My Own Golden Age of Radio

“LOST MUSKET DIARY” Saturday October 4, 2014

Sunny and Hot 96F/36C/ in Rancho Las Musket

Buongiorno et Bonjour!

I realize that my blog “needs attention.” But, what to talk about? I’ve spent a whole week tending to financial matters and family business and trying to make what could be described as a life-changing decision. Not overwhelming by any stretch, but enough to divert my creative juices from their intended retirement goal of finally getting around to doing the writing that I've aspired to for decades. That said, I haven’t said much about my earlier career in radio, the theater of the mind.

T’other day as I was perusing a notebook with the articles and essays I’ve written over the years, I ran across a piece that I wrote for Don Barrett’s “LARadio.com” web site some years ago. Don is a contemporary of mine with a history in broadcasting about as long as mine but far more successful. Back in the 90’s he wrote the defining archive of Los Angeles Radio personalities under the title of “LA Radio People.” Now, there is a whole bookshelf of his books on LA radio that meshes perfectly with his website, “LARadio.com.” Don’s work has become, over the years, the defining chronicle of the Los Angeles Broadcasting Industry. When I sit down at my computer in the morning with my coffee, “LARadio.com” is one of the first things I look at. And as I do so, I can’t help remembering the afternoon I first talked with him.

“Hello, Mike. I’m Don Barrett and I’m updating my book called “LA Radio People. Tell me, where did you go after KNOB?” I remember laughing out loud. “Don,” I asked. “How in the hell did you find me?” Since KNOB, I had gone on to bigger and better things in my broadcast career: KFWB with the advent of the All News format in 1968; KRLA briefly in 1971; a side trip to KSDO in San Diego, and finally back to Los Angeles and Gene Autry’s KMPC in 1972. After that, I started my TV career at KTLA, and in 1989 moved “over the fence” to do press relations with the District Attorney’s office. With a new boss in 1996 I found myself in the department’s “Siberia,” transferred from downtown and all the action at the Criminal Courts Building away to sea of warehouses at the Child Support Bureau in scenic Commerce, California. When Don found me I was in a tiny, borrowed office with a computer that did nothing and a telephone that rarely rang.

Now, I realize that I haven’t said much about my early career in Radio. For one thing I haven’t earned my living in front of a microphone since about 1988 and memories fade. But, my kids remember when their dad was a “star” and love to prod me into telling my “war stories.” Occasionally, I’ll even hear from someone who remembers listening to me many years ago. Bob Zeichner, a prominent photographer and artist from San Francisco still emails me from time to time. He first heard me on WTFM in New York back in 1962. And, so it goes. But time marches on and I had pretty much put those days in the past until the phone rang and Don Barrett asked me where I went after KNOB. Later, Don asked his LARadio.com followers to share their “radio days memories.” That prompted me to put this together. It published originally on January 6, 2000.

"My First Day on the Air in "L Capital A"

By Mike Botula

July 1966, my first day on the air in LA.  "I've arrived," I think. Finally, after ten years of paying dues- this is the big time!  (“Well. Sort of!”).

When I arrived in Southern California in June of 1966, I felt like Moses glimpsing the Promised Land after years of wandering in the wilderness. Ten years of 500 and thousand watt day timers, back in my then-rural hometown in New York; suburban radio and FM radio (In 1961, what the hell is FM?); this was followed by a side trip to Florida, and three years in Arizona. So now, my wife and I break open the piggy bank and move the two of us and our mobile home to California. It was a calculated career risk. My entire future "on spec." I had no real prospects, just a gut feeling that things would turn out.

After signing up for the First Phone Class at the Don Martin School of Radio and TV in Hollywood ("We guarantee your First Class FCC License in Six Weeks!"), I leafed through my Broadcasting yearbook and started dialing radio stations. After a dozen or so calls, I made a call to KNOB-FM in Long Beach. That got me a job interview, where station manager Jack Banoczi offered me a Saturday air shift. That fit perfectly with my Monday through Friday schedule at Don Martin. For a "new kid in town," I felt pretty good. Being a jazz buff, I was well aware of the "Jazz Knob's" reputation. It was once the home of Chuck Niles and Sleepy Stein. We had even heard about this station back in New York.  Banoczi gave me directions to the top of Signal Hill. “Things are looking up,” I thought. “I've got a 79,000-watt audition showcase while I'm getting settled and some money coming in.” When I get home, I tell my wife, "We're on our way!" The following Saturday morning, I exit the San Diego Freeway and head left on Cherry Avenue, turn left on 25^th St. and wind my way up Signal Hill through a large grove of oil derricks, parking under the tallest tower at the summit. The location turns out to be a rundown building, the yard overgrown with weeds, the front choked with ivy. A swarm of bees masks the front door.

Jack and his brother Bob, who is also the station's Chief Engineer, are standing in front. "Wow," I think, "the GM and the Chief Engineer are here to greet me." "We're gonna be fixing the roof this afternoon," I'm told. "We'll be listening to our transistor radios, but you may hear some pounding on the air. Try not to let that bother you." I asked who would be breaking me in on my new shift. "The morning man, Bob Cory will show you everything you need to know," said Jack.

I moved carefully through the swarm of bees, walked through the front door, directly into KNOB's on-air studio. Sure enough, Cory was sitting behind an ancient Western Electric audio board. Through a dirty plate glass window, I could see an equally ancient Western Electric transmitter dating back to the days of Col. Armstrong. Plugged into one side of the ancient transmitter was a new Collins stereo generator. On the back wall was a pay telephone. Bob quickly showed me the copybook and the program log and pointed out the transmitter log, which required instrument checks every thirty minutes. As he talked, there was the incessant pounding from the roof above as the Banoczi Brothers showed off their carpentry skills. Cory took about three minutes to share everything he knew about how KNOB operated and then turned for the door and the swarm of bees beyond the threshold. "Who do I call, if I have a problem," I asked. He pointed to the pay phone. "There's a dime in the coin return slot," he told me. If you need to reach Jack, pick up the dime and call Jack at home, COLLECT. He lives up in Los Feliz. He will answer the phone, but he'll deny your call. Then he'll call you right back. It’s a toll call and the boss pinches his pennies. If he's not there or nobody else is home, you'll have to deal with it yourself."

"So, tell me about the format," I asked. "You can play any record you want to," Bob told me, "except for the cuts with masking tape on them. The boss has put masking tape over the cuts that he doesn’t want to be played. Otherwise, use your own judgment." Great! My first day in big-time Los Angeles radio has me walking through a swarm of bees, working in a studio with two guys pounding nails in the roof over my head. The equipment predates Edward R. Murrow‘s puberty and my sole line of communication to the outside world is a pay phone with a dime in the coin slot. And, I've got to peel off the masking tape from the LP cuts that I really want to play.

The hammering on the roof above went on most of the afternoon. I was able to drown out some of the racket by turning up the volume of my stereo headphones, but, every once in a while, a heavy “thump” above me would cause the stylus to skip a groove on the LP I was playing. Two hours into my six-hour shift, in the middle of a commercial I was reading, the pay phone rang. (Incoming calls don't cost). It's a listener. “Hey," says the caller, "I've been listening to you all afternoon." I perk up. It’s a fan. Maybe it’s a major station PD who will offer me a big time LA radio job. "You're new to Southern California, aren't you," says he. "Yes," I reply. "Why do you ask?" "Because you don't know how to pronounce X-I-M-E-N-O Avenue."

The pounding on the roof finally stopped. A short time later I have a problem. Commercial copy is missing from the book, but Jack and Bob have left without even checking to see if I was OK.  I head to the pay phone to call the boss. The dime is gone from the coin return. I don't have any change. I sit back at the old Western Electric console writing a note to the boss. I heard a car pull up in front. It's six p.m. Quitting time for me. As I wonder just who is going to relieve me, the door opens. A man is silhouetted by the setting sun in the swarm of bees outside. In he walks, extending his hand. "Hi, I'm Jay Durkin. I work the night shift here. Who are you?" My first day in the big time was over.

The only time in later years that I really gave any thought to my time at KNOB (which is now KLAX, a power house Spanish language pop music station), came one afternoon in 1996 when my phone rang at the District Attorney's office. "Hi," said the voice at the other end of the line, "I'm Don Barrett and I’m writing a book called LA Radio People." Yeah, I used to do LA Radio," I replied. "Tell me," Don asked, "where did you go after you left KNOB?"

And, also on this day in history:

2333 BC - The state of Gojoseon (Modern-day Korea) founded by Dangun Wanggeom during the reign of the Chinese Emperor Yao.
52 BC - Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, surrenders to the Romans under Julius Caesar, ending the siege and battle of Alesia.

1283 - Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, becomes the first person executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered. (Dafydd gets my “Loser of the Day” award for the 13^th century.

1789 - Washington proclaims 1st national Thanksgiving Day on Nov 26.

1849 - American author Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a gutter in Baltimore, Maryland under mysterious circumstances; it is the last time he is seen in public before his death.

1863 - Lincoln designates last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. (So, who do we blame for “Black Friday?” Lincoln or Washington?)

1872 - Bloomingdale's department store in NY opens.

1906 - SOS adopted as warning signal by 1st conference on wireless telegraphy.

1945 - Elvis Presley's 1st public appearance at the age of 10.

Ciao!

Mike Botula