Joad To New Jersey

With no radio home and the Christmas holidays quickly approaching, I decided that my next logical move was to head up north and spend the season with my folks in New Jersey. Brother Tom was headed that way too, so I stopped at his place in Columbia, South Carolina, parked my Blue Beast Pontiac there and rode with him. Because the Beast had no back window, I figured that it might not serve me well in the colder northern climate. Like the Joads in “Grapes of Wrath”, it was heading out time.

I was right about the cold as Tom and I were greeted by a good-sized snowstorm beginning in Virginia. A foot of the white stuff would have piled up in the back seat of the Beast.

The day after Christmas, I found myself trudging in yet another good-sized snowstorm in the heart of Midtown Manhattan after accepting a radio broadcasting teaching job at an outfit called NBS Radio. They didn’t call themselves a “school,” but indeed it was, for all practical purposes, a broadcasting school or a hatched scheme to make money. My job was to instruct these students on how to announce and craft a recorded radio program for playback on selected radio stations everywhere. Some radio guys will recall playing the NBS tapes of those “students” at off hours at small radio stations out in the hinterlands.

On my first day, the female instructor who I was hired with on the same day I was, didn’t show up. I asked about her and was told that she got mugged in front of Gimbal’s across the street on her way in and that she wouldn’t be coming back. Brass knuckles or a baseball bat umbrella might be equipment to bring in on the train was a thought that crossed my mind.

The city can be treacherous, and it was pretty much a filthy and dangerous place back then. I remember a guy sitting in an easy chair that he had fashioned from cardboard in the middle of the sidewalk vending drugs to people passing by. Three Card Monte dealers set up on those city blocks everywhere to prove that a sucker is born every minute.

New York City was a stark contrast to The Golden Isles of Coastal Georgia. It wasn’t a totally foreign contrast as I was quite familiar with this urban monstrosity growing up in New Jersey, a stone’s throw away. New York was my original home city that cast a long shadow over the suburbs.

Even if it meant stepping over homeless people in the subway every day to get to class, I really enjoyed the job and watching some of those students' progress was extremely rewarding to me. Now, had I learned why people choose to be in the Teaching field.

NBS was on an upper floor of a “city walk-up" on 32nd street, near Madison Square Garden. An authentic Irish Pub was next door at the bottom of the stairs. I often spent my Happy Hour there after my last class ended at 10:00 pm. Marty, the bartender spoke with a true Irish brogue and served Guiness on tap. The place was magical, and they served plates of food for six bucks. It was a great spot to get a quick drink and bite before catching the last train to New Jersey.

Now, all that was needed was an On-Air radio job to add to my weekday teaching gig. I had my resumes typed on an ancient Underwood and five-inch open reel audition tapes of my shows on 101Q ready to help me get on my next radio station. Not one to mail job request packages and wait by the phone, I set out in a borrowed thirty-year-old winter coat from my Dad to follow the radio station broadcast towers like Dew and Loretta in “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”

I knocked on radio doors wherever I could find them. I visited one of New York radio icon Cousin Brucie’s owned stations, WRAN, Dover, North Jersey and they said no, they didn’t have any openings. Across the way on Route 10, was 105-5 WDHA, The Rock of North Jersey. The receptionist called an extension number and Program Director, Mark Chernoff came out to meet me and invited me back to the production studio (where commercials are made) and threaded up my tape. Midday Personality, Kathy Millar was on the air, and he motioned to her to come in and played my tape a second time for her to hear. Kathy gave me a “thumbs up” and Mark quickly took me back to his office and gave me a choice of weekend radio shows to choose from. I chose Friday to Saturday overnight and Sunday afternoon. Now, I was cooking seven days a week and 1982 was off to a great start.

WDHA was...and still is...a great radio station. The studios were right on Highway Route 10 in Dover in a 1940’s era house. Some claimed it was formerly a psychiatrist’s office. Radio people broadcasting from an old shrink’s office. Imagine that. The studio had what is called a “stand up” control board with two microphones paired together to form a stereo setup. On the wall, amongst other rock art was a black styrofoam plane wing. I asked about the wing and learned the story of when General Manager Bob Linder was at a Pink Floyd “Dark Side of The Moon” show. A wing from the “On The Run” plane that ran from a wire over the crowd broke off and landed in his lap! I had seen one of the first Dark Side shows back in 1973 and witnessed that plane cruising down over the crowd and crashing behind the band. I still think that was one of the coolest pieces of Rock memorabilia ever.

I was back at a Rock station, and I couldn’t have been happier. My Dad listened in and said “you sound good, but I don’t know about that music.”

On ‘DHA, I liked to do what I called a “headphone set” where I’d start two identical copies of an album at once. When they started, I adjusted the pitch on one turntable slightly back and forth to create what is called a phase where the stereo signal passes from one ear to the other on headphones. It’s an eerie effect, but it was fun to do. My listeners loved it. At three o’clock in the morning, why not? It was a whole new way to listen to “In The Lap of The Gods” by The Alan Parsons Project.

When I look back, my days in Rock radio were my happiest. I was lucky to have two great Rock Program Directors in Mark Chernoff and Butch Peiker who saw something in me, took a chance, and hired me on a hunch. Tom Donahue, the essential California Godfather of Rock radio made it a major format in its infancy in the 60’s on the Left Hand Coast. My generation was tasked with carrying that torch. The torch was perceived to have flamed out when original New York heritage rocker 102.7 WNEW New York changed its format in the 90’s but it burns brightly in today’s world on terrestrial and online radio. New York legend Jim Kerr and Q104.3 have taken 102-7’s place. Long Live Rock and Roll.