DJ's in Recovery

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Comment by Norm (Russell) Thellmann on July 27, 2010 at 1:56pm

My career in Broadcasting began one day in 1969 while living on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A friend/neighbor and I were chatting one evening in the court yard of the apartment complex where we lived in Christiansted. His name was Tom Taylor, he and I were the same age...19. The difference was that he was a white shirt and tie (professional) and more mature and I... freshly out of a West Pac tour in the Navy was ready to party and live life. Tom worked at WIVI-FM (an easy listening format) in Stereo I might add... and if I ever wanted to come up to the station for a visit... I would be welcome. About a month later I took him up on that offer. While at the radio station he asked if I would like to record a commercial. I said sure why not!
Next day the owners of the station asked Tom to tell me that if I wanted a job as a DJ/announcer I could have it. They liked what they heard. I was not even trying to get a job. I went to San Juan, PR to the FCC office and got my Third Class FCC License and then worked at that station for one year. Then I applied at WSTX-AM (a Top 40) station and worked there two years. In 1973 moved to Miami, Fl. and a month later got a job at WKID-TV in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl. By then I had obtained my First Class FCC License. Worked there two years as video tape engineer, station announcer, and camera operator. Moved to San Diego, CA in July of 1975 got out of broadcasting for a while then in 1979 I called in to bitch about something one morning at K-105FM (a disco format) and the on-air guy who picked up the phone ignored my complaint and asked if I ever worked in radio... I said yes... well, I got an on-air gig there from that phone call which lasted about two years. Not the phone call… the job! Ha! The fellow who picked up the phone that day was Frank Csaszar and we have been friends ever since. In fact, he lives close by in San Diego, CA. Then was out of broadcasting again until 1984 when I called the PD at KS-103-FM here in San Diego and ended up getting an on-air gig there for two years. Since then been away from broadcasting and for probably the same reasons that a lot of us got away from it... low pay, moody P.D.'s, and it just became redundant and boring. I am not one who does well with reading cards. I was spoiled early on in the islands where I could break the format and play the music I wanted to air and the station owner had high praise for my style and never said a word about it... just so long as the spots were aired. My main thing is that I possess a creative mind, I get bored easily and love to write and produce audio comedy satire material... and I have been doing just that over the many years since my broadcasting days... not for pay but for fun for my friends. I have a slew of material... satire twists on everyday commercials... stuff like that. I am up with it even though I am not in what might be referred to as the "main stream". I am not and have never been egotistical but rather am a behind the scenes kind of creator. A lot of people in the "Biz" have deep rooted insecurity problems... they need to be seen and known. I detest phony people and admire those who recognize that we are all only here for a short time and that all these wonderful talents come from God... and we only borrow them for a very short time. On the other side of the coin (and I have heard a million of them) if someone were to come up and offer me a V.O. gig that actually paid real money... I mean REAL money and it were something that appealed to me and my talents... yeah; I'd have to take a serious look at it.
I don't plug myself anymore (except here)... got tired of chasing the wind years ago. I simply don't possess the ego for it. I put it out there (on V.U. & Voice 123) and if anyone likes what they hear and would like to use my voice... I'm there!
The good old days...
I used to love having my friends come up to the studio at night and sit around on the floor. I'd turn of the overhead lights and bring in a desk lamp to set the atmosphere. In the V.I. if you were a D.J. back in the '60's, you were like a mini kind of God. I never looked at it that way but... that is what it sorta was like. I was popular but lived a low profile life with only my small group of friends and my girlfriend MaryAnn at the time. Used to love to play great songs like Too Late to Turn Back Now by C.B.S.R. I loved their sound. Three Dog Night, The Dramatics (What you see, is what you get)... What does it take to win your love by JR. W and the all Stars. I favored the Motown, R & B sound and a lot of the music that came out in the late 1960’s. I grew up with it in New Jersey during my teen years and it stuck with me. Today, I love Smooth Jazz and R&B. While living in the V.I. I used to listen to WABC 77 after 1:00AM it came in very clear off the ionosphere and I picked up a lot of the styles from that format as well as from another Super Great station of the day... WBMJ 1190 out of San Juan, PR. only 100 miles to the west. It was owned by Bob Hope back then and was by far THE best format I have ever heard a radio station produce before or since. It was very similar to WABC but better! I still have some of it on audio clips and if there is a way to share it... I'll put it on here. I piloted Piper Cherokees back then and one day flew from St. Croix over to San Juan International to go and check out the studios at WBMJ. At the time they were located in the Borenquen Hotel in San Juan. They advertised: "This is WBMJ... a Bob Hope station, broadcasting from Penthouse studios atop the Hotel Borenquen in San Juan... now, more music". That's how it went. They had a Super Sound... just a tid bit of echo in the transmitter... not much but enough to subliminally make the station sound like the Super Station it was! I get to the hotel and find that you have to take the service elevator in order to get up to the Penthouse studios. The elevator was tiny and littered with graffiti. When the door opened at the top... it looked like heaven! Red carpeting, neatly arranged office cubicles and at the very end of the walk way... a good sized glassed D.J. booth. When I got there the guy on the air was (Charlie Brown) his air name. On the air you would get a mental image of a guy wearing a dark suit and tie with black slicked back hair... in actuality however, he had long blonde hair, a tee shirt and jeans with holes in them.
That's what I love about anonymity. As a person I love short and sweet, off the wall humor. Hate long winded jokes with dumb punch lines. Enjoy my life here in Beautiful San Diego and would not trade it for any other. I have great friends an ex wife who is my buddy I really love being creative and don’t take things for granted. I appreciate everyone and everything. Thanks for your time.
Norm...

Comment by John Tambascio on March 26, 2010 at 12:17pm

Mister Herron? (bowing and scraping out of respect)

I too am a WWDC AM alum. I was there in the Johnny Holiday, Ross Simpson and Captain Dan heydays. Back when the Bender family still had it. I did overnights on the AM side of the house and an occasional fill-in shot for Johnny. Nice to meet you!

Comment by Carl Liebold on February 9, 2010 at 7:44pm

Hi all
Even in Australia we had turntables like the ones shown above...and i have a couple of stories about them.

1. On my "1st" night on the air" i was responsible for replaying the radio serial that was aired in the morning program each day.
back in those days the radio serial came on vinyl - and on a disc that was 48 inches across.
I had never seen a 'record": so large...and had the correct Ep cued up ready to go. It was the 1st track on the disc.
Play sponsor credit - hit play on the turn table.....and the whole arm and needle come flying off the TT with much scraping and clattering...
Confused i quickly re-cue and try again....same result.
Now this was at 10.30 at night - i was the only one in the station and i naturally assumed (NEVER ASSUME) that the TT was broken. infact i was so sure that wrote a report for the tech saying that it was possessed and needed a possible exorcism. I made apologies on the air and put a song on the other TT which was working fine.
The next day - while reading the large amounts of complaints received from people who didnt hear their serial that night - the Tech politely explained how "INSIDE OUT" playing radio serial discs worked.
Track 1 started from the track mark right beside the lable - and played "OUT" on the disc...not the track mark on the outer edge of the disc and played inwards.

Another night i followed a guy on the air who - some hours previously - had spilled a can of COKE over 1 of the turntables. As i was half way through "Macarthur Park - Richard Harris Version - the Turntable BURST INTO FLAMES
after all the sugar and syrup got so hot being mixed in the drive mechanism...LOL
Small panic but i put the fire out pretty fast and the TT KEPT work the whole time.
Just thought i would share.
Cheers and see you at Voice2010

Comment by Gina Martell on July 27, 2009 at 8:58pm

I loved Randy's story!! Hahah..I totally relate to that! How many times did you miss a whole stop set?!!

Comment by Deby Cedars on May 22, 2009 at 1:10pm

Randy,
Your resume is inspiring and. your website is good. Ironically there is a buzz on the audio of your video.

Comment by Randy Thomas on May 22, 2009 at 11:57am

Hi All-I just uploaded a new BLOG on the Voice For Hire book website abut Breaking Through. I would love your feedback on this!
www.voiceforhirebook.net

Comment by Randy Savage on May 19, 2009 at 5:25pm

Alright - this one wasn't a dream: I was Asst. Program Director/Afternoons at KKSS in Albuquerque - I remember I did something - which I've since blocked out - that required getting a memo. The PD was getting ready to leave for the day (we shared the same office) and he looks at me and says "Randy - don't forget to write yourself up and sign the memo, then put it in your personnel file." Now THAT'S self-service lol Of course the memo didn't sound half as bad as if the PD himself had written it :)

Comment by Warren Garling on March 14, 2009 at 10:33pm

Yeah, Dave, I think it was elements 1, 2 and 9 for the 3rd Class ticket. I remember taking the test when I was 15 and messing up one of the elements, so I had to re-take the test when I was 16. Got the license and my first radio job that year. Everyone's license had to hang on the wall of the studio. That's when I realized that not everyone was using their real names on the air! I've still got the last one I was issued in a scrapbook somewhere.

Comment by David Atwood on February 26, 2009 at 10:45am

Hey Dave! Where I worked we always called the First Class License the "First Phone". I do still have my 3rd Class Radiotelephone Operator's License with Broadcast Endorsement though. (that's a mouthful) If I remember correctly you had to pass Elements 1 and 9 of the FCC exam to get it. I think it was pretty much memorizing Ohm's Law and answering questions like "If the flashing red light is out on top of a transmitter tower you should [a] contact the FAA [b] take a smoke break [c] ignore it and continue your conversation with the phonejammer on the request line". And still, somehow I passed it!

Comment by Dude Walker on February 26, 2009 at 7:18am

A couple of observations about the studio in the picture above...those turntables were huge! I worked the morning show at a daytime-only station in Maine. The heat was turned down to about 60 overnight, so I had to warm up the turntable by putting them in 78 RPM for a few minutes, otherwise that first record of the day would "wow". That open bottle of soda makes me verrry nervous... Anyone remember the reset button that you hit to sync the wall clock with the top of the hour tone from the network? Sorry, gotta go -- the teletype machine needs a new ribbon!

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