WHOoPLA: The Last Chapter

Chapter Forty Four: The Last Chapter.

Tim The Rock N Roll Animal’s step out onto the ledge wasn’t just a stunt. He tapped into the collective consciousness of a generation that lived in the shadows of the “holier then thou” self absorbed, old hippies. This wasn’t Jim Ladd’s “people.” This was a new, harder rockin, band of cohorts, across the country saying,

“It’s our turn. ”

It was the sentiment of the times. Thus, the irony of using a Woodstock descended, burnt out, “has been” band that had come to view itself as “fairly insignificant” should not be lost. Their generation was singing “My Generation” for our generation. You could argue that, were they the band of past, they wouldn’t have been able to be slapped around by Arnold, Stroh’s and the public at large in such a condescending manner. That they’d lost their arrogance and that their empathy to Milwaukee’s cause and their need for the stimulation gave them away as weak, befuddled and failing. But it was actually much simpler than that.

The turnaround in the course of ONE WEEK from the bands business agents being angry with McElrath and trying to convince him to pressure the radio station to drop it to Bill Curbishley’s call to Arnold to discuss terms could have ONLY happened if the band members were behind it. No one else wields that much power to demand a late addition to the itinerary at any cost. And while Roger Daltrey was the early proponent, Townsend had come around too. In that interview with The Animal at the Rosemont he explained the bands take on it very eloquently:

“We were at first dumbfounded by… when we first heard about your…umm…action. And at first thought that maybe it was a gag, maybe it was a publicity stunt or whatever. But then we realized that you were stickin’ to your guns… I mean … to some extent, at first, we thought that “Hey this guys coercing us… it’s pressure”…and then we realized that it was backed up by a great response from the people of the city…so we’re gonna play there. You have to bow to pressure like that because it’s a nice gesture to the band.”

The Who heard Milwaukee’s message. They and the city had established a unique personal bond that went beyond radio station promotion, business managers and media hype. They weren’t leveraged, manipulated or sold. They were respected, quite a thing to handle for a band that had lost all respect for itself.

Both The Who and Milwaukee had a feeling of inferiority and were satisfying the others need for a boost. With The Who on it’s way down and Milwaukee on its way up, they had met in the middle. It was mutually beneficial. For this brief moment in time, the city had shown that they were no longer Chicago’s bitch having the 2ed greatest rock n roll band in the world as their brothers-in-arms.

The stunt brought attention to the need for a larger facility. The NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks threatened to leave the city for Minneapolis in the following year. Threats that ultimately led to Jane and Lloyd Bradley Pettit’s donation of $90 million to build the 20,000 seat concert capacity Bradley Center that broke ground in 1986 and opened in 1988. The domino effect of that project led to a Milwaukee boom that culminated with Architect Santiago Calatrava’s beautiful Milwaukee Art Museum Addition.

Sometimes it takes someone else’s belief in you in order for you to believe in yourself. Tim The Rock N Roll Animal’s belief in Milwaukee was, in my mind, the first sign of a real change in the city’s perception of itself.

For the state of Wisconsin, even The Green Bay Packers pitched in to help boast its’ self image making it to the playoffs that December for the first time since 1972. It was a Brewers/Who/Packers Trifecta.

Benjamin Franklin once said,

“The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.”

Tim The Rock N Roll Animal didn’t speak as well as Lee Arnold but he had a true rock n roll heart. Someone who was insincere and a poser would have been easily revealed, called out and ultimately ignored over the course of a taxing action such as this. Tim was like The Who in that he tried to be honest not only with himself but to his listeners. Clearly, in the hundreds of interviews and on-air breaks, Tim’s appeal had a harmonic resonance. It was a signature of a moment. As a spokesman for the struggle of a downtrodden, hard rockin’, beer drinking, blue collar city and its people, there have been few times in Milwaukee’s history when a voice has been more syncopatic. He said what everybody actually not only felt but knew to be the truth.

Excellence drives competitors to greatness. So while LPX’s Harris considers himself to have gotten “his but handed to him” in Milwaukee, he forgets that his formidable threat was the impetus for Arnold’s idea- the scare that created the desperation that drove Lee Arnold’s genius. And even though he may still harbor a bit of anger,

“This was a radio promotion! If you’re one of those who got caught up in the whole ‘Doing it for the community’ thing… That’s just bullshit!”

He freely admits,

“I learned more from Milwaukee than from any other place because…I’ll tell you…YOU LEARN FAR MORE FROM BATTLES THAT YOU DON”T WIN THAN YOU DO THE BATTLES THAT YOU WIN!”

A few months after The Who show, RJ Harris’ boss, John Hinkle, got in a very public media tussle with The Brewers President Bud Selig that resulted in WISN’s losing the broadcast back to WTMJ. On August 22ed of the following summer LPX changed formats to Hit Radio 97X. QFM attained the coveted #1- 12+ rating in the fall of ‘83 Arbitron book with an 8.5 share. Both Harris and Arnold were gone by the following spring.

Lee Arnold admits that his first thought after the band played Milwaukee was,

“LPX is over.”

The greater cause took a while to sink in as he left for greener pastures and didn’t return to Milwaukee until 1989.

“It wouldn’t have touched everybody the way that it touched ‘em if it was just a band coming to town.”

Or if it was just a rock radio station war either. The legacy,

“…would be that for the longest time after this people walked around with their heads held just a little higher.”

He’s one of them and that feeling goes a long way to explain his passion for the town.

“I love the vibe of this city. I worked in a lot of cities and I choose to make my home here. It’s a great, great town!”

Bill Lynett isn’t quite able to assign the success of it all to Lee Arnold’s skill set,

“The good thing about lucky is that it doesn’t take any practice.”

Harris found the home that he’d hoped Milwaukee would be at WHP in Harrisburg, PA where he has been doing a #1 AM radio morning show for nearly 20 years.

Jim Ladd can still be heard on the radio in the late nights in Los Angeles.

McElrath landed in Florida and is the Vice President for Southeast Music for the behemoth concert promoters Live Nation. He sees the accomplishment as a,

“personal commentary that we need to break out of our limitations.”

With the hundreds of concerts he has booked since then, he still sees The Who show as a very special one time thing,

“We did the improbable.”

Then he laughs out loud. That wasn’t quite right.

“The impossible!”

The handsome and glamorous Scott The Kid was fired in 1986 when QFM decided to skew toward an older audience in the wake of a new classic rock competitors stunning Milwaukee debut. He and his partner moved to a small town in central Wisconsin, popped out two more kids and did historic preservation work together.

Tim The Rock N Roll Animal’s newfound notoriety spurred a call from KMET’s boss Sam Bellamy who invited him to visit LA. Tim paid the airfare but was rewarded with a fancy Hollywood restaurant Italian dinner that had TV drama “LA Law” actress Veronica Hammel sitting in the booth next to them. She (Bellamy) took the “fish out of water” Animal on a limo tour specifically pointing out the steeple of the Beverly Hills Hotel as being that from the Eagles “Hotel California” album cover. She offered Tim a $40k weekend on-air slot that would be supplemented with syndicated Westwood One production work. Shockingly, upon his Milwaukee return, Lee Arnold had heard of his trip from a record rep that’d seen Bellamy and The Animal at the historic rock star hangout The Rainbow Club on Sunset Drive. Tim opted to stay in Milwaukee for a solid three year run.

The Animal fell from favor as the times changed and he stayed the same. But, still today, he hasn’t taken the liberty of thinking The Who event had much to do with him.

“The petition was the #1 thing. Without the signatures, without the support of the city the band wasn’t coming to Milwaukee. No matter how much pressure was exerted upon them, the bottom line is, to this day, that it never would have happened if people wouldn’t have collected those signatures because that’s what The Who wanted to see.”

In two “post ledge” correspondences that delineated the details of the agreement, Elliot Hoffman made it very clear who the band felt deserved credit for the show’s happening referring to “The Animals’ persistence and sense of balance” and saying,

“We think that you are now in a position to take full and accurate credit for the fact that your radio personality, The Animal, made THE WHO play Milwaukee on this tour.”

The Animal knew back then that it was one of those one time rare moments that was not likely to be repeated again anytime soon.

“I felt and still feel really proud of the City of Milwaukee and the State of Wisconsin for getting the job done.”

In his mad quest to destroy WLPX, Lee Arnold was like a gold miner who had a greed inspired, single minded mission to strike that one rich gold vein that would make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. And he did. But what he didn’t see, until many years later when he decided to make Milwaukee his permanent home, was that the rocks that had fallen all around his feet, that he had passionately quarried day after day, with every last bit of his physical and mental energies, were diamonds.

It’s beautiful that his reckless attempt to save himself resulted in his being saved by the very people he was surreptitiously using. His leap off the 26th floor ledge of his mind had fallen safely into the huge, cupped hands of the City of Milwaukee and the air staff and hard rockin’ community that was 93QFM.

ROCK ON MILWAUKEE!!!

End.

~ by Scott on November 26, 2007.