Eggs Over Easy Rider
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Eggs Over Easy Rider My Journey from Rock & Roll Producer to Motorcycle Star and Web Radio Host By Garrison Leykam 1 Eggs Over Easy Rider: My Journey from Rock & Roll Producer to Motorcycle Star and Web Radio Host Copyright: 2013 Garrison Leykam Published: March 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate Find out more about the author at www.ThoseDinerAndMotorcycleGuys.com Email: [email protected] Twitter: @MotoDiners 2 "It was a pleasure to chat with Garrison, an informed and enthusiastic host who really listens!" Jon Herington, Steely Dan "Thank you so much for interviewing me. Garrison, you are a terrific interviewer and it was a pleasure being on your show. I appreciate your generous spirit." Alexandra Paul, Baywatch TV star, actress, athlete and activist "(Garrison) was very well prepared and asked great questions. It was a most pleasant experience and the time was over before I knew it." Dr. Charles M. Falco, experimental physicist and curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's "The Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit “Those Diner and Motorcycle Guys were so much fun! I had a great time speaking with Garrison…he made me laugh and feel really comfortable.” Supermodel, actress and PETA activist Elisabetta Canalis 3 "I've done tons of interviews over the last few months. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Garrison actually read my book in prep for our interview. Not only was he knowledgeable about the content, his questions were directly related to the book, and some stuff I'd left out like riding motorcycles. Garrison is without a doubt the best at what he does." Ron Eckerman, manager for The Doors and author of Turn It Up! "Garrison is like a biker buddy you've ridden with for years. It was great fun to hang out and swap stories from the road with him." Paul James, Director of Consumer Influence and Product Communications, Harley-Davidson "What could be finer than a show that celebrates two of the best things ever given to the world by America...diners and motorcycles." Christine Ohlman, SNL Band "Those Diner and Motorcycle Guys 'get it.' The only thing I missed was a cup of coffee and a nice piece of blueberry pie." Author Tom Cotter, Harley in the Garage "Food, bikes and music...what more is there?" Carl Verheyen, Supertramp 4 Dedication I want to thank first the people I love and who are closest to me: my son, Christopher, my daughter Morgan and my life partner, Nanci Fox. A huge “thanks” to my radio show co-host Ralph DeLuco for being my ideal other half. And, my heartfelt thanks to all the people in my life and career who’ve influenced me in so many different ways: Rich Eisenman, Peter Hay, David Morris, Walt Maguire, Dudley H. Toller-Bond, Betty-Lynn White, Lorry Mann, Martha Glaser, Howie Mann, Harry Hirsch, Bill Ham, Erroll Garner, Jay Sperco, Bob Burg, John Woram, John Leykam and Gerry Hoff. A special “thanks” to Chip Gengras for supporting “Those Diner and Motorcycle Guys” and for offering the Gengras Harley-Davidson dealership as the show’s home. 5 Table of Contents School Daze…5 The London Wave…15 The Divestiture Wave…30 The Internet Radio Wave…37 Working at Home…39 Choosing an Internet Radio Platform… 41 Equipment…43 Define Your Show…45 Booking Guests…46 Scheduling a Show…48 Hosting Your Show…49 Booking Guests, PreRecorded Interviews and Editing…51 Interviewing…53 Promoting Your Show…54 Monetizing Your Show…60 I M Possible…64 6 School Daze Two events influenced my life and career: The Beatles arrival in the United States in 1964 and reading George Plimpton’s Paper Lion. From my living room in New Rochelle, I watched and listened to The Beatles first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9th. Along with a record-setting audience of 73 million U.S. viewers, I heard the look and sound of rock and roll change forever as John, Paul, George and Ringo sang and played “All My Loving,” “Til There Was You,” “She Loves You,” “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” It was the first wave of the British Invasion. As I sat cross-legged in front of the TV, I was completely unaware that just 6-years from that landmark broadcast I would be caught in the undertow of the British Wave and my passions for guitar would bring me to working with the many of the UK superstars that were landing on The Ed Sullivan Show and creating a musical beachhead right on my TV screen. The Beatles’ release of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album was a musical inspiration to me and would influence my approach to audio engineering and record production long after the vinyl on my LPs succumbed to hundreds of playings. Sgt. Pepper's marked an improvement in the quality of the foursome’s music production while they explored with their producer, Sir George Martin, groundbreaking experimental recording techniques. Although eight-track tape recorders were already available in the US, the first eight-tracks were not operational in commercial studios in London until late 1967, shortly after the album was released. Like its predecessors, the recording made extensive use of the technique known as "bouncing down" in which a number of tracks were recorded across the four tracks of one recorder, which were then mixed and dubbed down onto one or several tracks of the master four-track machine. This enabled the Abbey Road engineers to give the group a virtual multi-track studio. Although it had long been recognized that using multitrack tape to record "doubled" lead vocals produced a greatly enhanced sound, it had always been necessary to record such vocal tracks twice; a task which was both tedious and exacting, especially for John Lennon who hated tracking sessions and regularly expressed a desire for a technical solution to the problem. Martin, having fun at Lennon's expense, described the new technique to an inquisitive Lennon as a "double- bifurcated sploshing flange". The anecdote explains one variation of how the term "flanging" came to be associated with this recording effect. Also important was varispeeding, the technique of recording various tracks on a multi-track tape at slightly different tape speeds, which was used extensively on their vocals in this period. The speeding up of vocals became a widespread technique in pop production. The band also used the effect on portions of their backing tracks to give them a "thicker" and more diffuse sound. Even though I was not yet a recording engineer, the mind has a way of filing information away and making it available decades later. And, although the digital age passed its prior analog predecessor at warp speed, ultimately making available to every audio neophyte a world of online gizmos and gadgetry, what stayed with me the most was how a 7 monumental album like Sgt. Pepper could be produced without today’s warehouse of audio wonders and that less is truly more; that the message, the music, is what’s important and not to let technology get in the way. In 1966, my junior year of high school, George Plimpton’s book Paper Lion came out about his experiences playing professional football with the Detroit Lions. The New York Times praised Plimpton for his “endless curiosity, unshakable enthusiasm and nerve, and a deep respect for the world he enters," personality traits which I continue to emulate to this day. Paper Lion probably would have escaped my attention entirely had not my brother brought it home to do a college book report about it. The title got me so curious that I started reading about how Plimpton attended preseason training with the Lions and then ran a few plays in an intra-squad scrimmage. Shortly thereafter he would join the Baltimore Colts and actually run plays against the Detroit Lions in an exhibition game. I was fascinated by Plimpton’s participatory journalism and how he tried things he had never done on a level few of us would even attempt, like training as an ice hockey goalie with the Boston Bruins which he chronicled in his book, Open Net. Across his career he would add to his list of professional adventures that of stand-up comedian, movie bad guy, circus performer, boxer, tennis player and he even wangled a temporary percussionist's job with the New York Philharmonic playing sleigh bells, triangle, bass drum and gong for which Leonard Bernstein himself, who was trying to conduct the piece, burst into applause. Before I graduated from Iona Prep in 1967, The Beatles and George Plimpton had already set the tone for what would evolve over the coming decades into my love of the entertainment industry, in particular, music, combined with my Plimptonian philosophy of life, namely, that if we are to discover who we truly are and what we’re capable of accomplishing we must continually equate life with limitless opportunities to push the boundaries of our potential outwards so as to go after those very things that everyone is too tempted to readily dismiss as ‘beyond my capabilities’ or ‘inappropriate’ or ‘self-centered.’ Life’s greatest rewards are where the highest fruit is to be picked no matter how challenging the climb. And, for me, becoming a radio talk show host was to become one of the most wonderful challenges I thankfully accepted and continue to do today.