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PIRATE RADIO The following are insights
from the staff and jocks of Pirate Radio. "I was at Pirate Radio at the very
beginning. I worked at K-Lite as the Music
Director-it was essentially a satellite
station with the morning show live in LA
so it was only a part time job. Luckily
for me, the PD at the time decided to
extend my stay there because he thought
the new format would be really up my
alley. He was definitely right about that.
I was basically a heavy metal girl who
loved the Crue and Poison so I was
delighted the day they switched the
format. They turned it on a month ahead of
time so it was really a shock. We showed
up to see a Pirate Radio shirt draped over
the K-Lite logo on the front door. I was
told that they were receiving calls at the
switchboard asking if they should call the
police since someone had taken over our
station. The K-Lite listeners were so
pissed off about the change-they really
couldn’t believe it. They were running the
format out of the storage garage next to
Westwood One, so I began the switch over
in the music library in the Sunset
location then I would drive over and help
with some of the board op shifts at
Westwood (I was also a part time jock at
Transtar which was one of the first big
satellite facilities so I had those
skills, too). I actually kept my job at Pirate in a
very ass backwards way. Simon T, the
station manager, interviewed everyone but
me. When I asked him what his plans for me
were, he said “As far as I know, you don’t
exist”. At that point, I was basically
just logging in the new music into the
library but I hadn’t been let go yet.
Scott Shannon was having other people cart
up the songs (we had those fancy new
Studer CD players to play songs in the
production rooms, but we were hacking up
the songs a bit, so it was better to cart
them) and they weren’t doing a very good
job because that was MY job-it’s a
trickier skill that most people would
think. I finally had to just yank some
music out of Bill Thomas’ hands and demand
to cart them up. Everybody sort of cringed
(Scott was a little intense in those first
days so folks didn’t know how he’d react)
but let me do it. When he played them on
the air, he asked “who did these?” and
they all fearfully told them it was me. He
said “Good. Finally they’re being done
right” and that’s how I kept my job. None of us had real job descriptions at
that point so we sort of did whatever was
needed. It was incredibly stressful and
the hours were long. We were on the 11th
floor and had windows that opened and on a
couple of really crazy days, Bill Thomas
would take me into the production room and
open a window and say “Let’s just jump. It
would be less painful than working here”.
We never jumped but someone eventually
hung a pirate flag out the window. I’m
told they could see the flag over at KIIS
FM and it annoyed them. Because I went to the clubs and a lot of
my friends were musicians, I knew what an
incredible buzz Pirate was making in just
the first week. In the beginning, they
were saying on the air that we were
broadcasting from Catalina Island so when
people would ask, we would tell them that
we had a shuttle boat to take us to work.
What they really did was have a PO Box set
up on Catalina and then brought the mail
over from there. Our first Music Director was Steve
Hoffman who had previously been at KLOS.
He had amazing knowledge of Classic Rock,
Current Rock, and Alternative music. He
and Scott would take hours to schedule the
music. Even though they were using the
Music Scan music system, they were
basically scheduling all the music by
hand. Since he sat at a desk just outside
my music library (more like a music closet
with a desk) we would chat back and forth
about the segue ways-there was a lot of
“that songs ends like this and the next
one starts like this-does that work?” We
were playing a lot of Lita Ford in those
days and Steve’s favorite game was to work
in the first lines of one song (I went to
a party on a Saturday night. Didn’t get
laid but got in a fight) as if it were
part of a real story he was telling me.
There was always much groaning when I
realized he got me again. As I said, it
was stressful, so anything we could do to
lighten things up, we did. I also called
people Babe a lot in those days which
caused Steve to put a sign in my room like
the traffic sign with a big circle with a
slash through it that had Babe in it. Dude
was okay but Babe was forbidden. Many days people could hear me yelling
in the library “Don’t sing. Don’t sing it
to me.” Because we were playing a lot of
new music, and not backselling it, folks
didn’t know what songs we were playing.
All those info question calls were
transferred to me. Since I knew the music
really well, I generally just needed a bit
of the lyric to recognize a song. When
people sang that lyric badly, it was much
harder to figure out (besides being
painful-it was like bad American Idol
auditions ahead of their time-everyone
thinks they can sing). Steve left-can’t remember if he just had
to get out of there or just got a better
job offer and was replaced by Denise
Lauren. It was really strange for me to
work for someone much younger, but she
knew her music. She had more of an
alternative lean so that broadened out
Pirate’s music in that direction. Our first anniversary party at the
Palace (now it’s something else) was over
the top with , including a roast pig on
the buffet. A lot of heavy metal stars
showed up and when I said I worked as
Assistant Music Director, they had a lot
to say about the music. We had received a
fax from Nikki Sixx saying what a great
job we were doing and requesting some
Aerosmith. Everyone thought it was fake
and I had a chance to ask him if he was
really faxing us. His reply: “Hell, yeah.
That’s me. I listen to Pirate all the
time.” I left some time after the year
anniversary. I just lost it one day with
Simon T and quit. I was expected to do a
full time job in part time hours and it
just couldn’t be done and he would not
give approval for me to go full time. I
stayed for that long because I loved the
perks of being at Pirate-free tickets to
any show I wanted to attend (including the
MTV awards-I also voted for Scott Shannon
which was a blast) and I could walk into
any club free and check out new bands. I
also loved the excitement of hearing a new
song like Faith No More’s “Epic” and
playing before anyone else. It reminded me
of old radio when we broke new music and
everything wasn’t researched to death. I
know Scott Shannon wanted to take radio
back to the days of Boss Radio-KHJ-where
all the music was played on one format-not
the narrowcasting of today. I grew up with
Boss Radio (wanted to jock there but never
made it before they shut it off) and I
didn’t really think it could be done. They
did give it a hell of a try but the
listeners complained when we tried to push
the barriers-like Janet Jackson’s “Black
Cat” which rocked but was from a dance
artist. It was too bad. Pirate Radio was
an experiment that could have changed
radio. When it failed, people said “See.
You just can’t program radio with your gut
like that anymore”. I think that’s a big
reason that terrestrial radio is failing.
There is so much great experimentation on
the internet, why listen to the same ole
crap rotated endlessly?" Batman
Gomez "I was in radio roughly five years
before Randy and Shadow called me at Z100,
Portland, Oregon, where I was doing nights
(and having a blast!). Sean Lynch, PD at
the Z, had brought me in from Savannah,
GA, and (unfortunately), I only really
worked with him for a few months before
the lure of the Pirate drew me to LA.
Shadow walked me through the entire hiring
process (and he was terrific). I was
slated to do 11-2p but I spent the
majority of my two years at Pirate doing
6-10p, 7-10p and 7-11p. I arrived on the
scene just a few months prior to Jack,
Jimmy and Baltazar, and all three were
hired (as I recall) to do the evening
shift, but for whatever reason, management
didn't think they were ready for prime
time (even though my on-air persona wasn't
really that different from anyone else's,
and I believe the airchecks on your site
can attest to that). When you were hired
at Pirate, you quickly realized that the
music was King. On-air breaks were to be
fast, tight and focused primarily
on....yes, you guessed it, the Music! This
made things somewhat difficult for jocks
who had been accustomed to showcasing
their personalities with music rather than
far behind it. Never-the-less, I can
honestly say that the guys I directly
worked with at Pirate--particularly
Cadillac Jack, Watusi, Jimmy Steal, and a
couple others I worked with
indirectly--Elliott and John
Mammoser--were absolutely awesome! It's
really too bad that the off-air
personalities of these guys didn't get
on-the-air more often because it would
have made Pirate all the more exciting!
Whitney and Shadow, too, were a blast to
be around. (I loved talking Cubs
baseball--especially Harry Carey on-air
blurps--with Shadow when I'd arrive each
evening.) In some ways, Pirate was an odd
place to work--Shannon, no doubt everyone
would say, is an abrasive, erratic cat,
who should have his own on-call
therapist--but it was also the best place
to be, with the most cheerful, hilarious
personalities that I've ever come across
(which is saying quite a lot after nearly
two decades--off and on--in radio). I'm a
stay-at-home dad now, with two kids and
life is really amazing. But Pirate was a
very cool chapter in my life due to the
phenomenal people that I had the good
fortune to meet. Mendoza, Jack, Jimmy,
Shadow, Whitney, Mammoser, Narley Charlie,
Elliott, and Jamie made up an incredibly
strong line-up (and more so for who they
were off-the-air than for what they did on
it!). Anyway, that's the Batman Gomez take
on Pirate Radio. On the day my two-year
contract expired, an intern in the station
van brought over my pink-slip and that was
that. I will tell you this: one on one, with
no one else around, Scott [Shannon] was
absolutely fantastic to talk to.
Sometimes, on his way home in the
afternoon, he would call me at home and
we'd talk about all kinds of crap, from
his Z100 New York days to his beginnings
as a young 'dj'. But for some reason, when
he was around others, particularly at the
station, he was almost always gruff and
quick to humiliate. Watusi took the brunt
of Scott's tirades simply because Scott
would hear his show more than any other as
he drove into work each day. That poor kid
had it ROUGH. And that sucked because he
was (is) such an absolutely wonderful
soul! [We asked Batman how he got his on-air
moniker, and how the others on Pirate got
theirs.] Not sure about the other guys
names but the Batman movie with Michael
Keaton was just being released when I got
there, and Gomez (being Mexican, I
suppose) played well in LA." Brad
Alan "Well, as a radio junkie and being from
central Indiana, I had of course heard of
Scott Shannon. Even though it seemed quite
silly, I really wanted to be just like
him. I remember first hearing or reading
about KQLZ in late 1988 or early 1989. I
had gone to take my SAT at Purdue
University. On the way home I stopped by
the radio station I listened to in
Lafayette, Indiana (WAZY). In those days
you could honestly just knock on the door
and no one thought you might be up to
something bad. The dudes at the station
that day let me in, showed me around, let
me talk on the air briefly, and then gave
me some R&R's and Billboards to take
with me. I remember an article in one of
them about Scott Shannon moving to the
west coast and briefly talking about
Pirate Radio. In December of 1988 as a Senior in high
school I got my first radio job. I was
hired to fill in for full timers who were
out and to do weekends on the local
country station. It was a small 10k watt
and very local and country, even carried
all the local high school sports. I had to
do something while they were on because I
just had to be ready to play any
commercials. So, I would sit in the
production room and slowly surf the
sattelite. I don't remember the night I
found it, but one Saturday I found Pirate
Radio and was hooked. It was so cool to
me. I was a 17 year old high school kid
working in radio and listening to
something from the "real world". I started
taping it every time I worked so I could
listen when I was at home or driving. One
night I even called the request line and
talked to The Big Watusi for three hours.
He gave me all kinds of advice and just
shared experiences with me, it was
awesome!!!! I still have the black w/blue lettering
Pirate Radio shirt that has NEVER been
worn - ha ha. I remember they ran a promo
where you sent them any old radio shirt to
an address on Catalina Island and they
would send you "a brand spanking new
Pirate Radio shirt". I sent a WEAG Eagle
93.1 shirt and a few weeks later I got the
Pirate shirt and some stickers. I still
have them all - the stickers are on a wall
in my den (I have about 400 radio stickers
in my collection)." Tim
Patterson "I was a phone-op, ran contests on the
phone, and of course did the infamous
phone research! I got the job through my
college station, at Fullerton College
(KBPK). Bill was an alumnus and thought it
would be a way to get experienced people
in key roles quickly without a lot of
supervision. As phone-ops, we constantly
were on the phones representing the
station. We had questions to as from a
sheet, so we did a lot of listener
research. Always tallied votes on songs,
so Scott was responsive to what he saw for
the most part I think. He knew where he
wanted the station to be though, and
always kept the theme alive. We had a lot
of secrecy!! As phone-ops, we got to know
our listening audience well! My shifts
varied, but I started doing afternoon's
with Shadow. He was an interesting guy...
never looked directly at you though when
he spoke to you.. always kinda looked down
at his feet alot??? That's radio people
for you! Simon T was the station manger at the
time. His pets got the run of the station
to roam. Again, another eccentric type. Three of the GREATEST GUYS you ever
wanna meet: Big Watusi / Mark, Jamie
Osborne, and Crash! Real, down to earth
people, great at what they do,
non-pretentious! I helped Big Watusi at night with
producing short sport segments along with
the usual phone tasks. That's one thing
Scott was cool with outside of the STRICT
On-Air script the jocks had to read, was
doing relatable sports, but it had to be
short! Yeah, everything was scripted in
the beginning for consistency. Jamie and I did a lot of weekends
together. I ran phones for him.. contests
and research. What was interesting was how Scott
started so many careers from that station.
He took one guy who loved the station sooo
much. He called in one morning and just
said he had to be part of the morning
show. Scott brought him in on mornings
running the phones - off the street mind
you! So many of us had some sort of radio
experience, and wanted to be a part of it.
But this guy, call him Mark, moved to one
of the background guys in studio, and when
Scott left, he found a job as part of a
morning zoo team in a major market! That's
how things worked around there...
unpredictable! Coming into work was cool... Downtown
Hollywood! Of course, you would never know
it was a radio station. The door in this
high rise building was an unmarked double
wood door at the beginning, with nothing
more than a TV camera pointed at the entry
- even during business hours, you had to
be screened and buzzed in!!! I got the shirts, bumper stickers, even
the portfolio with the city buses that had
the jocks names on the buses. Of course, I
guess they are radio collector's items
since they had the names of DJ's they
wanted, not the actual ones that went on
the air! I was even at Gladstones for the
first big promotion with Bill Thomas, the
excitement was outrageous! In all, great memories... and a great
way to start a radio career! Well, in 1990, I left Pirate, and my
overnight job on-air at KEZY in Anaheim,
and went to WCKZ, Charlotte NC to do
mid-days. Eventually did nights, and
became program director. Who was my
consultant? Jerry Clifton! Small radio
world. In 1995, the station got bought,
changed format, and I left radio for a
career in medicine. I am now a PA in a
general surgery practice in Charlotte,
NC... but Scott and I have exchanged
intermittent emails as I thanked him for
the opportunity to be a part of something
unique, and I saw Simon T in the DFW
airport as I changed planes once - none of
these guys ever really change! Thanks for the trip down memory lane!" Cadillac
Jack "SO getting the gig at Pirate. Yikes. It
actually goes back to 1987. I was doing
nights at top-40 KROY/Sacramento, when I
got an itch to send out tapes to get a new
job. I wanted more. And I got an interview
at B-97 in New Orleans. The PD at the time
was Shadow Stevens, a/k/a Scott Wright.
This is the guy who helped sign on Z-100
in New York, and later was Shadow Steel at
KQLZ. But, in 1987, I was flown in to New
Orleans for an interview to be the new
afternoon drive jock at B-97. Shadow and I
hit it off pretty good. The tour he gave
me of the city was wack, it was nice. I
stayed at the Ponchatrain hotel. POSH. I
flew back to Sacramento pretty sure I had
the gig. BUT,,, the ASSholes at KROY
wouldn't let me out of my contract,
and..BAM! No gig. FUCKERZ. Not only
THAT..then, they ended up blowing me out
for some big fuckin' party I had on the
station property. I was out of work, and
ended up taking afternoons in Orlando
signing on 102-JAMZ. We all signed it on
from scratch, Duff Lindsey (the PD), Joe
Nasty did mornings, and I was the
production director. Anyway, I was there
from December of 1987 into April of 1989.
We had HUGE success. I read of the sign on
of Pirate Radio in L.A., and thought that
was cool. I didn't think twice of it, why
would Scott Shannon give a shit about me?
Meanwhile, I was sending stuff daily to
Bill Richards, who was PD at KITS in San
Francisco. Seriously, I would mail him a
tape every day. But nothing. THEN..one day, my hotline rings while
I'm on the air at WJHM. (4-8pm) It's some
asshole saying, "Hey, it's Shadow from
L.A., wanna work here?" I say, "SHUT THE
FUCK UP, Joe..." (thinking it's Joe Nasty,
our morning guy) and I hung up. Then, my
wife called the hotline, and
said..'Hey...you're getting a call from
Shadow.' I said, 'YIKES...Shadow called
and--------------' " Randy
Kabrich "Scott and I developed the plan for
Pirate Radio in early January 1989. I was
the PD of Q105 in Tampa and ended up
splitting my time between Tampa and L.A.
The music was put together by me in Tampa
by January 15th. We didn't sign on until
St. Patrick's day some 60 days later. The next 60 days were spent putting the
imaging of the station together. Shadow was hired several weeks prior to
sign on - long after the design for Pirate
Radio was put to bed. Shadow had been VP of Programming for EZ
Communications and had no desire to get
back to programming - because of events in
his personal life, he just wanted to do an
airshift. He got more and more involved as time
went on - eventually taking the Operations
Manager Position in August of 1989, just
as I had told him he would, one week prior
to signing the station on. In July of 1989, Pirate Radio pulled a
6.8 12+ according to Arbitron - second
only to KPWR, with a 7.1. Although some
Hispanic stations have soared to the top
of Los Angeles ratings this quickly,
Pirate Radio became the top Anglo station
in Los Angeles in 4 months - a feat that
has not happened for an Anglo station in
the market for at least 20 years....if not
longer. Whitney wasn't hired as of the sign on.
If you called in and got on the air, it
was after 2 weeks....when we moved to
Sunset. No way to do it otherwise. And Debbie Gibson was never played, LOL.
Madonna only got played the first
day...actually first hour. Steve Kingston
flew in at 11 pm the night before sign on
from Z100 and brought the new Madonna CD
in that no one had. That's the only reason
it got on. You find Richard Marx, Roxette, George
Michael, Eddie Money, Martika, etc. on
after August 1989 on any list. And (the station) did take the narrow
approach. That caused the downfall. There
was direct cause and effect. Maybe it
might not have made it long term the other
way, but it was making it. When that stuff
was taken off, it died. Thats a fact that
no one can dispute." More
from Randy: "Scott likes to rewrite history. He was
responsible for getting Simon T fired as
GM. Then when (Scott) was fired, he wrote
a scathing article that week for R&R
saying that Norm Patiz took Simon away
from him, the only GM he could work with.
Bob Wilson was Executive Publisher at the
time and on the Westwood One Board of
Directors and knew that Scott had him
fired. He refused to run the article til
Scott took out the lies. Scott laid out the Pirate Radio name and
North Seas Pirate Radio concept. It took
all of 30 seconds to spell out. At that
point we sat down and created it. As I
said, the music was done entirely by me
and in Computer in Tampa by January 15th.
Shadow didn't join til end of February. By
that time, Scott and I had all the plans
and concepts laid down. The Catalina concept was mine. Simon T
came up with the mail address in Catalina.
We actually hired a Pilot to do mail runs
twice a week. When the mail started
pouring in, he bitched that he needed alot
more money. We held him to it anyway. Simon was best friends with the people
from Gladstones and knew they were going
to a barge out in the ocean to shoot off
Fireworks every Thursday night that
summer. He talked with them and put up
what appeared to be a tower on the barge
and a giant Pirate Radio Billboard. Thus,
out about a mile in the ocean, off Sunset
and PCH, was a barge that really looked
like a Pirate Radio transmitter site that
was visible from that entire coast line
from Santa Monica North. People in Malibu were so mad at a
Billboard out in the ocean, they tried to
get the barge declared abandoned. The
Coast Guard was ready to get rid of it, so
we had to pay someone to actually live on
the barge, so that it wasn't abandoned.
That way, no one could say anything. But,
a person actually lived on that barge, so
they could do nothing about it." Steve
Hoffman Steve points out that the "original
airstaff" depends on when you define the
airstaff as having started. Here is how he
remembers it... "Scott, Whitney and Shadow were
consistent members of all configuations,
of course. The original planned airstaff,
as I recall it, had "Jimmy Page" at night
and "Bubba the Love Sponge" on overnight.
Jamie
Osborn "One night while I was hosting Pirate
Radio USA (The Nationally Syndicated
Version) I went into the bathroom to take
a piss. It was a single bathroom. As I was
standing there, the door flew open and
Ozzy Osbourne walks in and stands right
beside me and starts going as well. He let
out a big sigh and exclaimed something to
the effect that he'd had to fuckin piss
for an hour. He didn't know who I was. I
just laughed and walked back into the
studio. A few minutes later the show
producer walks in with Ozzy and introduces
us. Ozzy just smiled and said "Oh ya,
we've already shared a piss together." Francis
The Talking Mule "I was at Pirate Radio for the last 8
months it was doing the "Shannon" format.
Somewhere in my files, I have my copy of
the memo that Scott posted, announcing
that he was leaving. I ran the board for
the first week or so of the active-rock
(or whatever they called it) format, in
afternoon drive, but I did such a crappy
job that they blew me out. I don't blame
them, I stunk at that. I guess the funniest story about my time
there was being there on a Saturday
afternoon on the air, going to the john
while a song was playing, and running into
David Lee Roth, who was going to be a
guest on Pirate Radio USA. At the time it
seemed quite normal." Steven
O. Sellers of The Rude Boys
"Lots of musicians were always stopping
by..one of the nicest was Joe Satriani,
who showed up alone, with his guitar and
amp, and jammed live on the air one
afternoon- a great guy. I believe it was June '92...we had an
earthquake, so I went down to the station
at about 5a.m. to do news reports...as I
was leaving about 8 a.m., a second quake
hit and knocked the d.j. off the chair and
onto the floor. I believe they named that
event the "Big Bear Double Quakes". Vlade Divac, then with the Lakers would
stop by from time to time...once we set up
a basket in the station lobby and Greg and
I played basketball with him..on TV!
(Channel 5 morning show). Yes, it was a shock to get a very short
notice of the station's demise...how we
faced it, I really don't remember. There
were about 75 of us in the same boat. You
may remember just months before they sold
the station, we got a consultant who had
the bright idea of bagging the Pirate
Image (one of the great "brand names"in
history) and told us to identify ourselves
only by "100 point 3"...so, we were pretty
demoralized before the axe actually fell."
Thrasher
"I got to Pirate Radio in 1991 - it was
April Fool's Day as I remember. Actually,
it was April Fool's Day when I told Mark
and Brian at KLOS that I was taking the
morning job at cross town Pirate Radio.
They were NOT happy and in retrospect
viewed the move as a sort of betrayal I
now realize. The GM, Bill Sommers, REALLY
felt it was a betrayal! When I told him I
was leaving, he asked me, "What about your
contract?" to which I replied I wasn't
under contract. There were only two people
at KLOS not under contract. Carey Kurlop
and me. (Carey was the PSD). Cary had
skipped on Bill BECAUSE he wouldn't put
him under contract. Cary called me because
he knew my work when we were in
competition in Tampa. (he at 95YNF and me
at Z98). Back to Bill- his face got soooo
red when I told him I was leaving, I
thought the veins in his neck were going
to burst! Truth of the matter is, I would
be at KLOS to this day - working Mark and
Brian, doing fill-in airshifts and
production if M&B hadn't hired Nicole
Sandler as a Producer. Though we never had
a direct run-in, I simply can't stand her
and people like her - which radio and show
business in general are stocked with. To make matters worse, I left KLOS after
the morning show, went directly home to
wait for a phone call from the head
Publicist at Westwwod One. After that, I
went straight to the hospital to have
hernia surgery! Talk about a fun-filled
day. Recovery took a few days, then I started
at Pirate about a week later. It was
in-auspicious from the start. I already
knew that Carey was looking to bring in
Greaseman to do mornings when I took the
job. However, being treated like a
second-class citizen after taking the job
was not something I had counted on at all.
Actually, I don't mean to imply that there
weren't nice people there. I made a
life-long friend in Jay Reznick who was
the Asst MD there. Also, some of the other
support people are still in touch every
now and then. But the management people,
Carey, Bob Moore and others stopped taking
my calls as soon as I got fired in August
of that year. Moore is a survivor, he's
now at KLSX/KRLA in LosAngeles and doing
quite well. Anyway, I cannot say that I was a very
stellar performer at all. In fact, I stunk
up the place! As a side note: I had as my
producer at the time, a girl named Michele
Tafoya. I had met Michele at KLOS were she
was a "Community Switchboard Operator" for
the Mark and Brian Show. Real smart, she
had graduated from Cal and then MBA at USC
where she was valedictorian in 1991. They
tearted her like shit even though she
worked her ass off. Wouldn't pay her for a
while, then something insulting like
minimum wage - a real embarrassment.
Typical radio BS. She was trying to break
in and of course, was willing to do
anything. She got let go the same day I
did, luckily I was able to help her get a
job at a sports talk station in Charlotte,
NC (where I started) and she turned it
into quite a career. She moved to
Minnesota and hooked up with some TV
people-she now does national TV sports for
CBS. My time at Pirate would have been short
lived even if I would've had great ratings
as I was diagnosed with a brain tumor in
late 1991. Long story short, the damn
thing was four centimeters across and took
22 hours to remove in surgery. Couldn't
walk or talk for 9 days after. Had to
learn all over again - so recouped back at
the folks farm in Virginia. 4 months after
surgery, I came back out here (L.A.) for a
visit, M&B had me on as a guest and
the job offers poured in - I wound up back
at KNAC and on the air in September of
1992. I stayed there until it was sold in
1995. Since Pirate and the end of my radio
career, I worked in TV- in production and
engineering - I stopped in a grocery store
in the Valley on the way home one
afternoon. Going through the aisles, I saw
Carey Kurlop pushing a cart along - he had
just left KLOS for the second time - as I
approached, he feigned as if he didn't see
and moved away. That's the last time I
intentionally tried to contact anyone from
that phase of my radio career. I realize that I have thrown a whole ton
of negative shit your way, and for that I
apologize. However, I must tell you that
the real story of Pirate radio should
begin with KNAC-FM. The whole phenomenon
of that Pop-Metal era begins and ends
there. Shannon figured to put some radio
science to the cult following that KNAC
created. I have a take on that: KNAC was
the real deal and Pirate was the
"consultant" version. The huge success
Shannon envisioned for Pirate never
materialized due to the fact that KNAC
wouldn't go away. There was a whole
Arbitron point and a half that never
budged Shannon's way. The difference, it
turned out, between success and failure. Mark Mendoza, a good friend and Pirate
Alum as well, went by the name "The Big
Watusi" on Pirate - he did overnights. He
told me that Shannon came in one morning
about half way through his stint in L.A.
and said, "You know, Watusi, I think I bit
off more than I can chew with this thing".
I look back in awe at the amount of
money spent by Westwood One on the Pirate
project. It was mind boggling. We could
have wiped out hunger in America with the
wasted money they spent. I remember one
day, Bob Moore came in and announced that
they were going to change the color scheme
of EVERYTHING from black and yellow to
purple and yellow. About a half million $
later, there they were with the ugliest
shirts and stickers you've ever seen that
nobody would wear or buy. Great minds. After 1992, the next phase for Pirate was
the Puck Heads or whatever they were
called. Those guys were something else.
One morning I went on the air at KNAC and
challenged our audience: I told them that
I would pay 105 dollars for a picture of
any listener at the Ozzy concert in a KNAC
T-shirt with "Pirate Radio Sucks", (it may
have been Puck Heads Suck or something I
don't even remember their silly name now).
Anyway, those fools, who monitored my
show, went on the air and started telling
their audience that they should wear A
PIRATE T-shirt to the show with "puck
heads suck" and that they could win cash
money. Hook in mouth? You bet! What they
didn't know was that: 1.) No cameras were
allowed in the Pacific Amphitheater and
that 2.) They REALLY did suck! So there
was no joke to work in their favor. I got
a few polaroids from KNAC hard-cores with
idiots wearing KNAC t-shirts with my
"slogan" for those losers on them - but
certainly NO Pirate shirts. In fact, I
went on stage between sets at the show and
some head banger screams at me,"Hey,
Thrasher! Puck Heads Suck! We were best at
guerilla warfare. By the way, I paid the
guy his 105 dollars out of my own pocket,
it was worth it." Jason
Rappaport "My years at Pirate were some of the
most fun times I've ever had. I started
there as an intern while I was attending
Pierce College. The day I started was the
day after Scott Shannon left, so I wasn't
around for the early days (but I was a
listener from day 1). At first my job was to assist in any
department that needed help that day
(accounting, promotions, on-air, etc.).
Then I was hired to answer request lines,
and then Tawn Mastrey picked me to be her
"phone slave"/producer. I would organize
the contests, pull the music and spots,
occasionally do some really dumb comedy
bits, and run the board when she was out
on a remote or too tired (or drunk) to do
it herself. I got to meet a ton of cool
rock people, and there are many funny
stories... but my favorite memory is the
time that Tommy Lee came in for an
interview one night and brought Heather
Locklear along. I guess she got bored of
hanging out in the studio, so she came
into the little room (closet) where I sat
answering the phones. She asked if she
could answer some calls, so of course, I
let her, and we had a lot of fun for about
a half-hour or so answering the request
lines together. She didn't tell anyone it
was her... and she had a blast doing it."
Shadow
Steele On the April Fool's Joke on KROQ in
1994: L.A.
Times Article Here is an article
that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on
December 30, 1990. The article is titled "Radio: Is It Real, or
Is It Radio?". The article discusses
comedy and parodies on radio, something
that was new at the time.
© 1999- . All Rights Reserved by Dennis Younker
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