Quick Whistles for Bad Discs

From a pile of 45 RPM records on his desk he withdrew one — a new record by the Supremes called "Stoned Love" — and placed it on the new $600 Sansui stereo unit next to his desk.  The familiar Motown Sound began welling up through the walls.  Mel began nodding his head to the rhythm and tapping the toe of one of his $45 Florsheim boots on the speckled purple carpeting.

"A great song," he said.  Mel is a 30-year-old ex-"jock" (disk jockey) from Tampa, Florida, presently the Program Director of WRKO, one of Boston's most popular rock radio stations.  As such he is is very much in a position to determine what will — and what won't — be heard by thousands of listeners.

When Mel passes on the Supreme's new record, you can't help getting the feeling it will be turning up among the Big 30 hits on WRKO one of these days.

Wednesday is "Music Day" at the station, a day when Mel and his 24-year-old Music Director, Paul Power, get together in Mel's office to audition the worthiest of this week's new records.  About the only sounds heard from within, besides the popular ones of the day, are the breaking of some old musical reputations.

Barbra Streisand's was one of the first.  The record was called "Stony End," and it featured a commercialized, softly rocking beat that perhaps only a middle-aged recluse could believe is relevant to today's music.  "We don't like it at all," Mel said, whipping it off the turntable.

Tina Turner ("Working Together) was kissed off in spite of the fact that Ike's name is spelled backwards on the label (Eki Benrut) to attract attention.

The Melanie record also fared poorly, especially since it was the flip side of a record that had been previously rejected.  "This side won't make it either," said Mel, lifting the needle.

Before long, they were into what Mel referred to  as "the really marginal stuff."  Records were put on and taken off  at such rapid speed there was barely time to identify the artists — Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fifth Dimension, Dorothy Morrison, Mark Lindsay, Savage, Grace, Iron Butterfly, Chakra, and Crystal Mansion, to name a few.

The off-hand commentary became more interesting than the music itself.  What follows is the name of the artist accompanied by Mel's aside:

The Beach Boys — "I don't want to hear anything by them at all."  Kent Morrill — "I don't know who the hell he is.  It's a terrible record.  Etta James — "She'll go on singing forever.  She must be 50 years old."  Tyrone Davis — (A yawn.) Proud as Punch — "One bar, that's all they get."

The denouement was achieved with the playing of a novelty record, "Hello," by someone named Peter Moessers.  It consisted mostly of a man saying "hello!" in a cheerful voice with a bouncy accordion background.  "You could whistle it on your way to work," said Paul dryly.

There are more on the spindle, and consigning it to at least a temporary oblivion.

Elvis Presley managed to get through a few bars of "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" before he was discarded with the terse comment: "The only place playing it is Memphis."

The new Gary Puckett ("I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself") elicited the derisive observation from Mel that "It's number 117 in Billboard."  Paul said he had heard somewhere that Puckett is in the hospital with appendicitis.  It was agreed that the critical reception to his latest record will not hasten Puckett's recovery.

An instrumental, "Stoned Cowboy" by a group called Fantasy, barely got off the ground.  "Its sounded good last week when I first heard it, but it sounds rotten today," Mel said.

Wilson Picket ("Engine Number 9") was shot down in flames — "Too funky, too soulful; there's no way we need a record like that,"  Mel said, whipping it (the record) off the spindle and consigning it to at least temporary oblivion.

 — and the new Ike and Tina Turner (lines missing from article) appeared in publications like "Billboard," "Cashbox," and something called the "Bob Hamilton Radio Report."

An outsider trying to pin down exactly when, where, and how a record gets its first play might be compared to tracing the origin of an echo in the Alps.  It almost seems as if program directors and disk jockeys are listening to each other all over the country, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

Best bets for air play to come out of the pile yesterday, besides the Supremes record, were: "I Think I Love You," by David Cassidy; "Deeper And Deeper," by Freda Payne and "Still water (Love)," by the Four Tops.

The worst bet was an instrumental version of "El Condor Pasa," the Simon & Garfunkel hit by a group known as the Garden Variety.

"What's the Garden Variety" said Mel.
    "It's an instrumental---" began Paul.
    "Forget it," Mel said.