Bill Gamble
Bill Gamble is the program director of US-99 and Fresh-FM (105.9) for CBS Radio in Chicago.
Rick: First of all, congrats on your return to Chicago. It must be nice to get handed a top rated station (US99)—that doesn’t happen to program directors very often. I’m guessing that your motto will be: “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke.” Am I right?
Bill: It really is a machine. People come and go and the machine keeps rolling. It was rewarding to get it to #1 in September. But you know how it is. It’s so competitive in this market; it can change overnight, especially with PPM. I’m lucky. This is a radio station that has great relationships with the artists and the community. We’ve got great people in mornings, middays and afternoons; our marketing director’s been here for ten years. It’s a special place, and hopefully I won’t wreck it. (laughs)
Rick: I didn’t realize that you had a background in country radio until I researched for this interview. Your last stop in Colorado was a country station, wasn’t it?Bill: Yes, that’s true. I left Chicago and ABC in Sept 2005, and went to Denver with CBS in 2006. I programmed the country station there, called the Wolf, but I also programmed the Hot AC, and the Oldies station.
Rick: You see, to me, that’s the most fascinating part of your radio resume: the wide variety of formats you’ve programmed. I had a short stint programming an AOR many years ago, and I know that it takes a great deal of musical knowledge to do one format. You’ve done no less than seven or eight different music formats. How do you manage to do that?
Bill: I think you get to the point where you realize what the job is. The job is not breaking new artists. It’s not making a musical statement. As program directors, we’re really just glorified customer service reps.
(Photo: Bill with 94.7 staffers in Fall of 97--Scott Dirks, Bob Stroud, Scott MacKay, Zemira Jones)I had a Tom Petty album behind my desk at Q-101—that’s what I personally like. But you give the audience what they want. If you do that, it will work out okay. There are some programmers that create this wonderful tapestry and I get that, but even more now with PPM, it’s clearly just as simple as asking: “What do you want?”
Rick: You’re talking about research?Bill: That’s part of it. Research, experience, retail sales, market knowledge. I’m a big believer in knowing how things work in a certain market. Knowing the promoters, knowing the past, having experience. The great thing about having that time off between jobs was that it helped me get back to thinking like a listener.
Does it really matter if I play the power recurrent out of the stop set? (laughs) I don’t think so. The listener isn’t thinking about that. He or she is thinking about flu shots, or the Bears, or the rain. Realizing that makes you a better programmer.
Rick: You’re also programming Fresh-FM, which is an AC or Hot AC station. You’ve been there a few months now and made a few changes. Where do you see Fresh-FM fitting in on the Chicago radio spectrum? Who do you consider to be your main competitors?
Bill: I would put it slightly differently. It’s who do we consider to be our target? We’re targeting women. We believe there’s an opportunity in this market to get contemporary women. Our approach is slightly different than the other stations. It’s not about talk. It’s not about contesting. It’s about: Here’s the song, I hope you like it. Here’s the music. That’s how Fresh is different. From the cume point of view we’re always in the top ten, so people are checking us out.
Rick: You’ve made some personnel changes since you arrived. Mike LeBaron was let go. Roxanne Steele was hired. Brooke Hunter, who you’ve worked with at several stations previously, was recently brought on to do a weekend show. Bill: Yes, Brooke is doing a Friday night 90s show cleverly titled “Friday Night 90s” and will do some fill in stuff from time to time. And yes, we hired Roxanne Steele to do afternoons for us, and she’s doing a fine job. Rick Hall is filling in for mornings for the time being, and he’s done everything we’ve asked of him.
Rick: You are looking for a morning talent though. Are you looking for a music jock or a personality show?Bill: We’re looking for someone that can get us numbers. I’d rather not say any more than that right now.
Rick: You’ve obviously tried both approaches at your previous stops in Chicago. You’ve worked with big time talent like Murphy and Kevin Matthews...Bill: And Morton Downey Jr. and Chet Coppock back at WMAQ.
Rick: And some great music jocks too. As a programmer, do you have a philosophy of dealing with talent?
Bill: I think the answer is yeah, I do. Treat them all as individuals. They’re all different. There isn’t a silver bullet for dealing with all personalities. What works with one won’t work for another. For instance, Kevin Matthews (photo) is different than everyone (laughs).
But there are some common traits that all great talents possess: a tremendous desire to win and impatience when things aren’t right. I like that. I like to see the expectations very high. They should be—and they should be unhappy when things aren’t perfect. I admire that.
And boy, this market more so than any other market, has world class talent. All you have to do is leave Chicago for a little while to appreciate how great the talent is here up and down the dial. It’s simply not as good in the rest of the country. Radio matters to people in this market.
Rick: You are considered an innovator in the business because of some of the formats you started—especially in the modern rock realm. You created that first Q-101 modern rock format many years ago. Then you created the Zone, which went through a stretch where it was also an alternative sort of station. Is it true that you had planned to unveil the new Zone format on September 11, 2001? Bill: It was actually the 12th, but yeah. Can you believe that? We were set to go, and we had really been working on it. You know all the work that goes into that stuff, and then we all got caught by surprise. I guess everyone in the country did. I walked into the station, and everyone was in the conference room when the first plane hit. Then the second.
I was watching the TV, and then I realized, wait a second here. We have people on the air, and we need to cover this, and there was that lag time while we were all mesmerized. We decided to simulcast with WLS, which was our sister station, and we ended up doing that for the better part of the next month or so.
Now every programmer I know monitors things much more closely. We all have a browser open, or we’ve got the television on with the sound down.
Rick: So how long was it before you got the format up?Bill: I think it was about a month.
Rick: What are your thoughts about that format now? Has it outlived its usefulness or is it still viable?Bill: I haven’t done it for awhile, so I’m not really on top of it. It’s hard to say. If you look nationwide, there aren’t many stations programming it, and the ratings aren’t that great for the ones that are, but that doesn’t mean young listeners aren’t out there.
Contemporary hit radio, for instance, is getting tremendous PPM numbers. The idea that youth won’t listen to radio isn’t true. I’ll admit that back in the day it was difficult to program to 15-25 year olds, because advertisers wanted older listeners, but there are some healthy radio stations in this town (B96 for instance), programming contemporary music.
As for the alternative scene, people that have studied this—people much smarter and tuned in than me—say that the whole scene really ended the day that Kurt Cobain killed himself. After that it became so derivative—meanwhile Dave Matthews was selling 20,000 tickets in colleges. (
Photo:Q-101 staff early 90s: Dave McBride, Brian Peck, Robert Chase, Bill Gamble, Hedi Hess, Steve McEwen, Mark Goodman, Carla Leonardo)
The audience directed us in a new path. The record companies tried to shove Limp Bizkit down our throats, but the audience told us something else. The great thing about PPM is that we used to feel like we were driving the bus, but we obviously weren’t. The audience figures it out. We follow them.
Rick: Now that you’ve been back in Chicago for a few months—what is the best part of being back?Bill: The best thing is our kids are here, and our friends are here, and it’s good to be home. I’m a White Sox fan. I’m not crazy about that late season fold, but it’s good to be able to watch them again. It’s fun to watch Cutler and the Bears. It’s good to be in a place where people care about sports. In Denver they kind of like sports, but its nothing like here.
Plus they have like seven feet of snow in Denver now. (laughs)
Artie Kennedy
Artie Kennedy has been a producer, technical producer, production director, and creative image director in Chicago for twenty years.Rick: This summer ESPN Radio made some cutbacks behind the scenes and one of the victims was one of my favorite blade men in the city--Artie Kennedy. Am I still allowed to use that title "blade man" or does that make me sound a thousand years old?
Artie: Um, yeah kind of old Rick...since I haven't used a razor blade and grease pencil for about 10 years. (Now, many radio people will laugh at my statement of 10 years since most radio editing folks have been digital since like 1990ish.)
My favorite blade man, to steal your terminology Rick, is The Wizard...Matt Bisbee. I learned so much from Matt over the years, whether he knew it or not. Biz is with Bonneville now but many might recognize Matt Bisbee from The Old Loop...he's awesome and the voice is unmistakable....
"On The Loop". By the way, my partner and friend Ernie Scatton was also a victim of those cutbacks so if someone needs a good voice over man, he’s a good guy to know.
Rick: You had been at the station for 11 years in various different capacities, including the last several years as the Creative Image Director. ESPN listeners might not know your name, but they've certainly heard your voice and your work. For those people that don't follow the business too closely, could you explain what that position entails?Artie: Basically my job was to make fun of myself and everyone else that held a microphone. I wrote scripts, voiced some myself and used a voice over guy/friend, Jim Cutler and his wife Dawn for promos, bumpers, liners, and many other things on the air or on the ESPN website. I produced all of it and had a lot of fun doing it over the years.
Rick: You also did your share of producing/technical producing for many of the shows at the station, including several that are no longer there (like The HUGE show, Harry & Spike, and the beginning of Mac, Jurko & Harry). I don't think there are many people that witnessed more happenings at that station than you. Tell us a few of your favorite stories from your years at ESPN.
Artie: I think one of the most memorable moments...and I apologize ahead of time to Danny Mac and Harry Teinowitz for this little ditty, but one story that absolutely stands out is when Mac and Harry got in a bit of a scrap in the studio while Mac, Jurko and Harry were live on air...(Mac always made fun of that phrase by the way,
of course we're live, what are we dead?) Mitch Rosen, Program Director at the time, came running down after my call to him saying "you'd better get down here...cuz someone just hit the floor from a shove."
The other story that stands out was during The Huge show with Bill Simonson (photo) and Chicago's very own Lou Canellis. We were all at the Sox/Cubs game on a Friday night back in about 99 or maybe 2000 that went 14 innings (the Sox won). Bill asked my wife and I if we wanted to head over to Jimbo's for another beer...but we decided that Bill might have already had toooooo much and we took a pass.
That's the night he got that broken nose from fending off like 15 or 20, or maybe it was a 100 teenagers, that attacked him while walking through Armor Park in Bridgeport. The next few weeks on the air were an absolute circus. Now you can believe what you want about the validity of that story but I have my own sources that contradict the events of that night...but what do I know? I wasn't there.
Some of my other favorite moments are when I would appear on air as John "Jurko" Jurkovic's alter ego "Blocko" on the Mac, Jurko and Harry show (in Jurko speak "sweet momma seata, Artie's making fun of me doll.") Jurko is one of the coolest and naturally funny people on the air or off.
Rick: We met almost twenty years ago when we both worked at the Loop . You replaced John "Swany" Swanson as the technical producer of the Jonathon Brandmeier show on a Monday--and I just happened to be the jock on the overnight show. In those days it took almost two hours to set up the studio for Johnny, and it was done around the overnight jock--stacks of carts all over the place. I can still see your face setting up the studio that morning. I can only imagine how terrifying that must have been. It was your first radio job. Do you remember that morning at all? I've never seen anyone sweat that much in my life.Artie: Well nervous would be an understatement...I do remember Rick Kaempfer, Wendy Snyder or Terry Gibson jocking overnights at The Loop. Wendy was always so much help because she knew everything that happened on Johnny B.'s show. Not that you weren't Rick. Your readers may not realize how calm you were/are, but nothing seems to phase you, dude...(oops, I used DUDE right there, how Buzz Kilman of me. Buzz loved the word dude. He once told me that after I asked him, 'Buzz do you know that guy?' He said 'Nope, but thank God for the word DUDE, Artie.')
Anyway, yes, I remember that 1st day. I was just out of college and here I was working for one of the biggest names in the radio business, not just in Chicago but in all of radio. Everyone in the business knew Johnny B., Steve and Garry, Kevin Matthews and Danny Bonaduce; at that point I was just hoping to not F things up for the fast moving train of the Hyper Rooster that was/is The Johnny B. Radio Showgram. Johnny (photo) taught me sooo much about this thing we call radio.
To answer the question you really asked me Rick...yes I was sweating a whole bunch and I still do! I sweat blinking, I leave salt rings sometimes on the pillow, most of my baseball caps have sweat stains but surprisingly I don't have that big person stank to me. My wife doesn't understand how a larger individual like myself with all the sweating I do, is somehow active as well. Go figure!
Rick: Long time Brandmeier listeners will remember you because you really did become a big part of the show. What are some of your favorite moments from those Johnny B years?
Artie: I always loved Christmas time on the Johnny B. Showgram because Johnny played the over-served Santa to my clean and happy Artie the Elf, which was as high pitched as a 275lb man could be. Johnny thought I must have tied something around my junk to get my voice that high, but no. We had so much fun messing around with the kids on the phones and everyone was happy because the holidays were right around the corner.
(Photo: Artie from the Johnny B days)
I will always remember my time as Mike Tyson on J.B.'s show...he loved that stuff...just to make fun of me. But some people actually thought it was Mike Tyson in-studio or on the phone. The one time that really stands out is the time Johnny had Mike Tyson (me) in-studio and Jimmy Page of Zeppelin showed up too (not really--it was a great impersonator, Jimmy McInerny, the other audio wizard on Johnny's show...wow, what an egomaniac I am...the OTHER audio wizard!) Listeners kept calling in thinking they were speaking with Tyson and Page, but not fully sold, they kept quizzing Jimmy Mac
(photo) on Zeppelin trivia...there is no stumping that guy on Zeppelin history.
The last memory on J.B.'s show I'll speak of is when Mickey Rooney was in-studio and Carol Harmon (great executive producer with Johnny and still with him in another capacity) and I were laughing at a funny Mickey story about one of his like 8 wives when he suddenly switched into this sentence: "Of course you know my 5th wife Barbara was murdered." Well Carol and I were still laughing about his other wife story and he looks in and sees us laughing and says, "That's not funny...someone was murdered!!" I mean, I got yelled at by Mickey Rooney…a living legend! When Johnny and I e-mail each other these days, one of us has to mention
MY 5th Wife Barbara!Rick: After you left Johnny's show, you switched to the Danny Bonaduce show. You ran the board for him, and worked as his technical producer, so you really saw how Danny operated close and personal. He always appeared to just be going with the flow, but he was crazy like a fox, wasn't he? 
Artie: Danny would do anything for the entertainment value....ANYTHING! He once had the staff, including Danny himself, Haji (Neil Sant...Kevin Matthews gave him that name), Shemp (Kevin gave HIM his name too), and a listener or two eat some of the most vile things, like a ducks eye, a goat's junk…yes that junk, a birds heart and some other things all in the name of entertainment.
He use to play “CarEokee”...which was Danny driving a listener as fast as he could down the John Hancock Building's spiral parking garage ramp while the listener sang a song without stopping until the bottom. If the listener would stop singing....no prize, buddy. The problem was Danny would drive like 25 MPH down it. Most drivers could do like 5 or 10 MPH because the spiral was purposely made tight.
Danny was slightly nuts, but he was fun, and a great entertainer. I'm sure he still is at his radio station in, I think, Philadelphia.
Rick: I didn't even realize until I researched for this interview, but you were also a producer for Richard Roeper and Steve Cochran during their brief AM 1000 days. Tell the story about the day Richard Roeper more or less quit on the air.Artie: Oh thanks Rick, you didn't even know I was on those shows...I guess you wouldn't be considered a P1 to those shows (P1 basically means you listen all the time to a certain show because you set your 1st radio preset button on your radio to that station...i.e. P1).
Richard was always on...on the air, in the breaks, in the bathroom...that’s a joke right there. Yeah, Richard got wind that they were bringing in Steve Cochran and said to Jen Weigel (photo) and myself that he "wasn't keeping that seat warm until they brought someone else in." So he left...we thought he was kidding but an intern confirmed that he got on the elevator and left the building. I liked working with Richard because he is funny, but that one kind of left us in a trick bag. Jen and I took calls, talked about Richard leaving and calmed down the Program Director, who was slightly upset. I don't even know if Richard remembers it at all but that’s how I remember it. I don't see him much anymore but he is a good guy.
Rick: If I'm not mistaken, a very personal moment in your life took place live on the air on Steve Cochran's show. 
Artie: Steve Cochran
(photo) was doing mornings on AM 1000 and I was his technical producer, Dorothy Humphreys was doing our traffic for the show, and another guy Jeff was doing the sports. Steve knew that he was not going to be invited to stay at AM 1000 when the all sports ESPN took over in October of 1998 and so did I, so I came up with a plan.
On September 11, 1998 I called in sick, for like the first time ever calling in sick. The other producers, Steve Grunwald and Ron Lange, had no idea that I was faking it. I headed over to my then girlfriends townhouse and broke into her place. (I originally met her at the Kevin Matthews Toga Party in April of 1997 at the Willowbrook Ballroom.) I told her the night before to set her radio alarm for 6:45AM because we were going to make an announcement about the fate of the AM 1000 station.
So as I was about to break into her place I called back to the station exactly at 6:44AM and asked the producer to put Cochran on the phone, he said,
"he's on the air"...I said "I know, just put him on!" Steve picked up the phone on the air because he was the only one that knew what I was doing. I broke in and walked upstairs at my girlfriend's place, her radio alarm went off and I took a knee and asked her to marry me live on the Steve Cochran Show. She was confused because she was just woken up on a 50,000 watt radio station by her idiot boyfriend of a year and a half...but she said ABSOLUTELY...never yes.
We just had our 10 year anniversary in July and have two little girls who are cute and funny. I have no idea where they get that sense of humor.
(PHOTO: Artie and his daughters)
Rick: And they said it wouldn't last. Congratulations. And congratulations on your radio career too. You've been working in Chicago radio for the better part of twenty years now. Can you believe it? Artie: I cannot believe it at all. I've worked with some really great talent over the years like: Johnny B, Bonaduce, Steve Cochran, Mac, Jurko, and Harry. Producers like Jimmy McInerney, Adam Delevitt, Jeff Hoover, Brendan Sullivan, Ben Finfer, Danny Zederman, Vince Argento, Tommy Seritella, Carol Harmon, of course the great Rick Kaempfer and many others. General Managers who believed in me like Larry Wert, Bob Synder, Jim Pastor and John Cravens. Program Directors like Mitch Rosen, Len Weiner, Jeff Schwartz (ok, Spaceball) and many more. Creative Image Directors like Matt Bisbee, Ernie Scatton, and Mikey Bratton.
Rick: I know it's a rough time for radio, and it's a rough time to be looking for work in general, but I imagine there must be a station out there that can use the services of an Artie Kennedy. Are you available if someone's looking?Artie: Oh yeah. I’d love the opportunity to stick with radio here in Chicago and if you have something for me, drop me an E-mail at alkennedy-09@sbcglobal.net. Thank you so much Rick for this opportunity to talk about my 20 plus years around radio.
Robin Baumgarten
Robin Baumgarten is the co-anchor of the WGN Morning News on Channel 9.Rick: Your colleague, resident nutball/producer Jeff Hoover, once described you to me this way: "She likes to knock back a few beers and smoke a heater. She's not afraid to speak her mind. She kinda reminds me of my Dad when I'd have my friends over to the house and he'd be in the garage working on the car and his ass crack would be showing, and I'd ask him to pull up his pants and he'd say 'if you don't like it, don't look at it.'" Would you say that's a pretty good description, and would you like to retaliate and describe Hoover?
Robin: I would love to rebut all of Jeff Hoover’s comments, but my mom always told me: “Don’t talk about people in public. Be polite, and do it behind their backs.”
So behind his back, I'll say Jeff is the funniest, most talented segment producer in Chicago. But he's also a compulsive liar!
Rick: Of course, you and Hoover have something in common. You are both graduates of the Johnny B school of broadcasting. You were Johnny's traffic reporter for several years during your days at Shadow Traffic. Do you have any favorite memories from your years on the show? Robin: I have such fond memories of that show – Johnny is the best.
I was new to the business, and Johnny, Buzz Kilman, and Bruce Wolf were all so accommodating about making me part of the team. It was a blast going to work every day.
One of my favorite memories is of the Donny Osmond/Danny Bonaduce fight that Johnny organized at the old China Club. He brought in the late, great Jack Brickhouse as an analyst. As Jack was waiting to go onstage, and I was waiting a few feet behind him, he turned his head and “hocked a lugey” over his shoulder and it landed right on my shoe. No matter what else I do in this business, I'll forever be known as the girl that got “lugeyed” by Jack Brickhouse
(photo). A true honor.
My favorite memory of Buzz is the time he went nuts when he found out the Subway Tuna Sandwich had more fat grams than a burger. Hysterical. He is truly one of the funniest people I've ever met.
Rick: Is there anything that the Brandmeier experience taught you about broadcasting that still helps you today? Robin: The biggest lesson I’ve taken with me is how to think on my feet and how to laugh at myself. I hope at least a little bit of Johnny and Buzz’s impeccable comic timing might have rubbed off.
Rick: In 1996 you became a part of the WGN-TV morning news team, as an airborne traffic reporter at first. I've interviewed a few other reporters that have done the traffic copter thing, and they all claim that it's not scary at all. Do you concur, or were there mornings it got a little hairy up there?
Robin: I can’t believe I actually spent close to 8 years in that helicopter! It’s amazing what you are willing to do when you’re young, and have no fear. Now that I have kids, I get scared watching Scooby Doo.
But, it was very safe, and still is. I’m very grateful to WGN pilot Mike Boyle, who is the best in the business.
Plus, I wouldn't have my current job if I hadn't been willing to fly. So, I'm glad I did.
Rick: I've always considered you an absolute natural on the air. Your personality really shines through on both radio and television. For some reason, most broadcasters have a very difficult time accomplishing that. How have you managed to avoid the "jive" pitfall?Robin: (laughs) “Jive Pitfall?”
Rick: Now don't go using that phrase. I own the copyright.
Robin: Paul Konrad says that was his nickname in college.
Thank you for the compliment. I give full credit to my co-workers on the show who make it easy. Larry, Paul & I have been working together for 15 years now, and they're like a couple of old shoes - in a good way.
The best training for a show like this, though, was trying to keep up with Johnny and Buzz.
Rick: The WGN Morning News is, in many ways, a morning radio show that happens to be on television. You do bits and get crazy, but then you still cover real news stories. Is it difficult to go from one to the other? You know, there's wacky Robin dancing with a Neil Diamond impersonator before the break, and then there's serious Robin telling us about a school killing after the break. Do you ever get broadcasting whiplash?Robin: It took me a while to find that rhythm. Believe me, I’m no pro.
Maybe you’re familiar with one of my greatest hits bloopers? Mispronouncing Thailand (“THY-LAND”)? Not one of my better moments, but hopefully I’ve made some progress.
You just have to remember that despite the fun, 90% of the people are watching to find out the news.
Rick: The cast of characters on your show is pretty impressive: Larry Potash, Paul Konrad, Pat Tomasulo, Dean Richards, Jeff Hoover, Mike Toomey, and many more. Who runs the show, calls the shots, and has the final say on show content?Robin: Me, me, and me.
Or, the other folks would say that lovely girl named Sandy Pudar, our executive producer. But, we all have some input.
Rick: There have been some incredible moments in broadcasting on that show over the past few years. Do you have any favorites? Robin: Gosh, it’s been 15 years. I remember Larry’s hair being taller than Kid n’ Play when we first started, and my southside accent being so thick that the only word I could pronounce correctly was “Pulaski.”
My favorites include covering the live plane jump of a giant tortilla chip into a bowl of salsa, and Tracy Morgan laying on our news desk pretending to be pregnant.
Currently, my favorite running joke is when Paul tells all the viewers that any of us who is taking a day off is out with “diarrhea." I know it’s juvenile, but still makes me laugh.
Rick: There was recently a rather awkward moment on the show too. You had Chet Coppock as a guest, and he had just written a book in which he called Pat Tomasulo one of the worst sportscasters in Chicago history. When Pat and Chet shared the stage it was tremendously awkward...reminded me of my Steve & Garry days. Those guys used to say that really awkward was almost as good as really funny, because people will always remember it. While I know they're right about that, it doesn't diminish the discomfort of the moment for those involved. You were sitting between them when it happened. What was going through your mind? 
Robin: I'll have to give props to Steve & Garry - truer words were never spoken. It’s painful to be out there during an awkward moment, but at home, I know viewers are glued to the set wondering what's going to happen next.
I hated being in the middle because I love Chet (doing traffic on his show was my first radio job on the Loop!), and I love Pat. I think Chet was trying to sell his book and Pat was rightfully standing up for himself.
Awkward, painful, and good TV, all at the same time.
Rick: When you were a broadcast journalism major at the University of Illinois (you didn't think I'd do a whole interview with an alum and not mention it, did you?) and working at WPGU in Champaign, did you ever imagine that you'd reach this level of the business? Robin: No clue. I was just hoping to star in a public-access commercial for my Dad’s tile store. I did...and look where it got me.
Greg Jarrett
Greg Jarrett is the morning man at WGN Radio (720 AM). He came to WGN this summer (2009) after a long stint at KGO in San Francisco.Rick: A lot of radio guys grow up in one place and then live all over America moving from job to job after they get into the business. You actually moved all over the country before you went into the business.
Greg: And after. I started broadcasting in high school in New Iberia, Louisiana, then continued in college in Lafayette, Louisiana, then on to New Mexico, then Green Bay, Wisconsin...
Rick: But you were in San Francisco for a long time...Greg: Yes, that's true. Off and on for a very long time. I arrived in San Francisco in 1977 when I was 25 years old. I was the news director at KYA and then I went back in 1986 to KGO, and then stayed there for many years.
Rick: Was it hard to leave San Francisco after finally establishing your roots somewhere?
Greg: My roots were sort of everywhere. When I left ABC News--I was based in Los Angeles covering the OJ Simpson trial and all sorts of other things--I moved my family to Portland Oregon. I had covered floods there in 1996 and just fell in love with the place. So I purchased some property outside of town and moved the family there. I was starting up a new spoken word radio station--actually with Randy Michaels (photo), and that lasted until 2000, when the Clear Channel deal was finalized.
After that I went back to KGO in San Francisco, but my family stayed in Portland. We were doing the whole commute thing, flying back and forth. My wife is an attorney and her client is Nike, so being in Portland was a good thing for her, plus our youngest son was still in high school at the time.
So, anyway, we still own our house in Portland--and that's where my wife is right now--trying to sell it. In the meantime we have a condo here, and we're spending our weekends in the air, going back and forth. Two of my kids have actually come to visit me in Chicago already. My middle one said I need to get a more comfortable couch, because he really likes it here. (laughs)
Rick: Chicago has a reputation of being a provincial town--not too accepting of outsiders. Have you found that to be true in your case?
Greg: Well I've sort of had to cut through that. I have relatives down in Beverly. I'm half-Hispanic and that's where the Hispanic side of the family lives. My wife also has cousins here--from Wheaton to Evanston to all around--so I've been able to experience the real thing, to come hang out in the backyard and barbecue, to watch the kids play soccer games. That's been a big help.
I'd say about 98% of the e-mails and 98% of the greetings on the street have been hugely welcoming, but there's 2% that feel like I'm some sort of an outsider. But then you look at the census report, and you see that 30% of the people in Chicago are from another country.
Rick: It's funny you say that, because my family is from Germany, and they're very protective of Chicago too. I always say to my mom, hey--don't forget--you're not from here either.
Greg: (laughs) Well, I'm getting along just fine.
Rick: Coming into WGN must have been tough too, particularly taking over the morning show, which has been hosted by only four other men in the past fifty years. Did you realize the gravity of that when you came into town?
Greg: Oh yeah, definitely. I've been in radio for 39 years next month, and who in radio doesn't understand the power of WGN? At my first radio job deep in the heart of Louisiana we would turn on the emergency broadcast receivers late at night, and those Chicago stations were booming in our direction. We would listen to guys like John Landecker (photo) at night on WLS, and we'd even get to hear the morning guys when it was still dark outside in the winter. That's how we learned to do radio in the late 60s and early 70s; listening to those guys.
To me it was an amazing opportunity to come in and do this job, but it was also a bit of a stunner. I had been talking to the company about a number of other potential jobs because I had done a lot of different things--I've been a GM, a news director, a newsman, a host, etc--and one day I got a call asking me if I would be willing to do mornings. I said, "Look, I'm in a plumbing supply store right now looking at toilets, can I call you back in a second?" After I hung up, I was a little stunned. The guy in the store came up to me and said 'So, you want the 17-inch' and I interrupted him--'Hold on a second here.' I went back out to the truck, called them back and said "Sure, let's do it."
How many major stations in Chicago hire someone to do mornings that has never even done a shift on their station before? I knew it was a great opportunity, but I also knew I had a mountain to climb.
Rick: I know you're not just a radio host, you're a reporter. I read that you have wanted to be a reporter since you were in fourth grade. 
Greg: That's true. We were in Beaumont California at the time. My dad was working for Lockhead--he was in the aviation industry, and I had gotten used to spending my time at this little library. I really got into reading Ernie Pyle, and the Hemingway (photo) stories, and all those other war correspondent stories, and one night I was so into it that I didn't even notice that they had closed the library and shut the doors. They had to come in and get me out of there.
Rick: And then you actually became a war correspondent.
Greg: Yes I did. When I was covering the Gulf War, my dad was still alive, and I got a note from him that said, "I don't know many men that got to do what they wanted to do when they were in fourth grade." That meant a lot to me.
Rick: You were also in Somalia...Greg: Yes, Somalia twice. Bosnia three times. I covered Central America in the 80s. And Iraq, of course.
Rick: What are the memories that come to mind right away from those days?
Greg: People always ask me what I thought of those wars, but that wasn't my focus when I was there. In 2003 and 2005 I was embedded in Iraq, and my focus was to look at the people, to take a picture, and tell that story. I like to think that I'm a raconteur, that I can relate what I'm seeing, and that's what I tried to do with these young people who were dying.
We had a reporter at the Pentagon, and we had a reporter covering the protests on the streets of San Francisco, so that political part of the story wasn't my beat. I was the reporter with these young guys. It was my duty to tell
their stories.
The unit I was with, the Purple Foxes, was a brave group of men. They would fly right into the middle of battle and rescue badly wounded people; immediately applying tourniquets and IVs, treating people through a hail of bullets. Then they'd treat them on the flight all the way to the trauma center. That's why the survival rates have increased so much in this war compared to earlier wars. They're being treated by these brave corpsman.
It was horrible seeing some of it. The first two men we picked up were these two Marines that had their legs blown off because they were looking for a place to go to the bathroom. They walked right into a mine-field. After that people starting going to the bathroom within a few steps of where they were slept because there were mines everywhere.
I've had combat first aid training, and after a few missions I realized that I couldn't really report live on the scene, because nobody would have been able to hear me over the helicopters and the machine guns, so I got my hands into it, and started helping out--which immediately changed the whole nature of my presence. Pretty soon it was, "We're going out on another mission, Mr. Jarrett, would you like to come along?" So I got more access. I wasn't shooting anyone, but I was helping to drag stuff onto the aircraft, and fixing bandages, and things like that. You can't
not do that.
Rick: With all this experience as a newsman, as a news reporter, coming into a station like WGN with a full news staff like this, must have been a little strange. You have more experience than anyone else working in the news department. How has that relationship been--have they come to you looking for advice, have you taken it upon yourself to give advice, or do you keep those two departments strictly separated?
Greg: We didn't have a news director when I first arrived. Wes (Bleed) had left, and Charlie Meyerson (photo) hadn't arrived yet, so I did have conversations about the stories being covered. I was an aviation correspondent among other things for ABC, and whatever expertise I was able to bring to the table I would share with everyone, but I really have backed off since Charlie got here. Now, as far as keeping people abreast of new technology or new applications that have become available to gather news, I really keep up with that sort of thing, so I will share that information. But I don't try to push it on them. I may have done that a little before Charlie got here, but I don't do it anymore because that's not really my purview.
Rick: Your hobbies are not exactly of the every day variety...skydiving, seaplane pilot, scuba diver...would you consider yourself to be an adrenaline junkie?
Greg: I don't know if it's an adrenaline junkie thing or not. My dad and I were really close, and we would go fishing and hiking, and he was a pilot so we would go flying, and he'd say, "Son, you can eat well. You can avoid drinking too much, and not smoke, but your life is still only going to last so long. You have the ability to make it a whole lot fatter--make it as wide as you want it. Go to a lot of places, experience a lot of things, do as many things as you can, because you have control over that. You can sit in front of the TV all day and watch Star Trek, or you can go out and learn how to fly an airplane. One way makes it wide, one keeps you in a narrow box." He taught me that, and I firmly believe he was right.
I don't want to quit learning. I want to keep learning new stuff, experiencing new things. The day I quit learning is the day they close the lid on me.
Rick: You kind of parachuted into this show on WGN too. The show itself was already intact. All the parts were already there--traffic person (Leslie Keiling), newscaster (Andrea Darlas), producer (Jim Wiser), etc. Have you ever been in a situation before where you were the final part, where you were the one that came into an already functioning show to lead it?Greg: Most of the stories I've covered have been like that. People enjoy doing things they're good at doing. The reason I enjoy covering disasters and wars is that you can literally drop me into Bosnia with no electricity and no food, and within a few days I'm cooking chicken gumbo, I've got the lights on, and I'm transmitting a signal back. I love being dropped into a completely foreign and unusual situation and making it my home. That to me is what I'm good at, and that to me is why this situation is feeling so good. I'm not part of it yet. I'm not part of Chicago yet, but I'm working as hard as I've worked on anything in my entire life to integrate myself in this society.
Since I started in the business this has been my goal. To come to a major station in Chicago and make it work. Who knew that it would actually happen? When I was a 17 year old kid dreaming of doing a morning show in Chicago, who knew that it would actually come to pass?
Rick: Where do you see the show going in the future?
Greg: Radio is not radio anymore, and that's what's so cool about it. It's a cross platform thing. We're much more informational than this show has ever been, at least that's what I've been told. I haven't listened to Bob Collins (photo) except for a few airchecks, but prior to Bob, it was always a more genial, friendly show. There's a show like that in every market, and they do very well. I'm a little bit of that, but I'm more about giving the listener some information that they didn't have when they woke up that morning.
When we start getting people to listen on something like this (holds up his iPhone), and it's coming, we'll need to have the ability to show what's happening too. Imus is already doing that, and has been for years. Just put a couple of cameras in the studio, and listeners can watch the show too. Then you can add speech to text, which can be like a headline version of what we're doing on the show. That's already happening with Breaking news. If I interview the Governor and he says something newsworthy it's on the breaking news website thirty seconds later, and somebody's getting a text about it because they've signed up for that.
So that's where I see this going. A friendly informative voice that can tell you what's going on right then, and then tell you what's going to happen. For awhile radio was just following newspapers--information that was already twelve hours old. Now your getting it on more than one platform, and you're getting it
while it's happening. That's where I see the show going, being on the cutting edge of audio, video, and spoken and written word, all at once. Ambitious, but that's where I think it's going.
Rick: Well, welcome to Chicago. How does it feel so far?Greg: There are two words that best describe how I feel: excited and tired. (laughs)
Connie Szerszen
Connie Szerszen was a pioneer female disc jockey in Chicago, and has just written a book called "Top Rock Girly Jock"Rick: What made you decide to write the book?
Connie: I thought I should document some of the “firsts” of women in the radio world. In March of 1974, Westinghouse Broadcasting sent out a press release stating they had the “first female personality on AM radio to have her own prime time radio show.” The station told me that no major market -- Chicago, New York, nor L.A. -- had ever done this. Women had only held positions in “news” or on the graveyard shift, or as sidekick to a man. When Al Mitchell became the new program director at WIND, he switched me from week-ends to my own 6-10 PM full-time shift.
Of course, this “first” followed the other “first” – when WIND Program Director, Bob Moomey, hired me as a week-end DJ. Phil Nolan was General Manager during this entire period.
I also wrote the book because it was another art form I hadn’t yet explored. Besides broadcasting, I also paint oils, pastels, and watercolor, fine art portraits. I love both radio and art for different reasons – radio allows such creative immediacy and is such fun; whereas portraits have longevity – hanging in hospitals, corporations, and homes for a lifetime. Books have this same permanence and, just like in radio, friendship is shared through communication. Through the years, so many have asked how I got started – was I originally from Chicago – and so on. Much of the book is stuff I would have said on the air, if I had had time before the vocal started – Hah!
Rick: You really were the first female rock jock on AM radio in Chicago. I've gone back and read some of the articles written about you then, and it's just hilarious what you had to deal with in those days. Norman Mark wrote this in the Daily News in 1972: "AM Program directors conceded that she had a good voice, but they added that women were sometimes unsuitable for AM air work because of their unstable employment record (they sometimes get pregnant)." Later in the article he wrote "Another prospective employer told Connie that a woman's voice doesn't have the authority needed for AM radio. It is obvious he has never argued with a woman over a checkbook imbalance." Whoo boy. To say that was a different time is an understatement, isn't it?
Connie: Yes, it was a shocker. And if you think Norman Mark’s article was hilarious – you should’ve been there on my very first day at WIND. Talk about “a woman’s voice not having the authority for AM radio” – it seemed no one could hear my voice on that very first show. Someone had turned the mic around so I was speaking into the back of it; and since it had a foam cover, not even the engineer could figure it out quickly. The book tells that story – and hints at who I thought the prankster might have been.
Norman was so right about the authority issue – how COULD women have authority to report the news (like the war in Vietnam) while only men had the authority to introduce “Be Bop a Lula?”
My story made all the papers – Besides Norman Mark of the Chicago Daily News, Ron Powers of the Chicago Sun-Times (who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize) also covered it. It was written into the U.S. Congressional Record, and I was invited to appear on many TV shows and host events all over town.
Rick: When you first started on the air you didn't go by your real name. At WSDM-FM, "the station with the girls and all that jazz", which I believe is now the Loop, you went by "Dawn, the world's most sensuous disc jockey." Talk about how that name came to be, and how important do you think that sort of sex appeal was to your early success?
Connie: At WSDM, the Den Pals were sort of a take-off on the Playboy Club’s “Bunnies.”
(Photo: the Den Pals, Connie is standing, second from left). The girls were asked to pick an “air name” and since I started so early on Saturday morning, I chose “Dawn.” (Maybe it should’ve been “Yawn.”)
As for “the world’s most sensuous disc jockey” tag, I meant it to be a parody. Everyone on the station sounded so sexy (I guess that was part of the plan), that I didn’t really feel like I fit that mold. So I played with it. If you’ll look at my pics in the book – especially the teen years – “sexy” wasn’t an adjective that could easily be applied to me. I made every attempt to bring humor into my show rather than sex appeal; I had features on the show like “The Bachelor Boy Household Hint of the Day,” and even read the funnies on the air. (Later I heard that Mayor LaGuardia also read the funnies on his radio show in New York – and now, look, he has an airport named after him! Hah!)
When I started working at WIND, I was glad to just be myself and not have to “bring sexy back.” But somewhere down the line, I remember being told to try and sound sexier, because I had more women listeners than men. It may well have been that women were finally able to hear someone they could relate to. When I hear some of my “sexy” attempts on old air-checks, it makes me laugh. I mean, don’t even men want more than just a pretty voice?
In fact, it was “humor” that made WIND finally decide to hire me. Bob Moomey, the program director, said that when they listened to my air-check from WSDM, and heard my kicker to a news story – he said everyone laughed. It made me feel so good to hear that – because I love to make people laugh.
Rick: Probably the pinnacle of your career was your stint on WIND-AM, during it's Top 40 days. You were there for most of the 70s, which was an exciting time for Top-40 radio in Chicago. People tend to remember the great lineups at WLS and WCFL, but WIND is often overlooked despite having people like yourself, Clark Weber, Eddie Schwartz, Dave Baum, sportscaster Jim Durham, and many others. To people who weren't there at the time, how would you describe what that station was trying to accomplish, and compare it to the other AM radio stations of that era.Connie: When I first came to WIND, Ron Britain was the morning man. In fact, I later heard that he had put in a good word for me to management when they asked if I was reliable. I had been the Talent Coordinator at WCFL and had been booking the DJ’s for several years, while also working at WSDM as a DJ, and therefore, was “in the loop” in the radio world. When WCFL started to slide, many changes came with that. The jocks that had big Chicago names were hot properties. As the WCFL and WLS battles eventually wore off, the hot jocks found work elsewhere.
WIND offered Chicago a brand new sound. No one played the current hits AND OLDIES. The slogan at WIND was “’50s, ’60s, and NOW!” The station was not only a whole new sound – but also played to the Chicago community. As with WCFL and WLS, the jocks did “personality radio” – but hometown Chicago events were also a big part of WIND’s picture. The annual kite-fly in Grant Park – the Zoo Day at Lincoln Park Zoo – the Lambs Farm event where we auctioned off box lunches to raise money for the Lambs.
Our format was more family oriented. We played the Top 40 – but not the real hard rock. Nothing trashy – we left that to “Captain Whammo” at some FM station. My evening show from 6-10 PM allowed me to play one hard rock song per hour. Those songs were tagged on our roll-a-dex with a red dot. All the jocks would program their shows from the roll-a-dex stack of songs. I found that to be so organized -- but not the best music mix. So I always took the stack that was scheduled for my show and rearranged them to flow better – certain fade ends just sounded better next to certain cold opens – stuff like that. Listeners used to say that I played different music on my show than the other jocks did. Except for that one hard rock song per hour, the rest were the same songs everyone else played – but I cheated a bit (with permission) -- by rearranging, the same old songs could have a whole new sound.
With all the promotions and full page ads in the Chicago Sun-Times, WIND was a major player in town. They ran ads with my picture – and called me “The Evening Star.” My week-end shows pulled a “10” in the Arbitron ratings. By appealing to “family,” we became a part of many Chicago families. Our ethnic names were admired by station management – I was asked to use my real name since I was of Polish descent and since there are more Poles in Chicago than Warsaw. I was encouraged to say, at the end of my very first show at WIND – “Jeszcze Polska Nie Zginela!” It’s the first line of the Polish National Anthem. I had said it off the air near the end of my show, and the assistant P.D. suggested I use it to close the show. Good idea – I’ve used it ever since. “Poland is not yet lost” is the literal translation.
Rick: Lets talk about some of the perks of being in the public eye. Explain the picture (in the book) of Elton John, Hef, Barbie Benton, John Landecker, Elton John, and you standing around a Foosball table.Connie: As an air personality at a hot station, you got invited to many press parties. Some were held at the Chicago Playboy mansion. That’s where many of us DJ’s met celebs, like Elton John. I had no idea we were being photographed around the foosball table, but later, Sharon Fox, a local reporter, sent me the front page of FACES magazine, and there we were – legendary DJ John Landecker standing right next to me, and upfront were Elton John, Hef, and his playmate at the time, Barbie Benton. I remember the swimming pool in the basement with the paper bathing suits they handed out – the fireman’s pole that I really wanted to slide down, but didn’t – but I don’t remember the foosball moment – hmmmm, why is that?
The parties were always a surprise – so thrilling to be one of the special guests! Of course, I had my camera with me, as always, and snapped many good pics of my own (one very unusual shot of Elton is in the book -- that I doubt you’ll see anywhere else – Hah!) Fleetwood Mac was there at one party – Stevie Nicks was very sweet and posed for pictures.
Even before I was a DJ, when I worked at WCFL, we also got invited everywhere. I had the opportunity to meet Henry Mancini, Andy Williams, Paul Revere and the Raiders, John Denver, Carly Simon, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, Evil Knievel, and so many more.
As a WIND jock, I emceed many big oldie acts that came to town, like Bobby Vinton, and Danny & the Juniors. PR guy, Jim Feeley, booked me to emcee Wayne Newton and Tom Jones. Then, of course, there were the celebs who came to the station for radio interviews, like the Carpenters, and Steve Allen.
These were historical figures in the pop culture/entertainment world – but also just normal folks like us – making a living at what they did best – and most were always very nice and friendly (and some, even a little too friendly.) I always thought – what am I doing here with them – what a kick!
Rick: OK, two more stories must be told. Give us the Reader's Digest version of the day you met Elvis and your date with Neil Diamond.
Connie: Oh noooooooo, you want to know about Elvis and Neil Diamond? Well, the Elvis story is safe enough. I used to do a bit on my show – called “The Radio-Gram” – kinda like a telegram. I asked listeners to call the show, and my engineer taped their voice messages to the celeb who was appearing in town. I did this for Tom Jones and for Elvis.
When I heard Elvis was performing in town – BINGO – this was my chance to meet Elvis! It just so happened that my cousin-in-law was working at the hotel he was staying at – and arranged the entire “ambush.” SO EXCITING! And YES, I met him. Stood there – a little wobbly in the legs – right in front of him as I handed him the tapes of Chicagoans who had love-messages for him. He was beautiful. More than your everyday celebrity entertainer. He seemed kind – gentle – humble – quiet – and bigger than life. He was ELVIS -- and you could see that he did all he could to be all you wanted him to be. I think, if you read his favorite book, “The Impersonal Life,” the way he felt about his celebrity would become very clear.
As for Neil Diamond – hmmm – how much does this guy love soup? Totally unexpected, he had asked the record promoter (Earl Glickman) to fix him up with me – to show him around town in Chicago. I was the Talent Coordinator at WCFL at the time – and met him as Joel Sebastian was interviewing him on the air at WCFL – talking about his latest hit. What went on (or didn’t) at the Holiday Inn on Lake Shore Drive, later that day, is in the book. He’s a great performer – so I hear.
Rick: You were out of radio for quite awhile before being approached by WJMK program director Jim Smith back in the early part of this decade. What was that phone call like, how surprised were you, and how did you like being back in the saddle again after all those years away?
Connie: JIM SMITH!!! OMG! I was halfway out the door when the phone rang. Jim Smith
(photo), Program Director of WJMK – asking me if I would like to come out of “radio retirement” as he put it. I was stunned. I thought, YESSSSSS!!!! and then NOOOOOO!!!! and then didn’t know what to think. Coming back after 17 years was kinda like a cicada. Hey, well, if an insect could do it, then so could I. It wasn’t an easy decision, but now I thank Jim Smith for completing my “radio-me.” I was coming very close to that at WIND, but was nipped in the bud. The other stations I worked at after that, balked at “personality radio.”
This was my denouement! This became my pinnacle! Eventually, I had the #1 show in Chicago on Saturday nights (excluding urban stations) -- “’70’s Saturday Night” – rated #1 by Arbitron in the 25-54 demographics. It was here that I became “The first woman in America to broadcast ‘live’ on an all-digital radio station” – WJMK HD2 – All Access Net News.
It wasn’t easy at first. When I left radio to pursue an art career, the jocks were playing cartridges. (Sort of like an 8-track, but there was one song on each cartridge.) When I returned, it was all on computer – Audiovault – and an occasional CD. But Jim Smith knew enough about my past to allow me a chance to acclimate and he also allowed me great creative freedom – such as choosing music for the Elvis special. I remember adding the Elvis song, “Paralyzed” – (one of my faves). A listener called with unbelief – because it was also her favorite song by Elvis and no other stations ever played it. Of course not, they only played the so-called, overplayed, “hits.”
(Photo of Connie by Michael G. Bush)Besides his knowledge of Chicago radio, Jim Smith had this experienced instinct. He knew that what had worked before would work again. Though it’s a different era now, creativity doesn’t lessen – it just changes and adapts. “Creativity” continually creates. Unfortunately, the heads in New York were too far removed to be aware of what Chicago radio was all about. They don’t get it. It’s so different here. New York and L.A. are very transient. There’s no “hometown” as there is in Chicago. Our listeners are so very much more loyal – so much more “family.” Chicago is different – Chicago is very special. Of all three major markets, Chicago radio will always be “First!”
Rick: If these stories are any indication of the kind of stories in the book, I can't wait to read it. Where can we get a copy? Is it going to be in bookstores or is it available only on-line, or both?Connie: Oh, Rick – You’re gonna love the book. It’s a lot about radio – but even more so, it’s about life – how does a not-media-connected-Chicago-girl get such a fabulous chance to live a dream that she never even dreamed? How does life lead one on to do God’s work in the world – when one never even imagined that? How does a phone call come from out of the blue, from someone like Den Pal Penny Lane, who led a “secretary” to entertain the public, or from Program Director, Jim Smith, who brought someone back to Chicago radio?
It’s a life lesson – beyond radio – it extends to everyone’s life. And that’s the main point of my book. Yes, it’s an autobiography – all about my life – yadayadayada – but the main point is that everyone has a gift that they are meant to share with the world –
“There’s a bit of Stardust in everyone – so we may sparkle for each other!”I hope you’ll enjoy the book – At this site –
www.TopRockGirlyJock.com, you’ll receive a first edition, autographed copy -- $19.95 plus IL tax, and no S&H (Cheaper than Sham-Wow! And lasts even longer!) Also available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, etc.
Hope you’ll tune in to Steve & Johnnie, Tuesday, October 27, for the radio interview on WGN, 720 AM.
Oh, and pass this on to all the Chicago P.D.s – I’m looking for a new radio home --- money’s not the issue – love of the art form is! Thanks, Rick! Your blog is a Chicago treasure!
Lise Dominique
Lise Dominique was a news and traffic anchor in Chicago for stations like WLUP (AM & FM), WTMX, and WLS-FM in the 80s and 90s, and has recently returned to broadcasting after a few years away from the business.Rick: I know you were with Brandmeier's show a long time ago, but I bet you still get a lot of people come up to you and sing that song he used to play for you "Dominiqua, niqua, niqua." My wife actually did it to you when she met you a few months ago. It's been almost twenty years since he played it for you, but it obviously clicked with people. How do you look back on those old Loop days now?
Lise: Oh, it happens all of the time and just makes me smile. When your wife started to sing it, I am pretty sure that I started to laugh because for the most part, I have nothing but memories of that time of smiling, giggling, and laughing until my guts ached. What a fabulous and golden time in broadcasting that it was for all of us. Those 'wacky weenies' that listeners would create for Johnny's show and send in for Johnny, Buzz and me were amazingly creative and it was most flattering to have somebody take the time to do something like that for the show with you, in particular, in mind.
I still have a cassette tape of about 20 of them about me that Wiser kindly ran off and gave to me. I came across it in 2008 in a shoebox of tapes that I thought had been drowned in a basement flood several years ago. After listening to them ( after spending about a week trying to locate a cassette player!), I was flooded with the warm feelings of the good times that we all had together on the Loop and AM 1000.
In the rosy glow of years gone by, that is how I remember it. Truth be told, even as it was going on each and every day on-air, I always felt that we were all a part of something very special going on in radio entertainment. What a collection of talent lined up on both stations.
While I was primarily involved with Brandmeier's show doing the traffic every morning and news fill-in for Buzz when he had the day off, I also did all news and traffic fill-in on Kevin's and Steve and Garry's show. So, I was fortunate enough to be involved with each and every daytime talk show on both stations and got to know the very different rhythms of all of them. Oh boy, were they all different!!! It was a great fun and a great challenge to fit in on all of them. Loved it!
I got to know Chet Coppock in passing as his sports show was on after Steve & Garry's . I will never forget the day that he begged me to walk on his back in my high heels because his back hurt. ( yeah, right!) That is just a snapshot of some of the funny behind the scenes stuff that may or may not have made it on the air!
Well, as Steve & Garry's producer at the time, Rick, I think you know exactly what I am talking about! By the way, worth mentioning are three of the most amazing producers that I have ever worked with in Chicago radio..Jim Wiser, Swany ( from my time at WTMX, he's still there) and you, Mr. Kaempfer. The shows would not be what they are without the producer's wizardry. That's a fact.
(Photo from left to right: Swany, Wiser, and Loop promotions wizards Anne Marie Kennedy and Dina Travis)When I left in 1992, the atmosphere could be described as a sea of change, and not necessarily in a positive direction. I was really okay with not being there anymore. Egos, drugs and drinking had begun to lead to some pretty unsavory behavior and the on-air product had begun to deteriorate. It made me sad at the time but I was movin' on.
Rick: You're one in a long line of former WPGU alums (Urbana-Champaign) that made a career working in Chicago radio. Who were some of your contemporaries there (that we may know), and how did working at that station prepare you for the bigger opportunities that followed?Lise: Charlie Meyerson and Gene Honda were there at the same time as I was and they were two of the most dedicated guys at the station. They are the ones that made an impression on me. The day that I wandered down to the basement of Weston Hall where the station is located ( and one floor below where I was living!) , Gene was right there to take me under his wing and to tell me that I could probably be really good on the air. I recall thinking that he must be crocked to say that but he was so sincere, and such a helpful and patient tutor that I believed him. What a kind man with a big heart. He really gave me the confidence to push forward and to get down there whenever I could to work. It was kind of tough to put in as much time at 'PGU as I would have liked as I worked 20 hours /weekly at a waitress job ( Kam's!) to pay for college and WPGU didn't exactly put money in your pocket.
Charlie Meyerson was just larger than life. So talented and so smart. I was a little bit intimidated by him and just tried to learn by listening. Now, look where he is and what he is doing. No surprise to me!
WPGU was an excellent training ground because most of the students there took the job as serious prep for a career that they had already decided to pursue. I can't believe that I lived above it in Weston Hall for a year before I realized it was there. Of course, I had to declare a major and a friend suggested radio since she thought I had a good voice. So, I checked it out, took a deep breath and wrote "Communications-Radio -TV" in as my major.
Rick: Over the past year or two you've been popping up on the radio dial again after a dozen or so years working in sales. I've heard you on both Love-FM and WGN. How does it feel to get back in the saddle again? Lise: IT FEELS GREAT! It's like re-discovering the love of your life and wondering why you had ever left. Seriously. The 13 year detour that I took to work in pharmaceutical sales for a Fortune 100 firm and in corporate telecom sales for another Fortune 100 corporation were a necessary step for me to regain my financial and emotional equilibrium. I got divorced in 1994 and by 1995 when they fired all of us from WLS-FM when Disney bought ABC-CapCities, I was in big money trouble. Hey, you do what you have to do and I was actually very fortunate to land what were, at the time, very coveted corporate sales positions. They eventually sucked the creativity and the joy right out of me.
2008 marked an epiphany of sorts and after a few interesting chance encounters with radio management from my past, I made the decision to JUST DO IT! From the moment that I made that decision, I felt liberated and light. The support from listeners has been incredible and absolutely buoyed me to continue.
My former program director from WTMX-FM in the early 90's, Barry James (photo), is now the PD at WILV-FM. Barry contacted me through a mutual radio friend and offered me the opportunity to do Morning Drive news fill-in at the station and I leaped at the chance. It is a really lovely place to work and a great atmosphere. Bonneville treats their people pretty well. At least, that has been my experience so far. After 13 years away from "live" air, I sat in the chair, wrote the news, slapped on the cans and delivered the news update and felt as if it was 1995 and I had never left the air. That was all that I needed to know. Complete confirmation that my decision to go back into broadcasting was on the money.
Then earlier this year, after email conversations in 2008 with Tom Langmyer and Randy Michaels of WGN-AM, they referred me to Kevin Metheny, the new PD in town. Kevin and I exchanged some emails and voicemails that eventually turned into a challenge to co-host the next day with Jerry Springer. He probably thought it would scare me off. Puh-leeeze! After all of the different air personalities that I have worked with and adapted to, and tangled with, was that going to intimidate me??? I don't think so.
So, that next afternoon, I co-hosted with Jerry Springer. That was March of this year and was an absolute blast! Jerry Springer was a gentleman and a pussy cat. It was pure joy. We had an instant connection even after I brazenly told him that I had never and would never watch his TV show. He laughed and said that he liked me even more because of that. From there, it was just a cool breeze! Then the next week Kevin offered me a couple of days co-hosting with a jock from Kansas City, and that was also fun.
Rick: If someone came to you and asked if you'd like to get back into it full-time, are you open to the possibility, and under what circumstances would you return? Lise: Absolutely, in a heartbeat, yes! I work best in an ensemble as a co-host, second seat, sidekick, whatever you want to call it, or with somebody I can play off and who can do the same with me. I mean, I have worked with every different kind of personality and in every kind of format in both Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. While I am open to doing news or co-hosting on nearly any station, Talk Radio is the way to get the best out of me. Doing morning drive for fifteen years in a variety of formats with a bizarre array of personalities has prepared me for almost anything!
Rick: Before this, your last full-time radio gig was as the co-host to Robert Murphy back in the WLS-FM talk era. There was a lot of talent on that station; including you and Murph, Richard Roeper, Turi Ryder, and Jay Marvin, just to name a few. Why do you think that station didn't catch on?Lise: The demise of that station was truly a heartbreaker for me and certainly figured in to why I left radio in 1995. The PD, Drew Hayes, a true visionary, had a tremendous idea and I was just honored to be recruited to work with such an array of talent on a station of that stature. Outside of minimal promotional dollars to even make the public aware that we were there, looming large in the background was the specter of the eventual takeover of ABC CapCities by Disney, which is exactly what happened. That's really the only thing that I can point to because as you point out, each person is an incredibly talented on-air standout. Talk about a golden lineup! We were poised to take off and Drew had the right ideas and direction. I blame the lack of promotional bucks and lack of time on the lack of success.
Co-hosting with Robert Murphy was a delight, a true wit and a pure gentleman. Every morning I looked forward to whatever craziness we would tackle. He was incredibly gracious and so respectful of my intelligence as well. If he weren't retired and happy as a clam in his current situation, I would leap at the chance to finish what we started at WLS-FM.
I was also on with Richard Roeper during the first hour of his show which came on right after ours, and so thoroughly enjoyed working with him. What an intellect and what a broad base of knowledge! We had a lot of silly fun and I would love to work with him again, as well.
Rick: I know you never actually left the business completely because you've been doing voice over work the whole time, but were you burned out on the biz when you stepped away from it back in the 90s?
Lise: True, I have been blessed to be remembered by so many people who have continued to call me for voice-over and even on-camera jobs. I had to keep that really under the radar when I was working the corporate sales positions but it's open season now!
While I wouldn't say burned out completely, I would say that I became disheartened. Day after day, I would read about the consolidation of stations and it was dismal and depressing. Unless you were one of the corporate heads making money on the situation, there didn't seem to be a lot of happy people involved. Certainly, the talent began to be under-appreciated for all that they contributed. It just seemed like a good time to NOT be a part of radio so I focused on what I was doing and tried to quell and redirect the passion and creative love that I have for the radio into other areas.
Rick: You've worked with some of the biggest stars in Chicago radio history. Was there ever a time that you felt intimidated working with someone? If so, who and why? If not, how did you manage to overcome the pressure?
Lise: (laughing)....Let's see, Jonathon Brandmeier, Kevin Matthews, Steve Dahl, Garry Meier, King "B" Ron Britain on WTMX, Catherine Johns ( I did news fill-in on WLS-AM), Brant Miller on WTMX, Robert Murphy and Richard Roeper, Jerry Springer....all stellar, all dynamic, all very different. All very nice to me. Even Steve, when he was drinking, would sometimes feel guilty about snapping at me and apologize off the air. When all is said and done, he's a good guy. Working with Garry was always a pleasure and I am so pleased to hear him on WGN-AM. I adore him and would be over the moon to work with him again.
My answer to your question is no. The only person might be Johnny , while not intimidating, was very exacting in the response that he would want from me in certain situations, and I was not always sure what he wanted from me so I would feel a little bit nervous on occasion. It is very difficult for me to be anybody but myself and to hold back all of the time so I think we may have butted heads a few times. Not really sure, since we really only every met face-to-face twice in all of that time.
Rick: I see that you have also become an author. Tell us all about "The Adventures of Harvey the Wonder Dog-Harvey the Hungry Dog" and when and where we can get a copy.
Lise: Yes, I have and it has been one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life thus far! It's a book for children ages 3-8 and based upon my living, breathing bundle of fur and love, Harvey the Wonder Dog. The book is a lighthearted look at his first year misadventures and lust for life. There are very subtle healthy 'life lessons' incorporated into each page and the illustrations are captivating and all original. Talk about a radio connection....! I was introduced to my illustrator through her ex-husband who is also a major rock radio personality. I am not sure if it's okay to use his name so I won't. Seriously, how freaky is that? Chrissie is a wonderful and whimsical illustrator and I would have never found her if it weren't for knowing him from The Loop!
Harvey the Hungry Dog is due to be published mid-October 2009 by State Street Publishing. I have had hundreds of requests for the book already and I have been working diligently on creating and perfecting the website so that it can be pre-ordered. It should be up and running for previewing:
"The Adventures of Harvey the Wonder Dog."Harvey is my muse and one of the main reasons that I made it through 2008 wiser, better and smarter. Dogs are pure love and deserve our respect. On that note, I have got to say buh-bye and get this website up and cranking!
Chet Coppock
Chet Coppock has been working in radio and television in Chicago for the better part of 40 years. He's currently working at WLS Radio, covering Notre Dame football and basketball. His first book "Fat Men Shouldn't Be Dancing at Halftime" is now available.Rick: Let’s start off with a fastball down the middle. Why a book? Your dime, your dance floor.
Chet: I was first approached about writing a book 18 years ago, and I decided then that I didn’t have that much to say, but then I was approached again by Triumph Books last October. The original idea was ‘100 sports things that every Chicago fan should know or do.’ I thought that was too limiting, so I took it upon myself to take it in a different direction. Each chapter is basically based on a premise. For instance, the 12 worst sportscasters in the past 25 years, give up the addiction to the 85 bears, etc. There are people I jab, there are some I put the dagger to pretty good, Crane Kenney (of the Chicago Cubs), among them. If the Ricketts family is crazy enough to keep Kenney on the payroll, his greatest days of buffoonery are still down the road.
But I gotta tell you, once I signed the contract, I was scared to death. Geez, you mean, now I really have to write it?
Rick: Did they give you a word limit?Chet: Yeah, they basically said we want about 500 words per chapter. Well anyone who knows me knows that I can barely say my name in less than 2000. So, I remember going home that night and writing a chapter about Neil Funk. And the essence of that chapter is I don’t know how you can broadcast for 5 championship teams in the 3rd largest market in America, playing to sell out crowds every night, and have a profile as low as Neil Funk. I just don’t get it. So I gave it to the publisher and they liked it, but I could tell by their reaction that they didn’t quite get where this 275 pound Bohemian nutcase was going with this.
But I started getting into a rhythmic groove after that. It’s basically bang, bang, bang, one liner. Pretty soon I was on a roll. It was gratifying as all hell.
Rick: How long did it take you to write it?
Chet: 98 days. 98 straight days. I wrote on Thanksgiving. Christmas. New Years Eve. New Years day. I had written before, for NFL game day, a chapter for Bert Sugar’s book-- a really lousy book called “Why I hate the Dallas Cowboys” that sold maybe nine copies, and I was a columnist for the Sun-Times for about a year, but that was kind of a hustle because I was just taking quotes from my radio show and throwing it together with a few one-liners. That column could have been written by some guy sitting in Cook County Jail. So, I was really a rookie writer.
Rick: Were you nervous?Chet: Not drowning myself in Johnnie Walker nervous, but hell yeah. I mean I gave up drinking 25 years ago. I never got the shakes or anything like that, didn’t wake up in the morning and have a shot of vodka, but Johnnie Walker and I were getting a little too close back then. There’s nothing I like better than a seedy little shot and a beer joint, with good conversation, and a juke box playing the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, if you want to get contemporary, U2—but once I started drinking, it was Katy bar the door. I mean, I can’t have just one beer. Who the hell has just one beer, anyway? So, when my wife got pregnant, now my ex-wife, who remains a drain on the ol’ salary cap by the way, I was talking to my waiter, a fella named Guido, who always brought out a Red Label on the rocks and a Budweiser chaser for me. I said Guido, take ‘em away. I’m done drinking. I thought ‘well that’s gonna last about 15 minutes’, but I haven’t had a drink since.
Rick: So you’ve never been in the program or anything?Chet: No. Never took the 12 step program because I figured I’d probably fail. (laughs)
Rick: Do you write about stuff like that in the book?Chet: No, that’s going to be the follow up. The follow up is going to be more auto-biographical, a critical look at my career. I’m not at all displeased at my career, but when I look back I realize that if I had been willing to play the game a little bit more with the upper echelon, I’d be a multi-millionaire today. There’s not a doubt in my mind.
But you know, I had too much too soon. You gotta remember, at the age of 20, I was working for WFLD-TV. At 21, I was doing the Bucks, who won the NBA title. At 22, I waltzed into Channel 44 and talked them into letting me do a talk show. At 23, I’m back at WFLD as a staff announcer, and I’m the national TV voice of the roller derby (photo). I go to Indianapolis at 25 to do sports with Jane Pauley. I remember Channel 5 came down to Indy to scout me, and took one look at me, and said, “Why we do want that slob? Let’s hire Pauley.” But I had so much success so early in life.
Conversely, some things didn’t go as well. I specifically remember tag-teaming with Norm Van Lier, who I still dearly miss by the way, at Fox Sports Net, and if I had just been a good boy and done what I was told...if I just understood what their position was...that they’ve got to be protecting the franchise. Got to keep Bill and Jerry happy. But I just couldn’t play that game. That cost me a lot of money over the years.
Rick: My old boss Steve Dahl used to say “the pioneer is never appreciated.” You’re a pioneer yourself. In many ways, you’re the father of sports talk radio in this town. What are your thoughts about those early days of sports talk radio and were there opportunities missed in that area too?
Chet: Yeah, yeah. Definitely. There were. Remember, Coppock on Sports was created only because I got waxed from Channel 5, so they farmed my contract out to WMAQ radio as part of the settlement. I was sitting there doing 3:20, 4:20, 5:20 reports, which is about as inspiring as watching a couple of goats f***, and I said, listen, your 6:00 hour is a bore. I have an idea for sports show. They told me ‘Nah, we don’t want one of those shows where Johnny calls in from Naperville and bitches up and down,’ and I said, no that’s not my idea. It’s going to be 60 Minutes comes to sports. We’ll have three or four live local and national guests and me. And we’re not going to take calls. It was the Howard Cosell principle. The intent was to make news. That was always the intent.
Rick: And the mistakes?Chet: I made a couple of mistakes. The Score talked to me before they went on the air.
Rick: If I remember correctly, you were the first person they talked to.Chet: I was. But we went back and forth, and I’ll be honest, one of the things that turned me off was that Seth, the fella that pitched me, took me out to breakfast at the Golden Nugget on Diversey. Not exactly Gibson’s. All I could think about was, boy, if I give this guy a ten dollar expense account from a game in Milwaukee, I’ll be going through red tape for years.
But to be honest I was loyal to the Loop. Think about what we had in those days. We had Brandmeier and Buzz Kilman, Kevin Matthews, Jim Shorts, and Shemp and those guys, Steve & Garry and you and that crew, and Coppock on Sports after that, with our incredible boy-quarium. I really believe for a four or five year period there we had the best radio station in Chicago radio history.
We were cutting edge. Every day was a thrill. We were treated like royalty. It breaks my heart to see the way the business is going when you look back at how it was then. Now we’re chewing up our young and spitting them out. We’ve got these producers who are working their asses off for maybe nine bucks an hour. I mean, who can live on nine bucks an hour?
When I hired Dan McNeil as my executive producer, I was desperate. We were going to go on the air on Monday, and I needed somebody, so I pitched de Castro and Solk and said, look, “hire this guy, and within a year he’ll be able to fill in on the weekends and knock people’s socks off.” I didn’t actually know whether or not it was true, but I knew he was going to bust his hump, that he had a great desire to succeed. It turned out to be true. But you know, we hired him at $18 grand a year, and that was 20-plus years ago. These guys today aren’t even making that, and that’s a crime.
Rick: I think a lot of people don’t realize how deep your roots in Chicago sports go. Talk about your Jack Brickhouse connection.
Chet: Well, Jack was my dad’s best friend. They were regular gin rummy partners. My dad traveled with Brick and Rosenberg. I would sit in Jack’s den and listen to him tell stories about sports for hours, in this den surrounded by plaques and trophies, and all these great mementos, and think to myself--look at the life this guy has lived! When I got hired by Channel 5, he was one of the first people that called to congratulate me.
(Photo: Jack Brickhouse, a young Chet Coppock, and Ernie Banks in 1959)Rick: Did he ever give you advice?Chet: I had never done commercial work in my life, and he said “Why not?” Now I know this is going to sound ridiculous coming from me, but I said, “I just don’t think a sportscaster should be doing that sort of thing, it’s not appropriate for the role,” and Jack said “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” (laughs)
Rick: I’ve always thought that the sportscaster’s degree of difficulty isn’t appreciated. Athletes are notoriously bad interview subjects. I know that part of the reason you used to do those three minute long questions was because the guy on the other end of the phone was likely to give you nothing in return. Who are some of the athletes you’ve interviewed over the years that didn’t fit that stereotype—the really good interview subjects?
Chet: Guys who were a romp in the park—just too easy, you could do the interview in coma, were guys like Kevin Butler, because you knew somewhere along the way he was going to bitch about the lack of dough. Mongo McMichael. Once you got him going, look out. Mike Ditka. Dan Hampton. Pete Rose. Denny McLain (photo). By the way, Denny McLain and I did a podcast demo together called Two Angry Men. I’m telling you Rick, this is going to be a smash. We talk about Obama, we talk about Iraq, Sarah Palin, and occasionally we talk about sports. It’s just two guys who have been friends for a long time—in and out of the joint. (laughs)
Ditka was something special. I did his radio show with him for three years. The great thing about Mike was all you had to do was find the hot button. That would take no more than 3 minutes. I remember the day after we won the Super Bowl, we were both back in Chicago. My first question to him was “You scored 46 points. In the second half you basically just ran the ball. Did you call off the dogs?” And I remember him saying “You know, I never liked those guys to begin with—I would have scored 60 on ‘em.” I mean who else says that? Nobody does.
Stop and think about this. Here it is twenty five years later. If Lovie Smith was walking down Michigan Avenue on one side of the street, and Mike Ditka was walking down on the other side of the street, and there were a hundred other people there, 99 of them would go up to Ditka, and the other one would go up to Lovie and say, “Look over there. Isn’t that Mike Ditka?”
Rick: What about the interview subjects that were really difficult, that were like pulling teeth?
Chet: Major Harris, the quarterback of West Virginia. He got me so mad one night, I just couldn’t’ stand him. Willie Mays. He was a living breathing son-of-bitch. Miserable guy. Good Lord. I’d put Willie Mays one notch lower than Osama Bin Laden.
Rick: Wow.
Chet: You know, I would also rather interview Hulk Hogan than Michael Jordan.
Rick: Was Jordan a bad interview?
Chet: No, he was just predictable. But Hulk Hogan was fantastic. He was like a human volcano, full of fire. That guy was unbelievable. Wind him up and let him go. He was a showman.
You mentioned the Hollywood intros I used to do, well, one of the reasons I did that, is that I always thought of myself as sort of a carnival barker, the guy who tells you to knock down the five pins. You can never knock those things down. Let’s face it. But he makes it sound exciting.
I always wanted to do that, by the way. Take a summer off and be the guy who encourages people to come on in, pay a buck and go see the freak show, or the guy who convinces you to knock over the bowling pins for a stuffed animal. That would be so much fun.
Rick: Chet, why aren’t you on the air five days a week anymore?Chet: I should be on the air, I know that. I don’t really have a great explanation for why I’m not. I think certain people have blackballed me. Certain people that could have swung the bat for me, haven’t over the years. I think I frighten some people. But no complaints. I still make a good living doing Notre Dame football and basketball and my commercial work, and I’m having a ball.
Rick: What about that Webbio thing. What in the world happened there?
Chet: (Exhales) I don’t know. I feel bad for Mike and Beebe. I feel bad for my producer. We went into this as virgins, and we were treated like Michael Vick’s dogs. I still have my bounced checks.
Rick: Was that the first time that’s ever happened to you in broadcasting?Chet: Oh God no. If you’re a broadcaster and you haven’t had a least a half dozen bounced, then you aren’t doing it right. (laughs)
I still think the concept itself was good. It’s the future. I have seen the future! I’m 61 years old, but with the Botox and the work I’ve had done on my eyes, I don’t look a day over 50 (laughs). I know the future when I see it.
I love going on Facebook. I love Twitter. I love podcasting. Even if I go in a nursing home and have to use a plastic spoon, I’ll never retire, and with all these new possibilities I won’t have to. I love where the media is right now. I love the ability to convey thought in all these new ways. I check out Larz’ Chicagoland Radio and Media site. I check out your stuff. I’m not sitting on the sidelines while this all goes on. I’m doing podcasts. I’m going to start writing for Chicago Now. I think with all these great new things going on, radio as we know it now is on its last legs, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s sad, but there is so much more stuff out there. I want to do it all.
Rick: Including write a book.Chet: By the time you write it, then do a rewrite, send it through legal, promote it, tell everyone you know, get on your on hands and knees begging people to buy it, if you’re lucky, really lucky, you’ll make about 34 cents an hour. (laughs) But the tangibility of it. To hold this thing in your hands. It’s been incredibly satisfying. In the last year I’ve done a book and a cameo in a major motion picture with Dennis Quaid. How many sportscasters can say that?
Rick: I can’t wait to read the book.
Chet: It’s outrageous. It’s going to make people laugh. People are going to want to bang me over the head with a frying pan. Crane Kenney gets whapped until the referee stops the fight. I dish out a fare share of praise. But I will say this. Because I’m Chet Coppock, and my style is so far off the charts, it’s somewhere between Jupiter and Pluto, it’s without question the most original book ever written about Chicago sports. I’m not saying it’s a great book. I ain’t Capote. I ain’t Hemingway. I didn’t live in Baltimore—I ain’t Edgar Allen Poe. But people are going to look at this book and say one of two things. This son-of-a-bitch is a misunderstood genius, or this guy is a son-of-bitch (laughs).
Bill: It really is a machine. People come and go and the machine keeps rolling. It was rewarding to get it to #1 in September. But you know how it is. It’s so competitive in this market; it can change overnight, especially with PPM. I’m lucky. This is a radio station that has great relationships with the artists and the community. We’ve got great people in mornings, middays and afternoons; our marketing director’s been here for ten years. It’s a special place, and hopefully I won’t wreck it. (laughs)
Bill: I think you get to the point where you realize what the job is. The job is not breaking new artists. It’s not making a musical statement. As program directors, we’re really just glorified customer service reps. (Photo: Bill with 94.7 staffers in Fall of 97--Scott Dirks, Bob Stroud, Scott MacKay, Zemira Jones)
Bill: I think the answer is yeah, I do. Treat them all as individuals. They’re all different. There isn’t a silver bullet for dealing with all personalities. What works with one won’t work for another. For instance, Kevin Matthews (photo) is different than everyone (laughs). 
As for the alternative scene, people that have studied this—people much smarter and tuned in than me—say that the whole scene really ended the day that Kurt Cobain killed himself. After that it became so derivative—meanwhile Dave Matthews was selling 20,000 tickets in colleges. (Photo:Q-101 staff early 90s: Dave McBride, Brian Peck, Robert Chase, Bill Gamble, Hedi Hess, Steve McEwen, Mark Goodman, Carla Leonardo)
