Rick Minerd - Life Is A Jukebox

In my previous entry I wrote about the absence of personality radio flooding the dial spots these days and how listeners are staying away in droves because of a lack of interesting programming, and of unique personalities.

Box cutter radio is airing rampant.

Find the cheapest satellite- fed programming and air it, and evade paying live in- house personnel is what really killed the radio star.

My favorite cheap trick that programmers are pulling on their listeners is rerunning programs and tagging them with the label,  "Best Of."

Good Lord.

If it's true that radio signals continue through space for eternity than even God has to be bored with what his children have been sending off into space for the past several years.

I can almost hear him saying,  "I provided you with the ability to invent the technology and gave you the talent and this is what you give me?"

In 1974 when WNCI carried  "The Wolfman Jack Show" some listeners believed that he was actually sitting in the Scots Inn studios at 4900 Sinclair Road on Saturday nights doing his show live.

Radio delivered satellite programming wasn't yet available so syndicated programming like that was mailed in the form of 33 1/3  RPM albums and played on turntables.

In addition to 'Wolf, "The Great 98" as it was known before precise digital identifications also carried   "The Dr. Demento Show."

The  program was demented.    (Sorry.)

And because it was different it had a huge following, as did some of the better  "canned" programs like  "The King Biscuit Flower Hour" and  "Flo and Eddie By The Fireside."

Flo and Eddie were actually Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of the Turtles and later Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention.

Cheap programming but good programs with loyal followings.

And even though WNCI wasn't shy about setting aside  "some" hours away from locally produced and hosted shows, the station wasn't saturated with them and did carry a full staff of full-time DJ's, news personnel and public service announcers.

Something extremely rare now, and as rare as good syndicated programs now being broadcasted by some of the stations who continually operate on the cheap.

And as good as some of those old nationally syndicated programs were, one that was produced locally by the stations boy-genius Program Director E. Karl was as good as any in the country.

"Spaceship Earth."

The odd looking character in the photo above is Barrett Eugene Hanson, aka- Doctor Demento.

His on-air stock in trade is playing obscure and novelty records, all the time.

Music with lot's of sound effects, strange lyric's and bad singers.

"Purple People Eater"  and  stuff like that.

Nervous Norvous, Alan Sherman, David Seville and Weird Al Yankovic might be among his regularly played artists.

Demento is still on the radio in several U.S. markets, and still has a loyal following not unlike he had when he began in 1974.

I recall working at WNCI one night back then when for whatever reason his program wasn't in the studio and I went on with an extended version of my own live show.

Talk about busting a guy's ego.

Listeners called relentlessly complaining because I was on with the stations usual Top-40 hits in place of the silly songs and the guy who played them.

I was told by some that the only time they listened to the station was when he was on.

That high pitched, squeaky little voice  over my own high pitched squeaky little voice?   (I was very young.)

The Hell you say!

As popular as those show's were thirty years ago I doubt that WNCI or any of the other big gun radio stations could have competed and made a good living with only prerecorded programming.

None were willing to find out either.

What made radio as good as it was in those day's is exactly what's missing now.

Someone to pick up the phone and respond.   Imjustrick@aol.com

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