Pat O' Day

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Postby Neumann Sennheiser » Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:21 am

Greetings from the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival and Seattle Center!
I had the distinct pleasure and priviledge of attending a literary reading and forum last night that featured both Seattle broadcasting icon Pat O'Day and respected rock journalist and ex-broadcaster Ben Fong Torres of San Francisco. Both had some great stories and input regarding the developement of the music scene, radio, and Rolling Stone magazine in the 60's. Apparently, at the start, Rolling Stone had about three employees and was housed in a loft south of Market Street next to a slaughterhouse. That's really where and when, out of pure neccessity, the prevelent usage of incense started in the sixties. Not a nice part of town.
Anyway, if for nothing else, it was a real honor to finally meet and shake the hand of Seattle's "Mr. Radio". Too bad it was only an hour.
"You don't know man! I was in radio man! I've seen things you wouldn't believe!"
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Postby jon » Mon Sep 04, 2006 1:26 pm

Ben is a very cool guy, too. He has, for example, been a strong supporter of reelradio.com since its inception.
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Postby wireless-dude » Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:27 pm

yes Pat O'day is one of our local treasures--not only a interesting career as a broadcaster but of course a great wealth of information as to the history and possible future of radio from his perpective.
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Postby Neumann Sennheiser » Sun Sep 24, 2006 8:36 am

A follow-up to an earlier post; this is from Ben Fong Torres and his Sunday (Sep. 24) column from the S.F. Chronicle:

<!--QuoteBegin-Torres+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Torres)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->BUMBERSHOTS:
"Bumbershoot" is a slang term for an umbrella; thus, Seattle, where it's always pouring rain and coffee, has the annual Bumbershoot Festival, a Labor Day weekend turned over to music and other arts -- dance, literature and more -- all emanating from the Seattle Center. This year, the music ranged from Blondie and Steve Miller to the New Pornographers and Kanye West, and lit types included Berkeley's own Greil Marcus and Radio Waves' own ... me.

Michael Walker, author of "Laurel Canyon," an excellent history of Los Angeles' enclave of the stars, and I were interviewed by Pat O'Day, the Seattle Top 40 DJ. He has a book out, too, the overly punctuated "It Was All Just Rock-'n'-Roll II." Our session went just fine, but the real rock was pulsing from various stages and from monstrous speakers set up by local stations like KNDD "The End" (alt-rock) and KISS (pop and hip-hop).

On the eve of Bumbershoot, I went to a party co-hosted by Shawn Stewart, program director of KMTT ("The Mountain"), and Kevin Cole, a DJ at KEXP. KMTT is the Emerald City's equivalent of KFOG. (In fact, Haley Jones, ex- of KFOG, is there as music director and DJ. Stewart, a longtime Mountaineer, replaced Chris Mays, who moved here to run Alice@97.3). KEXP was originally funded by Paul Allen, the music-lovin' Microsoft magnate who built the Experience Music Project. KEXP is an audio extension of that museum: dedicated to rock and unabashedly free-form radio. Both KEXP and KMTT stream on the Internet and are worth a visit.[/quote]

I notice he didn't mention anything about my question from the audience enquiring how he and fellow Rolling Stone staffers may have reacted to that famous Frank Zappa opinion about rock journalism:

"It's people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read".

Caught the Blondie set while I was there on Labor Day weekend. Even at age 61 (yikes!) Deborah Harry still looks and sounds hot and her band (all origional members, save one) was absolutely smokin'.

The line-ups for Kanye West and Steve MIller were too long so I missed those acts (The Kanye line started mid-afternoon for a 9:30 PM show). A lot younger crowd for Bumbershoot this year. The bad side of that was me feeling really old. The good side? A lot fewer 60-something dancing hippies.
"You don't know man! I was in radio man! I've seen things you wouldn't believe!"
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Postby Glen Livingstone » Sun Sep 24, 2006 8:53 am

Thanks for the update on Bumbershoot - have always wanted to check it out, but haven't yet made it to one.

Sounds like it was a lot of fun!
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