Radio Memories Vol. 10

The Nightbeat Show audience was a motley three groups, and I had to be careful to pay attention to all of them. There was the onsite audience, the customers sitting in their cars in the packed rows of teletrays. They were sending in their requests scribbled on pieces of paper, sometimes napkins with a border of mustard or ketchup. Then there was the mobile audience out there cruizin’, possibly at another drive in, even those out there at Gene’s Pig and Chick where WNOK, our competitor, was cranking out the same songs that we were at Doug’s. Finally, there was the at home audience, in their rooms cracking the books, doing homework while listening to the radio. 

My job was to satisfy the on-site audience while encouraging the mobile audiences to come on over where the fun was happening and also suggesting to the at home audience that they should come to Doug’s the next time they were out cruizin’ or had a date! Actually that was easier than it sounded. The high energy, high production value and great songs that were Top 40 radio took it a long way. The requests, which came from only the on-site audience, helped a lot. It was easy to announce these requests in a way that sounded like we were having a party. But one had to be careful as I found out to my dismay one night. 

Remember, that I was still fairly new to Columbia and most of that time I was sheltered in the confines of the USC Campus and the immediate neighborhoods. I was not yet familiar with all the schools and their nicknames. One night I received a request that said to the effect that the CN boys would like to meet folks from the “Adger Road Country Club!” I didn’t know that “CN Boys” meant students from Cardinal Newman High School which was at the time located on Forrest Drive and that “Adger Road Country Club” was a derogative nickname for Dreher High School, which was located on the corner of Millwood Ave. and Adger Road. 

Way too early the next morning, I was awakened by a phone call from the WCOS Station Manager and told to get to his office for a meeting at 11 AM sharp. I was greeted by Jess, our manager, a police officer and the principals of the two schools which I learned quickly were rivals. It turns out that the request was a veiled invite to a “rumble.” Everyone wanted to know why I had let that request get on the air. I explained that I was unfamiliar with both nicknames and had no idea as to the true intent of the request. Fortunately for me, everyone understood how that happened, and they all educated me on the nicknames and where the tensions were between the high school student bodies. I took copious notes that I kept in the teletype paper box in which I carried my stuff back and forth between the station and Doug’s. From that day on, I also kept all the paper requests in my cubbyhole in the DJ room at WCOS for at least a month. I never needed “proof” of another request during the rest of my time on the Nightbeat Show. 

In March of 1968 we were playing a newly released copy of Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild” that would hit the national Billboard Chart on July 13th and peak at #2 on the 24th of August. It was getting a pretty decent audience response and good airplay, but maybe not enough for some people. I mentioned earlier that the radio booth at Doug’s was located in the parking lot surrounded on three sides, front, right and rear, by driveways and on the left by the first row of teletrays. Quite often people would cruise in an oval encircling that first row and the radio booth, waving to me through the 4’ x 8’ window as they crossed in front of me. 

One night I looked up to see a motorcyclist wearing an old German WW I helmet complete with the spike on top. As he turned the corner, I could see that he was wearing a Hells Angels jacket. This was over a year before the famous stabbing incident at the Rolling Stones’ concert in December 1969, but the “Angels” had already been tagged as a pretty rough group. A few minutes passed and the lone rider came past again, this time accompanied by another even tougher looking dude. This kept up with new members joining the circling bunch until after about 5 minutes there were 10 or 12 riders some with their “motorcycle mamas” riding behind them on their Harleys.  I could swear that it felt like 30 or more. Their “hogs” were so loud that I could hear them through the cinder block walls as they rumbled by. I looked over to the main restaurant building where Arthur, the manager was on the phone with the police just in case. 

Finally, I heard them pull up behind the booth and shut down. OMG that was where my car was parked! I heard a loud knocking on the door to the booth, and I decided that I had better find out what they wanted. I was shaking more than just a little bit as I opened the door to the whole bunch standing there. The leader handed me a napkin with some scribbling on it and said “Play this!” I know this sounds trite, but you guessed it; the request was for “Born To Be Wild!” I looked at the request and said “Next!” He said thanks and the gang saddled up and drove away. It took me until the end of the song to calm down. 

What I couldn’t figure out was how these motorcycle riders could hear their request. I ran into one of the riders years later when we were both a lot older and greyer.  Some of them had transistor radios in the pockets of their leathers. 

Taking requests was interesting! 

Little did I know that within months there would be another disaster and cruzin’ would be coming to an end.