Shenanigan tales from Steven J Athanas

One would assume (and they’d be right) that if you played in a rock’n’roll band in northwest Ohio in the ’70s and ’80s, you would need to supplement your income (understatement).

Holding up convenience stores could be an option, but musicians, as a rule, are too … how shall I say – chicken shit for that kind of work. They could be a sanitation engineer…yeah right; try ‘n get ‘em outta bed before 11! City council? Nah. That’s definitely a left-brain/right-brain endeavor.

I held a few day jobs while burning the midnight oil with rock’n’roll. Back in the beginning, I was a carry-out at Churchill’s; I worked at a bookstore at Franklin Park Mall; and I was a game room/industrial arts instructor at the Boys Club (yeah, just boys at that time). I even recall once when the members of Jello had a sleepover, woke at 3 a.m. and rode our bikes behind grocery stores, stealing pop bottles to turn in for the money so we could buy band equipment (yeah, that worked out well).

Of course one of my favorite jobs was working at Boogie Records. What a great bunch of people. More on that to come.

I managed a nightclub — Steven Jay’s — and even though my name was writ large on top of the building, it didn’t mean I wasn’t the one pulling puke-encrusted broken beer bottles out of an overflowing toilet at 4 a.m. Glory days.

And — point of pride — I taught K-12 art classes at various schools and the Toledo Museum of Art.

Radio dreams commence

The one job I held for a few years that I have to think had a negligible effect on my resumé is the time I spent in radio (well, both on radio and in radio).

A lot of the bands I played in had a good reputation with local radio stations, and we would frequently play at their functions. A perfect example were a number of the Hasty Pudding concerts at the Ottawa Park Amphitheater that WIOT put on when I was with The Raisin Band in the early ‘70s.

Because of that alignment, I became acquainted with the DJs, program directors, etc. from some of the rock stations. It was that connection that encouraged me to ask for a job as a DJ at Reams Broadcasting, who owned WIOT, and a couple other stations.

One of the sister stations was WCWA, whose format was a jumbled format of talk, swing and oldies. When I asked if I could do a shift, they accommodated me and gave me a Sunday morning slot on WCWA. Not exactly my musical niche, and not exactly a good time of day, after having been working in the night clubs until 2 a.m. the Saturday night before. But I took it, with no expectations, just to see where it might take me.

Back then, the music on radio stations was mainly played two ways: on vinyl (LPs or 45s) or on “carts,” which looked like 8-track modules, with just a song or a commercial per unit. And yes, records would skip, the carts would jam up, and the DJs would freak out. The worst thing (well, one of the worst) that could happen was “dead air,” when there was nothing going out over the airwaves due to a glitch of some sort, or the DJ staying in the bathroom too long.

DJs would have to plan their bodily functions when a longer song was playing, like In-A-Gada-Da-Vida, or the long version of Chicago’s I’m a Man. It never seemed to fail that if there was dead air, that was when the bosses were listening, and then there was hell to pay. 

I had been doing my “CWA” (pronounced SEE-way) gig for about a month when I decided to set up a meeting with Bob Lafferty, who was the general manager of Reams Broadcasting, and who was instrumental in me getting the initial gig. I wanted his input about how I was doing and had some ideas about my show I wanted to run by him.

I’ll never forget. I was very enthusiastic with my “presentation,” throwing great ideas at him, left and right. Still, I could tell by the somewhat glazed look on his face that he wasn’t hearing a word I was saying!! It pissed me off!

When I was done and steaming in my seat, Bob smiled at me and shook his head. It was obvious he hadn’t heard a word I’d said, but what he said next shocked me to my core.

”How would you like to do the morning show on WIOT?”

The “morning show” on any given radio station was the dream slot for a DJ. It was a.m. drive time, when the majority of the populace were trapped in their cars, going to work, listening to the AM or FM dial. This was pre-Spotify, pre-Sirius, pre-ANYTHING except you and your radio (unless you had a cassette/8-track or later CD functions in your car.) WIOT was the top station in the market, so this was beyond anything I could ever imagine.

And the money reflected that.

I was stunned. Why me of all people? It seems there was “friction” with the current team — Mark Benson and Lou Hebert — both veterans of the airwaves.

To add an even more bizarre aspect to this scenario, Lafferty told me he had dreamed that I was the one to take Mark’s seat. Let that sink in: I was dreamed into a new financial bracket. I went from making approximately 5K with my rock bands to 30K in the blink of an eye (a little more than a blink, I suppose, since this dude was sleeping).

The real challenge for me in taking this job was that I would be the one running the board. Some morning shows have a “producer,” someone who flips the switches, cues the music, keeps the show moving smoothly. The budget didn’t allow for that. Of course, I’d never sat behind a radio console, let alone be in charge. In addition, I had to be a part of the morning show team, being funny and informative…it was intimidating as hell.

So the powers that be had me sit in with some of the overnight jocks to learn it all. After awhile, I got the hang of it and Lou and I came together, live on-air.

A quick word about my partner of the airwaves: Lou Hebert (pronounced A-Bear) was/is a veteran of radio, television and newspaper. He is also an author, having published two books on local history, with a new release forthcoming. No chump here, buddy. Yet another initial intimidation. But we hit it off from the get-go, and off we went. We soon became “The Dawnbusters” and took IOT’s morning slot to No. 1 in less than a year.

Peter Cavanaugh, a radio genius in his own right, coached us along. He threw us all the bells and whistles we could possibly need (literally), and prompted us to be as zany as possible. We would do on-air bits, like “Fishing With Elvis,” where we had an Elvis impersonator take us fishing during walleye season.

Sometimes we had guest stars (Adrian Cronauer, the original “Good Morning Vietnam” DJ, and Les Nessman (Richard Sanders), who reenacted the infamous “Turkey Drop“ (“Oh the humanity!”) from “WKRP In Cincinnati.”)  Hell, we even brought The Homewreckers into the tiny air studio to perform. Man, they were so pissed at me for getting them up so early.

Lou was a jack-of-all-trades and would do hilarious impersonations — Rudy, a very Tom Waits-ish discombobulated fellow and Jim Shorts, his Howard Cosell-esque sports announcer — to name a few. 

The one bit that was very popular was our “Song To Go”. Early in the show, we would put out a call for people to call in, and tell us something unusual or funny (hopefully both) that had happened to them. We’d record the call, then Lou and I would write a song parody, between 7 and 8, to match the caller’s incident. In the 8 o’clock hour, through the magic of “theater of the mind,” we’d put the sound effects of a drive-thru under the call; Lou and I would be the guys taking their order, then perform the song with me on guitar. Hellacious time crunch, but we pulled it off. Eat that, Weird Al Yankovic!!

The shenanigans went on for about a year when we started getting calls from other markets, trying to steal us away. Cleveland and Buffalo were two that come to mind, but we finally bit on 94.9, The Fox, in Cincinnati, a classic rock station. Lou and I loaded up our families and headed south.

Back then Cincinnati was a GIANT as a radio market. Many, many radio stations. But that didn’t hamper us. We excitedly boarded the company Learjet they sent that flew us down to southern Ohio to sign the contract. It was a fertile time in Cincinnati: The sheriff was always in the news for some asinine thing he’d done, the whole debacle over the Robert Mapplethorpe photo exhibition; and the Reds winning the Series…to name a few. Good radio fodder.

Still, it was tough. As I said, we were up against a huge amount of stations and personalities/schticks. We gave it our all, we really did. Nevertheless, after a year, call it “Radio Karma,” we were let go.

I came back to Toledo with my tail tucked between my legs, humbled by the whole experience. I never really lost The Homewreckers, as I would drive home on some weekends for the gigs, so I had that. Lou stayed in Cincy for awhile, but eventually returned. I landed a couple jobs with WXKR, 94.5, Classic Rock — some on air, as well as the promotions director. I hated it. I just didn’t feel justified promoting something my heart wasn’t into.

I just had dinner with a friend, and he asked me, “Why don’t you get back in radio?” I’ve really no desire. I don’t like the music (not that I liked it all that much then). The whole radio scene is a clique-ish scenario. These days it’s mostly syndicated, with a few giant conglomerate corporations deciding too much. The almighty dollar reigns. Ironically, music plays second fiddle to the buck. The thrill, for me, is gone. 

And besides: who would, who could dream me into another financial bracket these days?