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PIRATE RADIO
The following are insights from the staff and jocks of Pirate Radio.
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 earl 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 atl east 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:
© 1999-. All Rights Reserved by Dennis Younker
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