The Michael Newman Interview - Radio Strategies Consultant

Thursday Oct 24th, 2024

My former radio consultant (now friend) Michael Newman shares his stories - including The Playhouse, Ebro, Mancow, and his thoughts on where radio is heading.

Enjoy. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello friends. Today show a bit of a different kind
of vibe to it. It's a sit down interview with
the guy that used to terrify me, I mean terrified me.
He'd come to town when I was doing radio and Portland
for two days. He's a radio consultant, so you know,
if you had great shows during that time, then you
were set for another six months and you were living
high if you didn't. Poor man life being what it is,

(00:23):
he now lives down the street and with great pals,
So I thought it'd be interesting to sit down here
about his story and also kind of listen what it
was like for him coming to town. I guess the
other side of those days that you know, I lived
in fear. Also along the way in his career he
had to fire a huge radio guy named Mancow. So
if you're into radio and you're listening to this, you're

(00:43):
gonna hear some some pretty cool and interesting stories, at
least I think so. So enjoy it. Again, not the
typical style of a show, so you'll have to let
me know what you think about it, and you can
always drop me an instant voice note to do that,
or send me an email PKAPKNDK dot com without any
further delay. For the people that have the p K
and DK Plus subscription, the show starts right now. For
everybody else, the show starts right after this. I was

(01:07):
terrified whenever you come to town. Terrified. Why were you terrified?
All right, Newman's coming to town and everything you're going wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, and you were so scared. Yeah, and even you
tell no, I could totally tell. And I would always say, Hey,
there's nothing to be scared about.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
It's not like I'm gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Fire you or take away your job or something I.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Felt like in Portland, especially at the beginning. It was
my first official morning show job. So we're starting this
this your Yeah, we're going We're here with Newman, Michael Newman,
radio consultant.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Oh, I get an introduction all.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Around Powell from down the street. Which is weird how
life works out, because you know, I went from being
terrified that you were coming to town to judge everything
that I was doing, uh, to grabbing barbecue today and
you're just living like a couple of miles.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
We realize who got you here? Okay, I got you
here twice?

Speaker 1 (01:58):
You did taking credit for the second time and yes,
how are you taking credit for the second time?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
And the guy that told you to come here, that's true.
Remember I said, where do you want to live? You
could live in Atlanta, you could live in Houston, and
you said, yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
I like Houston. I like Houston and Central. It's centrally located.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
And at the time, you know, you were doing your
show and you wanted to, you know, be able to
get it out to different markets. And it's better to
be here in.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Texas and no state tax either. That was that was
a pretty big yeah. And plenty of food, plenty of food,
plenty of barbecue today was amazing truth barbecue by the way,
if you're in the Houston area, that's right. Let's start
at the beginning, because I wanted to get you on
the on the show because we called you once and
then I started getting instant voice notes from people saying,
oh my.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
God, you know Newman.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
So I figured it'd be great to get you on
and get some of your stories. And uh, and frankly,
I don't even know how you got into radio, so
I'd love to get just your entire story.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
This is going to take you way back, I will
say the year. But I don't want to say the
year too. I want to say the year.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
I don't know. How did you get into radio? Okay?

Speaker 2 (02:58):
So very simple. I used to install waterbeds. I would
go in people's houses and install waterbeds. And this is
in southern California. I guess it was Pasadena where there
was this house and I come in the front door
and this sky. He was blind and so he had
his little like stick and he's kind of walking around,
and so I walked back out and as I'm walking out,

(03:20):
I see this like recording console and I see a microphone.
I'm like, what the hell is this? And I said,
what are you guys doing? He goes, oh, we got
a radio station. I go, where are you broadcasting?

Speaker 1 (03:30):
He goes on TV. So have you ever seen?

Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's, you know, closed circuit TV, and they would have
radio sometimes they'd have stations playing in there.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
That's what this was. And I said, what is this?

Speaker 2 (03:42):
He goes the DSA radio network. It was Disabled something association.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
So was this his house or house?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
It was? And also and so it was broadcasting over
Pasadena cable network whatever channel. Then they were playing records
because this is back when records were big time if
you don't know what records are, they're final and drop a.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Knee a comeback, then they are hypno.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, back in the day. So I walk in and
I'm like, going, this is crazy. Little did they know.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be on
the radio. And I used to, as probably everybody did
that was in radio, would take a cassette player and
then take a record player record trying to be a DJ,

(04:29):
and make your little air check and I've got them, and.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
So you still have them.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, but.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
I wouldn't give to listen to one of those.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Maybe I'll play it for you if you're lucky. So anyhow,
I asked this guy, I said, god, man, I'd love
to be on the radio. He goes, well, we'll teach you.
So then I came a Saturday and they had some
guy in a wheelchair. Because everybody that they all lived
in this house and they had this radio station, but
they were all disabled. This one guy in a wheelchair
taught me how to be on the radio.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
And it didn't matter that you didn't have a disability
or no, But it was cool for me because a
couple of years before that, I was working in a
skating rink, and I actually was doing it for disabled kids,
so I kind of like knew kind of the territory.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
It was fun and those guys were great.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
How did you move from there to what was your second?

Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (05:17):
I mean so then I went to a About a
year and a half later, I went to a station
in sam Ma Renandino and you know, I was on
the air there and it was cool, but it was
a fish tank. You're in the mall. It was the
Inland Center mall, and there was a glass and I'm
behind the glass and here's people walking through the mall.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Well.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
I would work generally Saturday night or overnight Saturday to Sunday.
And a true story. I was on the air, fell
asleep at the board. I was running this PSA show
and I think his name was Pat Michaels, Pat Michael's Report,
I think that was it. So I'm running it and

(05:57):
I'm like sleeping. I guess somebody taped me on the shoulder.
I'm like whoa. And this guy, I guess came in
through the front door and he says, hey, you guys
are off the air, and I said what And I
look up in the other room where the tape was.
It's just going, oh man, I'm done. So anyhow, I

(06:18):
left there and then I mean, did you get fired?

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Did they know? Did no?

Speaker 2 (06:21):
No? No, no, I mean, you know, stuff happens.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
But it worked out.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Then I got into real radio, which was CHR at
the time, which was really the format that I should
have been doing because both the stations I worked at
really weren't doing CHR.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Well, I remember when I got into radio, you just
had to do whatever you could. The format didn't matter.
In the beginning, it was just hiking.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
You get your and then then you go to stations
that hopefully play music you want to play and get
into it from there. But the next stop was Lompoke.
That was a really exciting time. That's the mid eighties and.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well that's the crazy times in radio. Yeah it was.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
It was really awesome and we had a lot. We
had a full staff, We had people on overnights. I
was signed up to do. I was doing weekends and
then the PD calls me out of the blue and
he says, hey, would you be interested The overnight girls
leaving and she's going to go to San Jose and
he says, do you want to you know do overnights.

(07:16):
I go sure, So literally, I'm getting ready to do overnights.
It was like Saturday morning and I was supposed to
come in Sunday night. And so he calls me up
and he goes, hey, remember I talked to you about
doing overnight And he says, well, what do you think
about doing nights? He goes our night guy, he just
got a job in Phoenix. I mean, these are two
people that win San Jose from Lompo and the other

(07:38):
one to Phoenix. I'm like, I had to think about it.
I go, absolutely, yeah, So I became the night guy.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Did you have a day part that you wanted to
end up at?

Speaker 2 (07:49):
I mean, I like, I like doing nights. I really did,
because I was doing characters. So this leads me. The
next job I had was in Santa Barbara. So anyhow,
the PDA that hired me is named Steve Smith, who
you know who's passed away. He told me when I
came there, you're not doing characters because I gave Hi
an air check with all these characters because I was

(08:11):
just trying to be crazy Mike.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
And this was the eighties. One that was.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Eighties, you know, it's just all sorts of just chaos.
And so I get there and Steve and I end
up hitting it off. He was very sarcastic. I'm very sarcastic.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
How long were you guys out together?

Speaker 2 (08:26):
For? Oh a lot of years? Three different radio stations?
That was over probably wow, five and a half years.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Would he leave and then call you up or how
would that work?

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Mutually we decide to do whatever we did. But so
we were in Santa Barbara. But I want to tell
you this quick story because I think it's pretty cool.
So we had a consultant, and we kind of couldn't
figure out what a consultant was at the time because
we had this guy who's in West Palm Beach sound
familiar and we always thought he was sitting there drinking
a my tie looking at the back page of R

(08:59):
and R tell us what songs to play? I realized,
and I told Steve, I said, we're playing all the
wrong music, Steve, because they were playing all this kind
of like eclectic, weird music mixed in with CHR. And
so this is back when we had carts. Okay, so
carts were kind of like eight track tapes. If everybody
remembers what that was we'd have a cart rack back

(09:21):
on the back wall in the studio. And I went
in there one day and I started pulling out all
the songs that we shouldn't play, and I left it
to all like the CHR big hit songs, and I said, Steve,
this is what we have to play because we weren't winning.
So then we kept taking the call from the consultant.
This is a true story, Go yeah, why don't you
move this and do that? At that time, you couldn't
listen to the station. Okay, there was no way to

(09:44):
listen to the station unless you came in the market,
and nobody these consults didn't come in the market. Why
are they going to come to Santa Barbara. So we
take his call and go, yeah, okay, yeah, we'll move
that to be okay, great, thanks, all right, bye, click
do what we want. So the book comes out. We
go to number one, like we were like six or seventh.
We go to number one with a bullet. We massive

(10:05):
just destroyed everybody. The GM comes in, Oh my god,
what did you guys do? And we said, hey, well
this is what we did. And his jaw dropped. He goes,
so you didn't listen to the consultant. No, and he goes,
all right, he goes, come into my office. So we
go up to his office.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
He gets speak.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Phone on, calls a consultant and he says, hey, I
think his name is John Lund. He says, hey John, yeah,
so and so from one I seven listen here with
Steven Mike. I don't know if he heard the news
we won number one, you know in this demo, this
demo blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Station's massive.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
And John goes, oh God, congratulations, guys, this is incredible.
What a team we have here. And he says, he says, John, listen,
I want to tell you something really quick. First off,
Steve and Michael have not been listening to you guys. Okay,
you can't take credit for any of this stuff. And secondly,
you're fired. And he goes, we're done with them.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Wow. I said, that's cool. And at that point, what
were what were you doing? Like?

Speaker 2 (11:06):
He was the PD, Yes, so he I did nights
and I was the m D and he was the Peak.
And I was really into music. I did music in
Lompoc and I did music in Santa Barbara and.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
I loved it.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
So anyhow, Steve said, Michael, come here. I want to
show you something because Steve was ready to move to
the next level. We went number one in Santa Barbara.
So now we're going to go to another place, San Jose.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Did you guys stay at number one?

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah? Yeah, but we were I think we're there for
two books maybe, So it was so you guys move quick,
Yeah we did.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
We did.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
I mean literally these next three stations was like within
like three and a half four years.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Different companies. Yep, yep. No contracts to hold you back, now,
no contracts.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
I never signed a contract my entire life Wallows and Radio.
I don't believe in contracts. Unfortunately, now listen.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
We had a choice though, well yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
I mean, if listen, you're doing a morning show, you know,
you're a superstar personality, probably should have a contract. But
you got to look at it because contracts really are
going to favor the employer not the employee. So and again,
a lot of times will happen is you've got a contract,
it's going to end and they don't resign it, and
that that's what happens, unfortunately. But so Steve goes, come

(12:20):
out here, he opens up his firebird and we look
in the back and there's all these cards and all
the music music is rhythmic. So he goes, Michael, it's
giving me kind of a new kind of thing. It's
going to we're calling it rhythmic, and he goes, you
want to come, and I go yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
This was the first rhythmic station well on the West coast.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
I mean, Parawano six was doing it at the time,
and then we were going to be the next one
on the West coast. So it was a brand new
signal ninety seven to seven in San Jose. So we
turned this station on and literally every artist in the
format would come to visit us, and we had it
was like a machine. And I'm telling you, man, we

(13:00):
had everybody. And we went from zero to number one,
like literally overnight within six months.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
And again it was another massive win. You couldn't have
predicted it. And it was just such an incredible station,
incredible people that worked there. Christopher Lance, Roger Smith, Larry Morgan,
Susan Wise, Dwayne Luna, just trying to think, I mean,
because we're going back a couple of years to remember
all the people who worked there. John Christian was there

(13:29):
back in the day. Big Daddy Mike Abrams and then
Steve got the call to go here to Houston. This
is eighty nine and they were going to launch a
new station which is called Energy, the dumbest frickin' name
for radio station the history of broadcasting.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
There's still some Energies out there.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yeah, there.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Well started in France actually, and that's where I think
mus kind of got the idea for the name was Dan. Yeah,
I think it was dance. But again, we were gonna
come down here and kind of do Sa Jose's brand
for Houston. What we didn't realize is Houston was completely different.
Although they had Hispanics and that music was kind of cool,
it was really more alternative and actually hip hop was

(14:12):
rap was just really starting to blossom, you know, and
so we kind of had a mixture of everything. And
there were three chrs in Houston at the time, KRB,
which has been here forever, ninety three, Q, and then.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
You had us.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
It made it really kind of crazy, and you know,
unfortunately our station played so much new music, and because
we weren't completely focused, we should have been either alternative
or hip hop. We should have done hip hop.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
We didn't. Was there a hip hop station at the time,
no here. So here's what happens.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
We're here for nine months. Jeff Similian bought the Seattle Mariners.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
True story.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
They put our station up for sale for thirty million,
and Jeff Similian signed Tan Griffy Junior for thirty million
dollars for Seattle Mariners. And so anyhow we end up
going away. So Steve ends up getting a job in
Phoenix at a news station Power ninety two. It's not new,
it's been there, but he starts to turn a more rhythm.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
So Steve calls me.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
He goes, come on, Michael, let's go to Phoenix. And
at this point I'm kind of like, man, I want
a program. I really wanted a program. So I got
a call from my old boss that was part of
San Jose, who is now working for another company that
had Cadon in the Monterey Bay. So he calls me
up and he says, listen, I know you didn't want

(15:32):
a program last time in San Jose, but do you
want to do it now? And I said, yeah, I'm interested.
He goes, well, I got this guy. His name's man
Cow and he goes, I can't control him. I want
you to come out. He and help me program the station.
So okay, so I went flew out. We negotiate di
My agreement was written up on a legal pad. You know,
I was going to make forty thousand dollars a true story.

(15:54):
This is back in ninety I think ninety nineteen ninety.
So I said, okay, cool, So I agreed to it,
move out.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Boom. Did you know what you were getting into with
Manko No, because at the time he was also just
getting into.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
What I realized with mancow is, this is the guy
was way ahead of his time to the point where,
like you know, this guy was like a celebrity and
he's in this small market. He was just way too
big for what we had. I mean, he was doing
all sorts of crazy shit. And I said, shit, so
you can believe me, how do you can leave it in?

(16:26):
Leave that shity Like. One of the things he did
was he had this stealth bomber supposedly landing at the
Salinas Valley Airport and he says, now you can take
your kids out of school, and I'm telling you you're
not going to see anything, but you're gonna feel the breeze.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
And we got a call.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
From the FAA saying, Hey, your DJ's on the air
and he's telling people to come down here. This is
no Bomber landing, you know. And I walk in, come.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
On me, it's radio.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
And so he had been written up a bunch before
I got there, and I didn't even look at his file.
I just went in and, you know, try to make
friends with him, which I think I did, you know,
But I think he also looked at me like I'm
the boss and I'm gonna you know, I'm messing with
his livelihood. But one of the best stories with Man Cow,
and you don't know this, because I don't think I
ever told you this, was I would get on him.

(17:16):
And this maybe comes back to some of the stuff
that we went through, is he would not identify the
radio station. He would say, you know, it's Man Cow
love you love your show and all that stuff, and
you never say kateon. So what I did one day,
as I decided I was going to come in early
and see because I got word that he would come
in late.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
He would start the show.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
He's supposed to start six o'clock, he's supposed to be
there at like five thirty. He would come in six
fifteen six thirty, so his sidekicked. Jennifer Wild's there and
she goes, I can't believe you're here. He's going to
be so pissed. So I told the overnight I get
out of here. I got it. So I'm in there
and he opens up the door and it's one of
these it's like, you know, it's just like a how

(18:00):
store for to the studio.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
And he goes like, what what are you?

Speaker 3 (18:03):
What are you doing here?

Speaker 4 (18:04):
Whoa jeez ho oh man, I got I got pulled over.
Wow geez oh man?

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Uh yeah, guy? Who well, I got And I'm going, okay,
settle down. Okay, obviously you're late. I go, so is
this when you get here?

Speaker 1 (18:17):
No?

Speaker 3 (18:18):
No, I'm always here on time, you know. You know me.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
I said, okay, all right, all right, And I said, okay,
do me a favor. Can you just identify the radio
station so we get credit for you being on our station?

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah? We are sure, sure, sure, all right.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Great, I'm out of here, see you guys later. Boom.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
I go in my office for a little bit.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
He cracks to Mike.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
He goes, he goes, what don't two Hey can't believe it? Sorry,
hey got a ticket? Yeah, Michael Numan's here. I don't
know what he's doing here. What's Jennifer, what's he doing here?

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Huh?

Speaker 3 (18:48):
He's fine on me what's going on?

Speaker 2 (18:50):
And I'm like sitting there shaking my head and I'm
like going, oh my god.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
And he goes, he told me I didn't fight the
radio station. Hang on a second.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
So he takes every single idea that we have and
he plays it back to back to back to back
to I mean literally, it must have been ten minutes.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
And contemplating walking back into the studio. Ye, exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
But I let him just blossteam, you know, and then finally,
finally he quit and I came to the studio. I said, Okay,
are you done. He goes, I'm just doing my job,
and I go, great, do your job, don't be an asshole,
and everything's cool. But you know, I like the guy.
I really did, and he knew he was going to succeed,
and at that point, I really like started to understand that,

(19:35):
you know, I'm kind of here to help people get
to the next level, and I always wanted to get
people to the next level, so I'd always say, hey,
work as hard as you can be truthful, stay, you know,
and I will do whatever I can to get you
to where you want to be. And I've always said
that to anybody that I work with that I believe in,
much like I've done with you. As you know.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, it's kind of hard to you know when the
twenty Yeah you aren't. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
So I mean that was my taste of like real, like,
you know, this guy's a personality.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Did you ever where did he get it from?

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Like?

Speaker 1 (20:07):
What shows did he listen? Well, yeah, he listened.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
He listened to Stern, you know, yeah, he was definitely
listening to Stern. And he would come in and I
would tell him, I said, listen, man, you've got a
lot of content. Because he would write on a notepad
and he would have pages and pages and he'd just
sit there and flip through them and go through, you know,
four or five or six different topics during the break
and I said, if you could just do one or two,
it would be incredible. And I couldn't, but I.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
Thought that was his brilliance. You know. Well, yeah, talk
about like being ahead of the time, especially.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Right because because again at that point, you know, there
was a lot of content. But on the radio side,
they wanted to play more music and have content. So
it's kind of like that fight. Yeah, that's the fight.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, as you I'm sure still goes onto that.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
As you go through radio, you realize that, you know,
obviously content is key if you have great personality, if
not just jocks, not somebody who goes, hey that was
this is and come up?

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Got your chance to win tickets? Yeah, let's go.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Oh no, I think they do because you know, you
got podcasting, which obviously we're doing, and.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
People want to hear stories.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
You know, on radio, it's got to be kind of
quick and to the point. You know, what I've always
said is make me laugh, tell me something I don't know,
or play something I like. If you can just take
those three elements and do it, then that's it. And
so you try to preach that stuff and you know,
it's it is what it is.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
So picking up with cow you had to fire him. Yeah,
So were you there before that?

Speaker 2 (21:37):
It was probably I am thinking maybe nine months. Okay,
so that it's during Christmas and he's got this song
Santa the red nose the brown nose Reindeer has his
nose up Santa's ass. Okay, sing along with that and I.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
Mean we all laughed.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
But during the holidays, and I learned this, people get
very emotional and very like. People that are angry, you're
fucking pissed, and people that are sad are fucking sad.
It's just like all the emotions, okay. And so he's
playing the song, this preacher calls up. I was in
the office with the GM. Jim's name was Les Israelo.

(22:15):
He's a guy from Brooklyn. He's like, yeah, what have
a call the owner? And so he ended up calling
the owner and the owner calls right back and he says, okay, guys,
here's the deal. You guys go or Man Cow goes,
what's it going to be? And Man Coow was on vacation,
and so we ended up going.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
To his house. This is New Year's Day.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was
bright and sunny and Monterey Bay. We knock on his
apartment door. He opens the door, Hey.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
Hey, what are you guys doing here?

Speaker 2 (22:45):
And I said, uh, hey, man, can we come in?
So we both came in and then Les says, Man Cow,
we gotta let you go.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (22:55):
And he said, you know that song he goes.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
What you got me? Kid me this crap? Can I
just go into here and say goodbye?

Speaker 2 (23:03):
And he goes, Man, I can't let you do that.
He goes, You're done, here's your check. You know, have
a nice life type thing. And we left.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
So what Man Cow doesn't know of the whole story
was that immediately filing that. That was January first. So
they had the Gavin convention in San Francisco, all these
pds are there. Wild in San Francisco at the time
was looking for a morning guy and the PD's name

(23:31):
was Bob Mitchell. And I had Man Cow's aircheck and
I went up to Bob and I said, hey, I said,
you need to hire this guy. And I gave him
the aircheck. Guess who got the job.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
And it's a true story. And so Man Cow has
never heard this. It is a true story. And I'm
sorry he hates my guts because he thinks that I
got him fired. And so it's funny.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
So well, all the times and all the firings that
I've heard in radio and the times that I've been fired,
I've never had people actually fire me at my apartment
with I don't know, I'm debating on if that's better
than the office was there.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Hey, PK's time to go, let's go get out of here.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
Getting fired in the conference room, yeah, you know, and
nobody likes getting fired, you know, I mean just nobody.
It's it's part of life. I mean, it happened to me.
And you know, again, I think you've got to be
in radio and go through it. That's the only way
you're going to get, you know, to where you want
to be. Yeah, and it's a sense of reality that
your ship doesn't does stink because a lot of people
in radio think, you know, they're God's gift to whatever.

(24:29):
But again, we're all just regular people. We love what
we do and we want to be a part of
this thing. And you know, all these radio stations there
was a part of High ninety seven to seven in
San Jose was the ultimate. There was so much energy
there and all the jocks and everybody loved everybody and
there was no hatred, and you know, people were excited
to work and you know, it's just a great time.

(24:51):
And then that continued on to where you were at,
which was jamming in Portland. That's that's how I came up,
you know, found you, which.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Again, yeah, I've always been curious from my understanding Mark,
which I did Street Team and Engineering Stars.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
And Markdoms Mark Adams.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
But I thought he just drove through and and heard me,
and I don't know, he may have. He may have.
What is it like from your perspective?

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Again, So you know all these stories I'm telling you,
I'm recollecting everything. I mean, most of it I totally remember.
I mean some of this stuff is like, Okay, well,
did you live in Portland at the time. No, yes,
I was in Portland, yes, yes, So I had gotten
your CD somehow some way, because obviously I just started
consulting right after I got fired in Portland because I

(25:37):
was working at the Beat, which was this modern AC station,
and I tried to convince the GM there to go
with a rhythmic format, play hip hop and R and
B and he says, we can't do that. There's no
black people in Portland. I can't sell that. And I
said it'll be the number one station. He goes, well,

(25:57):
we can't do that. I said, okay, So he had
let me go after our ratings came out, which I
kind of knew we were going to lose.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
So whatever, I.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Left, and then I went across the street. My wife
worked for the station where Tim McNamara was the GM.
Tim's crazy guy, but I love that guy, and the.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Truth I credit him for a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, the true story was this, Paul Allen owned these
stations ninety five to five, which was CAXL at the time,
FM and AM news Talk, and then they had this
FM which was just god awful, horrible whatever the hell
they were playing. It was a mixture of just everything
from Madonna, the Beatles to whatever. I don't know what

(26:38):
the hell it was. They had no ratings, and so
I had pitched Tim at a Christmas party. I said, hey,
you should do this format. He goes, well, let's talk
after the first year. So he sets up focus groups.
He and I are behind the glass with some other
people and there's a panel of eighteen to thirty four
year old men and women and they're playing jay Z

(27:01):
jow rule. I think you know, they were playing Biggie,
they were playing U. There was no Eminem I don't think,
you know, playing all this hip hop stuff. And people
are like going nuts and like this, and so the
moderator says, hey, does anybody is there a station here
in Portland that plays this music and it is no, no, no,
Well if there was one, you know, would you listen?

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, yeah, it was going crazy. Tim turns to me
and he says, we're fucking doing it. And literally we
had on the air in.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Two weeks, no kid, yeah, two weeks. What happened to
the previous staff? And everybody just out.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Oh, so this is this is part of radio.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
So the guy that was on the air, I knew him.
I can't remember his name, Afternoon Guy when we flipped
the station. So John Christian was there with me. John
was the original PDA of Jamming. When we signed the
station on.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
John and I came in the studio.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
We had all these Dennon carts, you know, the sleeves
for the CDs for the Denon players, all typed out
with the whole entire library, okay, and then we had
the carts for all the imaging because this is before
you went to digital. And so we come in the
studio and he looks at me and he says, hey, Michael,
what do you guys do it? I said, oh, just

(28:17):
doing a couple of things, and then Tim comes in,
he goes, he goes hey, come with me. So they
go outside and I'm looking through the glass at this guy.
Oh man, he's he's and you can you can just
Riata's lips. He's saying, yeah, we're changing the format and
I'm sorry, man, I gotta let you go.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
And you can see this.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Guy's shoulders looking like looking up and they just slunch.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
And he comes in and he unplugs his headphones and
he says, uh, listen, congratulations, good luck to you guys,
and he leaves.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
I felt bad.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
I felt horrible, And I remember when we played Elton
John Goodbye ell Brick Road. That was the last song,
and then I think we went into jay Z. Was
it instant success in Portland?

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
It was unbelievable and was the beginnings of that radio station. So,
you know, because it was Ebro and Sony in the morning.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well Ebra was not there at the time, okay, okay,
so literally there was nobody on the air, and then
we started, you know, putting jocks on the air.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Like were you the p D at the time.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Well, I was kind of programming because huh, but but
John was coming getting ready to move there because John
was gonna, you know, move and I kind of launched
the station, and then John was going to take it
from there because I'd been consulting John at Kaywin and Stockton.
So the rule was he was not supposed to take
any of his employees from Kawen and Stockton, you know,
and don't go rob everybody, and let's let's do it.

(29:44):
So he hires Louis Cruz, who is the night guy
in Stockton. He hires his who's married to the morning
girl in Stockton. So he brings them up. So I
think that was the first first two that came up.
Then he hired did he hire Dante? I think he
hired Dante, who was the music director in Stockton. So

(30:05):
there's now three people out of Stockton. He's totally destroyed
that radio station, which he told the GM I'm not
hiring anybody, but he did. So then I get a
call and he says, hey, man, you're gonna hear about this.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Don't be mad.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
I hired Ebro and I go, what can I call?

Speaker 1 (30:22):
You? Row up?

Speaker 2 (30:23):
And I said what are you doing? He goes, man,
I kind of think I want to do this morning
show thing. I go, really, because I had my sight
set on him being a programmer. I was consulting him
at the bomb and Sacramento and I loved him. Man,
the minute I met him, I knew he was a star.
I knew it like one hundred percent. But let me

(30:44):
tell you something. When he came to Portland and he
was doing the morning show with Christina, that thing is
it was horrible. And I think he knows it. Maybe
he doesn't, I don't know, but it was.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
It was not good.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
I told him when I can, yeah, but the minute.
So then then we kind of go through that whole thing.
And then for whatever reason, John realizes he's over his head.
I really believe. And John, if I'm wrong, don't tell me,
but I kind of believe that. I think he kind
of felt like, yeah, I don't know if I want
to do this, and he decided to go back to Stockton.

(31:17):
And then at the station that he destroyed that well, yeah,
but he and the GM were great friends and so
half the st Yeah, it worked out. I guess who knows.
But here's a real funny thing. There are two really
great stories about radio. It's kind of like the Hollywood
Discover Somebody series. When I went to the hotel because

(31:37):
I had had moved to Houston. When we signed the
station on, I had already moved, so I had to
fly back up. So I was staying at this hotel
downtown and there was a girl behind the counter. Oh am,
I losing her name. She was in Afternoons with freezey
Kerrie Carreasyy. So Carrie was behind the counter and I
was talking her. I was asking her all sorts of
questions and she was like a total hip hop head

(32:00):
and I was saying, guy, I wouldn't be great if
there was a station that played out and he's, oh
my god, I would work there in a heartbeat. And
so I had told John, I said, listen, man, we
got to find a place for this girl. We totally
do and he goes done. So we brought her and
she kind of was like a street team person in
the beginning, and then she became a producer for Freeze
and then then she ended up you know, getting on

(32:21):
the air, and then she became the afternoon girl. I guess, right, Yeah,
that was the one story. Then the other one is
Doug Zanger. So Doug Zanger worked at the Nike store downtown,
and I remember I was going into to buy some
shoes and I just got to talking to the guy,
and the guy really had a shit together and I
was thinking to myself, Man, I wonder if this guy

(32:42):
could do something somehow or another. We got him into
the station and he started doing production and he was
pretty good at it. That's that's how he.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Care came from. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because he was one
of the only people that that his mind was so
creative when he came to charity and coming up with
the scenarios. I mean, he was like whole new level. Listen.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
I maybe I'm blessed something or I just happened to
run into people at the right time, but that was
the whole thing. Was like I really enjoyed finding the
real premiere people.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
And that's so interesting with him. What blows my mind
on that is just because that wasn't training that got
him to that point. It's something that was so rare
in radio and all my yeah, well, there was never
another Anleod And at.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
That point then I realized that, hey man, you know,
some of these people that can be on the air,
they don't necessarily have to be radio people. And I
realized that a lot of times if you pull somebody
off the street. They may sound better than somebody that's
been in radio for sixteen years, much like to Ryan obviously.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Right.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
So the funny thing with you was, I remember, I
have the CD. I've got to find it. It's somewhere
in my Arca domes.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah I will.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
I'm going to I'm going to bring it in. We're
going to plaster all over the place. We'll actually play
your breaks and see if you're only yours.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
I maybe I will.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
I don't mind it. Yeah, I know you because you
hate my new stuff. Yeah, I hate your new stuff too.
But yeah. So the crazy thing was was he you know,
I went to Mark because I was trying to get
Mark to come to the radio station because after John left,
I'm called Mark, Callmark Calmark.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
At this point he's in San Francisco.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah, and he was miserable, but he didn't want to
leave because he wanted to win. His whole thing was
I gotta beat these guys.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
And I said, dude, give it up. I said. It
was a tough battle too, because one you're working for Bonneville. Yeah,
Bonneville can't give you the tools to especially going up
against wild in the doghouse.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, And so I said come here, and I said, Mark,
this is going to put you on the map. It's
gonna be the big success story in the country, and
you'll be able to take this and go anywhere and
you could probably be here for the rest of your life.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
You wanted to.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
So finally, after like three months, I remember, he called
me and we were talking to He was let's do it,
and I hung the fund out. Oh yes, I mean
it was like such a victory to get him to come,
and I just knew it was going to blowed. And
then he just got very creative because he's an incredibly
creative guy and he was great with talent, and so
then he brought you in and then we took Ebro

(35:10):
and put him in the second chair, where Ebro exploded
because now he's off mic and he can be Ebro.
He doesn't have to be the guy kind of running
the show.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
How did he take the news when you guys told me?

Speaker 2 (35:21):
I don't remember, because I think Mark talked to him
about that, so I think he'd have to ask Mark
or ask Ebro. But you know, I was still kind
of pissed because again I wanted him to program because
I knew one day he was going to be in
New York or LA probably programming, you know, whether Power
one oh six or Hot ninety seven, which we'll talk about.

(35:41):
So anyhow, he's doing it and things are good, and
you know, station's kicking ass and bang bang bang, and
we're blowing it up. And then, you know, fast forward
a couple of years or whatever, and Paul Allen decides
to sell the radio ten years later, ten years later,
which that was a pretty damn good run. And so
then at that point then everybody kind of goes their

(36:02):
separate ways. And then they saw the station and it
never yet yeah, and then it went to iHeart, you know,
and it's like God knows what it is now. But
you know, but a lot of great people came out
of the station that have scattered across the country.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
You know.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Ebro's story was great because Tracy Clarity, who worked at
Hot ninety seven after Steve left, Tracy was the PD
and she was looking for a music director and Tracy
was one of these. She would be like this, and
I love Tracy, and I call her up and I go,
I go, Tracy, I go. I know two people that
you could hire for music director, but they're not in

(36:37):
New York. He goes, I need somebody from New York.
I can't I can't do this without New York. They
don't know the city. And I said, but these guys
know hip hop, Ebro and Dante and Dante I think
was working think at a record label.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, he went to Jay Records. I thought, you went
to I don't know.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
I don't know the timeline, but yeah he did R
and R did Jay Records. I don't think he was
really in the time. He was kind of doing that.
But I I told her about Ebro and she goes, ah, Ebro,
I don't know. And so I said, Tracy, just meet him,
and I think you'll love him. So she flew him

(37:14):
out and literally she caused me, if she goes I
love Hebro, I'm gonna hire him. And she did.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
I remember we were golfing, because whenever the ratings would
come out, Yeah, I would just go golf, yeah, and
then wait for the phone call they're up or down yep, yep.
And that's when he told me about New York and
he didn't want to take the job. And I was
sitting there, what are you talking About's New York? Of
course you're going to take the job. Are you insane?

Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (37:36):
See, and see how it worked out. And the funny
thing is, when I was there with him, they wanted
him to either be the program director or the morning
show because he was doing both at the time, and
so he goes, yeah, I kind of think I wanted
to do the morning show. So he ended up, you know,
doing the morning show, and then they brought in Po
I guess at the time, to be the PD or something.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
I think that's what he went for music director and
then got He's director to PD the and then yeah,
this on the morning show. And I think what really
happened was there was more money, more opportunity. Yeah, if
you can really make the morning show work right, you
could exactly.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
And again he had done that, you know, he had
been a personality on the radio, so you know, and
so it all worked out. But you know, it's funny
because he was looking for a music director when Tracy
left and he became the PDE, he looked for a
music director. Well, I knew about Jill Strata from my
days working with Cox, and I knew that would be
a perfect fit because Ebro is this out of the box,

(38:29):
incredible creative thinking guy and he would be great with
some detail person like Jill who can just put everything
together and structure it and everything. I said, this is
gonna be a perfect match. Got him together. Boom, he
hired her BINGO. So when I was in Montgomery, Alabama,
there was a girl named Sonny Anderson who was we

(38:49):
hired to do midday. She was an army brat. I
think she was from San Antonio or something. Really creative,
bubbily glowing personality. And I remember going over to check
with her, and we could probably call her right now
and she would be laughing and tell you the story.
And I said, Sonny, I said, I swear to God,
you're going to be in La or New York one

(39:09):
of these days. I know it. She ended up getting
a job. I didn't help her. She got her job
in Detroit. She went from Montgomery, Alabama to Detroit. So
Tracy had Hot ninety seven at a moment in time
was looking for a midday girl. I said, you got
to hire Sonny. Sonny got the job in New.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
York at nine jobs.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
But wait a minute, hang on, it gets better. Sonny
was really in a cooking you've watched the Food Network.
Sonny Anderson on the Food Network, Sonny, how do you
like them apples?

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah? You know a lot of people that owe their
their jobs, do you well.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
You know again, I mean, I'm just I just love
to be a part of it. You know, Listen, it's
been fun. There's a lot of great people. We used
to have conference calls when Steve and I had the
consultancy back in the day. We would do a music
hall with everybody, and everybody go through their you know,
market and talk about what's going on there as far
as here's what the hot music is, here's what we're

(40:01):
doing promotionally, blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
And it was a great way to visit.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
And you know, Dan Hunt could talk to Mark Adams,
you know, Phil Becker could talk to Jill Strata. Well,
she wouldn't talk to Phil because they'd be in the
same building, but they would all be able to communicate
and be able to kind of like feel like dough Boy,
who is in Montgomery, Alabama, is talking to Tracy Clarity
hot nightee of New York. Now would Tracy ever take
dough Boy's call? Hell no, But she got to talk

(40:28):
to him and he got to talk to her. That's
what I miss is that kind of camaraderie you just
don't do anymore. Nobody's got any time. They're all programming
like six markets, fifteen stations, well, also doing on air
shifts and proportions and everything else exactly. And that's and
still making the same money.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Unfortunately. The feeling of when you have an entire radio
station that's on the same page and everybody's getting along
and there's promotion staff and we that action in the buildings.
That okay, that was jamming. That was jamming.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Jammin in Portland was absolutely that hot ninety seven seven
in San Jose was that why ninety seven Santa Barber
for me was that energy? Was that when we launched it,
it was like.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
That when you came to the town, when you consult
me at Portland. Yeah, of course there are a lunch
story there that well.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
I mean, I remember I'd always come to you because
because we you know, back then it was all about
you know, we wanted to have content, but we also
wanted to take care of the music. And you got
to remember, I'm also.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Still hold that over my head now. It's been I know,
but not on the radio.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
In the back of my head, I was like, okay,
you know, identify the radio station. It's not all about you,
blah blah blah. And you had so many people on
the show, and I know you you're sitting in there
and you're feeling guilty because like you know, Scooter isn't
talking or Sony's not doing this or whatever, and you
want to involve everybody. And so I get it. You
had a three ring circus. It was the biggest production

(41:48):
I had ever seen in my life for a radio station,
because you had Tony doing video, you know, and Denise
was answering the phones. And I'm like going, because I
remember when I when you finally got it all going, yeah,
and I remember you were showing me around and you're going, okay, yeah,
Tony's doing this and she's doing that. I'm like, holy shit.
Like we'd have two person morning shows with maybe a

(42:09):
producer or not, and you've got like, how many people
do you have?

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Ten? Ten? Ten?

Speaker 2 (42:15):
And you were doing DVDs, DVDs.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
No.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
I remember that. I remember the time you had Scooter
in the fridge and you were pulling in behind the car.
So Felix, Felix, Felix, Yeah, okay, yeah, okay, there you go.
The best one was, you know, when you wanted to
do The Buried Live. Oh god, yeah, And I said,
you know, I said, you need to figure out a
way to pump some air in there, because I think

(42:38):
you're gonna suffocate.

Speaker 3 (42:40):
And you're like, you don't even think about it.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Look, I just I saw David Blaine do it. I'm like,
fuck it, I'm gonna marry myself alive. So it's gonna
be great. But it's on TV, so you don't know
why Mark let me do it?

Speaker 2 (42:49):
I'm really on You know, you could have had a
trapdoor down to some like apartment down there or whatever,
and that's how they pull it off.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
I'm sure they did, but not me. No, I was
like a little coffin and they poured the dirt on me.
And yes, spiders would come in because of the body heat.
It was awful. People would come and scream down the
to hell the air tube.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yeah, and they're throwing stuff in the air tube.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
How long were you in there for?

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Four days? I think, oh my gosh, on Friday to Monday.
That maybe three. That's when they were doing all these
crazy things. You know, it was just about getting attention.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah, living on the billboard freezing for a reason. There
was a guy that like sat on a block of
ice or something. You know.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah, I try to do some of that in Sacramento,
but they were not having Yeah, that's why I less.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
Oh, you know, because then you got to a point
where legal came in and you know, people started suing.
And then before you knew, it was like, but we're.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Definitely getting ganged up by you and Mark at the
whatever that place was called at lunch about playing music, Remember.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
What I said earlier, I said, it's about, you know,
tell me something that I don't know, make me laugh,
play my favorite song. So if he can do it
in the briefest possible manner, you know. And as you
know now, songs are shorter because attention spans are shorter.
Breaks to be kind of shorter and too the point,
not this type of a break because we're at.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
A hour or something.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
I don't know what we're at, but I'm getting a
call from.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
A BMW guy.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
We'll wrap it up. But I've never liked all these years,
I've never heard your story, so I just, uh, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Got a thousand stories. I mean, that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
I mean, I can have to do a part too.
We'll see what we'll see what you know, I'm gonna
get some people behind the glass and we got we
gotta we gotta know, we gotta do a sort.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Well, hang on, I want to do a song here
real quick. And no, yeah, I mean maybe part two. Yeah,
I'll see if I can pull up the old air
checks so we can.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
See what's god.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yeah, I mean, I've got dude, I got so many.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
I had a suitcase full because uh, one of my
first year, even on the Playhouse, the air check tapes
would be physically that tape, I remember, and threw them
all out, threw.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Them all well, yeah, and you know what you threw out,
which I still have a fucking pissed at you.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
What I gave you your memory?

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Go, I want to get a gold record, So I
gave you not a gold right, I just said I
wanted No, I know, so I gave you you're up
the final countdown?

Speaker 4 (45:04):
Right.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
I gave you that one because I thought, okay, well
you know what I mean. That was back when I
was at one ninety seven we were playing rot shit.
Then you should have just got me one of my
name on Well no, I know, but I wasn't able
to do that. But so so I gave you that,
and I'm thinking, okay, whatever, and then all of a
sudden they start using that all over the place and
commercials and shit. I'm like going, fuck, I played that

(45:25):
song before anybody, and like they gave.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
Me a gold record and I gave it to you
and you go, I don't know where it is, No one,
I lost it.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
I mean, fuck, yeah, sorry about that. That one's yeah, yeah,
whatever was on me. I wonder if we did something
with it on the air or I don't.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Know, No, you said that your buddy Ivan maybe too,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah, I don't know why I wanted to have because
I think every BD's office that I would go into
that have the record typ on the wall.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
I just wanted one, Okay, So here's the better why.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Here's the best story about that.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
So when you first start out in radio, and again
I don't know if they're really doing it as much
as they used to, but when we were, when we
were programming, you get a ton of them. So you
would get one like your first one like that you
like actually were playing the artist. I got one from
Michelle A that was Jerry Heller. He goes back to
the days of was it boys.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
In the hood?

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Right, Jerry Heller the manager, you know all that stuff,
And I used to talk to him, crazy guy, but
he gave me one because we played Michelle Au, Supersonic,
JJ FAD same thing that they were signed to his label.
I mean those were ones that, like I have still
to this day that I broke those artists Dino, who
is a friend of mine, a great guy, fucking great guy.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
Love that guy. Lucky you didn't give me any of those.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Yeah, I mean, you know I've got all those. I
don't have Stevie b I don't. I mean, I'm gonna
have to ask Stevie why I didn't get one.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Do you have him up on displayer war?

Speaker 2 (46:47):
No? I got him in my house. You know, I'll
bring upstairs. I'll show you my like whatever room. But
you know, you got to a point where they just
kept coming because what record labels would do is like
every time they would have like a new like let's
say the next album's coming out, all of a sudden, Wow,
you get the last album, here's the platinum whatever. Oh great,

(47:08):
And maybe it was some artists that you kind of played,
so you got it. Yeah, And the ones that you're
real proud of, like Paula Abduel because we played her
in the beginning. Those are the ones I wanted to have.
I never got new kids, which I broke those guys
back in the day. So now I've got so many
of them in there, you know some of them are
falling apart. MC Hammer, I gotta tell you the Hammer story.

(47:30):
MC Hammer is the nicest.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Guy in that I've heard. He's one of the nicest guys.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
That I still have his phone number. I'm going to
send him a text after we're done. Just no chance
he still has the same phober. Yeah, how long ago
from whenever? I don't know, probably thirty years Yeah, yeah, sure.
So it's like, didn't you ever do that as a
morning guy, Like, Okay, who's the most famous person you got?

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Okay on your phone? Great, give him a call, let's
put them on the air. Didn't you should do that? Yeah?
They never answered though, we did that. We'll do that one. Well,
we would do it, and you'd go through the email
thing and see whoever own the company and send him
an email. We'll try to get like at CBS, we
got right, call up Katie Kirk.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
Yeah, yeah, Okay, well whatever, that's cool. So so Hammer.
So we go back to San Jose Hot ninety seven
to seven, and we were not playing any rap at all.
I can't remember the song he had at the time. Hammer,
Please don't hurt him. I can't remember his first song.
He would come to our radio station and ask me
if he could you.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Know, brother at least August thirteen, nineteen eighty six. All right,
we know, let's get it started.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Let's get it started. Probably, yeah, that's probably it. Yeah,
what year was that, two thousand and eight? You no,
that might now, I don't know. Anyhow, he comes to
the station, he's trying to get me to play a song.
He's playing music. I'd go, yeah, you know, it's pretty cool,
but we were not playing rap right now because we weren't.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
He was Mike, man, you're missing now.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Man.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
You don't know, man, I'm telling you. And so then
we have a show. We have the cover girl, steveb
all these freestyle acts. I don't know how he got backstage,
but he's backstage and he's sitting on a chair and
he sees me jumps up.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Mike.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Mike, Mike, hey man, you gotta let me get up there, man,
let me, let me, let me perform. I said, man,
I can't. He goes May and Mike I said, yeah,
I go dude, man, we're gonna play one day.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Maybe it was like a month or two later. We
start playing his song and it's blowing up. People are
calling her requesting it. We get him to come perform
at Studio forty seven. Studio forty seven was an interesting club.
It was a minor adult club and right down the
middle of the club is a wall with a bar

(49:31):
on both sides. One side they're serving cokes and whatever,
and the other side they're serving hard liquor. If you're
an adult, you can go over to the other side,
but the kids can't come over.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
To this side. They don't still have those right now.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
I can't.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
I used to hang out at one of those in
not Portland. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
So, anyhow, long story short Hammer's performing. The stage literally
is maybe a twenty by It's probably the size of
your studio here. He had twenty people on stage with him, okay,
and they're all dancing in unison and I swear people
were dancing on tables. It was insane. After I saw that,

(50:08):
I go, oh, my God, and he knew it. He
knew it, he knew it the whole time along. So
then I moved to Houston and he releases you Can't
Touch This. He gets signed to Capitol Records. He does
this huge tour and he comes to Houston. We're backstage
at the Summit, which is now Joel Ostein's you know,
big Lakeward Church. He's in front of it like this

(50:31):
frickin whatever, taking pictures. He sees me and he goes.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
Mike, Mike.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
He starts running at me.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
And I got my wife with me, and I.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
Said, man, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Man?

Speaker 3 (50:40):
He goes, oh, man, He goes, can you believe this?

Speaker 2 (50:43):
And I said, ah, it's incredible. He goes, yeah, this
is insane. He goes, yeah, let's get a picture. So
I got that picture somewhere, which I'll show you. He goes, man,
you stay in touch. I said, yeah, yeah, I will.
So flash forward to nineteen ninety five. Okay, he's already
kind of lost stuff. He still lives in Tracy, California.
I'm at Kiton. He calls me up, says, hey, Mike,

(51:06):
I want to play some new music. Comes down, He
plays me some music and I said, Hammer, what are
you doing today? And he goes, Man, what do you
want Mike. This is when they had free standing record
stores music Land I think it was, was it music
Land whatever? And I called him up and I said, hey,
would you guys be interested in doing a impromptu record signing?

(51:29):
I got mc hammer. He's willing, you know, to do that. Yeah, sure,
we get on the radio. We say, in an hour,
come on down. He was there for three and a
half hours. There was a line wrapped around the building.
Three times. He signed everybody's autograph. As I said, nicest
guy in the world, nicest guy in the world.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
I love it, Like you know, one of the best
things for me was when I would meet a celebrity
that was far and beyond nice.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Listen, dude, I can sit here for two days and
go through fifty thousand stories about everything that's been done,
and it's it's great to do it.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Well, let's if we can find the tapes, and then.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Maybe I have tapes I have. I have all the tapes.
We're gonna have air check, playoff check, playoff.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
No all cringe, but yeah, well we'll play some, play some.
You gotta find me marks tape too. From back in
the day. You know what, I I don't have air
checking and and all that stuff that I don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
I don't have any I don't have any mark tapes
because I never hired him to be on the air,
so it was just him being a PD. But now
he's he's mister you know, hotshot New York. Does he
ever call He calls you really?

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Yeah? Yeah, never calls.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Me, but you know I will call him, He'll pick.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Up, we'll talk.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
Now.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
He's a great guy. I owe him, but I have
not congratulated him since he went to New York. You
might want to do that. I wonder if hebros reached
out to him.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
I was gonna wait a couple of weeks. Yeah, that
that's I'm sure they did. I gotta believe I got
to call him to Well, thanks for dropping by, Thanks
for the story.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
Is always good. Well anytime man, I got different. I
enjoyed it. Yeah. Part two coming up soon.