(oregonlive.com) "THE SMARTEST MOUTH IN ROSE CITY RADIO READIES FOR HIS THIRD COMING," Waist High favorite Rick Emerson is back on the air in Portland, cruelly ripped from my arms 11 months ago.
"Rick Emerson turned 33 on Tuesday. He celebrated by getting a job. Fired for the second time 11 months ago from KOTK, the smartest mouth on Portland radio returns Monday on KCMD (970 AM)."
(billboardradiomonitor.com) "The new show will re-team host Emerson with his former broadcast partners, newsman Tim Riley and show producer Sarah X. Dylan. Emerson will also become PD for the station.
"'Rick's unique style and Northwest sensibilities have been missed since he left the airwaves last year,' KCMD VP/GM Mark Walen said in a release. 'He brings a great deal of passion and energy to his show, which will also be reflected in his new role as program director.'"
This is Waist High "SPREADING THE WORD."
(rickemerson.com) An Open Letter to Dave Grohl:
Hey, you seem like an alright guy. I didn't care for your former bandmate's reflexive, hipster posing, but whatever. It's a big world, right?
I'm just posting this to let you know that I'm listening to your new double-CD right now. The Foo Fighters' In Your Honor is pretty breathtaking in spots. Not a masterpiece, but better than I'd expected. At certain points, it seems almost stunningly reminiscent of Led Zeppelin, which isn't a bad thing. Here's the deal, though---I'm listening to a copy I downloaded off the internet.
Before you send the royalty police after me, you should know that I own the CD, as well. I even paid full price for it. A few weeks back, I was in L.A. on a kind of road trip, and we stopped at a record store to buy some, as the kids once said, "cruising music." (Not that we were actually cruising, but you get the idea.) We picked up the new Death Cab for Cutie, your CD, and an MxPx record. All good choices, as it turned out.
For the next few days, yours was the one that found its way into our car stereo most frequently---driving down the Southern California highway, In Your Honor was a near-perfect soundtrack, moving from smooth acoustic ballads to flat-out hard rock with charming ease. As the Pacific glittered underneath the moon, you were our companion, and that's what music, in its ideal sense, is.
Now I know that some folks will have already written this off as romantic, music-lover bullshit, but they, of course, don't matter. The people who are with me, as they say---they know what I mean.
Here's the sad part: when I returned home to Portland, I wanted to take those songs with me on future trips---in my car, or on a bike ride, or while I navigated the furthest reaches of the internet. Only here's the thing: your CD won't let me. Oh sure, it played fine in the rental car in SoCal, but that's a rental car; all it had was a CD player, and I, for one, don't live in 1992 anymore. I own two MP3 players (three, if you count the one in my car), and a computer at which I do hours of typing every day. So, if you don't mind, I'd like to listen to a CD I purchased wherever I goddamned please, except that's apparently not kosher with the folks at Sony BMG.
Say, is this the same Sony that got in trouble last week for damaging the computers of consumers who tried to listen to Sony music on their home PCs? Why, yes, it is.
Fuck you, jackals...I just downloaded your "uncrackable" CD from the internet, and I'm not the least bit sorry about it.
I won't try and make myself appear more noble than I am; I've downloaded music without paying, and will, no doubt, do so in the future. But, as time has gone on, I've developed my own internal morality alarm for such things, and I try to support artists whose work I respect or admire...hence the large number of CDs in my collection that I don't really need. (Hell I bought a recent Queers disc, and used it exactly once; I ripped it to my Nomad MP3 player, after which the CD sat on a shelf, where it will gather dust for all time.) I do these things not only because it feels right, but because it is right. Music is art, and love, and hope, and freedom, and many of us choose to support it with our dollars. You would do well to support us by making it easy to enjoy that music.
As this started off as a memo to Dave Grohl and degenerated into an anti-Sony rant, let me circle back and make this observation to the Foo Fighters frontman: I'm sure this happened without your consent, or at least I hope so. I know that even a successful artist like yourself has corporate whims imposed on him from time to time. I just wanted to let you know what a typical music fan sometimes goes through...all for the love of a band.
If I could just send you nine bucks (or whatever your cut is), and have you send me the records from now on, I would. Unfortunately, that doesn't really seem to be an option, and that's the damnable misery of the whole thing. The music and the joy it brings...that's what's pure. Everything else is meddlesome fucking greed.
Signed,
Rick
"FOR EVERYONE WHO EVER MADE A MIX TAPE. FOR ANYONE WHO'S EVER THROWN THE DEVIL HORNS. FOR ANYONE WHO EVER WROTE SONG LYRICS ON THEIR TRAPPER KEEPER. FOR ANYONE WHO EVER CALLED A RADIO STATION, SAYING 'WHAT WAS THAT SONG?!?!' FOR ANYONE WHO LOVED MUSIC SO MUCH THAT IT WAS NEARLY AN ADDICTION. AND FOR ANYONE WHO STILL DOES."
Beloved Portland talk radio personality Rick Emerson, cruelly ripped from the arms of Waist High earlier this year, has been very busy:
"From our sold out performance at PSU, it's blossomed into a full-length feature film, one that's about to be released in its complete, glorious, ultra-bitchin' form. With a live band laying down nearly twenty rock and metal classics, and a rabid, screaming audience, it's a two hour journey through life as an American rock-and-roll teen. It's packed with rants, diatribes, and hilarious tangents...all set to the loudest soundtrack you've ever heard. It's like George Carlin meets KISS, or Jon Stewart in bed with GWAR. Or...something. But it must be seen to be believed."
Bigger Than Jesus: The Diary Of A Rock and Roll Fan.
Oh, and about that love life, a man made a mix tape for me this week. Take THAT Bake Town.
NO! Nor can they kill the Waist High star! Bastards.
For those of you that have been concerned about Waist High lately, please know that your cards, prayers, and letters have meant so much. She is doing much better now. Just yesterday she was able to keep food down for the first time, she is no longer mumbling incoherently, and her doctor has said that the tremors will subside in a couple of weeks:
(vanguardweekly.com) Particularly painful, and THE GREATEST LOSS TO THE PORTLAND AIRWAVES, was the cancellation of The Rick Emerson Show (the only live local talk host in his 9 to noon slot), whose singular voice and irreverent brand of social commentary virtually the sole lifeline tethering Portland radio over an automated abyss raised Emerson and his band of merry media outlaws to cult status.
Emerson's jaundiced eye and sharp tongue took aim at, and skewered the broadest-possible cross section of cultural icons from Britney Spears and Michael Jackson to George Bush, the Pope, war, cars, television, cannibalism, guns, boobs, Catholic schoolgirls, aliens, life in the Northwest, convenience stores, and all things Rock 'n' Roll.
In his caffeine-fueled dismantling of popular American culture, Emerson was joined by a cast of regulars including news legend Tim Riley, aforementioned producer Sarah Dylan, weekend Fuel host and former producer Matt Peterson, weekend Ground Zero host and long time friend Clyde Lewis, Kyle the intern, and frequent guests Jen Lane of Barfly Magazine, Scott Daley of filmfever.org, Jolie from Corporate Accounts Payable, Kristen from Accounting, Aaron Geek In The City, and many, many others.
The phrenetic and funny Emerson separated himself from the smarmy jokesterism of the typical radio morning show host with his style, intellect, an acerbic wit, and an encyclopedic knowledge of modern times.
Was Emerson too hip for the room? Too hip for Entercom perhaps, but Rick's fans are smart, and deserve smart radio. Entercom's decision to pull the plug leaves Portland-market radio like a party balloon: beneath the shiny, fragile veneer all that remains is stale air; a poor prize for a fanbase who's loyalty is legend and who's number is legion.
But Rick Emerson will not go gently into that good night it seems: His website continues to be updated, and he offered fans this message the day after his firing: "...I'm sure we'll meet again, but never doubt, even for a moment, that YOU made The Rick Emerson Show what it was. Without you, I'm just some angry guy rattling pencils on a street corner downtown. (Speaking of which, where's my tin cup?) You are the reason, the inspiration, the motivation, and the reward for everything we did, and everything we will do in the future. Never give up, never give in, and never, ever let the bastards grind you down. I love you all."
When contacted for comment, Emerson added "Let everyone involved know that they are not taken for granted. Given all the listening choices they have, that they would choose our show is a compliment of the highest order."
Fans aren't giving up either. They have already begun their campaign to return his program to the airwaves of Portland.
Coffee Cup Crusade
The Coffee Cup Crusade, started by a coterie of bloggers who lamented the show's demise, asks listeners to drop off a coffee mug (or three) at the Portland headquarters of Entercom Communications, until recently, the home of Max 910 and the notoriously-caffeinated Emerson. Adding inside each mug a note reading, "I need my morning fix. Bring back Rick Emerson."
As of Tuesday afternoon, message boards, like the one at www.geekinthecity.com, hosted by show regular and "go-to geek" Aaron Duran were overflowing, and many posters were requesting driving directions, which they received, along with an admonition to keep things civil:
"We don't want to cause any trouble," said one fan, "we just want our show back. This is about family."
Rick Emerson and company are obviously searching for a new home, and are encouraged by their track record: "The amount of money, the number of people, the sheer number of unhinged lunatic fans that we brought to advertisers, that we brought to venues for our live events, it's only a matter of time 'til that finds the right home," said Emerson. "Anyone who wants a huge band of alcohol-laden crazies with money to spend should contact Rick Emerson."
We will be forever in the debt of Geek In the City for his unwavering devotion to the mental health of radical Rick Emerson fans everywhere! It is now very possible that we might not have to shuffle around in our slippers, unbathed and unkempt, doing shots of cheap Tequila to cope, forever:
(oregonlive.com) HEY! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY RADIO TUNES, DUDE? Fans give corporate owners plenty of static over format changes and dial moves.
Fans of Don Imus, Rick Emerson and Clyde Lewis are ticked that the MAX 910 "talk radio for guys" format on 910 AM (KOTK) got canned. Golden-oldies lovers are miffed that KISN (KKSN) got bounced from it's 97.1 FM berth to the squawkier 910 AM band. Local-radio partisans are perturbed that the 97.1 FM spot was taken by "CharlieFM" (KYCH), a random-hits format they decry as corporate radio with no Portland flavor or personalities.
But a passel of peeved Portlanders aren't taking the recent format switches made by Entercom Portland lying down. That static you hear? The sound of angry listeners. Let us count the ways they're mad:
Leading the torches-and-pitchforks brigade is Aaron Duran, 29-year-old freelance writer, film-and-video production worker and energetic blogger of Geekinthecity.com. A longtime fan of Emerson's 9 a.m.-to-noon talk/politics/pop culture show on the MAX 910 format, Duran was horrified to learn Emerson got the boot April 21, the day the format changes suddenly happened. "Corporate America has again taken something that I took real joy in listening to," Duran posted on his blog.
But, like the proud geeks whose grass-roots campaign helped bring back the animated series "Family Guy" to Fox, Duran decided to mount a crusade.
The Coffee Cup Crusade, to be exact. His effort includes asking fans to place notes inside coffee mugs asking that Emerson and Co. be brought back (along the lines of "I need my fix") and then mail or bring the mugs to the Entercom studios in Southwest Portland, the local office for the Pennsylvania-based company. Duran also encouraged fans to contact Entercom advertisers "in a civil and polite manner" about the change.
Things have calmed down only a little bit up here in P-Town after last week's biggest radio programming shakeup in years. Without her daily Rick Emerson fix Waist High has been:
1. Drooling
2. Listening to alot of Joy Division
3. Continuing to drive her car knowing it has no coolant
And then we've got long time Waist High enemy Bake Town running around the earth talking about her "Press Pass."
I sure hope May brings better times.
Quoting Craig Big Eagle, Waist High would like to second that emotion: THOSE FUCKING BASTARDS!
Waist High's favorite local radio talk show was ripped from the air yesterday. With no notice. AND PEOPLE ARE ANGRY! My chum Geek In The City included.
Max910 official statement: "With the advent of high definition (digital) radio on the horizon and a marked improvement in AM quality, music formats on the AM dial will become prevalent again. Unfortunately, we say goodbye to MAX910 and the many terrific talk radio talent that made it special: Don Imus, Rick Emerson, Don & Mike, Tom Leykis, Phil Hendrie and more. MAX910 has been a great ride and no doubt these very entertaining personalities will be back on the radio in Portland again soon."
To know the Rick Emerson Show is to love it. Equally missed will be Rick's brilliant Newsman Tim Riley. Although this is a great loss to Portland radio, the staff here at Waist High feel confident that they will find a new home very soon.
