Now we know why they haven't posted a picture of the new "studio"! They had a couple of years in which to create it, Reimers was said to have consulted an "architech designer", Chief Operations Manager Tony Ryan worked hard to build it, claiming to have spent his own money on it...
VOILA!
 |
| Regression lives at 388 Atlantic Ave. Photo by Jim Freund (posted on FB) |
Let's take a poll. "RADIO FOR THE 99%" of what????
ReplyDeleteKGT
Mindless?
DeleteIn an April 29 note to the staff, Reimers claimed this will be a "fully-equipped studio within 3 months."
Let's see, that would be the end of July, at the latest. Hmmmm....
You're fucking kidding me! OK, just look at this video of Queens, NY based pirate radio station Radio Imacto 2. WBAI hasn't had a basic studio like this in years. A pirate radio station is more professional! Think about this: they probably have a fraction of the budget and more listeners. HAHAHAHA!!!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df_x64xeLAY
SDL
Has the Reimers gang brought WBAI down, or not? When I first heard this described on the air, I thought they were joking. Is there a Null powder for this sort of thing? That pirate station puts the BAI bozos to shame.
DeleteI had a more professional setup at home back in the '60s.
I'm still laughing. In all seriousness, though, WBAI should hire the person who put together Radio Impacto 2 to make a new studio for them. Obviously that person knows what the hell he/she is doing. I bet the studio would be up and running in days, too. I mean, we're talking about a pirate radio station here that blows away a 50,000 watt radio station that takes in a couple or a few million Dollars a year! And I can tell you that Radio Impacto 2 has good, clear audio, to boot.
DeleteYou just can't make up this kind of irony.
SDL
Well, we knew Berthold Reimers has a vivid imagination—most of them do. Freund said this morning that he has proposed to Reimers that they bring back the old Free Music Store.
DeleteFree Music! Free Mumia!
Haskins has a new Morning Show partner, a stand-up comedienne who referred to WBAI as "Free range radio." Haskins thought that was great, so expect him to adopt that... he loves slogans.
You're right, one can't make this stuff up... The Emperor's New Clothes.
"Free range radio"? What does that mean? WBAItes will go grazing in garbage cans around the neighborhood for cans and bottles to turn in for the deposit?
ReplyDeleteNow I really do want to know if they have a working toilet.
And looking at that picture makes you wonder how some of those fat asses will even fit in there.
The Bunker Bozos have now officially proven that they know NOTHING about radio.
SDL
(JustAListener)
ReplyDeleteSomeone ought to sneak a pic of Reimers' office - wonder which is bigger?
Gotta give credit to people like Max Schmid that anything gets on the air.
Perhaps the saddest part is if the station had a real manager he could have reached out to the producers and community and received help that would have made a better setup for less.
The OTH crew offered and were turned down (just like after Sandy), Hank Kee mentioned he offered to set up a database for the premiums etc.
It could have been tied in with a fundraiser (Donate a piece of the new studio).
It could have been, It could have been, It could have been, - with Reimers etc running things, it will always be "It could have been",
Maybe it's better this way. Now there is less for Bernard White and crew to steal.
Max Schmid is a true asset.... the antithesis of Haskins.
DeleteI expressed the same opinion as you regarding the idiocy of not announcing and seeking help to meet the station's needs. Reimers did away with the Report to the Listener, which is where one speaks directly to the listener-sponsors, informs them of the station's situation, etc. We know that there are people out there who either have or know someone who has what is needed in terms of skill and/or material.
As you point out, Reimers is clueless, he is even incapable of coming up with the most fundamental of solutions. I wish we could find out what he has on these people... must be something or he would have been out of there years ago!
Murillo has more brains, I think, but he doesn't know how to use it. Retrieving Bernard White from the dumpster is asking for trouble, but I don't believe WBAI can last much longer.
It's a step in the right direction. I've been hollering for underwriting.
ReplyDeleteFinally they are charging to listen to BAI. the label clearly states "Radio for 99¢"
Next time, try not to do the photo with the drug paraphernalia on display.
Passed through the signal area yesterday and today. Rebel Diaz sounded great last night. And the pitch for Winter Soldier premiums this morning, while annoying, at least presented some interesting audio. Gary Null had Chris Hedges on his show at noon, who was great. Audio quality was OK, too. The last few times I listened, it was dismal on all levels. So all is not lost yet..
ReplyDeleteNot much left to lose, is there? The Murillozation has only just begun, from what I gather. :(
DeleteRebuffing the OTH and PCS folks just seems like pettiness. Those guys--especially Emmanuel Goldstein and Hank Kee--have made honest criticisms of the station. Of course, that doesn't go over too well with Reimers, Murillo and their cronies.
ReplyDeleteI imagine Max Schmid is getting, or already is, "up there" in years. (Take a look at his Linked In Page: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/max-schmid/28/bbb/957) If the station is on life support now, they're dead without him.
It is pettiness, wrongheadedness, idiocy, and a number of other things, Justine. Who would have thought that "in the black" would translate as "in the red"?
DeleteSomething tells me that Max will overcome.
Angels Weep.
ReplyDeleteI walked out of the bathroom and switched on Radio Unlistenable a few minutes into the start and heard Propp mention me. Am I now a weekly fixture of the show?
ReplyDeleteMissing what he had to say, I guess I will catch it via the archives tomorrow.
SDL
Pacifica's chief engineer Jon Sirius has been trying to install a studio at 388 almost since the start and when I was PD Jake Glanz, who is a studio designer/installer and who essentially volunteered to keep the transmitter on air at Empire State for years, both wanted to install a studio. Tony Ryan refused to offer his inexpert help and so nothing happened. Both Jon and Jake know a thing or two about studios but were and are locked out by the less than mediocre paid help at WBAI. Why am I writing this? Who gives a shit about WBAI anymore!
ReplyDeleteIs it just me or is there a slight, annoying ring coming through over the air when people talk? I'm sensitive to those sorts of sounds, so it is actually painful and prevents me from listening for more than a minute. They found SDL's kryptonite!
ReplyDeleteSDL
All I can tell you that it probably isn't the ring of truth.
DeleteThat said, I listened to Propp's preamble from last night. Much ado about nothing.... he sounds like he might just have eaten a sack of coffee beans.
Bob Fass later spoke of the song, "We shall Overcome," which he thinks might have been written by a former guest or acquaintance. The fact is that the song was written by Reverend C. A. Tindley, at whose Philadelphia home Bessie Smith married Jack Gee on June 7, 1923. The original title was "I'll Overcome Some Day." It's in my Bessie biography, which Bob claims to have read. :)
I caught Propp's ramble. He either doesn't understand or is trying to ignore my references to the 1960s and Fass, which are that the FM band had a fraction of the listeners it does today due to its being a newer band, not available on many radios and not considered profitable by the broadcasting companies that owned the frequencies.Hence, the companies didn't put as tight a control over their FM outlets.
DeleteThat said, those are the reasons that free form radio was allowed to develop, that's why AOR (Album Oriented Rock) formats came into being and there was a much greater variety of formats on FM, going into the 1980s.
Fass' "ranking" in his 1960s time slot has nothing to do with the number of listeners he had. Those are two different things. I have no doubt Fass had one of the more listened to shows on FM in the time slot. However, being on FM in the day, even with a well listened to show, didn't convert to a large number of listeners due to reasons mentioned.
Anyway, Fass made the quip about Propp trying to start a fight. I'm afraid Propp will have to shadow box...
To be fair, Fass is a bit jumbled these days. I remember a few months back how Krassner had to keep correcting him abut events.
SDL
I tuned in at 5:50 this morning and heard dead air. Nothing. I thought the time had come. Tried again at 6:02. Still nothing. I think it was around 6:30 I finally heard a program. I have never heard a station totally blank like that. I thought it was a violation of some kind. In the 90s I was living in Charlotte and a station there was having the studio rebuilt. For a weekend they played the construction noise on air. I was told it was so they wouldn't lose their license. Don't know if that's true, but the point is the station wasn't allowing dead air.
DeleteChris in NJ
I was tuned in yesterday when the station went dead during Kathy Davis' "Hearts and Mind" program. She was apparently unaware of the 20-25 minutes of dead air. "Was I on?", she asked when she returned, "or have I been off all the time?" An off-mic voice told her that she had been of the air for a "moment."
DeleteHaving hastily rigged up a vey crude set-up, the station should have instructed on-air people in its use, but nothing is done right and this was clearly not Kathy's fault. Later in the night, the signal died for hours, kicking back in around 6:30 AM. The station's dysfunctional Tuesday morning duo did their blather as if nothing had happened.
As far as I know, a station can go off the air for an extended period if it has a legitimate reason, but this is a case of an amateur homemade studio setup, plain old sloppiness, and irresponsible "management."
I'm sorry that this response is so poorly written—I don't feel right today.
I myself don't feet right either today . I think i'm suffering from PTSS . Post Tramitic Slave Syndrome .
ReplyDeleteMust have picked it up yesterday ,after listening to Margaret Prescod's guest Doctor Joy Dugree .
She said we are all suffering from it . After all that money i spent on shrinks , through the years .
What a waste .... p.s. hope you feet better chris , I'm feeling a little better now myself.
But than again i didn't listen to bai all day . hmmm......
Thank you—my iPad and I are retiring for the evening. :)
DeleteJust hoping you feel better today. :)
ReplyDeleteI had a sladgehammer of a cold the past few days.
Also, I think there are some rules at the FCC if you don't broadcast for a period of time, but I don't know what they are. I believe when WBAI was off the air in 1977 for a month they played a loop tape about being temporarily off the air to avoid FCC trouble.
SDL
Thank you, SDL. I just woke up and am feeling better. MeMeMeMeMimi is rambling on about reparations. Will she write her cheque before Amy comes on?
DeleteNow that you mention it, I do recall something about informing the listeners, but if the signal is dead, how can such info be transmitted.
The new studio may have been two years in the making, but it seems to have breathing problems... at lest it is favoring the audience a lot with blessed silence!
I hope you, too are on the mend.
"I believe when WBAI was off the air in 1977 for a month they played a loop tape about being temporarily off the air to avoid FCC trouble". Is that loop tape still available? They should dust it off so it can be used on short notice.
DeleteKGT
These people don't have any kind of tape player. A few years back, when I was a guest of Fass' show, he asked me to bring some of the old stuff I had done on WBAI. There was a 10 ½" tape deck in th control room, but he told me that it hadn't work in years. A professional radio station would have a turntable and tape player hooked up, just in case.... There is nothing remotely professional about the current WBAI.
Delete@Chris Glad you're feeling better.
Delete@KGT There was no signal from ~12n 11 Feb 1977 until the point ~a month later (don’t remember the exact date) when management reoccupied ‘The Church’. I know. Trust me on this :)
~ ‘indigo’
The FCC has minimum operating standards (how many hours a day and days a week you must be on the air.) The FCC requires that if you will be off the air for more than 10 days you must notify the FCC, If more than 30 days you must file for a Silent Special Temporary Application (STA). (Before 1996 the rules were more stringent.) The STA is good for 180 days, and it may be extended. However if the transmitter is on the air, you are required to do station IDs. A list of FM stations that have been silent for more than 60 days is at: https://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/newsite/docs/silentFM.html
ReplyDeleteSomeone posted a new comment about WBAI and its new sound closet on the NY Radio Message Board, including a link to this thread. The picture s becoming famous...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.musicradio77.com/wwwboard/messages/421525.html
@indigo: Thanks for the comment. I thought I heard somewhere that a tape loop was broadcasting the station ID and saying WBAI was temporarily off the air every few minutes. I wasn't sure, though. I figured it was eminating from the transmitter room.
@Chris: When I would go up to 505 8th Ave to do a show, it was in a real studio, with turntables, tape decks, a large table with mics and headphones, space to walk around, 10 phone lines, a couple of other smaller studios on the floor, etc. Oh, yes. I recorded a few interviews (phone in guests for later broadcast) in the one smaller studio across the hall. However, that smaller studio was meant for things like that AND was better than anything WBAI has had in years.
Not boasting at all, but I did personally witness WBAI in better days, so I know how far down they have come.
SDL
@SDL Though there had been (yet) a(nother) enormous marathon meeting in Margot’s living room only the night before, the actual move on the part of the board/management (management being Anna Kosof, GM, and Pablo ‘Yoruba’ Guzman, PD, with Ralph Engelman, Chair of the local board) to take the station off-air came on the morning of 11 February. At that point the phone tree was activated and the folks intent on resisting the move began streaming toward the Church. There was also a flat refusal on the part of rapidly assembling paid and unpaid staff to take the station off air from Master, which had of course full remote control of the transmitter in the ESB. A sort of comic dance then followed in which ‘management’ kept trying to cut off transmission by various means as staff (led by Mike Edl, who was chief engineer) kept finding ways around those attempts. The penultimate move to attempt to kill the signal was to bring down the phone lines from the Church to the ESB, but at that point Edl and a few others began broadcasting from within the transmitter room at the ESB. It was only when management was able to have the ESB kill power to the transmitter room that WBAI finally went off air altogether and the occupation of the Church began.
DeleteWith respect, the facilities at the Church were infinitely superior to 505.
In a sense, as a symbol of the declining importance of the culture of aesthetic and technical excellence at WBAI, an ‘Edit B Class’ was to start at the point of the shut down and occupation. The Edit B Class was very demanding, run by folks like Peter Zanger and David Rapkin, and represented the highest possible standards. If one had not taken and performed satisfactorily in the Edit B Class one did not have access to the best equipment, and was not allowed to use Edit B itself, which was essentially sacrosanct. Edit A, yes. The edit booths, yes. Edit B, no, not without demonstrated ability and concern for aesthetic and technical performance at a high level.
With political correctness such things were deemed no longer to matter….
~ ‘indigo’
Well, at this point, I thought it would be a good idea to listen to the audio of the famous shut down of WBAI in 1977, whether by those who heard it before or those who haven't. I first heard this on Tom Leykis (1980?) short lived show when he played it for the anniversay of the incident.
ReplyDeletehttp://radio4all.net/index.php/program/2480
One question. When John Stanley used to call WBAI in the late 1970/early 1980s and do his ramble about this, he'd always mention a name that sounded like Joe(l) Coogoomas, or something. Who is he and where does he fit into the puzzle?
@indigo: The church is before my time up at WBAI. I take your word for it, of course, as you were there. I only ever went up to 505.
I miss Fred Geobold/Kuhn. he was a good guy.
SDL
Joel Kugelmass was Pacifica’s Executive Director at the time.
DeleteAt that time the local board was completely dominated by Percy Sutton’s political organization (met most of them at a gathering or two at Margot’s a few months before the confrontation and the occupation of the Church). Sutton and his people were making a great deal of money with Inner City Broadcasting at the time and the standard interpretation was that the move to bring in Kosof and Guzman and turn WBAI into a salsa station with accompanying community news and political coverage was reflective of a desire to ultimately fold it into Inner City Broadcasting as a for-profit entity.
It may be worth noting that the court order which finally ended the occupation of the Church after about a month was issued by Oliver Sutton, Percy’s brother.
I’ve only listened to a bit of the audio you linked. I’ll try to listen a bit more. I haven’t bothered to listen to this stuff since… forever, actually ;)
~ ‘indigo’
Joel Kugelmass, Pacifica Foundation Executive Director, 1875-1979
DeleteI assume that first year should be 1975.
DeleteI’ve listened/sampled now. The audio is largely self-explanatory. There is initial confusion on the part of the folks in the transmitter room at the ESB as to what’s going on back at Master at the Church on East 62nd Street.
ReplyDeleteFor what it’s worth, there’s a fundamental confrontation here as to control and direction of the station. Management, by which I’m referring to Pacifica, the Local Board, and the immediate management of Anna Kosof and Pablo ‘Yoruba’ Guzman, had formally presented their plans to make WBAI a salsa-themed station with additional news and public affairs programming. The existing staff was resistant to this idea.
There was a good deal of audio from Margot Adler, Bob Fass, and others from Master which preceded this audio clip. I would assume it exists somewhere or other.
At the end of this clip the ESB has succeeded in killing power to the transmitter.
The station broadcast to a limited extent, ad hoc, over Manhattan Cable during the time of the occupation of the Church, from a space at the Free Association in the Flatiron District.
~ ‘indigopirate’
Ah, for the "good old days." With shows like Steve Post's "Room 101." And the circus music intro to their Watergate hearings coverage.
ReplyDeleteHow the mighty have fallen
A few notes on recent posts.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info on Kugelmass. I remember Stanley also mentioning Sutton's brother's involvement.
The audio I linked is a short version that is now out on the net. However, when I first heard this, it was a two hour tape that Tom Leykis played. So, at that time he was in possession of a longer version. The link says "edited by Randi Steele." Steele may very well have a longer version that he used as a master. FYI: Steele is a.k.a. Ed Armstrong (of long ago FM pirate Stereo 9), Randall Ripley (of the Radio New York International fiasco) and current owner(?) of WIOF LPFM, the tiny station in Woodstock, NY that runs Fass show. Some people would add stalker of Allan Weiner and J.P. Ferraro and some other sundry things, too.
If the Kosof/Guzman "format" were implemented, most of the WBAI producers would have been fired, I take it, since they would never fit in, or even be needed.
The Kosof/Guzman format never seemed to make much sense. It was going to first and foremost be a salsa music format with sound bites of news and current affairs tossed in here and there, or something like that. I remember hearing Guzman try to explain it more precisely once and failing to really give a solid example of how it would work. Sounded like an idea but not an actual thought out application.
Well, if anyone has a recording of Julianna Forlano's opening to her first show, you will see how she praised Guzman. Needless to say, she knows nothing about WBAI, other than it's another place to air her crap show.
Speaking of... Seems she hasn't been on since the beg-a-thon started. Hmmm... Maybe Reimers' and the other dummy's golden girl isn't what they thought she was? They figured out she's a loser and a flop and realized they were better replacing her lying ass with extendomercials.
SDL (a.k.a. SirDarklust, the man who showed Forlano up for the liar she is on youtube)
The whole thing was really all about Percy Sutton, The Gang of Four, and Inner City Broadcasting. The gathering at Margot’s of Sutton’s people to which I referred in my earlier post was very much a less-glitzy version of Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. Indeed, Inncer City Broadcasting’s roots lay years earlier in the early 1970s and align quite neatly with Wolfe’s piece in many ways.
DeleteI had the chance to speak privately with Kosof and with Guzman individually prior to the crunch and they were, unsurprisingly, vague. They generally attempted to reassure producers, of course, but, yes, the simple reason for the staff rebellion was the obvious fact that there’d be no room for most people in the new format. Also, to be fair, putting aside individual vanity, the plans for the new format meant WBAI would no longer serve the same purpose it had served. It would have been quasi-commercial and then, in time, literally commercial and made part of Inner City’s expansion and served as yet another profit center for the expanding Sutton machine.
Folks like Kugelmass were always clueless with respect to anything resembling Realpolitik. This applied to Engelman as well. They’re bush-league academics, no more, no less, unable to see more than half a move ahead, and far more importantly they’re feckless. Many of these people have ‘progressive’ or ‘radical’ or ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ or ‘revolutionary’ pretensions and obsessions and self-definitions, but none of them are the sort of person you want beside you on the barricades or even in a truly sharp public debate. They flounder, they fold, they scurry away snarling to themselves.
The matter of 1976–1977 at WBAI was, to my mind, very much along those lines.
~ ‘indigopirate’
This is all very interesting. Too bad that no one who was there has written a book on the era.
DeleteI always wondered if this didn't inspire the ending of the film FM.
Anyway, just checked and no Golden Girl Forlano. Maybe a small bit of reality hit reimers and/or the other dummy? Even the Prescod extendomercial about the Cubans in Africa DVD for the 1,000th time is better. The thing must be really selling...
SDL
The book may be in the works, I am told that the author is Berthold Reimers and that it's a cook book.
DeleteChris, Chris! Don't turn on that radio! The rest of the book, To Serve Radio Listners... It's a cook book!
DeleteSDL
Thanks for the caveat, SDL—I already have the previous volumes.
Delete(JustAListener)
ReplyDeleteReimers is too lazy to cook anything, he serves the bull sh*t raw.
I seem to have found the first (or, at least, earlier) part of the WBAI '77 shutdown audio at:
ReplyDeletehttp://mbanna.radio4all.net/pub/archive3/mp31/wbai77_1.mp3
SDL
Thanks, SDL. I just listened to it and was reminded of the time when I, as manager, arranged to have a live, open-ended broadcast for a two-sided discussion with Chris Koch of the phony censorship issue he sparked. Just when I began to offer proof of his outrageous lying, Harold Taylor, the NY Board's Chair, stopped the show.
DeleteLike Guzman and Kosoff, he did not want the listeners to know what was going on. I wonder of Harold was still involved in 1977. They mention an Advisory Board... I inherited one of those, found it utterly useless, and dissolved it.
That was over the "Vietnam Tapes" situation, I take it. Your wording is interesting. You lay the blame on Taylor and not Koch. Was Koch willing to talk it out? Just curious.
DeleteThe boards (past and present) are nothing more than excuses for unimportant people to get some attention, an ego boost and, maybe, some political clout. Too many chefs ruin the soup.
Anyway, my posting the WBAI shutdown audio links is because I want those who may not have heard them before to do so. I don't know if there are any real paralells with the problems today or not. Maybe what we have today is what would have happened if Kosof/Guzman got their way? I don't know. In the end it's just one hell of an exciting piece of radio history. Must have been something else to have heard live...
SDL
Chris Koch had no real choice My invitation to debate his accusations were very public an aired frequently. I don't know how he was going to defend himself when iI brought out the heavy artillery, but he had asked Harold Taylor to moderate. Turned out to be censorship +!
DeleteA few very quick notes:
ReplyDeleteMarty Goldensohn’s summary is as one would expect excellent, and Celeste’s is also of course dead solid.
The ‘Stacy’ who is frequently referred to is Stacy Ann Pober.
Carolyn Goodman was a close friend of Margot’s.
The notion and rubric of ‘union’ was a last-minute attempt at a vehicle for staff which would be difficult for management to deal with given the sacrosanct character of ‘union’ for progressives.
~ ‘indigopirate’
Thanks for the info. Since this was about a year before my time, it's good to get these pieces put into place.
DeleteSDL
Happy to be of some small help.
DeleteI can only offer my recollection of my observations and perceptions and perspective of the time, and I’m under no delusion as to inerrancy or infallibility.
One point I would emphasize once again is that the ‘union’ thing was a very last-minute grasping for a strategy in the absence of any other strategy. There was a to-my-mind utterly unrealistic hope that the word itself would prove near-magical in dealing with the national and local boards, with Kosof and Guzman.
The one actual union organizer at the meetings recognized that this group of folks was largely unfocused, incapable of either cooperation or discipline, and stayed mostly to the sidelines.
Indeed many of the most capable folks tended to stay to the sidelines. Folks like Margaret Mercer, who was director of operations, and went on to that same role at QXR, or Lindsay Ardwin, who was chief announcer, and most of the heavy-hitter techs, folks like Rapkin or Miles or others, were not the ones grandstanding and chewing up valuable time at the meetings with their personal angst (Gorman was the worst offender in that respect, though he had competition).
People like Marty, Celeste, and Abe Aig were golden.
Ruas, who’d led an important D&L department, had already wisely seen the way the catastrophe would play out and made the moves to move on.
As had, of course, others.
It was in my judgement the most critical inflection point and though there was floundering there was neither going back nor meaningfully going forward.
There was no renaissance, only drift….
That’s my take, anyway, for whatever it’s worth.
~ ‘indigopirate’