Author: gerry

1/5/1996

It is probably the most exciting time of the year.  With few exceptions, we can throw out everything that happened before, erase the board and begin brand new.  It’s a time for new beginnings, rosy outlooks and resolutions.  All the mistakes we made last year don’t count, except to help us in our quest to become better because of them.  It’s all smiles no frowns and a happy tune on the lips of us all.

With luck, the feeling will last a week.

With a sense of purpose, it can last the year.

With hard work and dedication, it can change your life.

As managers of people, it is up to us to give the New Year’s resolutions and the people who made them every opportunity to capitalize on their goals and ambitions.  Luck only plays a big part in the lives of those who have planned and worked hard to recognize and use those “lucky” breaks to their advantage.  As leaders, most of us realize that it took more dedication and hard work than lucks to get us where we are today.  It’s important to share that work ethic and mindset with those around us.

The first week of the new year is the perfect time to begin a program of checks, balances and goals, not only for ourselves, but to others in our company or department.  I’ve always used the time between Christmas and New Year to analyze the past year and plan for the next.  It is important to do more than think about what has come to pass and what will happen.  Careful planning combined with reachable goals will stimulate your actions and keep you on the right course.

That goes double for your employees.

To maximize your potential, you must do the same for your support staff.  A group of people working together can accomplish the individual goals of each a lot quicker and easier than those working alone.  I’ll share some suggestions that have helped me in the past and may prove beneficial to you.

During the first month of the year, schedule meetings with each of your employees.  Set aside whatever time is necessary.  The meetings shouldn’t take long.  I find meetings that last longer than 20 minutes to be counterproductive.  Just make sure that whatever time you designate should be quality time.  Hold all your phone calls and focus all of your attention on the person you’ve scheduled.  If you have a large staff, you might want to schedule the meetings over a period of days.  Too many back-to-back meetings also become counterproductive.  Give yourself enough of a break between meetings so you can absorb the variables that are discussed.

Before the meeting, have each employee prepare notes.  Explain that the notes should be brief and not necessarily formal.  The notes should include a job description, goals, ambitions and a list of the employee’s strengths and weaknesses.

In order for you to get the most out of your employees, it is important to get their input.  Knowing what they want and perceive helps you make personnel decisions easier.  Too often we promote or assign tasks to the wrong people.  If you know what motivates each of your employees, your job will become much easier.

You should prepare notes for each individual listing the same topics you’ve asked them to provide.  The comparison in the meeting will help each of you understand the other and will make working together smoother over the coming year.

The job description is all important.  Although each employee should know exactly what is expected of them on a day-to-day basis, all too often, there is confusion.  Sometimes a little, oftentimes a lot.  Getting a descriptive job description from your employees may surprise you.  You may not even be aware of the tasks they’re doing.  Maybe someone else has given them assignments, or perhaps you’ve forgotten about some of the things you have assigned.  The job description­­—yours and theirs—will clarify any ambiguities.  This description should be specific and include the time they are expected in, lunch hours, breaks and time they go home.  Leave nothing to the imagination.  Compare your description with theirs and combine the two to come up with final blueprint for their working expectations and requirements.

Goals should be restricted to attainable aims within the company parameters.  Wanting to be the company president isn’t a goal.  It’s an ambition.  Goals should be divided into two groups: long-term and short-term.  Give your employees at least one short-term goal per quarter and set quarterly meetings to discuss those specifics.  If it is possible within your organization, shorter time spans and more goals are beneficial.  Whatever the time frames, make sure you schedule meetings accordingly.  Long-term goals don’t need to be as specific.  These need to be discussed at each quarterly meeting and in a final meeting at the end of the year.

Ambitions are important, so you’ll know where each employee wants to be in five or so years.  Knowing your employees’ ambitions can help you put them in the right job when openings arise.  Assigning employees tasks and titles that fit with their ultimate ambitions makes for happier and more productive people.  And it makes you look like a genius.

Although you are aware of your employees’ strengths and weaknesses, it’s important that they are aware as well.  You will be surprised how close your perception and theirs will be.  Discuss specific ways for each employee to accentuate the strengths and improve in the weak area.  Explain how you’ve reach your conclusions.  Each employee needs to know what you think about their working habits and why.

Often an employee will believe he or she is doing a good job in a specific area when you don’t.  This meeting and the accompanying notes will clarify and discrepancy between the perception and reality.

Follow-up meetings on these particular subjects are a must.  If you have only one meeting and then forget about it, the initial meeting becomes as concrete as a New Year’s resolution.  And will last about as long.

Identifying specific working habits, requirements, goals, ambitions, strengths and weaknesses of each member of your team will make each a better and more satisfied employee.  And make you a better leader.

It’s sure to make you all winners.

11/24/1995 

I am the Egg Man…I am the Egg Man…

Welcome to Beatle mania…the 1990’s version.

It started when Gary Gersh, President of Capitol Records, invited a few of his close and personals to the famous Studio A for a private moment to hear the new Beatles’ song, “Free As A Bird.”  Security for the event was tighter than when The Beatles were recording.  The champagne was first-class, the music was awesome, the moment was spine-tingling.  Then, the anthology on ABC.

And all the memories that came with it.

I came of age with The Beatles.  Everyone else who was between the ages of 10 and 25 in the mid-1960’ can say the same.  A lot of people in our business today weren’t alive when The Beatles were changing our musical world.  Many at Network 40 missed their impact.  They all ask me the same question.  It was the question that Joan Lundon asked Ringo on Good Morning America.

“What made The Beatles so special?”

Hey, Joan, did you ever listen to their music?

The Beatles made musical history.  Why?  Because of the songs they wrote and performed.  What made the music special?  Now, there is the real question.  I don’t know if I, or anyone else, have the answer. I only know what I think.

The Beatles didn’t write and perform music that changed the world.  The Beatles wrote and performed music the reflected the changes taking place in the world.  And those who listened were more tuned in to the changes because of them.

John Lennon said The Beatles were a working class band that didn’t change.  That was true.  The Beatles, as singers and songwriters, stayed grounded in who they were as a group, even when they grew into other people as individuals.  They never viewed themselves from the outside, as did the world.  They kept focused on who they knew they were.

The band that changed the world? “We’re just four lads from Liverpool,” was John’s standard answer.  And it was true.

For the most part, The Beatles had fun.  Unlike most artists of today, The Beatles began with a sense of humor and they never lost it.  When you look at the footage of their live performances, you can tell The Beatles were having aa good a time as the audience.

Unlike most artists of today, The Beatles never bought into the hype about themselves.  They didn’t hide from fans or the press.  They were free with their thoughts and ideas.  There are literally hundreds of miles of tape and film featuring interviews with The Beatles.  Accessible?  It was part of their charm.  And part of themselves.

You see, The Beatles wrote and sang about the world around them.  To accurately reflect what was happening, they had to experience it.  Even after they became the most famous band in the world, they were still out there among us.

Elvis hid behind the walls of Graceland.  The Rock stars of today are inaccessible and unapproachable.  John Lennon was thrown out of the Troubador in Los Angeles for heckling an act.  He was also wearing Kotex on his head. I know. I was with him.

Boorish behavior, perhaps, but he was here, there and everywhere…just like the other Beatles.  They experienced life, then sang about it.

Our world was their world…and we shared it together.  They just sang it better than the rest of us.

The Beatles loved R&B music with a heavy back-beat and copied the sound in their early recordings.  I loved the music.

The Beatles made revolver and didn’t release a single.  It had never been done before.  I love that album.

The Beatles started smoking dope, experimented with LSD and sand “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.”  I fell in love with that song.

The Beatles wanted to put an orchestra behind a rock and roll beat.  It had never been done before, but George Martin, their producer, was more experienced with recording orchestras than Rock groups, so he figured it would be a natural.  And it was. I love thsse strings.

There was no such thing as a concept album before Sgt. Pepper. I love that record.

Like no other group before or since, The Beatles managed to change as the world changed around them…because they were in tune with the world.  As they grew, so did their music.  But they grew with us…not apart from us as so many performers do today.

They didn’t change the way we were.  They just recognized and identified they way we were all changing.  They were a working class band that never forgot their roots.

The Beatles were honest.  To a fault.  No hidden dope-smokers there.  Nope, they came out with it.  So there was no exposé…no tabloid story to conjure up hidden demons.

Except for the one time when John stubbed his toe and said The Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, they were mostly loved…for what they were and who they were.  And even that statement was honest.  John was responding to a question about their fame.  He didn’t mean The Beatles should e worshipped, just that because of the media, more people had heard about The Beatles in their day than anyone else at any other time before.

The Beatles were so busy laughing at themselves that nobody else had any room to laugh at them.

They were fab…they were famous…they were a kick in the ass.

Early in the ascension of The Beatles, John was asked what he did in the group.  He answered, “Sometimes I play guitar, but mostly I play the fool.”

They all did.  Beautifully.

The Beatles were all about long hair, lifestyle, laughter, peace and love, but mostly they were about music.

When asked what was next for The Beatles, their manager, Brian Epstein, said, “The next song.”

Thanks to their music, I am the walrus.  And so are you.

11/10/1995 

The night had begun to sour an hour or so before…with the rancid tropical drinks laced with rum, complete with the obligatory orchid and tiny umbrellas.  The drinks were served by howlies, pretending to be natives, to the patrons, pretending not to be tourists.  Neither managed to pull off the bluff.

My first mistake was eating the orchid.  The group that had gathered around me, happy to be led through the streets of Lahiana by a man of my supposed stature, began to cast long, suspicious looks in my direction.

Fair weather fools they were.  Without me, they would be perfectly content to see Maui perched atop the stools of one of the tourist traps with a cheap string of shells around their necks.

Not me.  I was searching for the real Hawaii…home of the most beautiful people in the world.  I wanted to dig deep into the depths and find the bones of those who lived when Lahaina was just a sleepy little whaling village…and before…when King Kamahamaha ruled the sand and surf.

To get there, sacrifices had to be made.  I explained this as quietly as possible to the rookie sitting on my left.  He was dressed in a newly purchased authentic Hawaiian shirt that was made, of course, in Hong Kong.  His wife, a dainty little waif who clutched his arm and smiled at everything, hung by his side and onto my every word.

I pulled the guy close.  “You understand, some of our group must die.”

All the blood drained from his face.  The waif choked on her Mai Tai.  The crushed ice streamed out of her nose.

“How’s that drink?” I asked

“Tolerable,” she managed.

Her husband leaned closer.  “What did you mean by that statement?”

I waved my hands around.  “Yee, God,” I whispered, “sacrifices, of course.  They’ll be stripped naked and staked to the sands, eaten by crabs, their bones used to make trinkets.”

The waif threw up on her shoes.  The husband stood up and backed away cautiously, his eyes never leaving my face.

I took another shot of rum.  Thinning out the heard is a process one must go through to get to the true core.  And no one is better at turning a large group into a small one than me.  I am a professional.

I jumped up and headed for the door.  “To the tunes,” I shouted.

Half the group thought I said, “tombs,” and we lost them.  Better still.  There wasn’t room for all in the karaoke bar.

I ordered another drink and listened half-way through some Japanese businessman trying his hand at Bon Jovi’s “Wanted: Dead Or Alive.” When I made my move.

“Somebody grab the mike,” I yelled as I tackled the would-be singer.

Nobody did.  As the businessman’s friends came to his defense, my “friends” headed for the exit and the safety of the street.  I found myself there shortly, helped by two able-bodied security guards on the look-out for people just like me.

“Perfect,” I grinned.  “Two survivors.”

My compatriots, Burt and Christine, were waiting…for my company or because I had the keys to the car? I couldn’t tell, but they had been through much worse with me before.

“Where to now?” Christine wanted to know.

“To the tattoo parlor,” I answered.

Burt immediately hailed a cab.

To hell with all of them.  I staggered down Front Street to the parlor, fell inside and demanded service.

“What would you like?” the tattooed tattoo proprietor questioned.

I pulled myself up to attention, or as close as the rum would allow.  “I want,” I said indignantly, “a gold stake in my left ear, just like King Kamahamaha.”

“No problem, mate,” he said.  “But you’ve got to understand that I do body piercing here.  We don’t use a gun.  I want you to feel the total piercing experience.”

With eyes gleaming, he pulled out a long, shiny ice pick and waved it in front of my eyes.

I didn’t waver.  “You’re going to stick that in my ear?”

He grinned.  “Anywhere you like.”

“Does it hurt?”

A bigger grin.  “The pain is tolerable.”

I asked for the ice pick.  He handed it over and leaned on the counter.  I hefted it, checked the weights and balance as I checked him out.  The dude was pierced all over…holes in each ear, both nostrils, tongue, everywhere except…

I slammed the pick through the back of his hand, nailing him to the counter.  His screams followed me out of the door.  I surmised that his tolerance of pain wasn’t as high as he suspected.

I managed to make it to the beach before my legs finally gave out.  Rum has that effect on me.  I inhaled sand for a while before passing out completely, waking up hours later in a puddle of slobber and sea water.

“I thought you weren’t going to make it,” a voice rumbled behind me.

I rolled over on my back and saw King Kamahamaha himself, outfitted only in a thong made of leaves.  In one hand he held a crude spear…in the other, what was left of my bottle of rum.

“Are you him?” I asked.  “Kamahamaha?”

He nodded.

“The King!” I cried.

He laughed and sat down beside me.  “No, I’m Ken Kamahamaha.”

I frowned.  “Any relation?”

He shrugged.  “Some.”

I contemplated his answer for a while and reached for the bottle.  Together, we emptied it. 

“What’s that matter, brudder?” he asked.  “You look sad.”

I was.  “I wanted to get my ear pierced with a golden spike, just like King Kamahamaha.”

“You mean like this?” He held out a huge hand.  In his palm was a golden spike.  It glistened like a diamond in the light of the full moon.

I lay back on the sand.  “Put it in.”

He shipped out a large knife with a dull point and went to work.  When he was done and the blood had dried, he asked, “How does it feel?”

I fingered the golden spike imbedded in my left ear.

“Tolerable.”

10/6/1995 

Long, long ago in a land far, far way, I was a program director.  Okay, it wasn’t that long ago and it wasn’t that far away in distance, though an argument could be made that Sacramento is as long ago and far away as you can get.

The last station I programmed was KWOD.  For many reasons, KWOD wasn’t competing well in the Mainstream Top 40 arena.  Maybe it was because the station had been buried long before I got there; maybe it was because promotional budgetary constraints made the playing field uneven; maybe it was because I did a poor job programming in the face of outstanding competition.  (No, that couldn’t have been it!)  Maybe I was out of my mind.  (A strong case could be made for this…after all, I did pose for a Hitmakers cover!)

Whatever the reasons, we had to find another way to increase our audience.  After much soul-searching and a lot of research, we decided to adjust the format.

Live 105 reached into the outlying areas of the Sacramento metro and was exposing Alternative music to an increasingly loyal audience.  On my many trips to Los Angeles, I heard more and more people listening to KROQ.  It was hard to ignore KROQ’s success since KWOD’s owner also owned KROQ-AM, even though it was off the air

Based on all these factors and more, KWOD became one of the first Top 40 stations to weave Alternative music into the mix.  (Hey, I invented that format!)  It was easy to decide that KWOD should take a more Alternative approach.  It wasn’t nearly so easy to define the parameters that would establish the music inclusions and rotations.

The same is true today…maybe even more so. 

If you program a strictly Alternative station, it isn’t difficult to determine the music mix.  Alternative promotion people keep you aware of what music is available and what is hot.  There are many other radio stations with which you can compare your playlist.  The main decisions faced by most Alternative programmers are: (A) How Alternative do you want to go, and (B) how deep into the catalogue do you want to delve?

The Alternative format is basically artist driven.  Those programming in this format can define the music without a lot of effort.  This is not to say that it is easy to find the Alternative hits, but within the definition of the format, choosing the right music mix is more a matter of selecting the right songs from the Alternative pile rather than making distinctions about what is and what isn’t Alternative.

The task facing Mainstream Top 40 programmers is not so easy.

As Alternative music has gained more and more support from the Mainstream, Top 40 stations have reacted. Many have no choice.

Alternative music isn’t a fad (at least not today…maybe tomorrow).  It is a fact that a large percentage of the Mainstream audience wants to hear a certain percentage of the Alternative pie.

How much and which cuts?  Those are the big questions.

An increasing amount of my time, and that of the rest of the staff at Network 40, has been taken up with this discussion.  Programmers across the country are searching for the right answers…and the right questions.  How Alternative should we lean?  What Alternative songs will cross all the way into the Mainstream?  How many Alternative songs should I include in my music mix?  Is this song the right one?

Programming a Mainstream Top 40 station with an Alternative lean is one of the toughest jobs in the business.  There is no consensus with which you can compare your station.  Each situation is different.  Is your market already served by a successful Alternative station?  Do market demographics offer you a broad or restrictive target?  Are you the only Mainstream Top 40 game in town?  Does an advertising base exist to mirror programming performance?  Do you have the expertise?

In the final outcome, it is the music that matters.  That is why Network 40 has debuted the only chart exclusive to Mainstream Top 40 stations that lean Alternative.  We call it “Commercial Alternative.”  Why?  Because that’s what it is.  The CA chart lists the cream of the Alternative music crop.  Those songs high on the CA chart have the best chance of advancing and doing well in the Mainstream.

Our data base for this chart is small.  We took the most aggressive Alternative stations and those Top 40’s with an alternative stations and those Top 40’s with an Alternative lean and made them a part of the mix.  Market size wasn’t considered, only a station’s musical stance and commitment.

If you are a cutting edge Alternative programmer, this chart will serve as a guide to let you know what “smash” Alternative songs you might be missing.  If you’re Alternative programmer with a Top 40 lean or presentation, the CA chart will show you the right songs to play.  It will give you a great comparison.

If you’re a Mainstream Top 40 programmer with an Alternative lean, say “Hallelujah!”  Help has arrived.  The CA chart will give you a clear picture of Alternative songs with a track record and potential to cross into the Mainstream.

It took Network 40 a long time to compile the data and produce a Commercial Alternative chart.  It was no easy decision.  Our industry doesn’t need another chart just to satisfy the needs and wants of a trade magazine.  And although my experience with KWOD made me sympathetic to the plights of programmers, this was by no means my idea.  The CA chart is truly a reflection of the needs of our industry.  After just one week, it’s already a success.  Nothing Network 40 did before has stimulated such positive response.

Record companies and radio programmers were instrumental in helping to determine the stations included in the data base and with the definition of the chart.  Record companies now have a concise chart with which to prove which records are really crossing into the Mainstream.  Programmers can compare their selections with those of other stations in similar formats.

My thanks to those of you in both radio and records for helping to make Commercial Alternative a reality.

It’s about time