Posted: July 22, 2009 at 10:57 pm | Tags: Broadcasting, radio, Star Trek
In October 1994, the Star Trek Association of Towson, a fan club in Towson, Maryland, sponsored “The Big E Con,” a convention held aboard the carrier Enterprise while the ship was at its home port of Norfolk, Virginia. The events featured tours of the ship and appearances by Star Trek notables including James Doohan, or “Scotty” on the original series.
At the time I was the production Director for WFOG radio. The week preceding the convention as part of the pre-promotion I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Doohan by phone at his home in Redmond Washington. I tried to keep the interview interesting by focusing on Jimmy Doohan, and not just the Character he played on Star Trek – but you be the judge. Here it is, almost 18:00 unedited and real life. There is a point where he corrects my pronunciation of his last name – his son called to ask for money during the interview, this was the real deal.
The following week I toured the real USS Enterprise with some of the convention celebs. By some weird stroke of luck I remembered where I stashed some pictures I took during that tour. In this picture I am standing with Actress Terry Farrell from Deep Space Nine, Michael O’Hare the original Commander of Babylon 5, Herman F. Zimmerman the Chief Production Designer for Star Trek Next Generation and DS9, and another actress who’s name totally escapes me. But I think I did pretty good remembering Farrell, O’Hare, and Zimmerman after 15 years!
Posted: July 4, 2009 at 12:01 pm | Tags: Broadcasting, Ed Scales, Maurice Gibb, Michael Jackson, radio, WQPD
For many years I have had a box of old cassette tapes in my closet – or attic – or wherever was out of the way at the time… I finally went out and found a cassette deck at the thrift shop the other day and began transcribing them to digital. Mainly because at some point the cassettes actually lose the information stored on them. Audio cassettes, VHS tapes, 8 tracks – there is a reason they are not around anymore.
Each uses the same technology originally known as “Magnetophon” and invented by the Germans during the 1930’s. (more info) The information is stored by passing a generated magnetic field to a ribbon of plastic tape impregnated with some form of ferrous material. The little do-dad that generates the magnetic field is called a record head. The tape becomes magnetized in a certain pattern. Then when passed in front of a similar do-dad called a playback head the magnetic field is transformed back once again into an audio signal. In my mind this was a kind of magic– especially for the time.
Well the problem is that the magnetic tape is wound into a spool inside the cassette. Eventually the magnetism passes from where it is stored on the tape to the section it is wrapped around. At some point the magnetic field reaches a sort of equilibrium and the original sound or picture is not retrievable. So the dozens of recordings I had stored away will actually fade away.
Not Ed Scales
I started running the tapes through my studio to get them in MP3 format and found some interesting stuff. Mostly old air checks of me in the early 80’s on the radio in Lakeland Florida. Routinely each radio announcer would record their show on a cassette deck that was wired to record only when the microphone was turned on. In the jargon of the business it was sometimes called a “telescope” as it condensed an entire workday into a 30 or 40 minute recording. You can hear the song starting and then the tape jumps to the end of the song when the announcer next turns on the mike. The program director would then review your“telescope” to give you constructive critique – or in my case to tell me to stop talking so much.
The one below is pretty long – 45 minutes! It was a show I did on WQPD on a Monday night somewhere in March or April of 1983. I had to figure that out by some clues on the tape. A really talented high school kid named Ed Scales was my guest and we did several improvised “bits”. Basically I got on the control room studio phone a pretended to talk to a character that Ed performed from the adjoining studio. We did this live and without rehearsal. In fact in the one where I “interview” Maurice Gibb I had no idea what Ed was going to do. He came on the phone in a falsetto voice that totally cracked me up. Since Ed was in school I knew the recording was made before June. One of the last comments I make on the recording introduces the number one hit song of the day, Billy Jean by Michael Jackson. That was not released until February of 1983 – thus this recording had to be made in March or April.
The last eight minutes of the recording is the air check of the next announcer, Woody Boyer.
