In 1985, my radio career was soaring. I was co-hosting the hugely successful WQMF-FM morning radio "Show With No Name." My partner Ron Clay was a shrewd, sardonic, soured-on-life hippie guy. He was brilliant and always had something clever to throw out on the air. We could finish each other's sentences with goofy riffs about society, celebrities, and politicians. We did outrageous things. We used sound effects to make it seem as if we were broadcasting from around the world. We lied a lot. We giggled at each other's provocative setups. We were juvenile delinquents trapped in grownup bodies. Rude boys throwing conventional broadcast techniques out the window. Radio stations in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia sent employment inquiries. None of those
Tag: morning sickness
There really was a channel that played music videos
When our bosses at WLRS pulled the plug on our morning cable TV show in 1981, Ron Clay and I laughed. "They're replacing us with some new channel called MTV. Who would watch music videos all day?" Apparently, most people wanted to watch music videos and not Ron and me doing our radio show. I have to admit...it kind of stung. David Bowie sings Let's Dance while some goofy people mill around a bar, then they're in the desert seeing a mirage, then a woman is scrubbing the street. Oh, OK. Drugs much? People eventually agreed with me and tired of repetitive music videos featuring bizarre video imagery. MTV started airing schlock TV which thrives even to this day. Just for old
It’s always nice to see your name in the news, unless it is followed by “was arrested”
My friend Shannon Ragland was doing some research and found the first time my name was published in our hometown newspaper The Courier-Journal. My parents must have been so proud that they forgot to say "I saw your name in the paper, honey!" About a month after the Mick Jagger article ran, I was moved to co-host the morning show with Ron Clay. We titled our show "Morning Sickness" and it became an instant hit. The photo below shows both of us in another high-profile publicity stunt, now working for WQMF under the title "The Show With No Name."
WAKY/WLRS deejay Lee Masters loves triples: MTV, Vh1, NPR
Former Louisville radio personality and radio programmer Lee Masters, whose real name is Jarl Mohn, has been named as the new president and CEO of NPR. He'd been working closely with Southern California Public Radio where he generated the phrase "No rant, no slant." Masters is also the guy who put Ron Clay and me together for Morning Sickness on WLRS-FM in 1981 and went on to advise us on the direction of the show. National Public Radio has been through several rocky years of turbulent issues related to finances, management, and floundering partner stations. If anyone is capable of growing NPR, it is Lee Masters. In addition to a mastery of radio broadcasting, Lee and his business partner Bob Pittman