“Fine,” I said.
“And the other thing is that I can’t have you on the air at another radio station if you are doing a show here at KROQ so you’ll have to quit KNAC.”
This was a hammer blow. As limited as KNAC was it still gave me a job on a station in America’s number two radio market. This was a huge setback. No money and no job.
I thought for a second and then asked, “Are you going to Hawaii?”
Rick shook his head, “No, I’m staying here.”
Then this was my chance, maybe if I did this I could achieve everything I had dreamed of since those early days at Oxford a decade before. But it meant leaving behind all I had accomplished so far. Did I dare? Yes, I hadn’t come to America to play it safe and wonder “what if.” I was going to roll the dice again and this time it would be all or nothing.
“If you’re going to stay I’ll do it because you’ll get to hear me on the air.”
Rick instantly picked up on what I meant and spoke slowly as he tried not to pop my bubble. “I know what you’re thinking but it’s not going to happen. There are no jobs available here at KROQ. It took me two years to put together this team. No one is leaving. They’re going to Hawaii and then they are coming back to their shifts. Unless their plane goes down and kills them all I won’t have anything for you.”
To this day I don’t know where I got the balls to say this but I looked Rick dead in the eyes and said quietly and deliberately, “I’ll quit KNAC because you will find something for me here.”
And just like that I made it my game to win or lose.
WHAT’S MY NAME
I was sad giving my notice to Jimmy at KNAC. Everyone there had been so friendly and had encouraged me in my quest to move up through radio’s ranks. As my final day approached, their talented morning guy, Norm McBride, took me out for lunch to wish me well.
I carried with me a lot of appreciation for that good-hearted staff on that underpowered little station as I walked into the KROQ building on that fateful day, Monday, June 14, 1982, to do my first shift there.
I arrived early and ran through some bits I wanted to do on air. If there was the chance to do a contest then I planned on some music trivia; I had a great question ready: “What is the name of the club on the east coast where The Ramones and Blondie first played?” I also wanted to work in a character that I had unabashedly stolen from Noel Edmond’s breakfast show on BBC Radio One, that of a blustery, rude old tea lady barging into the studio on her daily rounds. I figured that would be perfect in the eleven o’clock hour just as everyone’s thoughts began gravitating towards lunch and if it went well I could make her a regular.
One thing I couldn’t decide was what name to use on the air. It was time to put Dick Sheppard to rest for a number of reasons. First, in my naiveté, I didn’t want to steal any listeners from the struggling KNAC—they were friends and already had enough problems getting an audience with their low-wattage signal—and secondly, ever since Taxi put her arms on my waist and teased me about “Dick” I had decided I should eventually revert back to Richard.
But Richard what? Richard Sheppard was way too mundane on a station whose jock lineup included Freddy Snakeskin, Jed the Fish, Dusty Street and Sam Freeze. I needed something catchy and a little out of the ordinary. I had been going over this again and again ever since Rick offered me the slot but was no closer to coming up with anything original.
At exactly nine I walked into the on-air studio of KROQ and took over. I’d been in there before the previous week for two nights and run the board as I trained with Dusty Street so I’d be technically competent for my fill-in shifts, but much of the training was Dusty sending me out to Trader Joe’s down the street to buy her a liter and a half of Gallo Chardonnay which amazingly didn’t detract from her on-air performance but definitely did affect her in other ways because as the alcohol kicked in she would lock her eyes on mine from across the console and say in that unforgettable gruff voice of hers, “You and me, boyfriend, it’s just a matter of time!” But now Dusty was in Aloha Land and I was alone in the studio.
There were two turntables on my left, a third on my right, a sixteen-channel mixer in front of me, six cart machines in two stacks of three and a Sennheiser microphone on a flexible stand. Behind me was a five-foot-high carousel holding the commercial and promo carts, a plastic file box with the live copy typed on cards and the rear wall was all shelves filled with albums and music carts filed in a fashion that almost made sense.
There was a window into the studio but strung up across it to conceal the goings on inside was an old, ugly green and red curtain that my mother would have refused to have in her house. The studio was anything but glamorous but it had everything I needed to succeed or fail. But what name was I going to use?
The top of the hour song was fading and I cued up and started the next one, A Flock of Seagulls’ “Telecommunication.” Two minutes and fifty seconds to decide. On the other side of the soundboard, lying on one of the chairs where the in-studio guests would sit, was a Los Angeles Times Calendar section from the day before. I grabbed it in an attempt to find inspiration.
The Calendar’s Sunday edition was thick and comprehensive; on the front page was an article by critic Robert Hilburn. Richard Hilburn? I thought. No, that was as bland as Richard Sheppard. Forty seconds to go before I had to turn on the microphone and be committed for ever after.
On page three there was a full-page ad for a movie opening in two weeks directed by Ridley Scott. Richard Scott? That made no sense; I was English not Scottish and I had already gone through a list of “origin” names—Richard England, Richard London and in a salute to the Royal family, Richard Windsor—but none seemed right to me. But this movie’s name was cool, Blade Runner. I made up my mind there and then; it would be Richard Runner. Catchy, short, had alliteration and I could put together a fun logo using the two Rs mimicking the famous Rolls Royce insignia.
Fifteen seconds to the song’s fade. My nerves kicked in. I have never had a panic attack but this was as close as I ever want to get. I felt as if all of Southern California was tuned in, hunched around their radios, listening intently with pen and paper ready to make notes of all my screw ups and mock me endlessly for them.
I tossed the paper onto the floor, rolled my chair into position at the console, pulled my headphones down and hit the red on button for the mic. “Flock of Seagulls’ “Telecommunication” or Telecom as it’s known affectionately back in my native England. Denise Westwood is on vacation in Hawaii so you’re stuck with me on K-Rock. I’m . . .” What’s my name?
The planet’s biggest brain fart hit. I flashed a glance down at the newspaper to jog my memory but the paper had folded when it landed and half of the page was obscured. I could no longer see the full ad; all I could pick out was “Opening June 25, Blade R—” What was the other word? Too late, no time! You’ve got to say something, the world is listening!
I heard the words come out of my mouth, “I’m Richard Blade and if you are in the mood for Elvis Costello or Madness then they are both on their way in minutes, but before that a new group from Sheffield, England, whose just released album is a killer, never off my turntable at home; this is ABC and ‘Poison Arrow.’”
I started the song and closed the mic. I slipped off my headphones and collapsed back in the chair and ran the name through my head. Richard Blade. I’d heard worse. It would have to do.
Hard to believe it was almost noon already. My first three hours on the air at KROQ had flown by. I’d made it without a major screw up. Sure, I’d fallen over a couple of words and almost miscued a song but caught it before I’d put it on the air so that was good and no one knew about that potential disaster apart from me. I hadn’t left the studio once, not for a pee break or to make a cup of tea in the closet that masqueraded as a kitchen, but now as I was playing my last song I realized just how tired I was. That last 180 minutes had been non-stop pure adrenalin for me; it had been my prime-time LA debut. Maybe I
hadn’t scored a touchdown but I hadn’t fumbled or thrown an interception so I felt good.
I hit the pre-recorded top-of-the-hour ID, “K-R-O-Q Los Angeles, Pasadena, 106.7 FM,” and slammed into the Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime.” That was it. I was done. Just one thing missing. Danny Elfman wasn’t there yet to take over. I couldn’t leave the studio unmanned.
I cued up the next song from Larry Grove’s hand-written music key that more resembled a child’s pie chart than a radio station’s playlist and waited for the lead singer of Oingo Boingo to take over. Danny had planned to come on the air under the pseudonym of Moscow Eddie but he was nearly five minutes late already. Was he sitting, listening in his car somewhere, pounding the steering wheel, caught in LA’s notorious traffic?
My unspoken question was answered as the hotline blinked red. “KROQ,” I answered.
“Yo! Can I speak to the DJ?”
“That’s me,” I replied.
“OK. It’s Danny Elfman here.”
“Hey, Danny,” I said, “Are you running late?”
“No, I’m not going to make it. I’m stuck in the studio with Steve and Johnny rehearsing a new song for our live show and I can’t get free,” explained Danny. “I’ll be there tomorrow for sure but I can’t get out of this rehearsal today. Can someone take care of things there for me?”
I didn’t hesitate; sometimes you have to step up. It’s like when you’re playing a gig and you’re dog tired and just want to go home and crawl into bed but the client and their friends are having such a great time that they want “one more hour!” You put on your brave face and do your job.
“Not a problem, Danny. I’ll cover your shift. Looking forward to meeting you tomorrow,” I said.
“Good. See you then!”
The line went silent and Danny was gone, back to his Oingo Boingo session where he was prepping for a concert tour to promote their new album Nothing to Fear that was due out in just days. And just like that I was doing my second show on KROQ, except it was consecutive to my first, six hours straight and now with zero prep.
This time I would be filling in for Jed the Fish. Jed was an incredibly talented and unpredictable on-air personality whose laugh had its own unique sound, unmatched or unequalled by any other jock in the United States. It was often imitated by listeners but none of their impressions ever came close to the real thing.
He also liked to suddenly break into nonsensical, made-up words and phrases. His music taste was esoteric and he was well-known as an early champion of Devo and Oingo Boingo which is how the station had been able to persuade Danny Elfman to come on board as Jed’s fill-in DJ. His were tough shoes to fill.
I decided that rather than attempt to be Jed I would lean towards my own personal favorites, new British bands like Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran and the emerging Depeche Mode. If people didn’t like the jock choices that I was allowed to insert twice an hour then so be it. Better to upset a few listeners than pretend to be a carbon copy of someone I could never be.
Right at the beginning of the shift I went for it and put listener calls on the air and they seemed positive. It wasn’t easy airing the phone calls as I had to first record them on a reel-to-reel tape and shorten them for brevity and content if necessary.
That editing process was awkward and time consuming; the tape had to be listened to, the editing points marked with a white wax pencil, the tape lifted onto a splicing block where you cut it with a razor blade at a forty-five-degree angle to make a clean audio transition and then joined the two ends together using a thin, sticky splicing tape. After all that was done you would listen back to it to make sure the call flowed naturally before playing it on the air. If you were good and didn’t run into any complications like tape drop outs or marking the wrong section then you could have it done within ten minutes.
Around twelve-forty the red “hotline” blinked into life. Very few people had the number for this internal line and you had to answer it ASAP as it meant someone important was calling. I picked it up and was instantly greeted by radio’s most identifiable laugh!
“It’s Jeddum Fishum here. Where’s Danny?”
I explained that he wasn’t coming in and I was covering for Danny covering for him which Jed thought was the single funniest thing he had heard that year. He’d planned the call with Danny so we went ahead with it anyway and I put him on the air and for the next three minutes we chatted live about the adventures the KROQ listeners were having with the jocks in Oahu.
We wrapped up the call with Jed introducing the new Oingo Boingo single, or “Ingy Bingy” as Jed liked to call them, “Private Life.” Having Jed endorse me doing his show on the air meant a lot and filled me with new confidence.
I’d brought with me a half-dozen records that Dad had sent from England and I decided I’d start trying out some of those as my twice an hour jock’s choice rather than continue to play it safe by slipping in already approved cuts that were available in the studio.
I punched the on button and leant forward to the mic, “It’s Richard Blade in for Jed the Fish who right now is swimming around in the waters off of Waikiki, and I wanted to play you something new. I just received this from the record company back in the UK. It’s a white-label twelve-inch that doesn’t have any information on it except for two words that are hand-written so all I know about it is that it sounds totally awesome. Whether those two words are the name of the band or the name of the song, I’m not sure, but either way I’d love you to check it out so here goes; this is “Talk Talk” on K-Rock!”
As the needle tracked across the vinyl all four of the request lines lit up with excited listeners. Thirty minutes later as my next jock’s choice rolled around I debuted another new song, this one was “Pale Shelter” from a group hailing from Bath, England, just seven miles from my birthplace, Bristol, Tears For Fears.
I flew through the next two hours fueled by pure energy that the music pumped through my body. The endless stream of calls on the request line encouraged me to keep going and play tracks that weren’t ever heard on the radio, album cuts like “Europa and the Pirate Twins” by Thomas Dolby, B sides such as “Late Bar” from Duran Duran and fun dance tracks like The Thompson Twins’ “In the Name of Love.”
I also snuck in that seven-inch single that I’d fallen in love with after finding it in a used record store in Long Beach. I’d been playing it during the dead of night on KNAC and thought it sounded amazing on the air. It was on a small record label based in Southern California but the band had a European name and sang about London and Paris. I figured it would be perfect for KROQ so I introduced that band on my very first day on the air with, “Let’s all take a little trip to Berlin, and if you’re not sure how to get there, don’t worry, we’re riding ‘The Metro.’”
That second three-hour show was, in a word, fun. I learned to relax and be myself, and whatever was to happen with Rick Carroll, I knew I’d done as well as I could. Even if it wasn’t what Rick was looking for it had been the best I could do; I’d brought the show, put it all out there on the air and left nothing on the table. I was spent, exhausted but thrilled. It was that same feeling a runner gets when crossing the finish line after a 10K. You might not have the fastest time but you pushed yourself to a personal best and no one can take that away from you. With those endorphins flowing through me I inserted the top-of-the-hour ID cart and waited for the arrival of Elvira.
And waited. The required FCC ID played and I started the first song of the 3pm hour. No Mistress of the Dark. I stared at the studio door and willed it to open but the Force was weak in me that day and it remained closed. Now it was on to the second song of the hour and that meant a talk break was rapidly approaching. Now what? Freddy Snakeskin was in Hawaii and Elvira was nowhere to be found. I had to do something.
Maybe she was outside waiting in the reception area? I hated to leave the studio empty but I jumped out of my chair and hurried into the narrow corridor to look for her. No sign of the exotic, and AW
OL, Elvira. Larry’s and Rick’s offices were empty too; I would learn later that it was rare for either of them to show up on a Monday as they would both be in their respective apartments face-down at the start of the work week, recovering from their wild weekends.
The only person in authority I could find was Pat Welsh, the station’s general manager. His door was open, but despite the emergency, I acknowledged my lowly place in the scheme of things by knocking softly before going in. He was a tough-looking ginger with a ruddy complexion, a pockmarked face that hadn’t seen a razor in years and a no-nonsense glare.
“Yes?” he boomed as he hit me with his intimidating stare.
“I’m Dick—Richard Blade, the guy on the air. The next DJ, Elvira, isn’t here yet. Should I keep going?”
Pat looked puzzled. “You didn’t get the message?”
My blank gaze obviously answered his question.
“She can’t make it today. Her channel-nine TV taping got changed; she’s shooting all afternoon. You okay to cover for her?”
I had two choices, say yes or tell him I was walking away and leaving the station to close down. I didn’t think that would impress him.
“I can stay,” I told him confidently.
“Good. Do you need a coffee or anything?”
“No. I’ll grab some water. Better go before the song finishes.” I sprinted down the hallway to the studio to start my third shift in a row and hour number seven on the air.
I completely understand that most people reading this book work much longer than seven hours a day on a regular basis and have little sympathy for my plight and in all honesty I don’t expect any. My shift at KNAC, midnight to 6am, was six hours but it’s very different doing an overnight program than being on during the busy daytime slots.
There’s a reason most radio DJs only have three or four-hour shows and that’s because the programs are so intense. No, you’re not saving lives, chasing down bad guys or putting out fires and in the grand scheme of things being a DJ ranks right up there with unicorn handlers in terms of importance, but if you are doing it to the best of your ability, it is exhausting.
World in My Eyes: The Autobiography Page 22