A Chronology of Aural Absurdity
1968. Rock 'n roll's raunchy beat and D.A. haircuts had moved from greaser madness to the free-form sound of shoulder-length psychedelia. Bob Dylan...the Jefferson Airplane, Moody Blues and Grateful Dead...Leonard Cohen...Laura Nyro; in concert an on records, they delivered the new message.But not on radio. Too new - revolutionary, even. Hippie baggage, pandering to the bizarrely costumed anti-establishment young. Who'd buy such a thing? Who'd listen?
And then along came WABX.
As a free-form progressive station, it emerged from a classical music past which turned in 1964 to middle-of-the-road pop format.
On February 1, 1968, "play lists" of acceptable tunes went out: the DJ's picked their own music, and Century Broadcasting Corporation bit its tongue. WABX became a springboard for the new music, instead of a Muzak box.
General manager John Small and station manager John Detz started recruiting people: Jerry Lubin from Flint's WTAC; Dan Carlisle, the pseudonym, Terry King; George Brown, Denny Van Stee, Dick Crockett and Weekend Warrior Bob Schrader.
When Small left in May, John Detz became ABX's general manager, possibly because he had the only key to the front door of the station.
In June, Detz hired Dave Dixon. Dixon had had a checkered career: practiced broadcaster, AM/FM program director in Milwaukee, occasional actor and songwriter (I Dig Rock & Roll Music). His penchant for staring people down added to his sage's aura.
Larry Miller's all-night show at San Francisco's KMPX was the first free-form progressive rock in the country. He joined ABX in September, originally a full-time DJ, later the production manager, writing and producing commercials for both time-buying clients and such craziness as Tree Frog Beer.
The ABX revolution was one of style as well as sound. It made itself a community catalyst for fun: free concerts and movies, kite-flys, bike-ins, conferences.
The first concert was at Rouge Park in '68. Detz, it is claimed, actually wore a suit and tie for the occasion, and more than 2,200 people, lubricated with Ripple, came to dance to the MC-5, Frut, SRC, the Red, White and Blues Band, and Teegarden and VanWinkle in their first Detroit appearance. It was a mutual celebration for a group of happy rock 'n roll freaks who realized that they now had their own radio station.
That October, someone who must still remain anonymous donated a tape of seven songs purloined from the still unreleased Beatles White Album. Realizing what they had, the air staff began a day- long refrain: "Tune in tonight at 9, for an incredible radio first on the Dan Carlisle show."
Fleetwood Mac was playing at the Grande Ballroom that night, but at 9 people left the floor to listen to WABX on their car radios; afterwards, the excitement carried back into the Grande. Beatles fans were thrilled, but Northern Songs, Ltd. of England and Capitol Records, who owned the record, weren't. Within minutes they both called to issue cease and desist orders. It was too late.
That Hallowe'en, WABX brought the original Orson Welles version of "War of the Worlds", as it was first heard in 1938, to Detroit's airwaves. This became an annual event, and is expected to remain one.
Also in 1968, Dixon and Carlisle began teaming up nightly for "11 o'clock raps" during their shift change. They talked about everything, and it was their inflamed minds that devised the "Go Naked for WABX" promotion. "Show your support for ABX," they cried. "Spend one whole day in your regular routine, but go naked!"
A frantic Detz balked, "I'll kill you guys if you name a real "Go Naked" day, " he warned. "Where will we be legally when they're arrested for indecent exposure?!!"
The hype went on for days, and then stopped. A few nights later, Dixon said: "Hey, Dan, remember that naked attendant at the gas station last Tuesday?" Yeah," said Carlisle, "and at Kresge's one of the waitresses was naked as a jaybird." "Far out! I was amazed to see the nude weatherman on Channel 56, though -- it's sure nice to get support from the media, huh, Dan?" When outraged listeners phoned in to find our what had happened, Dixon and Carlisle claimed they must have missed the big day.
Plagued by weird phone calls, the team once theorized that perhaps one listener, sicker than the rest, was worthy of notice. The prize for "The Sickest Listener Contest" was a free hour of psychiatric help. The winner, who never claimed it, submitted a bag full of damp oddities, including live snails, which bordered on the deranged. The contest served on purpose: the focus on the winner drove him aboveground,and he was never heard from again.
In spring '69, WABX hired its first air time salesman, the infamous Jim Irrer. Jim, a maintenance man for the Detroit Water Board, had been fired for falling asleep on the job and allowing the water pressure for a large chunk of Metropolitan Detroit to drop to zero.
Detz figured Jim was a natural for ABX, and Irrer achieved fame and fortune as a radio salesman until he left in '72 to operate an Earth Shoe franchise in Los Angeles.
Two months after Irrer was hired, a young Michigan State graduate named Richard Golden walked in and talked his way into time sales. Rich is still here, and is an outrageous, brilliant salesman. His entire sales spiel, at an even higher energy level than our music, is delivered from a standing position on his desk or the window ledge. The style of the Irrer/Golden team made then the staff sideshow for three years.
On May 23, 1969, WABX presented "Goodbye, Columbus" to launch their "Free Night at the Movies" series. It was the first of more than 40 free ABX- sponsored movies.
Free monthly concerts began again in 1969, this time at Tartar Field on the Wayne State University campus.
Ten bands gathered at Birmingham's Village Pub and raised $2,000 for a Youth Assistance Program benefit.
In July, Third Power, the Wilson Mower Pursuit and Savage Grace performed in concert at Jackson Prison. It was the first media-sponsored prison concert in Michigan's history.
In August there was a free concert on the steps of the Detroit Public Library, and a two-day on-the- air History of Michigan Rock and Roll, put together by Carlisle and Jeep Holland, who discovered and promoted bands like the MC-5 and the Rationals.
Dennis Frawley and Bob Rudnick brought their "Kokaine Karma" show to ABX during the summer, the KK name stemming from a regular column Frawley and Rudnick wrote for New York's East Village Other. Several months later, they were fired over a difference in "politics, economics and taste," Rudnick headed for Chicago, but Frawley was back at ABX in a month.
Another station made Carlisle an offer he couldn't refuse and he typed a formal letter of resignation, leaving it in Detz's office. Dan neglected to sign the letter, and when John arrived he called each DJ to ask if he'd quit. Carlisle, naturally, was the last to be called. The air staff was edgy for some weeks after; John remembers the time as being "wonderfully peaceful." Carlisle was to work at WKNR. Chicago's WLS-FM and at WRIF before returning to his senses in the spring of '72.
Administrative help finally arrived in the minute form of Betsy Strand. Five feet tall soaking wet, Betsy is a graduate of MSU's Mass Communications school. She did all the office work, bookkeeping, public service spots, occasional news, kept the logs and everything else imaginable. Now the station manager, she operates under an incredible load and works 18 hours a day keeping everything together; one of the only times she lost her cool was when her hand got stuck in the mail slot while Gordon Lightfoot was at the station.
Harvey Ovshinsky was hired as WABX news director in March '70. At 17, he'd started Detroit's only underground newspaper, The Fifth Estate. Later he co-created Open City, Detroit's original crisis center, and instituted the "Spare Change" show on WXYZ-FM. Early ABX listeners may remember Harvey's DJ debut on his ABX show "Up Against the Wall" in 1968.
Jerry Goodwin joined us in the spring also, and was responsible for producing Barrington Bunny, a philosophical fable that achieved considerable popularity with WABX listeners and fans of Jerry's morning show. He quit two years later to teach theology in the Irish Hills and to work part-time at Ann Arbor's WNRZ.
Tim Powell, another KMPX-er, arrived for a year's sabbatical before returning to L.A. as music director for ABC.
In March, the WABX Belle Isle Kite-In was inaugurated. Another means of bringing Detroit's underground community together, it pulled 800 people out on a windy Sunday for the closest thing to a "be-in" that Detroit had ever seen. Strangers exchanged food, wine and smiles; children and dogs were let off the leash; even mounted police had fun. ABX sponsored more concerts in 1970, but Tartar Field was rapidly being outgrown. The crowds now measured in the thousands, instead of the hundreds, and by the end of the summer it was apparent that, if there were to be free concerts again, they'd have to be held elsewhere. No suitable site has thus far been found.
In September, Ann Christ came to ABX from Milwaukee's WTOS-FM, and stayed two years before returning to Wisconsin. Annie's talent for great musical choice was balanced by none whatever as a decorator, as the Ann Christ Memorial Draperies in the staff lounge still attest.
In November WABX and Channel 56 combined forces with "Welcome to the Fillmore East," the first radio/TV stereo rock simulcast in the country. The Byrds, Elvin Bishop, Albert King, Van Morrison and Sha Na Na gave media freaks a moment of glory, to be recreated later with Detroit Tubeworks.
On Pearl Harbor Day, the station conducted a radiothon to raise funds for the ailing Open City. At $1 a minute for whatever record the buyer wanted to hear, WABX helped Open City continue for another six months.
Mark Parenteau, a lean and imaginatively moustachioed 6'6", joined the air staff in December '70 after four years of AM radio and weekend TV "bandstand" shows in Massachusetts.
That winter ABX staffers hosted Detroit Tubeworks, a series of 12 two-hour TV shows simulcast on FM. Entertainers like Alice Cooper, Ted Lucas, Phil Ochs, Melanie and Johnny Winter were interspersed with outrageous commercials for such things as waterbeds and "Stinkers Forever" incense.
Dick Thyne, from the Tolkien/Rasputin cosmic mold, arrived at ABX in July '71 after working in New York, Boston, and as a member of the notorious KNR crew of zanies. Before Thyne hit the airwaves, he dropped out of five colleges, and toured the U.S. twice as a drummer for the Sandelles.
Jim Dulzo, followed shortly by Larry Monroe, left WKNR to work for ABX. Neither, it turned out, liked commercial radio. In 1972 they quit on the air, and started a discussion of the nature of commercial vs. non-commercial radio that brought the rest of the air staff to the studio for a long and serious on-the-air debate. Listeners still talk about it.
"The Sunday Funnies," a Monroe production, had Goodwin as Prince Valiant, Leonard the night watchman as Dick Tracy, and Harvey playing Sluggo. After six months of fun, it was retired: 50 work hours for a half hour show was too much.
The Strand/Goodwin/Detz version of "Dracula" aired on Hallowe'en of '70, back-to-back with "War of the Worlds." Dixon starred as Dracula and Jerry Goodwin was Dr. Van Helsing, with Larry Miller and Ann Christ as Dr. Seward and his tooth-tainted daughter; Dennis Frawley frothed and raved as the mad Renfield.
A second annual Kite-In was more crowded than the first, with additions like a Star-of-David-shaped kite. (It flew.) At the third Kite-In, Belle Isle had to be closed to traffic because it was full.
In February '72, occasional newsman Bill Pace organized the WABX Conference on Youth and Community at the University of Detroit. A day of sensitivity groups, John Sinclair, seminars, Father Groppi, workships and John Shuttleworth of Earth News, it drew 1,000 Michigan high school students.
A cycle-in for WABX listeners in April was a big success for 516 cycle enthusiasts. The rest of Detroit slept late.
Paul Greiner, whose comfortable exterior is belied by his admiration for Vlad the Impaler, arrived in July to salvage Detz from having to do the all-night show himself. Paul had worked at KNR with Parenteau, Thyne and Carlisle, at RIF, and at Chicago's WGLD.
The idea for an identification ring had originated back in '69 or so on an 11 o'clock rap. The WABX Secret Identification and Decoder Ring became a rude reality late in '72 when, for 25 cents and a boxtop from anything, ABX offered its listeners the ultimate in tastelessness. More than 8,500 dayglo red and green plastic rings were sent our in boxes at least 8 times too big, along with instructions for conducting canary funerals with some pomp. The monumental job of assembling and mailing was done by the staff and a small circle of friends; the recipients responded with either unbridled delight or nausea.
In the midst of the Ring Job, DJ's Jack Broderick and David Perry joined the confusion. Jack adds a little Boston weirdness late at night and on early weekend mornings. A former lobster fisherman and Boston University student, Jack was program director for WNTN, the only free-form AM station in the country.
David Perry, the morning man, sneaks in as much West Coast music as he can. David was once a delivery man for Chicken Delight, and whipped around Seattle in a scarlet VW with a 3-dimensional plastic chicken on the roof. His employment was terminated when he stopped the car one day and gave all the chicken to passing strangers.
Gail Driver's our traffic and production manager. She started out in Hickman Mills, Missouri, went to Lindenwood Female College in St. Charles, Mo., and
left on the heels of the local police. She headed straight for Detroit, where a friend landed her a job at ABX. Knowing absolutely nothing about this city, she answered phones, and almost went mad handling the rapline. She's the only person at the station who ignores everything she's told and gets away with it.
"Captain Electric," our chief engineer Vince Capizzo, has been along for three years, after time at Wayne State and WWJ/AM/FM/TV. He's built most of our equipment and assembled Tubework Production Company's mobile TV van as well as running Duck Illogical Devices, his own unique company. Vince's demeanor is nearly always placid; however once, while"emphasizing a point" to a friend, he broke his own Volkswagen windshield with his fist ... from the inside.
Catherine Colon, ABX flack and writer, has a background in free-lance and agency writing and PR. Once society editor of the Northville Record, she's now a cross-country hitchhiker and has a son old enough to be her brother.
Richard White, our national sales director, is a convert to Manhattanism and an indifferent devotee of North Chinese cooking. His unique approach to the sale of air time has startled and impressed those familiar with the business.
Red Helkenn has gone sky-diving for fun, plays the carillon, threw up at her Carnegie Hall debut and is an ex-WAC; all of which qualified her for a job as our receptionist.
And John Capizzo's job and hours are undefined, but he holds the distinction of being the only staff veteran without visible ego; there are even rumors that he is also the wisest person here.
All this is only a smattering: flashes, fond memories, blatant absurdities. It's impossible to tell all, and probably legally impossible to tell most, but we hope you got a feeling of what we're all about.
We've grown a lot: we have ten rooms now, instead of two, and a staff of 18 of the most incredible people anywhere. The place overflows with LP's, singles, and an outrageous poster selection, all arranged in no particular order, totally chaotic to the eye. The halls are always buzzing with people colliding, phones ringing, record promo men lurking about, and an occasional shout of "media overload!"
And we're still going strong, playing new music undisturbed by the Great Format Barrier. As to the future of the station, we can only say this:"The opinions expressed on the following are those of no one in particular, and this station refuses to accept any responsibility for anything."
Not Responsible.
- from a 1973 WABX brochure commemorating their fifth anniversary