Saturday, February 28, 2004
By THERESA M. HEGEL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
"Radio Daze: Stories From the Front in Cleveland's FM Air Wars," by Mike Olszewski (The Kent State University Press, $29)
N "RADIO DAZE," MIKE OLSZEWSKI TRACES the birth and development of Cleveland's FM radio stations. He objectively examines the cutthroat -- and sometimes unscrupulous -- tactics used in the stations' rating wars.
Replete with anecdotal material, the book includes many notable insights and thoughtful reflections from people who were key players during radio's heyday in the 1970s and '80s.
The bulk of "Radio Daze" is devoted to the growth of WMMS and its long domination of Cleveland's airwaves. Olszewski deconstructs the legends surrounding the station and lays bare the facts -- both positive and negative -- behind those myths.
Good and bad
Some of the positive attributes mentioned are how the station often introduced new music and artists to Northeast Ohio, sometimes playing albums before any other station in the country, and WMMS' contribution to bringing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to Cleveland.
On the less-than-positive side, Olszewski discusses a ballot-stuffing controversy surrounding a poll of Rolling Stone readers. In 1988, the Plain Dealer ran an expos & eacute; describing how the results of the poll for best radio station -- which WMMS had been winning consistently for several years by then -- were rigged by the station's staff. The controversy was a major blow to the station's credibility and one of the low points of its long history.
Among the WMMS legends featured in the book are DJs "Kid Leo" and "Matt the Cat," program director John Gorman and "Buzzard Morning Zoo" hosts Jeff Kinzbach and Ed "Flash" Ferenc.
And Olszewski doesn't neglect what is perhaps the station's most famous face: its logo, the WMMS Buzzard. He tells the story of the character's creation by graphic artist David Helton and shows how the bird's importance and appearance evolved through the years.
As Olszewski explains, "The WMMS Buzzard is a little like the Mickey Mouse of Cleveland. It's a character that is recognized around the world and came to symbolize the station and the city. Like the mouse, it had a humble beginning and grew to monstrous proportions, seen on everything from T-shirts and television spots to major motion pictures."
Other stations
Although information on WMMS dominates "Radio Daze," Olszewski does not neglect other stations that influenced Cleveland, many of which are now defunct, such as WNCR, WWWM, WGCL and WENZ.
Unfortunately, the narrative's occasional lack of chronological flow impedes readability. Because Olszewski often jumps back and forth in time and doesn't always clearly define the dates of major happenings, it can be difficult for the reader to maintain an accurate sense of the relationship between events.
Also, it's a bit tough to assimilate the sheer amount of information -- not all of it vital or even very interesting -- contained in the 468-page book.
However, "Radio Daze" is, for the most part, an intriguing and noteworthy achievement and captures the unique sprit that once characterized Cleveland radio.
Olszewski, who has worked for years as a radio and TV journalist and is the founder of the Cleveland Broadcast Archive, has a love for his subject that is readily evident in this carefully crafted and detailed account.
hegel@vindy.com