“How dare you bring pornography onto our plane!” exclaimed the stewardess.
“What? I don’t have any porn with me.”
“I beg to differ.” Her eyes went to the screen.
There, in glorious color, was a freeze frame of a nipple with an ice cube being rubbed against it. I recognized it instantly; it was the uncensored video for the twelve-inch version of “Girls on Film.” The stewardess had grabbed a Duran Duran compilation tape that I had received from their record label and had put that on. Everything was fine during “Planet Earth,” “Hungry like the Wolf ” and “Rio,” but when the raunchy extended “Girls on Film” started and the sexy models clad only in tiny thongs started their oil wrestling, the passengers on the plane went nuts—but in a good way. The big problem was that it wasn’t all KROQ listeners on board; the other 200 travelers were Catholic choral groups bound for a competition in Hawaii.
To make things worse the Catholic schoolgirls LOVED the video as they all had crushes on the guys in Duran Duran and they booed as their Mother Superior stormed down the aisle to have the video turned off. In the confusion the crew had hit pause instead of stop and now that chilly nipple was being immortalized on the multiple screens throughout the aircraft.
The three crew members who were boxing me in seemed so furious that for a moment I really thought they were going to march me to an exit door and jettison me over the Pacific.
The crew insisted I go back to apologize to the choral groups, which I did, but even as I said sorry I was met by cheers from the frisky schoolgirls who wanted nothing more than to keep watching Duran Duran do their thing. But instead of Simon, John, Roger, Nick and Andy rocking out, we were all relegated to an awful movie that was the regularly scheduled entertainment.
Everything else about the trip to Oahu went flawlessly. We shot intros at the beach, at Diamond Head, at the KROQ nighttime parties and from the top of the hotels that towered over the white sands of Waikiki. Peter and I had hoped that some of the takes might work but we were amazed that when we returned to the mainland it all actually ended up on the air as “MV3 Invades Hawaii Week.” Steve was so desperate for material at the time that even the low quality of home video would do.
In August Peter pulled off a real coup and arranged for Robert Smith of The Cure to come to the Burbank studio for an interview. This would have been huge for our audience as The Cure was already an incredibly popular new wave band in 1983.
Peter met Robert and a representative from his record company outside of the studio but couldn’t get in. Steve Poole had forgotten about the interview and had locked everything up. Peter stood on the sidewalk trying to explain to the lead singer of The Cure what had happened and watched helplessly as they drove away.
Peter was broken-hearted that even with all his efforts and everything he’d personally done to try and keep the show on the air it was still in a downward death spiral. He realized that after that day’s debacle he’d reached his limit and phoned me that night to tell me he was done.
Three days later Karen quit the show. Steve called me up and had me come over to his house. He was frantic when I arrived.
“Daddy, I have made the deal of deals. CBS has signed to do a season of music video shows with me. Here’s the contract.”
He waved several pages of closely typed legalese with a CBS logo imprinted on it.
“MV3 was just the beginning. This is the big time. MV Network is born. Tell me that you are in, Daddy.”
Hell, why not? Even though I’d only made $4,500 for nine months of work on MV3 it had given me gigantic exposure at home in Southern California and in many states across America.
“Okay, I’ll do it. But it better be real, Steve.”
Steve waved the contract at me again. “It’s real. We are going network, Daddy.”
Apparently CBS wanted to make a big splash with the show. Because so many of the most popular videos were coming out of England that’s where the network decided they wanted the series’ premiere to be shot. But as I would quickly find out, there seemed to be little money upfront for the show to hire staff. As a result it fell on me to be both the on-camera talent and the booking agent.
I spent close to a week on the phone calling bands and artists that I knew in England and convincing them to be on the pilot for the show.
The first to say yes was my dear friend George Michael, who said he would be there 100%. With Wham! and George onboard, I was able to book Spandau Ballet who were coming off one of the year’s biggest hits, “True.”
Three other favorites were also quick to sign on with me, Tears for Fears, Blancmange and Kim Wilde. To balance things out we needed an American act and who better than Brian Setzer of The Stray Cats?
CBS seemed thrilled with the lineup I had put together and with that in place we shot the first interview for MV Network with Brian in Los Angeles and then it was off to London.
With Brian Setzer of Stray Cats
With Blancmange
With Spandau Ballet
With Kim Wilde
With Tears for Fears
With George Michael and Andrew Ridgley – Wham!
Shooting in London was crazy. The British film crew couldn’t get used to Steve running around everywhere wearing his California shorts even as the UK plunged into winter. And they didn’t take kindly to be called Daddy either and started responding with “Okay, Yank.” But somehow we got the footage we needed, all in the space of four non-stop, jam-packed days.
At night Steve would take off by himself and I would spend the time with my mum, who had come up by train from Torquay to be with me. Even though it was just for a few days it was wonderful to see her and she got quite a kick watching her little boy being followed around by a camera crew to iconic locations all over London like Marble Arch, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben.
With our shooting in England wrapped Steve and I flew back to Los Angeles. He talked the whole flight about how big MV Network was going to be, how in the second season we would shoot in Australia and that we would stage an MV Network live concert on both coasts.
After we landed at LAX we went our separate ways with plans to get together the following week to lay down voice-overs and any necessary on-camera pickups. Then nothing. No phone calls from Steve, no studio appointments, no edit sessions.
I drove to his house and couldn’t get anyone to answer the door. After beating on it for thirty minutes I scrawled out an angry handwritten note and left it in the mailbox but knew it was in vain.
I got together with Peter and Karen and we hired a lawyer. We worked out that Steve Poole owed Peter at least $50,000 in unpaid salary; Karen $65,000 and me, with the MV Network “deal,” a minimum of $75,000.
The lawyer, being a lawyer, rounded up the amount we were asking for to an even $100,000 each. He hired a detective and a process server but Poole had disappeared and try as they might, even the professionals couldn’t find him, and very quickly we discovered that we weren’t the only ones looking for him. There was a long list of people and rental companies interested in his whereabouts.
Even without Steve present or even being served, the three of us and our attorney, Arthur Pollack, went to court. That’s when I learned the term in absentia.
The lawyer presented a mountain of evidence: our contracts of employment, dated video clips from the actual show, press cuttings, our records of deposit from our bank accounts and finally the reports from the process server and detective. The judge decided in our favor and passed a binding ruling that should the defendant be found or come forward now or in the future he would be liable at that time for all monies and court costs due Peter, Karen and me.
We left the court winners. To this day we have not collected a penny of the award or been able to locate Steve Poole.
NO MORE WORDS
They say you can never plan for love and you don’t see it coming. I certainly had no idea that Cupid would be waiting for me, her bow drawn, her arrow ready to fire, whil
e I was on the radio that morning.
KROQ was unique in the fact it required the full-time jocks to work a weekend shift every other week. It wasn’t a programming decision; it was because the station operated on a shoestring budget. I hosted a Saturday show from 10am to 2pm as it gave me a chance to plug my gigs and plenty of time to get off the air, get changed and head out to my live shows. But I didn’t let any of that interfere with the content of my radio program; I was all about what went out over the airwaves and making sure that the listeners got nothing but the best “KROQ music.”
It was during my Saturday shift in early October 1982 as I was cuing up the next record that I imagined all the kids who were tuned in as they headed for the beach on that warm fall morning or off to the mall to pick up some new threads and figured it would be a good time to share a story with them.
“This next song is kind of special to me,” I said. “I was working at another radio station a few months ago doing overnights when I found this single. I used to put it on during the dead of the night, maybe at three in the morning when the city had fallen silent and it felt like I was the only person still awake. As the record played I’d stare at the girl on the cover of the single and wonder if she was the singer of the band or just some model they had found to help sell the record. Either way, she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. If you buy a copy of it you can check it out. So here it is, Berlin and ‘The Metro.’”
The record played and I reached for another song.
About fifteen minutes later as I was going through the request lines I answered a call that would rock my world.
“Hi K-Rock, it’s Richard.”
“Yes,” said a quiet female voice on the line, “you were asking about the girl on the cover of ‘The Metro’?”
“Yeah, I was. She’s beautiful. Do you know who she is?”
I could clearly hear the smile in her voice as she replied, “It’s me.”
“Really? How do I know that?” I reached back for the single, slipped it out of its sleeve and looked over the label. “So who wrote the song?”
“John Crawford,” she replied without hesitation.
“And who produced it?”
“Daniel Van Patten. And depending on which copy of the single you have it’s either from MAO Music or Enigma records, but I think the picture you’re talking about is on the Enigma release.”
Holy shit, I thought. This may just be her.
“Did I tell you you’re hot?” I asked.
She laughed, “I heard you say something like that on the radio and I wanted to say thanks.”
“So are you single or married or what?” I blathered.
“Single.”
“Cool. Hey, do you want to meet up?” I asked
“Sure. Where?”
“Where do you live?”
“Santa Monica,” she answered.
“I have a gig in Santa Monica on Monday, The 321 Club. Do you want to meet there?”
“Yeah, that’s just a few blocks from me. What time?”
“I’ll be there from ten until midnight. I’ll leave your name at the door.”
“That works. So I’ll see you then.”
“Great,” I went to say goodbye, then realized, “Wait, wait, wait! What is your name?”
“Terri Nunn,” she said. “I’ll see you Monday.”
I’d met girls on the request lines before, sometimes with scary results, but never the lead singer of a band and never one whose photograph looked that hot. Monday couldn’t come fast enough for me.
The energy at the 321 was pumping that night. I arrived early, about thirty minutes before my scheduled 10pm start time, to make sure Terri’s name was on the guest list. The last thing I wanted was for her to get there and to be turned away at the door.
I took over in the booth right away and was cranking some of my favorite go-to new wave club songs such as B-Movie’s “Nowhere Girl” and Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien.” The floor was packed and I needed a track to keep it that way. I bent over and was hunting through the milk crate full of records for the twelve-inch of The Thompson Twins’ “Lies” when I heard Terri’s first words to me.
“Nice ass!”
I stood up and turned around quickly. “Thanks, you mu . . . ,” my words trailed off as I drank in her beauty. I was stunned for a moment. She literally took my breath away. The picture on the record sleeve didn’t do her justice. I doubted that there was a lens crafted on this planet that could.
Terri was short, blond, slim and incredibly gorgeous. But that wasn’t it. She radiated an attraction that can’t be put into words, an aura that reached into your body and grabbed your soul. She locked her eyes on mine, smiled and said hello and with that simple word I was done.
I managed to form enough words to ask her to hang on, then grabbed the microphone and paged the club DJ to come back to the booth and take over for me. For the first time in my entire DJ career I walked away from the crowd and the booth and neglected the job I was being paid to do.
Terri and I sat at the bar and talked. Our conversation went in every direction under the sun—music, travel, movies, food, politics—there was nothing we couldn’t get into. Together we closed the place down.
I walked her to her car and asked if I could see her again, maybe dinner? She smiled and said she was free all week.
The next night she drove to the valley and met me at Rive Gauche in Sherman Oaks, a restaurant known for its great food. They could have served cow slop that evening for all I cared; I just wanted more time with this dazzling person. At the end of the night I asked if she wanted to come back to my apartment which was just blocks away.
She shook her head, “Thanks, but no. I never have sex on the first date.”
I nodded and was about to explain that I completely understood when she grabbed my hand and said with a smile, “But I’m free tomorrow if you want to come over to my place.”
From that moment on we were inseparable.
Terri came to a lot of my gigs when she wasn’t rehearsing with Berlin. My club and personal appearance schedule had me DJing mostly on weeknights. The clubs would book me then because those were the days that needed the most help—weekends could take care of themselves—so they had Richard Blade from KROQ come in on those slower evenings to spin and pack the place. As a result my weekends were mostly free. I made it a point to spend them with Terri, and we would be together every second from Friday afternoon until Monday morning when I would be up with the first rays of the sun to kiss her goodbye and drive to the station in Pasadena.
Terri loved to act things out and enjoyed role playing. She asked me to surprise her on dates, to be different, unexpected.
I just wanted to make this incredible girl happy, so after she told me that I figured that I would play along and the next night showed up in my flight suit pretending to be in the military. She loved it so I continued with the fun and turned up for our next date which we had planned as a casual dinner in a full tuxedo and black tie. Terri in turn played along and I never knew just who would be waiting for me at the door.
However after just a few dates all the planning and dressing up started to get exhausting for me; maybe my imagination was lacking or I just didn’t have the time and energy, but I had to sit down with Terri and have a talk.
“Look,” I said, “there is nothing more in this world that I want than to be with you but I can’t keep doing all this dress up. I’m running out of things to put on and people to be. I’m a man, I’m not a pirate or a secret agent or a submarine captain; I’m a man and that’s it. You’re so good at being all these different characters and I do love it, but I’m a man and I don’t know what else to be.”
Terri took my face in her hands and kissed me. “You being a man is enough for me. You be my man and I’ll be your babe.”
I had no idea that night that our conversation would be set to music and turned into one of the hottest dance songs of the early eighties.
; To make up for my lack of spontaneity we did all the usual things that young couples do: we went to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, visited Griffith Park Observatory and rode the roller coasters at Magic Mountain. I also started planning long weekends away with Terri and we would escape together to San Diego, Newport Beach and one of our favorites, my old stomping grounds of San Luis Obispo and the eclectic Caveman Room at the Madonna Inn. Those times away together were so much fun as we would laugh and explore together as if there were no one else in the world.
Terri became all I could think of, and with Berlin starting to blow up in popularity in Southern California I invited her into the radio studio on my Saturday show, rather than with Raymond and me in the morning, as I wanted her first interview on KROQ to really concentrate on her music and the band. There was no one else in the small KROQ building that morning, just the two of us.
The interview was going great and Terri was taking calls from the listeners who were telling her how much they loved her voice and how “The Metro” was their favorite song when Terri turned to me on the air.
“You’ve been interviewing me all morning, so can I ask you something?” Terri said.
“Sure, go right ahead.”
“You’ve been a DJ on the radio for a while now, right?”
“Yes,” I replied, “Coming up on three years.”
Her eyes sparkled mischeviously. “Have you ever had sex while you’ve been on the air doing your show?”
I took a deep breath. “Errr . . . no, actually I haven’t.”
Terri smiled, “Then why don’t you find a long song to put on and we’ll change that.”
What to do? That’s what instantly flashed through my brain. What would Rick Carroll think if I went along with Terri’s plan? And what would the listeners think of me if I didn’t? Only one thing I could do.
I reached back and pulled out the remix of Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love/ Where Did Our Love Go” that ran almost nine minutes and just in case the seven minute vinyl of Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough.”
World in My Eyes: The Autobiography Page 28