According to a radio hall of fame, Tom Snyder was a bit of a wiseguy back when he was doing the local news at noon in Philadelphia. One day, the sports reporter at the station couldn't make it back to the studio in time, and Tom said he'd cover. Tom's sports report, in total:. "A partial score just in: Philadelphia 5. Now, turning to the local news..."
Tom often repeated two curse words over and over right up to his on-the-air cue. This required the audio man to keep Tom's microphone closed, which complicated the job of simultaneously managing the opening music, the opening announcement, and Tom's mike. If the audio man had ever opened Tom's mike too early, both he and Snyder would have lost their jobs.
A different Sunday With Snyder - in this half-hour interview of Tom early in his career. Recorded February 1967 at the student-run station at Temple University.
Clockwise, from lower left: a bunch of Canadians, John McCain, Paul McCartney, Richard Nixon, Brian Wilson, Phil Spector.
Updated, maybe even perfected, 3:35AM Sept 21
The picture above is part of a quiz I've been working on. It's about music, generally speaking.
There are two basic kinds of quizzes and they are age-related.
If you are school age, the goal is to determine whether you've been paying attention. (Can you convert fractions to decimals? When was Polk elected?)
If you're no longer in school, the goal is to find out nice, reassuring things about yourself. (What's your real age? Which Smurf are you?)
This one fails to fall in either category.
It's supposed to be entertaining at best and silly at worst. I wasn't going to post it tonight, but a promise is a promise. "Music Trivia" would be the general category, but you are a worthwhile person even if you do not pass. Click on the picture above to launch the quiz.
If you have any interest is seeing the full length performances referenced in the quiz, they are here.
There's more to come about some of the songs and performers highlighted here. Stay tuned.
The television business I know is over. Gone. Kaput. Finiti.
- Tom Snyder March 27 2003
June 26, 1992.
John Gotti's in jail. Roe versus Wade has been challenged. Murphy Brown has been challenged, too, by Dan Quayle, who doesn't like the single character deciding to have a baby. Meantime, there's a real newswoman in Boston who's doing the very same thing.
A bunch of guys are riding around in the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile documenting Roadside America - including places like Carhenge - Stonehenge recreated with half-buried used cars.
And Tom decides to write his very own version of The Vermont Teddy Bear commercial.
A complete 3-hour Radio Show which runs just under two hours in this version without most ads and newsbreaks. A good one.
Snyder's career began in Milwaukee in the 1960s as a radio reporter. He then moved into local television news and anchored newscasts in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and New York before moving to late night.
Paul Friedman, a senior executive at CBS News who worked with Snyder on local news in New York, said he was a first-rate newswriter. He'd "read all the wire copy and then throw it away and write the story, quickly, in his own conversational, made-for-broadcast style. It always worked," Friedman said.
Ed Hookstratten, Snyder's longtime agent, said Snyder was one of the best local anchors in the country, but he loved interviewing "and always wanted his own hour. He loved to dig down and do his homework on whoever his guest was." - Article in USA Today, 7/31/2007
This is our fourth Sunday With Snyder: every Sunday, ILT "rebroadcasts" Tom Snyder's ABC Radio Show. Tonight: September 4, 1992: Lawyer Melvin Belli (partial; joined in progress) and TV Guide Editor Anthea Disney.(NOTE: This is a new, significantly expanded file added on Dec. 21, 2009 which includes segments that had been missing).
At left, one of six replica cloth patches sent by Disney as a complimentary gift to those who joined D23. Take a close look.
It's either a) proof that when it opened in 1959, the train was referred to as a monroail, or 2) a rigorous attention to historic detail, reproducing a mistake made 50 years ago, or c) a brand-new mistake attributable either to really sloppy proofreading - or no proofreading at all.
The Breakthrough Genius II - Expensive, But Worth Every Penny
Wow. Unbelievable.
A powerful multi-use hand-held inspection and evalutation device that precisely dates objects to an accuracy of plus or minus six months of elemental construction or recomposition.
It scans and authenticates signatures via a huge internal database of reference signatures (with recent sale prices!)
It will automatically upload data and images to Ebay and other online auction sites - simultaneously providing pricing guidance and estimated shipping cost information.
While there is a "New Low Price," Genius II still represents a significant investment for professionals and serious amateurs who buy and sell in the antique and collectible industries. But consider this - with one seriously mispriced "find," the thing basically could pay for itself. The only downside is wait time on orders, which may be considerable. Click on the image for the fantastic details.
As a young man I attended Marquette University. I never did graduate, which nearly broke my Mom and Dad's hearts. I was short ten credits because some professor claimed I copied another student's book report. This professor had a morning class and an afternoon class. I was in the morning session, the other student in the afternoon. I never met him. Or her. I tried to convince the guy that if we were both reviewing the same book, as turned out to be the case, our reports would be similar. He didn't buy it and flunked me. I was a senior and so pissed off I moved to Savannah, Georgia to start my television work. - Tom Snyder, April 9, 2003 (Picture: TS in bit part on The Rifleman, 1961 - From Videowatchdog)
This is our third Sunday With Snyder: every Sunday, ILT "rebroadcasts" Tom Snyder's ABC Radio Show.
Tonight: August 26, 1992: Making Schools Better with Larry Martz and British Entertainer Des O'Connor. Tom's hour with Des O'Connor is terrific.
Millions Take Offense: Not One Cent For Tribute Bands
OK. This has got to stop.
"Tribute" band shows, I mean. One site defines the basic "tribute band concept" in extraordinarily blunt terms:
Can't afford tickets to see your favorite pop icon? Is he/she dead? Insane? Try these bands and let your imagination fill in the difference.
Wrong.
This has nothing to do with imagination. It has to do only with the ability to willfully defy reality. If you've been in a bad marriage, admire Sarah Palin, or have ever bought a lottery ticket, you just might be just able to pull this off. To check your own ability to abide tribute bands, see how long your candle can stand up to the following video wind.
If you're able to watch this promo and not think, "Hey, looks like Elton John is headed for this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, floating over forty people with ropes," good for you. If you didn't notice the rather ham-fisted attempt to simulate John's midline diastema... using some black wax, I'm guessing... you can potentially save time and money via tribute bands.
But careful - there are two parts to the equation as you take your seat to enjoy the incredible simulation that is The Folie A Deuxbee Brothers. Recognize that you enter into a conspiracy to defraud with the performers as they climb onto the stage and pretend to be someone else. This is the unspoken agreement that powers all of the bands that do Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) as their encore, including Abbalanche, Rebjorn, Abbasolutely Live, Abbalicious, Abbaration, and the misleadingly named 100% Abba (above left). Their act "can incorporate Benny and Bjorn on request," so right there, they're no more than 50% Abba. And since, in the course of their performance, they also do a little Debbie Harry and some dead-on Tina Turner, a more accurate band name might be Ballpark 28% Abba, Give or Take.
Members of the coalition of the willing for tribute bands include those concert-goers who can pay premium prices for last-row seats - those who leave their distance glasses at home to further enhance the fantasy that they're actually in the presence of John and Yoko, often ridiculed as the "gateway act" for tribute musicians, since white suits, floppy hats and long wigs are plentiful and inexpensive. And, heck, nearly everyone has the ability to emit shrill, ear-piercing screams.
Jed Town as John and Lianne Rowe as Yoko don't just sing - they perform dialogues in their show about "bed-ism, bag-ism, and acorns for peace" on the off chance that there are people out there in the world who want to hear all that stupid claptrap again. They bill their show as "...a happening that can be tailored to all occasions - be it weddings, parties, corporate events, product launches..."
So. No longer can we complain about annoying wedding DJ-MC's who intimidate guests by shouting, "C'mon now... everybody up... I want to see everybody out here on this dance floor for some fun." Hell, that sounds like a walk in the park compared to a wedding that offers, as its entertainment component, John and Yoko impersonators sealed in bags talking about acorns for peace.
If you find choosing a product from among the above brands "a real brain-teaser," order your tribute band tickets today.
The guy at left is a dead ringer for Springsteen, if you squinch your eyes up real tight.
Unfortunately, unlike other facial muscles, ear muscles have their own accessory nucleus, a control area for muscle function, in the brainstem. That's the reason you can't squinch up your ears, in case you were wondering.
Do you think CSN&Y are "honored" by the "tribute" stage show presented by 4 Way Street? More likely they see wannabes scooping up the low-hanging ticket fruit that makes it even more difficult for the real band to fill big venues. CSNY is a brand name hemorrhaging market share to cut-rate store-brand look-a-likes.
To be fair, the members of 4 Way Street get points for trying real, real hard:
The Stills guy gained more weight for his role than Jared Leto did for the John Lennon assassination movie that no one with a conscience went to see.
The Crosby guy had his liver replaced even though there was nothing wrong with it, stating "...the audience will know."
The Neil Young guy is such a perfectionist that he refuses to tour with 4 Way Street for years at a time.
And the guy impersonating Graham Nash takes his job so seriously that he patterns himself not directly on Nash, but rather bases his performance on the artist Nash stole his persona from, Errol Flynn.
In a Quinnipiac University poll,
87% of respondents
failed to identify Graham Nash
when shown the above two photographs.
On a recent evening in Manhattan, two of the Steely Dan Tribute Bands - Aja Vu and Steely Scam - performed at B.B. King's in Times Square (opening acts: Stolen Dan, Nearly Dan, Reely Dan, and Stealy Band) on the same night that the actual Steely Dan, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, were also trying to perfectly replicate the sound of their old hits just 32 blocks north at The Beacon. This provided the first real opportunity for Consumer Reports to burst onto the rock journalism scene with their totally unprecedented comparitive review.
Our trained concert-goers pitted the original Steely Dan band against two "tribute versions," Aja Vu and Steely Scam.
To level the playing field, we selected one track from each Steely Dan album from October, 1972 to February, 2000 that each band performed on the selected evening.
Scores were recorded in 10 categories, which, when combined, represent overall satisfaction with visual and aural aspects of the concert-going experience. Differences of less than two points on the ten-point scales were not considered significant. (Ratios of ticket price to overall satisfaction are considered elsewhere).
Results: Aja Vu's performance used 17% more energy, but low marks on stage presence and pitch accuracy dropped the band's average below CR's "Don't Buy Tickets" threshhold. While Steely Scam's Donald Fagen easily outdistanced Steely Dan's Donald Fagen, Walter Beckers were judged comparable across all bands.
Barrytown proved a difficult accomplishment for all three bands, with the lyric"I can see by what you carry that you come from Barrytown" proving problematic for all, but we gave the edge here to Steely Scam, who easily surpassed the original band's attempts at recreation. Steely Dan's years of experience performing "Don't Take Me Alive," however, left the tribute bands in its wake.
Between Steely Dan and Steely Scam, we'd have to say "too close to call," since the concert-going experiences were on par in nearly all respects. Either band will suffice, but those looking for value in ticket price versus overall satisfaction might best spend their future dollars on Steely Scam tickets.
"Hambone" from "Sandy's Hour" Featuring Sandy Becker
"I never play down to children," George Sanford Becker once told the New York Times. Nor to adults, one might add, who were every bit as befuddled as their kids by "Hambone," Sandy Becker's singularly odd and eerily prescient TV character whose feathered helmet, coke-bottle glasses, and retro-military wardrobe softened the country up for the arrival of Elton John some years later. Hambone strutted and slid across the stage, twisted himself into odd angles, and swooped in for an out of focus close-up, his nose touching the TV camera's lens. It all seem to be inspired by, or predicated upon, a song by Red Saunders and his Orchestra.
"Hamboning" is today best known as a lucrative job, but its origins in the US date back to slavery. When southern states passed laws forbidding slave drums and slave drumming, Africans reverted to "patting juba, involving intricate, rapid clapping of the hands against different parts of the body in quite complex successions of rhythm," as well as beating the hell out of any object that could be coerced into making a percussive sound. Considered a lost art for many years, the practice was revived in 1965 by Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine on the 1965 Beach Boys recording of Barbara Ann when Blaine played his famous ashtrays. But I digress.
The "Sandy Becker" version of Hambone is a minor re-edit of a 1952 Okeh single that added Sandy's trademarked manic scream of joy to the proceedings. But here, listen for yourself:
If Clinton was our first black president, then Sandy Becker was our first black kids show host. His theme song was Afrikaan Beat:
Life can be terrible; life can be wonderful.
The heights and depths of popular culture, with lots of listening - music, interviews, and stories... spiced with books, quizzes, video, pictures... even a little commentary.
www.isntlifeterrible.com - leave out the apostrophe for savings.
To contact me, write to: Don dot Brockway at gmail dot com.
