WHOoPLA: Chapters 25, 26 & 27

Chapter Twenty Five: The Splash.

Even with little sleep The Animal was in better shape than the newly configured morning team who had made a mess of themselves at their weekly “After Dark” West Allis nightclub appearance. For good reason, given all the shit that was flying. Abdul was doing sports drop-ins while lying under the newsroom desk and flat on his back on the floor wrapped in the extension cord of The Animal’s ledge mic. He slept between his breaks and, like Rodeo, was still wearing his clothes from the night before that wreaked of the sweated out cheap wine coolers that were the night club special. Patti hadn’t gotten drunk while babysitting her lover boy ledge dweller but now wished she could. She rattled off short news bits with Rodeo at the control board. Rodeo had made no attempt at rest prior to their 6am start which he was a half hour late for. No problem, for Rodeo it was his normal schedule and he pounded out a funny, tight show in spite of the patchwork crew. Pros do that. For this day, the “Morning Sickness” show was perfectly named.

The Animals crawl out onto the ledge had been somewhat anti-climatic and now they were going to need to make it news. The banter between Rodeo, The Animal and Abdul was priceless as all were in a slap happy, semi-delusional, lack of sleep state yet skilled enough to keep on message. Lee Arnold made an early arrival to get moving on the press releases and he and Patti started making cold calls to radio and television stations everywhere telling them of the event.

“I told them I had a great human interest story and if they didn’t cover it they were stupid.”

That would be Arnold talking. As an attest to both Arnold’s and Genko’s verbal sales skills, many decided to put Tim on live immediately. Patti also produced what would be the first of her daily one minute reports to the ABC Source Radio Network. It was her first and, only ever, nationally distributed radio work in her 25 years on-air.

Arnold had tipped off Milwaukee Journal columnist Dave Begel that “something is going to happen tomorrow” and so photographer William Meyer was there first thing that morning taking pictures of The Animals lair from the roof just above. The large photo dominated the front page of the second section that afternoon as it spread across all but one column of the width of the paper. The one paragraph mention started off with:

“All the worst fears of parents have finally been realized- rock n roll really does fry the brain.”

Begel went on to tell of the event from the evening before and the plea for petitions to help create pressure. It was a major coup for Arnold who, upon first getting to town the year before, had instructed his then Promotions Director, Patti Genko, to arrange lunches with all the big media honchos. Begel, like Randy McElrath, had been one of them. The Milwaukee Journal owned WTMJ AM, Channel 4 and FM competitor WKTI, so they were loathe to mention competitors and had a reputation for ignoring even the biggest of their competitors events. Coverage like this rarely, if ever, happened and if it did it would be cynically criticized by their patsy “Radio & TV Media” critic, the prematurely balding Mike Drew. But Begel was a freak at The Journal. He had free reign to print whatever he found newsworthy for his gossip, politics and media column “Leave It To Begel.” Thus, his writings weren’t subject to an editors’ politically/competitively biased leanings. This was a human interest story that went beyond the trappings of “Radio & TV.” Still, and it may just be a coincidence, he couldn’t resist mentioning in the last paragraph of the same piece that Gene Mueller was to be teaming up for mornings with Reitman at KTI starting in 10 days on the 29th.

Begel’s “fry the brain” set up had left him plenty of room to cover it whichever way it fell but was very important because it resulted in it’s placement on the AP International News Service wire. At QFM, it was the job of the overnight dj’s to rip the stories from the wire and put them into a basket for the news person to read that morning. I was stunned to see the “ledge” story appear and tore it off from the wire late that night. Its’ copy was clearly taken from Begel’s piece. We pinned it up on the newsroom bulletin board as an award. With a national orientation, the wire seldom had anything that pertained to Milwaukee on it. That 3″ tall piece of cheap rolled paper was a big deal to us. The reaction to it was like Steve Martin’s discovery of his name in the new phone book in the movie “The Jerk.” It had people staring at it and reading its’ few short sentences over and over again.

“It’s on the fucking wire!”

For TV coverage, there was only one unmarried, available date. That was Channel 6, another one of Arnold’s early lunch guests. The only other large television media outlet back then was Channel 12 who was literally across the hall from arch rock radio rival LPX, so you knew they weren’t coming. Thus, Arnold gave the “exclusive” to Channel 6 who dispatched reporter Rosanne St. Aubin.

St. Aubin’s feature played that evening on the Channel Six news. As the local Entertainment Tonight affiliate, it was also sent up on “the bird” as part of the syndicate’s feature offerings to all the other affiliates in the country. Entertainment Tonight had regional directors who had feelers out with all their affiliates in their given area. Milwaukee was the Midwest region. Stories submitted to the regional directors were filtered for strength and then, when they were good, sent up to the satellite to be downloaded and used in whatever manner a station choose to use it. Larger markets would chop up the pieces and create what looked like a local interview. Smaller markets would just run St. Aubin’s piece unedited in its’ entirety. Friday’s were a great day to put stories out there because there would be almost no weekend news generated and, thus, Friday pieces would be rehashed all weekend long. St. Aubin’s coverage of this first day hit with a bang, first making it onto Entertainment Tonight’s nightly show and then getting picked up off the feed by dozens of countrywide affiliates. This made St. Aubin very happy in that it was a service they had to pay for. She now had a good incentive to stay with the story and pump it as much as possible.

Thus, by Friday’s end, the story had been picked up by three major distributors of news and entertainment: AP, ABC radio and Entertainment Tonight.

That Friday also featured the goodbye party for the final stop on the popular Schlitz brewery tour. The Brown Bottle was a Chateauesque Oak beamed tavern that featured free samples. It had survived since 1938. Harry Truman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Carol Channing, Bob Hope and Tony Curtis were among the celebrities who had imbibed in the past and much was being made of Stroh’s plans to dismantle the pub and ship it too Detroit. The many who gathered had mixed feelings that went from anger to tears. (Stroh’s shipped many of the 1930’s, German imported, furnishings to Detroit but never built their re-creation and thus ended up donating the furnishings to local Detroit community centers. Nonetheless, The Brown Bottle re-emerged as a restaurant in in Milwaukee in 1986, surviving until 2004.)

Chapter Twenty Six: Shit work.

That same Friday was the day that The Brewers started their big nine day home stand by trouncing the Yankees 14-0. The games proved to be a great opportunity for listeners in support of the cause to get thousands of petitions signed and they were out there in mass.

With Patti exhausted and taking a quick chance at catching up on sleep that evening, the first loaded porta potty plastic bag disposal duty fell on Mike Wolf. It was full to the brim with two days of Tim The Rock N Roll Animal excrement. At first he refused.

“That is NOT part of my job description!!!!”

This was his reward for handling the king pig on the first night? The Animal just stood there with his arm reaching into the newsroom window and the full clear plastic bag at the end of it.

“Nobody else is here buddy. You got something else to put this in?”

Wolf’s Irish temper gave way to Tim’s frank assessment. The next day he made it clear to Lee Arnold that he would not be repeating the “shit work.”

As the weekend came a lot had been sent out but not much was coming back. The Animal did his Saturday weekend shift from the ledge remembering that it was only a week ago when he had gotten the “How would you like to be the most famous DJ in the country” call from Arnold. The location of his perch high above the west side of the downtown had become widely known and “Honk for the Who,” his favorite mantra, was hardly needed as all of his on-air breaks were riddled with the distant but beautifully warm accents of support.

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Fun.

Midway into his Saturday afternoon show the bell at the station front doors rang. The “lives in the woodwork” be speckled station groupie/ kid engineer, Rick Rotaro, answered and signed for a telegram. He gave it to The Animal. It looked very official. Just below the Western Union Telegram Banner it showed a Hollywood, CA origin. It said:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, WE ARE AMAZED AT THE INTEREST OF THE CITIZENS OF MILWAUKEE FOR THE ROCK GROUP “THE WHO” TO APEAR IN MILWAUKEE. BECAUSE OF THE HUGE ACCEPTANCE WE LEAN HEAVILY TOWARDS A PERFORMANCE IN MILWAUKEE AT THE MILWAUKEE ARENA. THE FACT OF A CONCERT IN MILWAUKEE BY “THE WHO” CAN BE CALLED DEFINITE BUT WE WOULD LIKE A LIST OF OPEN DATES OF THE MILWAUKEE ARENA TO ARRANGE FOR A SUITABLE PERFORMANCE DATE. CORRESPONDENCE AND AN ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION CAN BE ADDRESSED TO WHO ENTERPRISES INC. , PO BOX 19575, HOLLYWOOD CALIFORNIA 90028. AT THIS STAGE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ESTABLISH TELEPHONE COMMUNICATION AS WE WILL DESCRIBE IN OUR NEXT TELEGRAM WHICH WILL ARRIVE ON OR ABOUT SEPTEMBER 21ST. FROM NOW UNTIL SEPTEMBER 21ST HOWEVER WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO START ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THIS CONCERT. THIS PUBLICITY CAN BE THE SIMPLE FACT THAT “THE WHO” WILL BE APPEARING AT THE ARENA, CALL-INS TO GENERATE PUBLIC INTEREST, OR OTHER FORMS OF PUBLICITY. WE REMIND YOU ONCE AGAIN TO CONTACT THE MILWAUKEE ARENA FOR A SUITABLE DATE AND SEND THEIR RESPONSE TO US AT THE ABOVE ADDRESS BY TELEGRAM TO WHICH WE WILL REPLY WITH A LIST OF OUR OPEN DATES. PLEASE SEND THIS LIST TO US AFTER OUR NEXT TELEGRAM ARRIVES AT YOUR RADIO STATION, AS OUR NEXT TELEGRAM WILL SIMPLY BE A REPETITION OF THIS MESSAGE AND “THE BUSINESS SIDE OF THINGS”. AS IT IS OUR DEFINITE INTENTION TO APPEAR IN MILWAUKEE, WE WISH THAT YOU WOULD START PROMOTION OF THIS EVENT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. MAY I REPEAT, AS – SOON – AS – POSSIBLE. TO REITERATE, WE ARE EXTREMELY PLEASED AT THE RESPONSE OF THE CITIZENS OF MILWAUKEE AND LOOK FORWARD TO BOTH A GOOD CONCERT AND A GOOD ASSOCIATION WITH 93QFM-WQFM-FM.

(SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE—ALL CORRESPONDENCE FOR THIS CONCERT WILL NOW BE CARRIED THROUGH WHO ENTERPRISES AND WQFM WITH THE CODE WORD “DESK”. ALL FUTURE CORRESPONDENCE SHOULD BEGIN AND END WITH THE CODE WORD “DESK”, AND ALL PREVIOUS CORRESPONDENCE – ADDRESSES, NAMES, DATES – SHOULD BE IGNORED.)

SINCERELY YOURS,
ROGER DALTREY AND JOHN ENTWHISTLE OF “THE WHO”

The Animal was elated. He read the telegram a couple times with the rose colored hopefulness of a kid at Christmas and contemplated announcing his apparent success to the radio listening world on his next break when the current song set would end. As he considered what words to use, he checked his excitement. Something didn’t feel right. It may have been the cloak and dagger mystery or the fact that there were so many words written rather poorly. He decided to have Rick get Lee Arnold on the phone and get his reaction.

“Lee said it just can’t be because he hadn’t heard anything from the band since that one talk with Regis and that if that had been the case- they would call.”

Arnold told The Animal he felt it was bogus but did not elaborate any further. I’m sure LPX’s RJ Harris takes great solace in knowing that he came close to knocking out Arnold with one of Arnold’s own favorite weapons. Harris:

“Hey I don’t remember it but it sounds brilliant- that certainly would have been part of the fun.”

Both had learned that kind of “straight from the play book” tactic from format consultant guru Lee Abrams. Harris found it to be mostly “a chuckle.” For Lee Arnold it was a lifestyle so, while he didn’t tell The Animal why he knew the telegram was bogus, the sequence of events and “fun” he and Harris were having made it obvious.

Clearly, by the telegrams content, we can see that Harris was looking to expand the embarrassment that would come to Arnold and QFM from the show not happening and he was confident enough about the possibility of that to go so far as to attempt to push The Animal and Arnold in deeper than they already were. With QFM doing the equivalent of standing on an elevated trap door, the telegram was the rope that Harris hoped Arnold would use to hang himself.

That day the Brewers narrowly beat the Yankees again by a score of 6-4.

The following day, Sunday, was the day of the much ballyhooed WLPX Pro Rock Rally. With traffic heading straight down Wisconsin Avenue past The Animals nest toward the lakefront, it gave Tim a chance to make an appeal to everyone who was to attend to sign petitions. With the street getting backed up with the competitors Pro Rock Rally traffic, the sound of their honking during Tim’s raps was ironic. Tim played it perfectly.

“Hey I know you’re all headed down to our competitors’ event but no problem- we’re all in this together- so make sure while you’re there you sign those petitions and make this happen!”

It was a perfect appeal because it was real. From the heart. The “greater cause” was beginning to simmer out there and people were starting to hear it. People everywhere.

The threatened police confrontation for the rally didn’t happen as the “gooks” stood down for the night. It may have been the sucky bands, I mean, whose going to jail over The Shoes and Blackfoot? Or it may have been the fact that there were several paddy wagons lined up with doors open to purposely send a message that they were ready should there be a repeat of the arena trashing Black Sabbath performance from the year before. With a crowd of about 10-12,000, it was a mildly successful lakefront rock concert that was…. well protected. Not the killer Arbitron ratings boosting monster LPX needed.

Both had now played their cards and Harris was starting to see that he was coming up short.

Having sat back and played it relatively cool up til now on the air, with exception to the faux Townsend interview, Harris had tried diligently to ignore QFM’s stunt and Arnold’s editorials. They were Hearst. They had money. QFM was completely fucked up on the inside. He knew. He had a direct line into QFM’s “goings on” and all the signals he was getting said that this was something that was going to flop big time. Did he have a mole feeding him secrets?

“DJ’s like to talk. There was always somebody at QFM who was willing to tell. There was a certain power in knowing and being the one to tell…”

(And while I found no real proof of it, we have to remember QFM’s ad agency, David Joseph, had pitted itself against Arnold too and may possibly also have been a helpful source.)

Either way, Harris wasn’t going to sit back and do nothing any longer. Or, for lack of a better phrase, now he was fucking pissed. HE now took to the air with forceful on-air editorials of his own. He said,

“This isn’t just ONE cause for ONE radio station. We at WLPX believe that this is a matter for ALL of Milwaukee’s rockers!”

And he introduced what would be the WLPX “counter-petition.” Arnold:

“They were just digging themselves deeper.”

He hadn’t achieved the goal of bringing The Who to Milwaukee but it was now clear that his “flying by the seat of his pants” quickly thrown together promotion was working and Harris’s well laid plans had flopped. I say that because you don’t respond angrily when you are winning. You don’t respond angrily when you are in a close battle. You respond angrily when you feel you are going down. Harris response gave QFM’s quest legitimacy. It’s exactly what Arnold could have wanted. It fed Arnold’s lust to make it a bigger conflict between the two. One must win and the other must lose and up to that point LPX had not been engaged. They had been aloof. Now they were turning to do direct battle. But with the tide now turned, it was in the context of a civil war retreat with LPX as the rebs. For Arnold, whether he knew it not, it was the tipping point in the Milwaukee rock radio battle, it was won.

~ by Scott on December 3, 2007.