My (Attenuated) Connection to The First Dance

Like the whole darned Ticket, I'm enjoying "The Last Dance," but I'm enjoying it maybe just a tiny bit more for another reason:  I lived in Chicago during the first and last Jordan years.  It occurred to me the other day that I have a couple of stories related to those astonishing teams, so here they are.

(1)  First, a nothingburger story:  I used to hang out at a saloon called Gibsons (yes, Gibsons, not Gibson's) where Rush Street and State Street come together on the Near North Side.  Upscale steak joint with an extremely lively bar scene and a live piano where I used to warble a standard or two with the jazz players from time to time.

Michael and his entourage didn't come in often, but they were there a few times.  Sat at a big table in the corner with his buds, smoking a cigar.  I was standing in the crush one night when a tall person was squeezing by me.  Looked up.  Michael in a suit.  I nodded, he said "hey," and that was the end of that story.

(2)   I can date this one very precisely.  This was during the Bulls first run to a championship in 1991, the championship series with the Lakers.

In the late eighties and early nineties, the undisputed king of Chicago radio was Jonathon Brandmeier, who had the morning drive show on WLUP, 97.9 FM, 1000 AM, "The Loop."  Born in Wisconsin, he'd had huge success as a wacky morning DJ in Phoenix before coming to Chicago.  His show was built on bits, interaction with his newsman and producer (and sometimes traffic/weather girl), phone pranks, celebrity wake-ups, interviews, listener calls, and they did play some music.  Monster ratings.

 

By the way:  The Loop in those days might be said to have invented sports-talk radio with the evening show hosted by Chet Coppock, whose passing I memorialized in these pages not long ago.  Coppock was a particular leader of young Bob Sturm.  (https://myticketconfession.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-sports-talk-pioneer-passes-from-scene.html; Bob was kind enough to drop a comment on this article.)   

Johnny B (as he was known) also accepted parody tapes from listeners.  A couple of pals and I got together a little band we called Lower Wacker Overdrive (Lower Wacker Drive being a cross between an engineering marvel and a local joke) and started sending in tapes.  (Yes, children, cassette tapes we would record on a Tascam MiniStudio or the like.)   The tapes, with maybe one or two exceptions, all related to the morning show.   I did some songs on my own under my own name.   All in all we had about 21 songs broadcast, including one original composition.

On June 11, 1991, the Bulls were up 3-1 on the Lakers.  Game 5 would be the next night in Los Angeles.  For some reason I was riding with a female acquaintance and I mentioned I'd had a parody kicking around in my head relating to the series but I'd never gotten around to writing or recording it, too bad.  Just had the first line, which I sang.  She fell into the wheelwell larfing and ordered, I mean commanded, me to finish the song and record it and get it into the station the next morning.   Well, OK.  I blew off work the rest of the day, went home, knocked out some lyrics.  I didn't have the ability to record the song myself, so I took the original and just recorded my lyrics over the original.  In a few hours had my tune.

She kindly took it up to the station before the show started early on June 12, 1991 -- Game 5 was to be played that night -- and dropped off the tape around 5:30 when the show began.   Wanted to get it in early, hoping the producer (Jimmy "Bud" Wiser) would rush it in to Brandmeier.   He must have, because when I tuned in that morning, Johnny was talking about it.  By the time the show was over, it had been played several times on the air and was a hit with the on-air staff.  Like my ladyfriend's  reaction, it got yoks just from reciting the title, which depends on a vulgar double meaning.  After I left Chicago, friends told me Brandmeier would play it from time to time.

At the time, Chicagoans were so certain the Bulls were going to win that there was some sentiment that fandom wanted the Bulls to lose that night so the series would come back to Chicago where surely the Bulls could take 1 of 2.  But they won that night, 108-101, for their first of the Jordan championships.

I have an original recording and off-the-air recordings on a CD, and if I knew how to convert that to something I could link to here, I'd do it.  But I'll at least give you the lyrics.  

One thing you need to know to understand the first verse:  Like The Ticket, the Johnny B Morning Showgram had a number of repeated bits.  One of them was a stupid joke, the only joke the newsman Buzz Kilman knew.  It was an exceedingly dumb kid's joke, so dumb that it was funny, and it was brought up on the show from time to time (and thus well-known to listeners).  The joke was:  "What did the farmer get when he stepped on a rake?  A couple of ache-ers."

Ladies and gentlemen:

"Got a Black Magic Johnson" 

(imagine Santana playing underneath)

Got a black magic johnson

Got a black magic johnson

Got a black magic johnson

Got my woman glued to The Loop

That Laker gives me two ache-ers

Each time he takes it to the hoop

Now you can have your John Paxson

Will Perdue and Phil Jackson

Because they're all Anglo-Saxon

Mayonnaise down to the bone

You got a black magic johnson

Your woman won't leave you alone

Now you may think it's important

To have your Pippen and Jordan

Yeah, your B.J., Horace and Cartwright

May steal her heart right away

Turn  on that black magic johnson

I promise you she'll come to play

Not long after, a woman I was dating asked if I wanted to go visit the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy.  She was a graphic designer, going to do some kind of brochure on it, I don't remember the details.  Sure.  She took me to this studio where it was her and me and a handful of Bulls and studio personnel, and there it was.  Pretty cool.  She told the guys "this is the guy that did the Black Magic Johnson song on the Brandmeier show."   I got more attention than the trophy did.

At least one Confessor remembers Lower Wacker Overdrive ("that was you?")  when I mentioned it in an article some time back. 

So thanks for letting me relive the only notable thing I've ever done, and my connection to The First Dance, distant though it may have been.

It's been all downhill from there.

A Sports-Talk Pioneer Passes from the Scene -- Chet Coppock, RIP

This will not mean much to most of you, unless you're really, really tied in to the history of sports-talk radio in the United States of America.

It has lost a great one.

Without Chet Coppock, there would be no MTC.

I won't say there wouldn't have been a Ticket, or a WFAN in New York, or a Score in Chicago.

Wikipedia:

"In 1984, while working as sports director at WMAQ radio, Coppock approached the station about creating an in-depth, interview-driven radio sports talk show. The move led to the creation of Coppock on Sports, a show in which Coppock spoke with athletes, coaches, GMs and media members in a longer, un-cut magazine format. The show's success spawned numerous imitators."

That's 1984.  Not 25 years ago.  That's 35 years ago.  And yes, numerous imitators popped up.  Was The Ticket one of them?  I can't claim that.  But his show was an evening-radio-ratings-Death-Valley sensation. Someone must have taken notice.

After that, he moved his show to WLUP in Chicago, where I and my band Lower Wacker Overdrive were a fixture doing parodies for the Jonathon Brandmeier show during morning drive.

Chet was a glad-hander, a grab-asser (probably got him dismissed from his 10 PM News sports anchor job on NBC's WMAQ), a name-dropper, a quintessential Chris-Chris.  He had a high-energy delivery, sometimes saying things that would make you shake your head:  About a particular sports accomplishment:  "If that's not a record, it oughtta be."  Have you thought about it?  He was brilliantly and hilariously parodied weekly by Bruce Wolf on the Brandmeier show as "Chet Chit-Chat."  (Elements of Chicago sports guy Chuck Swirsky in that parody as well.)

He was very tall, blond, full of BS, but I tuned in every night to listen to him and Dangerous Dan McNeil (still on Chicago sports radio to date, had a stint at ESPN) run down hot sports opinions, get amazing interviews, plug restaurants where he probably got comped, and generally amuse the population.  Think of a Howard Cosell who would have been accepted at a WASP fraternity.   He was relentlessly outgoing and cheerful.  Never saw the man without a smile on his face.

He would come into the East Bank Club where I was a member (cue Vivaldi), schmoozing with the movers and shakers and chatting up the amazing skirts that would hang out there.

And in those days when I was trying to think of how I could make money without working, I put down on my list:  all sports-talk radio station.  Did I ever do anything about it?  No.

But he kindled my interest in radio (alongside Johnny B).  He never founded an all-sports station, but he was a pioneer.

He was killed as a passenger in an automobile accident a few days ago.  He was 70.

I would hope that Mike R would have heard of him, and might pay tribute.

But if no one at The Ticket has heard of him, or noted his passing, I wanted to make sure that I did so.  If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have discovered an interest in sports-talk radio -- as you may have discerned, my knowledge about actual sports is pretty sketchy -- as the most entertaining thing on the AM and FM dials.

He would say to callers: "Your dime, your dance floor."   Chet Coppock, RIP.

 

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