Thursday, June 5, 2025

THE HARDLINE GETS IT RIGHT

REMINDER: I WILL DELETE "ANONYMOUS" COMMENTS AND THOSE I FIND GRATUITOUSLY VULGAR, INSULTING, INCOMPREHENSIBLE, OR JUST GENERALLY ANNOYING, IN MY SOLE AND UNREVIEWABLE DISCRETION.

46 comments:

  1. I was delighted that The Hardline saw fit to evaluate Rick Derringer for admission to that blessed Three Bedroom Suite in the sky, and voted him in.

    I won't repeat Derringer's many contributions to rock-and-roll, both with an axe in his hands, as a songwriter, and behind the board. I will point out, however, that notorious guitar-exhausters Steely Dan used him on three of their albums: "Chain Lightning" on "Katy Lied," "My Rival" on "Gaucho," and, most notably on slide on "Show Biz Kids" on "Countdown to Ecstasy." ("Show biz kids/Making movies of themselves / You know they don't give a fuck about anybody else") I note also that Eddie Van Halen threw his band off of a VH tour because Rick wouldn't stop playing "Eruption" as part of the opening act.

    Rick Derringer (born Richard Zehringer – when his band the McCoys became Johnny Winter's backup for the band Johnny Winter And, his drummer brother was credited as "Randy Z") was a big part of my rock-and-roll awakening. I played "Johnny Winter And – Live" until the vinyl was smooth.

    And if you want a taste of what he brought to gotta-move ass-twitching rock-and-roll, I commend to you his performance of Chuck Berry's "Living in the USA" on Edgar Winter's White Trash live album "Roadwork":

    https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=living+in+the+usa+rick+derringer&type=E211US1357G0#id=1&vid=b44d32ec26b309134d871a1a074b0097&action=click

    (Blogger may have a way to publish links, but I've never found it. Sorry) I'll concede that Rick's playing here reprises almost every RnR guitar cliche you can think of, but it's some GREAT cliche reprising as his red Gibson ES-335 really cuts through the phlegm of a crappy day. (Photo is from the album cover, with Johnny
    Winter making his first appearance after rehab playing Rick's "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo at the show.)

    RIP Rick, and welcome to your rest in the Ticket pantheon.

    And nice work, Hardline.

    PS: Does anyone remember whether Beaumont's own Johnny Winter got a room?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, and by the way: Crank that link.

    ReplyDelete
  3. He DOES still listen to The Ticket!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. As a Trifecta Traditionalist, where one of the tenets was that the person had to be famous or at least easily known when their name is mentioned. For the musicians and audiophiles, maybe. Random knobhead on the innerwebs…he’s a ‘no’.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Call me a moron I dare youJune 5, 2025 at 8:06 AM

    Is great hearing Norm this am.. condom talk was hilarious

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed, its been a really enjoyable show with Norm, Craig and Gordo this morning. I'm really happy to hear Norm sounding so strong. The last few times I've heard him I felt like I could hear his age in his voice but today he sounds really strong, like the Norm of old. I feel like he played along more with Gordo than he has in the past and it made for some great segments. I'm glad Norm is still around for fill-ins, the draft and Normathon, and that his departure from the station was on good terms. He's a local treasure, IMO, and we shan't see his like again.

      Delete
  6. It was very clear that unlike his energy, Norm very much did not choose retirement

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He does all the pickin’.

      Delete
    2. I can’t say who I am or what I so, but I can tell you what I’ve learned. Norm wanted to quit immediately after the 2023 draft and either Bennett or Catlin had to point out that contracts work both ways and he needs to keep working until they have plans in place. That’s why he didn’t actually depart until mid June.

      Delete
  7. Did somebody say “keep on rockin’”?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hold onto it tight fans of Ticket adjacents. Big one coming down soon.

    ReplyDelete
  9. On last night’s show, Sirois and Danny discussed what they were making at the Ticket when they left. After 17 years, Sirois was making a base between $35,000 - $40,000. With endorsements, it was just shy of $50,000. After 23 years, Danny was making $60,000…and he was practically a 3rd host. So for the people who give them crap about leaving…kick rocks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you know what time the talk about the ticket/the fan stuff starts. Or is it mixed in? I really don’t want to listen to 2:22:00

      Delete
    2. About the 1:45 mark.

      Delete
    3. A few things need to be said. First off, I watched live most of last night's CdS. I keep giving it a try and keep coming away with the same thoughts. More on those in a bit. Second, and if this was mentioned and I didn't hear it, please correct me. When you look at their hours, both Danny and Mike worked part-time. Danny, roughly 20 and change per week; Mike, roughly 15 and change. I never, ever hear them or anyone else of the ex-Ticketeers make mention of this. Again, if either did last night, please let me and and I'll stand corrected. Regardless, either salary plus insurance and any other attendant earning oppurtinities/celebrity is pretty damn good money. Really good money. You can say all you want that they were de facto hosts. But they weren't. That was not their job title. That was not what they were hired to do. Please see Fernando's career if you think producers are asked to be unpaid cohosts. It's a flase claim based on producers and suppot staff having the privelige of a live mic and the hosts' permission/encouragement to use it and listeners' assumptions. Those assumptions rarely if ever reflect reality. To that, in no world does a producer earn as much or even commensurably as much as a host. Thirdly and finally, you engage in a sophistical ploy here. While I'm sure you can find a few trolls and/or short-sighted comments to the contrary, on the whole no one ever begrudged them for leaving and "betting on themselves." Not at all. Indeed, most everyone understood why and didn't blame them. What was questioned was they manner in which they set about it. So, perhaps it's you who should pound sand for using a cheap rhetorical trick.

      As to the new version of CdS, I'm not sure what they're trying to achieve. Thus far it's come off as a self-help, self-directed, therapeutic session for two middle-aged men -- guided by another middle-aged man who steers the conversation. One where they shape a narrative that places any and all failure onto circumstance and other's incompetency. Then there was Danny spouting the copium (lie) Rhyner immediately crapped out after TF's demise: iHeart didn't know what to do with us, they've never had an all-talk station. Well, that's an easily proven lie. Not only does iHeart have such stations --exactly like TF--, those stations are some of their most successful. Again, easily proven. It'll take you all but a few seconds to find the info. There were so many missteps taken by all of them that had zero to do with iHeart, management or the lack thereof, yet they never can bring themselves to say, "We pissed it away in doing ___." Any acceptance of any level of culpability is immediately followed with a caveat assigning blame to circumstance and/or others and their podcast download numbers, which is 100% the same thing Richie Whitt would do when RaGE failed. The very same thing Danny, Mike, and Corby would snicker at on air at TT in a not so sublte way.

      I won't get into the rest of their Ticket discussion regarding Cat, et cetera. How many more times can they dip into that punchbowl before there's nothing left? I'd say not many. The audience for what now is already (in this day and age) fast becoming ancient history is dwindling down to triple digits at best, but mostly double.

      So what's next? Thing is, I think all three have something to say. I wish they'd drop the apparent trajectory of doing TT or TF on their "own terms," and offer something different to an audience that cares about what they have to offer. Embrace your middle-agedness that is hurtling toward senior citizenship. You will never garner young viewers. The ones you do will be short-lived. Talk of things aging as a Gen Xer. THAT is your audience. It is the audience of peak Ticket, of Halcyon Days Ticket, of when TT was a (if not the) focal point of your and our lives. It, YOU, would be authentic. No more reliance on one-sided, self-serving dishing dirt and showing where bodies are buried. Screw bits. Screw games. Just be yourselves and talk about real shit in a real way. As it is, the well has already run dry.

      Delete
    4. Just a couple quick corrections, Beaker:

      First: your assertion that people on here were mostly supportive of them betting on themselves is patently false. All comments are saved. It’s easy enough to peruse back through that time and see all the people who were angry they left, not for how they exited but purely because of the fact they left the mothership. Ticket tribalism is alive and well!

      Second: producers work many more hours than the time they’re on air. Suggesting that the only time they worked was during the hours of their show is laughable - as though there’s no show prep. That’s not how the industry works.

      I’m with you in hoping CdS turns the corner into finding its own footing without just living on the rehashing of past days. The audience for that is dwindling and that was never the way to have a successful long-term show. Maybe how it starts but then the corner must be turned. You outlined well one possible avenue. Here’s hoping that one such avenue is taken…and that we get good entertainment out of both TT and other sources.

      Delete
    5. Alright RagonkForce - let’s see it. Show me one comment that was angry Mikey and Dingu left. I guarantee you there isn’t one. In fact, I’ll go you one further and say the majority of comments on here when the Freak rumors were starting were supportive of the concept, as most believed that it would force TT to step up it’s game.

      It was only after TF started and proved to be very bad (like Day 2) and the Dan and Jake rumors started that the tribalism reared its head.

      Delete
  10. I like Sirois and Danny but a lot of show prep? Maybe…I felt Like Sirois missed as many days as he worked. Fernando did show prep that was obvious, Danny? Idk

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thing is RF, you began commenting here after Dan and Jake flew the coop. During the holy cow every Rhyner lil buddy is quitting and all citing the same thing then magically becoming Freak hosts era, very few were angry with them. Pretty much everyone got it. Like the other dude said, the gen consensus was kick ass, now TT will have teal competition and will step its game up. And we’ll get the old bad ass Rhyner back: As far as Sirois and Fanny putting in Fernando and name your BaD/HZ producer hours and prep goes… what planet have you been living on?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Beaker, I see plenty of News Talk and Political Talk stations owned by iHeart but I don't see any Hot Talk stations. I don't think Danny was lying about that.

    If it was such a popular format, there would have been one here in town and it's been nearly two decades since Live 1053 went off the air. What TF was trying to do was pretty unique in the grand landscape of radio these days.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Chip, they do, but they’re not listed as Hot Talk. There are scant few stations, regardless of paren company, that list as such. But there are dozens of lifestyle/entertainment driven formats across the country and under the iHeart aegis. Rhyner knows this. I’ll give Danny a bit of the benefit of the doubt and say he is unwittingly passing along and finding comfort in Rhyner’s ever growing list of copium bs. A bit, because Danny hasn’t always been truthful vis-a-vis The Freak and his role in its nascency.

    I’m sorry, RagonkForce, but you have only a small sliver of the story correct. As Chief said above, you seem to be mistakenly applying the post HZ-Cumulus affair to things that developed prior to that ness. Appreciate we agree on CdS and appreciate your civility.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I worked in sales at TT for a while, and can tell you both Mike and Danny strolled in about 20-30 minutes before their show. Spent enough time doing the circuit trying to find them. Out the sales area thru the mail room, down the hall making a restroom or water fountain break if needed, then they the back door and Down the back hall. There’s an office, then the show merging/prep room. Norm would be in the other prep room at end of that hall by 6 or7, Mike would show up 930, and Danny about 230p. Producers may have been doing behind the scenes work, BAD expected there producer to be an archivist, content producer (Homer call) and more. But Danny and Mike? Neither were known as a hard worker in my time there
    C

    ReplyDelete
  15. Technically DifficultJune 12, 2025 at 11:09 AM

    Not giving my identity. Worked at the station from ‘14 until ‘23 in a support capacity. Never once did I get even a second of air time. Couple of things. Some of you guys get awfully close to the truth. Like damn near spot on. Other thing is Mike would show up obviously hungover af or still going from the night before. Danny was hungover a lot. Both usually arrived a half hour or less before their shift. Fernando was an old school seasoned pro. Every BAD producer was run through the gauntlet daily. Last thing to say is I was treated well by every host. Every one there was friendly. Including Mike and Danny.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I always got the feeling being a BAD Radio producer was a massive job and sounded dreadful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Probably. Feel like Dan was the only guy that it was normalish for him to yell at a producer or low level employee lol.

      Delete
    2. One of my biggest issues with San was his treatment of the producers when he’d twist off on them. For a man of the people who sure drew a hard line distinction between talent and support staff and how he treated them on air. It might have all been an act but some of those encounters got pretty heated. Bob isn’t much better. I would not have made it working for those two.

      Delete
    3. San? Damn Fat fingers. Should be Dan.

      Delete
  17. Two insiders in one day with the same obvious insights.

    Ehhhhhhh I don’t know Jim!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dang it fellas! There I go opening my proverbial mouth again! My apologies to any hurt feelings my regrettable comment might’ve caused. I’ll do better. I am better.

      Delete
    2. Shoot! I forgot to point out that I erroneously employed “obvious.” Must be better!

      Delete
  18. For all the "ticket sux now" - "middays are terrible" - "musers mailing it in" - hey, there might be a little truth in those, but......for the 6th year in a row, Davey has taken over the airways, & DJ Oldwaver is crushing it!
    It's like that saying I kinda heard awhile ago....they can't something that....I'll figure it out later, Berlin is on now!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was surprised by Davey referring to Metro as a deeper cut. I would consider Metro a very well played song of the era. Davey knows way more than I do about the subject though and maybe just really liked Berlin for all the reasons a teenage boy in the 80s would like Berlin.

      Delete
    2. Yo, KDF. Was that your MEAT BEAT MANIFESTO???? Rock me.

      Delete
    3. It’s too bad Bob and Corby’s family don’t know his name

      Delete
    4. They just lost a listener! Thank you for putting this out. Bet you anything Cat said if either family acknowledged Davey, Bob and Corby would lose their jobs. Total corporate boot lickers. DZ forever, man.

      Delete
    5. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2FqwC4dEMo>Stop Sobbing</a>

      Delete
    6. Did that stunt score points with your fellow travelers? If so, what a banner day for you. If not, perhaps we need a re-think? Perhaps? Softly.

      Delete
    7. Overrated band. Mediocrity of a song.

      Delete
  19. Ode to George. We all know the _______ is my leader bit. I have a personal encounter with Bob where he was very kind and generous, but this post is re: Jub. And, Plainsman how about a little positivity? George is the current MVP of TT. Everything he touches and everywhere he shows up gets better. I recall him noticing Dak's potential when he was in his first training camp. That's one of thousands of notes on his sports chops, his comedy bits are gold, (I'm in the camp who doesn't think they're tired or old), and my man emotes with the best of them. Loves his boys and his family in general. Jub seems to be the definition of the "good dude." I love listening to the Musers. They're all great. I'm happy they cut their time down and are getting more time off. I'll take what I can get as long as they last, and for right now, George is MVPing the crap out of the TT right now. Peace.

    ReplyDelete