Resolution Revolution

  Merry Christmas readers!

  Many years ago I decided to abandon the idea of News Years resolutions because they mostly involved weight loss. My announced plans of getting into the gym and dropping a few pounds fell by the wayside; usually by January 5th. In the years since my decision to quit the practice of  making vows I would not keep I have actually benefited by losing the weight and keeping it off  for more than 13 years. In summer of 1995 I got off by big butt and took a job that involved physical labor. Up until that point I worked as a radio disk jockey spending most of my day either sitting or reclining inventing ways of getting out of actual labor. That first hot August night I began a real job literally sweating the pounds away. Work is good for both body and mind. However, moderation can be viewed as beneficial.

  You see, I took the weight loss thing to the extreme and lost too much. People close to me said I looked sick having dropped almost 100 pounds in a fairly short amount of time that summer. I had my doctor prescribe a diet that I followed to the letter for almost four years. Later I realized that the plan was intended to remove the blubber quickly and not a maintenance diet designed to keep a healthy weight. Although I can no longer fit into those size 30 jeans I am comfortable in my skin whereas before the weight loss I was overly self-conscious. 14 years ago I firmly decided to leave my old career behind. It was killing me.

  Having said all that brings me back to todays topic: resolutions. This Peanut Whistle blog has become too much of a trip down only one address on memory lane. It has become too focused on a past that is dead and gone. While I still value my experiences as lessons for the future; the present time is the best I have lived in due to the wonderful additions over the past decade of a loving wife and four great kids who have no first hand knowledge of what has been presented in this blog. For the first time in many, many years I am making a resolution. For 2010, I intend to make Peanut Whistle more current with topical stories from my life as well as observations of trends in the music, Internet and broadcasting industry from my unique perspectives as a former DJ. Only my original Gospel Aircheck blog will have posts similar to the ones formerly featured here in the 'Whistle. My lessons learned throughout this exercise has been that the present is to be valued just as much as the past and that the good old days weren't always as good as I remembered. As Stevie Wonder penned,

"They've been wasting most their time / Glorifying days long gone behind  / They've been wasting most their days / In remembrance of ignorance oldest praise" 

  Instead of a Pastime Paradise let's go forward expecting our best days are ahead.

Stay tuned.







©2009 - 2010 The Peanut Whistle. All rights reserved.

Decisions, Decisions, Part Two

  For a brief time in late 1986 my dad and I shared similar paths. We were both dissatisfied with how work prospects had dried up in the small coastal town we lived in for 13 years. In early summer of the year he asked if I had ever considered moving away to a bigger city and presumably a better life. He felt limited by the market and I agreed. Most disk jockeys of my era shared the opinion that moving "upmarket" was always a good idea. It meant better exposure and more money. The novelty of my first radio home had worn off. I was ready for a bridge burning change irrespective of an actual moving day. At the time I called it burnout. I was lying to myself; radio was my life. But what was I to do? I had a certain numerical figure in mind my current situation fell far from the mark of meeting, so a new career seemed necessary.

  Savannah, Georgia was known as a medium sized radio town ranked at about number 149 while Atlanta was a major market constantly in the top 10 of all US cities. By December of '86 my family had settled into our new home just outside the Atlanta metro, Douglasville. I had got a job immediately as an office temp doing telemarketing. At least I was using my voice, just in a different direction. The money was much better, almost my goal amount.

  My previous employer had set up an interview at a 50,000 watt sister station in Atlanta that I felt was a false opportunity. About an hour commute was unappealing even for the dollar figure, nearly twice my old rate. I would have been upside down with the fuel cost alone!

  I forever viewed this as a good decision although it meant a gap between radio homes. How long a gap was uncertain. The good news was that by the end of February I was in broadcasting again, This time at a 1,000 watt AM daytimer located mere minutes from home with comfortable pay.

  The station was in a facility recently remodeled and filled with the latest pro equipment. Despite its transmitted power, it was the best sounding facility of all my radio homes. Three months into my stay there the owner made the astounding announcement the the station would be sold! What had I got myself into?

  I had gained favor with the GM, "Vic", who gave me a 10% raise after only 30 days. It was this manager whose resignation, I assume, was catalyst for the sale. The business was owned by a local church, he was the pastor. The back story I can only speculate. I believe that the radio station was Pastor Vic's baby and his leaving gave those less enthusiastic of his cause leeway to unburden the load that we undoubtedly were. Key people eventually resigned and I became Program Director By November of 1987, finally earning my magic number, to the penny.

  Ironically, my monetary victory was shallow. I was unhappy. The money did not satisfy my artistic leanings. The station was boring. Except me, we had little or no listeners as we sailed on adrift, waiting to be sold. That process would take another three years. I have to give the owners credit for their integrity. Pulling the plug on the whole operation and going dark would have been the best course but they nobly kept us paid never missing a beat once. Unprecedented creativity was about to be unleashed from me as I was to find out with the successor at radio home 3. That is another story.

Stay tuned

The Big Tease

This is my new idea for an instructional video. Subject: Radio Broadcasting Technique, peanut whistle style.


Stay tuned
©2009 – 2010 The Peanut Whistle. All rights reserved.

Decisions, Decisions, Part One

A question I often pondered is why did I stay in radio so long? The answer is not so easy. The money was not good at all. I started out as a minimum wage button pusher at a 5,000 watt AM daytimer in Savannah, Georgia in 1983. By 1986 I had squeezed another 15 cents an hour out of management. Wow! What a windfall. In 20/20 hindsight, I believed the low wages was ownership’s way of taking advantage of us admittedly unambitious disk jockeys who lived and breathed radio. In other words we were underpaid because we loved the medium too much and were fools enough to take the monetary abuse. The first four years was a love hate relationship. Fact was that I could have been more proactive in sending out airchecks to bigger stations; but I felt at the time a longing to stay in gospel radio. Lack of confidence also played a role.

I was a shy teenager who had friends working at the Piggly Wiggly making upwards of a dollar more an hour. The “prestige” of my job somehow compensated for the gap. Personal appearances at skating parties paid way more than my station in summer of ‘84 but these gigs became non-existent on into 1985, a pivotal year for me.

Realizing that my pleading with a system that was either unwilling or unable to give a substantial raise caused a sense of futility hidden from plain view. Those closest to me knew of my dissatisfaction. For the sake of my craft I was willing to continue honing my DJ persona while I secretly, later openly, pursued a better paying job.

A promising airplane factory job was the first I turned down. A five week training course completed, I flat refused to see myself ever taking any amount of money to do shift work. My dad had pulled some strings with a college buddy’s wife well connected with the plant. The job would have been a sure thing. Somehow radio beckoned and I returned full time despite the better money and benefits. Needless to say greed never played a role. The tug of radio was an irresistible force. It was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, the greater good, my purpose; a calling. With that rationalization my wander lust subsided, for the moment.

By the end of 1986 I was fed up by the insult of a tiny raise not compensatory with my perceived improvement  that I legitimately worked very hard  obtaining, thank you very much; artistically indignant to coin a phrase. In reality my skill set was only better in delivering time, temperature and record introduction with inflections borrowed from the FM top 40 disk jockeys I attempted to emulate never imagining that personality radio was the wave of the future.

The days of my type of DJ were numbered while the shock jock was on the cusp of forever changing the way radio was done. Not that I wanted risqué talk a part of my repertoire rather the courage of these innovators to break the rules by speaking in their natural voices, expressing the listeners’ mind and bringing a brand of honesty that turned broadcasting on its ear was what I came to admire today.

In my defense, personality radio was not part of my training or nature. Being myself on-air horrified me so  advice to lighten up would have likely fallen on deaf ears. I would have scoffed at the idea seeing it unprofessional. In the final analysis, no one mentored me to excellence. Only the mechanics of running the board were taught, the rest was hit or miss self education.

Radio home number one was never a cohesive unit; a beast lacking focus. It was truly chaotic and not in a good, creative contrasting way. There were other DJ’s who did time, temp and intros “better” than me, for sure, but that method was going the way of the dinosaur. The radio industry evolved as my station spewed an extinct form I would eventually unlearn at my next two stations…

stay tuned

copyright 2009 The Peanut Whistle. All rights reserved.

A Real Class Act

A super group took the stage exactly two years to the day prior to my entry into the world. Jake Hess and the Imperials, a hand picked gathering of superstars of the gospel music industry. A band of ringers that included: Jake Hess on lead, Gary McSpadden on Baritone, Sherrill Nielsen tenor, and the incomparable Armond Morales with his trademark silky bass. The night was January 16th, 1964 in Hadleyville, Alabama, Jake’s home town. Gospel music was never again the same. This group was different, they sounded modern. A little too different at first for some. Jake is quoted  as saying, “I don’t think we’re going to do it.” Armond lent some encouraging words, “Don’t limit God.” In a March, 1989 article from CCM magazine celebrating the groups’ 25th anniversary, the late Jake Hess concludes, “…If it hadn’t been for those three little words I don’t think there would be an Imperials today.”

Although singers came and went the Imperials sound remained consistently great. They backed Elvis Presley on stage and record, accompanied Jimmy Dean and many other stars of the music industry. The group has numerous Grammy and Dove awards; and in 1998 they were inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame. They’re the New York Yankees of Gospel.

Founding member Armond Morales suffered through a battle with cancer a while back and relinquished the Imperials’ name to son Jason and a new generation of singers. Now the original group is known as the Classic Imperials. Following a miraculous recovery, Armond continues the heritage began in ‘64 along with Dave Will, Rick Evans and Paul Smith.

In 1983 I made my first Lp purchase for my new stereo. The record was Stand by Power by the Imperials featuring then new lead singer Paul Smith. The album produced many hits including: Lord of the Harvest, Because of Who You Are and Stand by the Power. I have been a fan ever since.

Of course I knew of the group through my dad’s record collection. He had a scratchy mono Lp copy of the first record, Introducing Jake Hess and the Imperials. As a teen I was thrilled to spin their new record  that was in itself another triumph in redefining the Christian music art form. Somehow they managed to outdo themselves with every new album just as No Shortage, One More Song for You and Priority had done.

Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with lead singer Rick Evans. We had a delightful conversation via Facebook about the forthcoming new album. I asked Rick how the new project was going, he said, “[It’s] a long process, but we are getting closer each day.” I replied that I could identify seeing that the creative process can be time consuming, my radio days and nights were often spent in countless hours on one 30 second spot. “We are lucky to be have a record company that is willing to take the time to make this right,” Evans continued. I asked if he could give me any glimpse into the songs included on the project. Rick replied, “Very different. We used some of the best writers in Nashville. They came up with a work of art. The record will actually be a journey of a person’s life. It is a cool concept and will be wonderful introduction back into the music marketplace.” Kind of like Styx and some of the other “concept” bands of the ‘70’s I jokingly referred. Not missing a beat the Classic Imperials new lead singer responded, “No actually you are on the right track. It is more like the Beatles and the Lonely Hearts [Club] Band thing. It will be GREAT!”

“It was twenty years ago today,
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play
They've been going in and out of style
But they're guaranteed to raise a smile.
So may I introduce to you
The act you've known for all these years,
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Funny how the Classic Imperials and the Beatles started about the same time. The good news is we still have the Beatles of gospel here and now. Thanks to Rick and all the Classic Imperials for not only entertaining us, but more importantly ministering in ways those other guys never attempted.

Stay tuned.

My Dennis the Menace

  Today's post is a departure for me. I feel it very therapeutic venting about one of my peanuts. My brilliant three year old Madison is a bit of a scientist. Today she was testing the destructive properties of H2O on electronics. It seems that water when poured directly on cordless phones and cassette tape recorders ceases viable operation of said devices.  Very interesting. How could I go nearly twenty years owning a Panasonic portable tape recorder without introducing 20 ounces of Aquafina to the circuit board? Both the phone and the tape recorder are drying now. The secret to preserving electronics when accidentally wet is do not turn them on. Remove batteries immediately and let the cases air dry thoroughly. I learned my lesson when I dropped a Nintendo DS game system into a bowl of water last year. I turned the game on after briefly blow drying it. That was a big mistake! If power is applied to a wet circuit board then you might as well throw it away. I repeat, immediately remove the power source and let the device dry thoroughly a day or two before powering up again. There seems to be no quick fixes. Auto parts stores carry a product known as wire drier and of course WD40 spray that work well on ignition distributors, spark plug wires and such, but I've never used these remedies on small electronics. I recommend taking the safe route.

 

  My life is far from being a cartoon strip but Angie and I believe we have a Dennis the Menace on our hands. She is smart but is into everything. My little bit has made more experiments than I can recall and presented more challenges than her other three siblings combined. Thank God for kids.

Stay tuned

©2009 The Peanut Whistle. All rights reserved.