all correct, but I caught one mistake, and it's a fairly
> > common one that I've heard elsewhere. When the hit "One
> Toke
> > Over The Line" by Brewer & Shipley came up in a countdown,
>
> > Patrick announced that the guitar in the song was played
> by
> > the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, but it wasn't.
> >
>
> there are those of us in radio who rely on many sources of
> info & trivia in order to freshen up an intro or backsell.
> among the sources, there are websites that often list artist
> or recording info that may or may not be credible.
>
> in just about every studio, however, is a source on which we
> have all come to accept as close to gospel as possible: Joel
> Whitburn.
>
> in the Top Pop Singles, 1955-1999, page 74, Mr.Whitburn does
> indeed credit Brewer & Shipley's "One Toke Over The Line" as
> having peaked at #10 (14 weeks on the chart beginning
> 2/13/71) "Jerry Garcia(of Grateful Dead; steel guitar)"
>
> for the price we (or our stations) pay for these books, we
> expect a higher level of accuracy, for sure.
>

 

[toejammer]

> or the Sunday afternoon WZLX jock (male, 10/16/05, didn't
> get his name)
> who said NBC TV bought the name "The Dream"
> from Extreme. Not entirely correct - The Dream's manager
> had trademarked the name and had to send the old cease and
> desist and go through a settlement process. The weekend
> jock was rambling on about The Dream being a Monday night
> fixture at Bunrattys and suddenly, some TV network hands
> them a lot of cash.

Funny, I seem to remember the same story ...

http://www.dirtywater.com/a2z/e/extreme/

With the hours of extemporaneous speaking that most jocks do in a career, there are bound to be a few mis-steps. I suppose you're perfect in your career?

 

[Eli Polonsky]

> > I think Patrick Callahan's "Thursday Night Countdown" is
> > perhaps the best feature show on WODS.
> > Anyway, the show is full of trivia about the artists, songs
> > and music, obviously very well researched and practically
> > all correct, but I caught one mistake, and it's a fairly
> > common one that I've heard elsewhere. When the hit "One Toke
> > Over The Line" by Brewer & Shipley came up in a countdown,
> > Patrick announced that the guitar in the song was played by
> > the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, but it wasn't.
> >
>
> there are those of us in radio who rely on many sources of
> info & trivia in order to freshen up an intro or backsell.
> among the sources, there are websites that often list artist
> or recording info that may or may not be credible.
>
> in just about every studio, however, is a source on which we
> have all come to accept as close to gospel as possible: Joel
> Whitburn.
>
> in the Top Pop Singles, 1955-1999, page 74, Mr.Whitburn does
> indeed credit Brewer & Shipley's "One Toke Over The Line" as
> having peaked at #10 (14 weeks on the chart beginning
> 2/13/71) "Jerry Garcia(of Grateful Dead; steel guitar)"

In this rare case, Whitburn is incorrect.

Here's the web page for the album from Brewer & Shipley's own discography, which states that Garcia plays only on "Oh, Mommy", not on "One Toke":

<u>http://www.brewerandshipley.com/tarkio.html</u>

Here's a webpage from an independent, yet extremely thorough Grateful Dead discography, considered to be the authoritative discography for the band, that gives the breakdown of guest musicians on the Brewer & Shipley "Tarkio" album, and explains about the widespread misconception that Garcia played on "One Toke".

<u>http://www.deaddisc.com/disc/Tarkio.htm</u>

 

[wattagecottage]

Mistakes,we ALL make them.

Yes Virginia, dj's do make mistakes.I wonder why it is someone who has a bit of knowledge that may or may not be correct about an artist think that they should squalk about mistakes here. Do you not make them in every day speaking? I feel as a jock that I should endevour to get facts straight from the best sources I can. If I make a mistake , please let me know about it.I will go searching to find the error.What I find irritating is when someone finds you made a mistake and wants to nail you to the wall for it.Thank god most of listeners are not that way....... I wonder if the people complaining understand the amount of stress there is in doing a live show, with all the other distractions that go on inside the studio?????????? i would be willing to bet they do not.

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Re: Mistakes,we ALL make them.

> Yes Virginia, dj's do make mistakes.I wonder why it is
> someone who has a bit of knowledge that may or may not be
> correct about an artist think that they should squalk about
> mistakes here. Do you not make them in every day speaking? I
> feel as a jock that I should endevour to get facts straight
> from the best sources I can. If I make a mistake , please
> let me know about it.I will go searching to find the
> error.

I've made plenty of mistakes and given out erroneous information in the 22 years that I did my weekly 60's/70's show on non-commercial WMBR. Sometimes listeners have called to correct me. No one can be right all the time.

> What I find irritating is when someone finds you made
> a mistake and wants to nail you to the wall for it.Thank god
> most of listeners are not that way....... I wonder if the
> people complaining understand the amount of stress there is
> in doing a live show, with all the other distractions that
> go on inside the studio?????????? i would be willing to bet
> they do not.

Especially at a volunteer station like WMBR, which has no office staff. The on-air DJ has to also be secretary (answering the business line as well as the request line, dealing with record and concert promotional agents, organizations who want to submit PSA's, etc...) and receptionist (answering the front door, dealing with whoever may happen to come by the station) all while trying to do a live show.

Because this college station has a pretty good signal in the metropolitan area, it gets a lot of phone and front door traffic in the mid-day when my show was on, and often I was the only one on the premesis (especially during summer and holiday school breaks).

I dropped by WMBR to do a special program a couple of months ago, my first time on there since retiring my weekly show almost a year before, and I had a ten-minute live phone interview with a recording artist on the show. I was the only one there. The next DJ showed up at the front door just over a half hour before his show, and at the time he didn't have a working access key swipe card.

One minute into my interview, he began ringing the station doorbell repeatedly. The bell mutes out when the mic is on, but a minute later he began freaking out and started pounding on the heavy station front double doors with all his might. It was so damn loud that it was coming through the thick studio walls even with the soundproof studio door closed. I don't know if he was doing full body slams into the doors or what, but it's loudly audible on my aircheck, and it was so distracting that I could barely focus on what my guest was saying.

When I finally bailed out of the interview and put on some music, I went to the door and the DJ, who has been on the station for 25 years (three longer than me), was red-faced in a cold sweat in a panic attack, thinking he was never going to get in to do his show. I reminded him that I had actually told him the night before that I would be tied up doing a live ten minute phone interview around that time.

He started making a bunch of lame excuses for his behavior, then said that I should've told my phone guest LIVE ON THE AIR to just "ad lib and talk to the listeners for a minute" while I went to "tend to some important station business" (letting him in the door). I replied that just because it's a non-commercial volunteer station with no support staff doesn't ever justify doing something so extremely unprofessional on the air, or so disrespectful to the performer I was interviewing on the phone.

Ironically, he had a musician interview on his show the next week, and after he saw what he did to me, he sent out a number of staff e-mails pleading for station staffers to come down and assist him, so that what he did to me wouldn't happen to him.

 

[lost45]

Re: When printed word is wrong, Whitburn

Please remember a lot of facts have been wrong in Billboard/Joel Whitburn books.

Very often I speak to artists who tell me that something written as fact was an error.

Biggest case in point is singer George McCrae ("Rock Your Baby"). He was listed in the BB books as dead. They, in fact, meant broadway star Gordon McCrea. George was amused when I spoke to him about it...



> All good points, Eli. Patrick Callahan does a great job, as
> does Barry Scott.
<P ID="signature">______________
Barry Scott
Oldies 103.3/Boston</P>