Christiern

Just hit the rewind button!

Among my "lost" tapes, recently found in a box at the Royal Library, Copenhagen, was this one, which I posted a couple of days ago:

I threw this little montage together, but it does not give this boxed set justice. There is a beautiful hardcover book with an excellent history and impressively reproduced photos and ads. Even if this music is not what you want to groove with, the beautifully crafted oak box will stun you. I received it yesterday, so I have just begun to explore its content. Here's what's inside—they don't list all of it. For example, I found a great old music short on the fully=loaded USB drive. Amazing. I received this without any letter ot call—a complete surprise, The vinyl discs are fantastic with their sculpted metal labels. I will be grooving to this box set for a long time to come. -800 newly-remastered digital tracks on a forged metal USB drive shaped like a Victrola stylus -200+ fully-restored original ads and images -6 x 180g LPs w/ hand-engraved metal leaf center labels on burled chestnut vinyl -Deluxe large-format hardcover art book: 250 pages, narrative with full-color plates -Encyclopedia-style reference manual: 360 pages, field guide to artists & repertoire -Handcrafted elements: rich woods, lush upholstery, and custom-forged metal hardware -Track & Image App: First-of-its-kind music and image player app, allows user management of 800 tracks and 200+ original ads, housed on custom-made USB

I wonder how they got scattered.

Thanks, but the other side is not a Tatum performance, so it wouldn't be found under his name. Also, from the looks of it, only the Tatum side was dubbed to tape by "AME," I wonder who that might be? I know that Doug Pomery worked on some of these. but I believe he said he was working from tapes rather then discs.

These are the labels on a 10" aluminum-based acetate (33 ⅓) that was in my catch-all closet. The Tatum side has "Copied 15 ips AME" written on the disc with a marker pencil. The other side has a separate (no joining groove) track recorded at 78tpm and containing what sounds like a radio announcer announcement the impending appearance of the President, who will make an important announcement. It looks like Newman might have decided to cut this later, using the blank space at the end. I think the Tatum performance was issued (presumably from AME;s 15 ips transfer, but this disc has room conversation preceding the performance. Does anyone here know anything about these recordings? I should explain that someone—can't recall who—brought me a huge box filled with Newman acetates, when I was at WBAI. I recall transferring all to tape before returning the discs. Don't recall what I did with the tapes or what I was supposed to do with them. Nor do I know how this single disc (obviously one of Newman's originals) got separated and ended up with me. I did not take it knowingly—had I done so, there was a lot of better material in the box.

You have named three of the very few on WBAI's air who wouldn't have been misfits back when the station had a brain. Now, of course, their intellect and talent sticks out like a sore thumb amidst all the mediocrity. There is a lot of name-calling, back stabbing and throat cutting going on inside WBAI and the Pacifica Foundation right now. It cannot last much longer.

Not going to happen. It's a worse mess now than it ever was. The entire organization, from Pacifica's Executive Director on down, is backstabbing and manipulating in a very ugly game of survival that will have no winners. This is by no means new, it has just finally reached the end of the line with a manager who may well be the worst in a long succession of inept dabblers.

I mean is this a space-leasing favor for a struggling entity or can they hunker down there until they (presumably) get it together? When WBAI moved in, the word was that it was a 5 to 6-month agreement, with one option to renew, because WHCN had plans for that space. I may be a month off on the time limit, but there was—as any reality-based person expected—an unceremonious renewal. Now, without any mention of the state of the agreement, the delusional GM speaks of the Atlantic Avenue location as becoming ready a year from now. Pacifica and local management has been fantasizing for so long that they themselves have but a blurry picture in a glass ball. Pacifica's interim ED, Summer Reese, went on WBAI's air for an hour yesterday evening (speaking from Berkley, CA) and said just the right things—the problem is that she appears to be playing a game. I am not the only one who failed to sense sincerity in her message—she wants to remove that "i" from her title.

They want to purchase the building, but haven't the money—so they rent a part of it. This is where the offices are now located, but plans are to install studio facilities when the funds allow it. Much of this is the fantasy of Berthold Reimers, the station's GM, who has been there for three years, had no broadcast experience, and made no effort to change that. He has been an absolute disaster (told the Village Voice that he does not pick up the phone, because there are so many crazy people out there). The big mystery is: why has he not been fired? The person who can do that is the interim Executive Director of Pacifica, Summer Reese. She is now in New York to do a live program this evening at 6. The announced purpose is to give a status update, but it will probably not be very illuminating. The WBAI that once was has been dumbed down and reduced to an unprincipled, unethical mess. I share the opinion of those who think it has been dead for some time, and I really don't think its last gasp as a Pacifica station is too far in the future, Very sad result of a succession of incompetent management, greed, inflated egos, and personal agendas. Gone are the hopes I harbored for WBAI's future when I started my second blog in 2011.

Apply to the FCC. I doubt if there was any problem. If so, Lou Schweitzer was well and widely connected. BTW, Pacifica's current interim Executive Director, Summer Reese, used to work with Gary Null. I suspect that she still may be, albeit not officially.

Hi everybody. I'm not really back, but I think I can be a knowledgable source of information when it comes to WBAI and its current demise. If anybody has a question, I'll be glad to answer it as best I can, so I will check in to this thread regularly. WBAI is essentially operating on a commercial license. It was a commercial station when Lou Schweitzer gave it to Pacifica in 1959. Pacifica had to convert it in order to operate as a non-commercial station. There should be no problem reversing that conversion. Pacifica is now allegedly seeking to lease the frequency to someone else for a five-year period. That time limit is as unrealistic as Pacifica's amateur decision-makers have been in the past 3 or 4 decades. I believe this is all a prelude to an outright sale. In the meantime, a lot of people—the opportunists who have made the station stagnant and created this mess—are in denial. WBAI is dead and has, for all intents and purposes, waited a long time for rigor mortis to set in. For more information, historical and current, you can visit my non-jazz, non-profit blog here.

This forum has become too ridiculous. While y'all look for album covers with dust or a coffee stain on them, I'm outta here. Jim, if there is a way to remove all traces of me here, please do so.

I took this photo of Jean Bach and Dan Morgenstern at J@LC, a few years back. I hope it does not offend anyone here.

Great news, Chuck, Don't forget that I have the Columbia Armstrong file, which might contain some useful info and/or visuals. It is, of course, all available to you and Scott, just for the asking.

Don't worry 'bout it, Chuck...that carpenter guy couldn't walk on it, either. And the wine? Well, it turned out to be what later became known as bad Ripple.

The more indispensable component?

Marc Myers is what aggressive PR people look for, but for all the wrong reasons.

Yes, with recommendation from a local screening committee whose members have little or no knowledge of broadcasting. They apparently saw 60 candidates! Kinda makes one wonder what the other 59 were like!

Yes, and much of the blame for that can be laid on the governing structure of Pacifica—it opened the door to opportunists with personal agendas, political as well as entrepreneurial. Corruption is high and internal lawsuits are common and routinely settled out of court. The infomercial-inspired hucksters and "premiums" are interchangeable at these stations and the screw-the-listener attitude is foundation-wide. Your local Pacifica station, KPFK, with its Blosdale, is quite bad, but I believe WBAI has gone from being the most financially stable to a point where it has been relying on Pacifica for financial support. That source has dried up, as has the spirit that once drove all these stations. I don't see much hope for the future, and WBAI will probably be the first station to go.

Compared to the WBAI I joined as a volunteer in 1961, the station has definitely been moribund for the past 25 years. Good programs continued, but enlarged egos did not allow the station to grow, intellectually, as it was meant to do. Now the years of stagnation and the most idiotic governing "system" imaginable is finally killing it. Many listeners—most of them having abandoned the station—feel that it is already dead. Here's recent post from one of the former supporters: When the marketer "Dr." Gary Null returned to WBAI, I wrote in protest that I could not participate in maintaining a station that confuses narcissistic contrarianism and merchandising with criticism of and resistance to power. Before I wrote that, I heard WBAI "doctors" diagnosing people on the air, after a few minutes of phone rambling from the desperate "patient", sight unseen. Who can support that? Seriously, think demographics - what kind of people, with what kind of behavior, will support that month after month? Are there enough of them? Do they have the cash? I was dismayed that credentialed scientists associated with WBAI refused to demand an end to this (that's when I realized that the situation was not salvageable). The desperate gave more $$$, and I got to hear first hand who these people were, as I took the calls. The premiums aren't any more crazy than the regular free offerings. If you want to take money from the audience, it will have to be from the audience you built with the programming you offer. With all the money "Dr." Gary Null raised, did anyone wonder - even for a moment - at all the people who would REFUSE to tell anyone about the station, even about other programs, for fear that they'd be seen as lunatics? Did anyone wonder - even for a moment - at all the people who would simply walk away, shaking their heads, feeling like they'd been had (after given time and money)? When I was in a position to ask the question at the station, I inquired after programming standards. Written ones. There were none. I asked if the PD met with the on-air talent. Not really. And never was there a checklist of (1) who was the intended audience, (2) how successful is this connection with that audience - and how is that measured, (3) how well does that fit within a broader station programming direction and mission, (4) what can the PD or others do to improve the quality and outreach, (5) what can the talent do to improve the quality and outreach? Nope. No questions. No records. And why should there be? The station's programming was often embarrassing, even downright dangerous - not merely annoying, or something I disagreed with - but dishonest and destructive. Why make a written record of that, who would sign off on that? I have recently read a prominent WBAI personage denounce Al Lewis's fake birthday, in very disparaging terms. I couldn't listen to "Grandpa Al" because he was something between mean and cruel to people (really, if you only want to hear your own voice, why take calls - especially when you know half the callers are mentally disabled and will add nothing). But this poster's hang-up was with a 90th birthday party for a man who wasn't 90. Really? On the station with "Dr." Gary Null as star attraction, THAT is the big problem? The 90-year-old thing is just a joke - and lying about age is a common ruse among performers. And nobody took it seriously. It just shows how cynical and unserious the leaders of WBAI are. If there was any - and I mean ANY - integrity left anywhere at the station, they would appeal to the foundation to sublet the station's programming to some other group, perhaps an arts foundation for half the day and perhaps FAIR or The Nation Institute for the other half. Sure, I'd have plenty of quibbles with that solution, I'm somewhat to the left of FAIR/The Nation and probably any arts group who would have the wherewithal to run a station... but right now, we're talking about basic competence. And Pacifica doesn't have it. I'll never forget going to a seder, a pro-Palestinian one, and the someone had said, "Oh, did you all get the email from ____ to give $25 and vote in the next Pacifica election?" Everyone said yes. And I said, "Hey, that's WBAI! Did any of you catch the show about..." And I immediately noticed that everyone (the room was filled with 20- and 30-somethings) turned in shock, with my partner tugging at my sleeve saying, "Nobody actually LISTENS to WBAI, honey." As I said, a handful of cynics behind the mics... and a rapidly diminishing number outside the walls who have long ago switched off the radio. That's WBAI. WBAI isn't going to die. It's already dead. They are probably somewhat repetitious, because they are random posts (i.e. no intended chronology), but these links may give you a slightly sharper picture of Post than the one you formed as a teenaged listener. http://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com/2011/05/wbais-metamorphosis-early-inkling.html http://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com/2012/04/wbais-decline-begins.html http://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com/2012/10/it-is-no-secret-that-wbai-is-stuck-in.html http://wbai-nowthen.blogspot.com/2011/09/final-scraps.html

From what I understand, it wasn't so much that his health took a nosedive as it was management waking up. Clawing his way to a top that he never reached, Post hurt a lot of people with his self-serving lies.

I have met many undesirable people in my 81 years, but far more good people. As to the former, I am hard put to think of anyone who is as big a slime bag as Steve Post. WNYC dumped him and I don't think anyone is likely to pick him up.