My David Bowie Interview Was A Trainwreck

David Bowie: The Last Five Years TRAILER Trailer

I saw this Jan 8th the day of David Bowie's birthday. It is also the birthday of Elvis Presley. How cool is that?

I interviewed Bowie. It was a train wreck.

I got to interview him at Live 105's Green X-Mas concert on December 7 1997 at Kezar Pavilion on a bill with Bjork, the Verve and Everclear.

He played early on the bill because it was the last day of his visa and he had to get to SFO to make a flight. He did a full set including a cover of Laurie Anderson's O Superman.

I was backstage on the air and he was nice enough to stop by to chat. A few other DJ's joined in. Uh-oh that's never a good thing... It went off the rails fast and I remember Bowie's head on a swivel as all these people were talking and asking him questions.

I do think he was entertained by it as he laughed and smiled as we were talking over each other and blabbing about whatever.

I am sure Bowie fans were yelling at their radio "SHUT UP! LET HIM TALK!"

I apologize. These things happen.

p.s. 5 months later lots of things changed as Howard Stern and the KOME crew arrived at KITS

Here is the setlist as posted to setlist.fm

1. Quicksand

2. "Heroes"

3. The Jean Genie

4. I'm Afraid of Americans

5. Battle for Britain (The Letter)

6.Fashion

7. Seven Years in Tibet

8. Fame

9. Looking for Satellites

10. Under Pressure

(Queen cover)

11. The Hearts Filthy Lesson

12. Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

13. Panic in Detroit

14. Look Back in Anger

15. Hallo Spaceboy

16. Little Wonder

Encore:

17. Dead Man Walking

18. White Light/White Heat

(The Velvet Underground cover)

19. O Superman

(Laurie Anderson cover)

20. Stay

Encore 2:

21. V-2 Schneider

22. The Last Thing You Should Do

23. Fame

(Is it Any Wonder?)

Working In A San Francisco Pizza Kitchen Was Fun Fu*kinbuddy

I heard this song

and it reminded of when...

I worked at a pizza place in San Francisco with a guy named Manuel. He and I were back in the kitchen. He was a really funny guy from Peru. He would end what he said with "...fu*kinbuddy." If the phone rang more than 3 times we were supposed to answer it and ask them to wait on hold.

Manuel would answer it "hello fu*kinbuddy."
"Ok hold on fu*kinbuddy"

He said it so fast and with an accent that you couldn't quite make out what he was saying. But we knew and it always made us laugh.

He said hello with "Hi fu*kinbuddy" and respond with "I'm fine fu*kinbuddy."

As these things go it was shortened and morphed into nonsense slag all of the kitchen staff would say.

When asked by the servers "Where is that order?" somebody would shout out "fakenbud-e" really fast. In other words "yes it's coming we are slammed back here!"

If he saw a pretty girl it was "faaakeeenbud-eee" really slow.

Lots of fakenbud-e in the air Friday and Saturday nights for whatever reason.

When I worked the prep shift early on weekends to run the slicer for the mushrooms and bell peppers  it was "faaakeeenbud-eee" really slow as well. For different reasons of course.

Like "fuggedaboutit!" in Donnie Brasco It could mean so many things. Some shifts he would only say that but we all knew what he meant. Low on sauce, need more cheese, more to go boxes, whatever.

That was a fun job. A guy there knew how to put a straw in the arcade machine to add credits.

And when we closed we could have pizzas that didn't get picked up or were accidentally made as a mistake. :)

Fakenbud-e!

CBS Radio plus Entercom in SF/SJ is over by 4 FMs

The Entercom and CBS radio merger should be complete by the end of the year. In the San Francisco/San Jose market that will put the ownership over the limit by 4 FMs. Some stations will have to be sold or put in a trust while they are waiting to be sold and will not be part of the new Entercom.

The FCC rules state in a radio market with 45 or more stations, an entity may own up to eight radio stations, no more than five of which may be in the same service (AM or FM)

Here is a graphic of the recent ratings from All Access with both ownership groups highlighted. Ratings aren't everything especially these 6+ ratings that don't show how well stations do in their demo. This is all the public is allowed to see.

Cume (The total number of different persons who tune to a radio station during the course of a daypart for at least five minutes) and of course revenue and costs have a big say on what stations make the cut. See the 6+ cume at the All Access link

Don't forget the format and the station are different. The new Entercom might want to keep a good FM signal in the mix and change or tweak the format that is on the air.

It will all probably be announced soon.

Good luck to all my radio friends!

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From 2000 My Paper Welcome To KFOG

Lots of radio stations used to publish a newsletter to publicize what they did. When I started at KFOG in 2000 they did a profile of me in the October Fog Tracks.

Reading this now I am surprised how truthful I was and how they included bands I liked that didn't really fit the KFOG format. Most stations would edit that out or change it. That wasn't the KFOG way. They were really honest with listeners and if you were in to a hobby or activity you could talk about it. There is no mention of the station I was at just before KFOG :)

At KFOG there were some unique personalities and I thought (but was never told) that I would be the "regular guy" that fishes for salmon, and likes the Raiders and 49ers, and all of that stuff. I did and I talked about it.

For the first month or so I was pretty nervous. I had to change from slightly wild Alternative guy to a much more mature adult KFOG guy. I was really comfortable in my previous job but it was like narrowcasting compared to the huge audience of KFOG. I felt like a rookie at Lakers training camp with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. Back then the Lakers were good the Warriors were not!

I worked it out and found my groove and loved working there for the next 10 years!

I still like all the bands I mentioned and The Powerpuff Girls but no more powerlifting these days.

Things always change in radio. Like everyone else I got my job because a DJ wasn't there anymore.

In that spirit I have and always will wish the best to every DJ at every station if it is a place I worked at or a competitor. No matter what we get to do a fun job for a little while then somebody else gets to sit in what I call "The Big Chair."

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Zodiac (no(t) (many) spoilers)

I saw the movie. I am a big "true crime" fan. I've read the books, seen the web pages.

Here a quick review.

1) Robert Downey is pretty funny in every scene he is in. He is in lots of scenes in the first 1/2 of the film. So there are quite a few chuckles early on. I'm not sure that's a good thing in this film.

2) The ending goes on for quite a bit. They could have made the last 40 minutes about 10 minutes long.

3) It was nice to see Ess Eff in a film again. Hey it always is. I don't know how they got the shot of the old freeway along the waterfront. Old footage? Computer added? That was cool. I am so glad it is gone.

4) Now everyone will know about Monticello, the town that was flooded to make Lake Berryessa. No, not everyone thought doing that was a good idea back then (or now).

5) Original Joe's at 144 Taylor gets some screen time. Notice the doors that say O/J on them. It is a way old school place to eat. Good food, not fancy. Great burgers. Slightly grumpy older waiters, cloth napkins. I had a date with my wife in the same booth they showed in the movie. What more could you want?

6) Ken's Wheels! Another SF Landmark.

7) The North Point movie theater!

8) I didn't think the film showed how much fear was felt by everyone in the Bay Area over Zodiac. (maybe 1 above) It was a really scary thing. School buses got police escorts to and from schools. Everybody was pretty on edge.

9) One of the radio stations in the background had part of an ad with Steven Matthew David, Top Of The Hill Daly City. Whee!

So I say it was ok. It isn't really bloody or really scary. Kids could probably see it. But it ends up focused on 1 person so much that it is annoying if you want to see the movie as an exploration of the Zodiac case. But it isn't that. Even if it was a documentary (and there are some you can watch on the topic) all documentary films and tv shows have a viewpoint. The goal of the person making the film is to show a viewpoint and try to convince you of it. No problem with that, that is just what they do.

So this film, while not holding strictly to the facts, well at least not showing all of the facts and theories, ends up trying to convince you that there is a clear guy who did it. It passes over my favorite theory about the Mt. Diablo radians and it kind of plays both sides of the is/isn't a documentary film. Don't let the facts get in the way of an ok movie. It is pretty fun to watch.

But there wasn't a clear guy who did it. That's just a fact of the case. Example? Sure. Read This.

After you see the movie and you KNOW who did it, read this.

I left feeling that (once again) people in a true story were pretty well slapped around by the media. In this case I wonder how the families of the guy accused feels? And the handwriting expert? And the movie house worker? (what a cornball scene that was) The reporters? All "real" people, who get dragged in the mud.

It will happen again when the dvd comes out. Sigh.

See the film, read the books, and if you want to know more start with this web page, read the text and follow the links.

The 70's around here was pretty crazy, Patty Hearst and Zodiac everyone knows about. Maybe more scary were the Zebra murders with blacks killing whites.

Former SFPD police chief Prentice Earl Sanders wrote a book about the Zebra murders, the Weekly did an article about him and his book. Be sure to read this follow-up letter to the editor.

I haven't read that book.

Lastly let me quote from Steve Huff's True Crime Blog.

To start working on your own ideas or just get an idea of what really happened, start with ZodiacKiller.com. The new movie and Robert Graysmith's books are worthwhile reference points, but Tom Voigt's site is where you should begin if you want to get a much more balanced view of this infamous series of unsolved murders.