Clem Labine vs. . . . Clem Labine?

In sorting through some old possessions a few weeks ago, I came across the baseball card for Los Angeles Dodgers' pitcher Clem Labine (pictured at left). I bought this card (actually, my dad bought it for me) at a baseball card show in Seattle sometime around 1980. Clem was in rough shape even then, and I think he cost 50 cents.

The real treasures of that day (the only time I ever went to a baseball card show) were a dozen or so Seattle Pilots cards, among the only accessible remnants of that team's single season tenure. They still feel like relics of some kind of parallel universe or maybe a history-reimagining Star Trek episode.

So, why did I also pick up a Clem Labine baseball card way back when? For one confused, pre-teen radio geek reason: there was a syndicated radio feature called Around The House that I used to hear in those days on Saturday mornings on KIRO AM. Around The House covered topics like restoring old plaster, stripping paint off wooden window frames, and refinishing hardwood floors.

See, the host of Around The House was a guy named . . . wait for it . . . yes, the host was a guy named Clem Labine. "How cool," I thought, "to have an old baseball card for a guy on the radio!" I was an odd little kid, I'll freely admit.

What I didn't know then (and didn't figure out until many years (decades?) later), was that there are, unbelievably, actually two Clem Labines in the world. The Clem Labine of Around The House was actually this guy, an accomplished author and historic preservation specialist.

I'm pretty sure that the Clem Labine I used to hear on the radio never pitched for anybody, and I'm certain he never appeared on a baseball card.

Can You Identify the "Mystery DJ" from WMBR Cambridge Spring 1989?

I made this aircheck almost 23 years ago. I was living in Boston, and was amazed to hear a 90-minute show devoted to my hometown of Seattle's burgeoning music scene. I pressed "record" on my boombox as fast as I could, and got most of the show on tape.

The file posted on YouTube is audio only, and is "scoped" so most of the music is gone--I tried to post the entire 90-minute recording but got flagged for copyright issues and so went back and trimmed the file (I did leave a VERY LONG weather forecast for Boston, for some reason). The DJ obviously knows his Seattle bands and Seattle music venues circa late 1980s (and is fairly prescient in his pronouncements about "grunge"), but I have no idea who he is--though I assume he was from or had spent some time in Seattle.

Anyhow, I haven't done any "investigating" (such as contacting WMBR) to try and figure out who mystery DJ "Dara" is, but it would be interesting to know what became of him after his radio career at MIT. Are you Dara or can you identify Dara? If so, please leave a comment below.

Sound Effects for War Horse

The New York Times yesterday published a Carpetbagger blog post about the lengths to which filmmakers went to create specialized World War I sound effects for the recently released movie War Horse.

The film's sound designer Gary Rydstrom says it best, and could easily be describing an approach to sound effects for vintage radio dramas:

“What I usually do, out of laziness, is I do a lot of my recording around my house. The golden rule of sound design is, it doesn’t matter what a sound really it is, it matters how it works in the movie, how it makes you feel. It doesn’t matter that it’s a vacuum cleaner.”

Makes me want to fill a sock with corn starch and squeeze it repeatedly until I think I'm out for a snowy walk.

Radio Geek New Year's Eve Delight

There's no other way to describe this audio-only YouTube clip. It is truly a Radio Geek New Year's Eve Delight (and received via shortwave, no less). I recorded it myself in the early morning hours of December 31, 1999 at home in Seattle when it was approaching midnight (and the year 2000!) in New Zealand. We hear from various reporters stationed around NZ. Then, midnight comes, and we end up in Auckland where NZ's own Split Enz are playing a live concert to ring in the new millennium. A bit more information is included in the YouTube description.

With this post I bid Happy Holidays to Radio Geeks everywhere!

November Radio Round-Up

It's been a busy autumn, but here's a quick round-up of recent radio and radio history-related happenings:

1. Norman Corwin RIP. I wrote a short post for the Aircheck Blog of the Western States Museum of Broadcasting about my brief interactions with Mr. Corwin (shown in a photo from the New York Times) over the years.

2. Seattle Radio Theatre took part in a national radio drama project called Sleepy Hollow: The Ride Across America last week. I wrote and directed a 60-minute adaptation of Washington Irving's classic story, which an amazing cast performed live at Town Hall Seattle and which was also broadcast LIVE on AM 1090 KPTK. Complete audio is available here. I also spoke with Lee Callahan at KPTK about the nexus for the show and the concept behind the script a few days before the broadcast.

3. Prairie Home Companion's Tom Keith RIP. Read his New York Times obituary here and a find a written and audio tribute from Prairie Home Companion here.

4. I've enjoyed appearing a few times in the past month on local news/talk station KIRO 97.3 FM. I've talked about local history and culture, including local historical context for the "Occupy" movement and the local panic reaction to the 1938 broadcast (on KIRO AM) of "War of the Worlds."

Profile of Yankees' Radio Man John Sterling

Here's a short post linking to a New York Times piece from over the weekend about Yankees' radio man John Sterling (photo from NYT).

Stories about radio personalities are so rare in the old-school media, I thought it was worth passing along, and it is an interesting slice-of-life. And, I suppose it's inevitable that a Yankees' broadcaster would be a much-loved and much-hated figure, as foreign as that feels from the Seattle viewpoint.

Anyhow, just thinking about baseball on the radio makes me miss Dave Niehaus that much more.

Late Summer Radio Round-Up

Here are four quick items:

1. For fascinating live and local coverage of the impending arrival of Hurricane Irene, I'm particularly enjoying the live stream of WCBS 880 AM from New York City. There is no better medium for local extreme weather emergencies than local AM radio, and the fact you can listen to a remote live stream via the web is pretty cool. (BTW: Alex Silverman, late of KIRO in Seattle is anchoring at the moment as I write this).

2. The most recent episode of This NOT Just In (the history radio series I do for KUOW in Seattle) is about the Beatles' 1964 visit here. Listen here.

3. KUOW's Weekday program with Steve Scher broadcast live from Town Hall Seattle a few weeks ago, and I produced a short behind-the-scenes video.

4. I was at the American Girl doll store near Seattle a few weeks ago and stumbled across a radio sound effects demonstration (related to one of their dolls whose character/backstory is set circa 1940). This radio stuff pops up in some pretty surprising places. The demonstration was not attracting a big crowd . . .

(Posted by Feliks Banel)