FM (34 page)

No smiles were exchanged as Elton told him that his mother had insisted that he marry to have a child and continue the family name. “In that case, I’ll have to explain some things to you,” Muni replied. “That thing you do doesn’t produce kids. Do you want me to tell you how it’s done?” With that, the former Reg Dwight burst into laughter. How many other jocks in the world could deal with Elton John in that manner?

He had also forged a deep and lasting friendship with Bill Graham, probably the foremost concert promoter in the history of rock. In addition, he managed bands like the Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, and countless others. His loyalty and respect for Muni resulted in the station garnering many exclusives on artists he represented or shows he promoted. At one time, when the local promoter’s share of the WNEW Christmas concert threatened to slash the money that UCP would receive to almost nothing, Muni called Graham on the West Coast. Bill offered to fly in and promote the show for free, and even tried to talk the artist into a smaller expense allowance. Tragically, Bill Graham’s life was cut short in a helicopter accident a few weeks later.

Although from completely different backgrounds, Muni and Graham shared a no-nonsense sensibility when it came to dealing with artistic temperaments. Once, when Van Morrison played the Bottom Line, Muni went backstage minutes before the scheduled live broadcast. He arrived to see Graham emerge from Morrison’s dressing room, disheveled and bloodied. “The little bastard threw a chair at me and we went at it,” said Graham. “He’ll do your broadcast, but it’ll have to start a few minutes late.” Morrison proceeded to do a flawless set, showcasing his virtuoso skills on sax and vocals. Three nights later on that same tour, Morrison walked off the stage at the Academy of Music after playing only a few numbers and canceled the rest of the remaining dates.

Graham could be equally forceful with his audiences if the situation warranted it. Once, when Jefferson Starship played a free WNEW concert in Central Park, the city police threatened to shut it down if the inebriated concertgoers wouldn’t stop climbing the surrounding trees. Muni was dispatched to go onstage between songs. “Please stop climbing the trees or we’ll have to stop the music,” Muni pleaded. His entreaties fell on deaf ears, so after the next song, Graham grabbed the microphone.

“Get your fucking asses out of the trees, you bunch of shitheads.” Within seconds, the woods were cleared and the show continued.

During a performance at the Fillmore East, a man dressed in a fireman’s uniform leaped onto the stage from the audience pit and grabbed the mic. Graham, thinking he was a prankster from the crowd, wrestled it away and dragged the offender offstage. He was about to issue a savage beating when the man screamed, “Bill! The deli next door is burning to the ground. We’ve got to evacuate the theater.” The alarm was real, and Graham calmly cleared the hall.

Perhaps that’s how Muni learned that sweetness and gentle persuasion don’t always work in the rock world. At the Capitol Theater in New Jersey, Lynyrd Skynyrd was scheduled to do a live radiocast when Ronnie Van Zandt objected. “I ain’t going on some radio station. Not in the mood tonight. The hell with that. I ain’t going on ’til they go off.”

When Muni was informed that the band was backing out of their commitment, he burst into the backstage dressing room. On the table was a large bottle of Jack Daniels that Van Zandt had already put a good-sized dent in. Muni grabbed the bottle, took a long swig, and then waved it at the reluctant singer.

“Listen, you little cocksucker, you may not think you’re going on the radio but I guarantee you, once you start to play, you
are
going to be on our air. And there ain’t nothing you’re gonna do about it. Right?” He took another pull of Jack, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and strode, John Wayne–like, out of the room. The concert broadcast was brilliant.

Of course, there were times when the artists struck back. In their wild younger days, the Grateful Dead’s dressing rooms were virtual pharmacies—a complete assortment of drugs were proudly displayed for all to indulge. Although Muni liked his scotch and would down an occasional Heineken, drugs were outside his realm. He knew of several bad experiences that had happened to friends and his older brother, so Scott was afraid of anything harder than an occasional toke of marijuana when it was passed. The Dead weren’t content to let things be when he continually turned down their offers of acid. They wanted to expand his consciousness, but Muni steadfastly resisted, despite their persistent advocacy. Finally, at one of their later concerts, they seemed to have given in. One of their roadies ushered Muni directly to the beer cooler and offered him a bottle, popping it open for him with a loud
swoosh.
Old Scottso chugged a few swallows, but upon sensing its bitter aftertaste, he realized he’d been dosed. He put it down immediately, but the damage was done. Led onstage, he quickly introduced the band, then ran out of the hall and hailed a cab. Arriving home just as his world started to spin, he had the presence of mind to lock all the doors and windows so “I didn’t do that flying bit. It was a rough night, but I survived. But I remember putting the bottle down and when I came offstage, it was gone. Some stagehand must have had a hell of a night.”

Graham’s artists always seemed to be playing tricks on Muni, some of which he didn’t mind. Once, while interviewing Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, Scott paused during the questioning to read a live spot. While he was in the middle of a serious commercial read, Slick climbed atop the desk housing the console and lifted her skirt over her head. Muni glanced up and beheld that her morning ritual did not include donning panties. An unnerved and distracted Muni was unable to finish reading, so he merely issued his trademark grunt and started the next record.

Like Graham, he always believed in giving struggling new artists a break. When the Allman Brothers complained to Bill that they wanted to play by themselves with no opening act, Graham insisted that they have not one, but two acts before them. “How do you think these bands get started?” he’d ask. “How did
you
get started?” Muni shared that philosophy and fought to have new music on the station, even when classic rock seemed to be the way to go.

Was he as hip with new music as some others? Most of the new artists who met him were surprised at his overall grasp of their material and his sense of historical context. Did he have the more energetic, up-tempo approach that afternoon drive jocks now boasted? No, but he didn’t put you to sleep either. Did he work hard? Not especially, but what did he really need to work hard at?

If you were to weigh his value simply on tangible items, there might be a hundred jocks better than Scottso. Indeed, if you were starting a station in Kansas, you probably wouldn’t hire him. But his intangibles in New York far overwhelmed the competition. His contacts in the business gave WNEW an advantage on new releases or with prestigious bands for concerts or interviews. And his father-confessor role with the air staff helped tame many a budding border dispute.

Artists would often confess their problems to Muni as well. Pete Townshend first publicly revealed his tinnitus in a lengthy talk with Scott when he spoke eloquently of how he struggled to survive in a rock band, given his hearing loss. Townshend was so detailed when discussing the Who that Muni often teased him that he was going to ask a question and then go out for a cigarette while Pete crafted a long-winded answer. All the members of the band were frequent guests on the show; in fact, Keith Moon once arrived almost an hour before the rest were due and therefore had the microphone to himself for an extended period. He revealed that Daltrey, Townshend, and Entwistle were constantly lecturing him about his weight and drug and alcohol consumption. He admitted that he was worried as well, since he feared that if he didn’t curtail his wastrel habits, he was going to die. Barely a month after the interview his fears were tragically realized.

Even some of Scott’s quirks were positive factors—his ridiculous antics with producer Tom Tracy were a morale builder, helping to lighten the mood at the station when the pressure escalated. Muni and Tammy would often start their act in a closed elevator, with Tracy calling Scott a peckerwood motherf—r and threatening to carve him up with a knife. Muni would answer back with racial slurs and the terrified occupants of the lift would exit before they reached their floors to avoid these obvious madmen. All of the constant back and forth was in jest. In fact, when one general manager told Muni he planned to fire Tracy, Muni suggested that he turn in his own resignation first, since he would be canned shortly thereafter. Although he laughed it off, a week later at a company function, while Muni and the man spoke to George Duncan, Scott brought up the proposed firing in a mirthful manner. “Hey George, what would happen if our friend here fired Tom Tracy?”

“I’d fire him before I’d let him do that,” Duncan said, with a straight face. Needless to say, Tammy kept his job.

Muni and Tracy also had pet names for staff members, all of whom Tracy pegged as latent, or in some cases, active homosexuals. Marty Martinez became “Martina,” Dan Carlyle was immediately tagged “Danielle.” I was “Rochelle.” Scott would needle Tracy with things like, “You people have your own towns. Dobb’s Ferry. Harper’s Ferry. And your own Christmas carols: Don we now our gay apparel.” The two men were completely at ease with their differences, and their loose-lipped trash talking provided needed comic relief through some tough times. Muni’s steady hand on the tiller had kept the station on course, when many others had drifted into oblivion.

Ironically, the one interview Muni wanted more than any other was denied him. Dennis had his John Lennon and I my Bruce Springsteen, but for Muni the Holy Grail would be an interview with Bob Dylan. When Scott started at WNEW in 1967, the very first record he played was Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” The reluctant troubadour just didn’t visit radio stations, and the only rare audiences he granted were on his turf—on his terms. Aside from the 1978 visit backstage at Nassau Coliseum, the only times he sat down with radio people were with Dave Herman in July of 1981 in England, and several years later with my brother Dan-o at Dylan’s West Coast home. Herman was displeased with the results because Bob played his acoustic guitar during the entire chat and didn’t reveal much of anything. Later, Dave speculated that the canny singer had affected this so that the tape could not be edited cleanly and distort the exact meaning of his words, such as they were.

My brother was equally frustrated. He traveled three thousand miles to see the man and was met with vague monosyllabic answers. He felt that Dylan never warmed to him, and went home disappointed in his inability to draw the legend out. But years later, when CBS promotion man Jim Del Balzo brought a group from the station backstage at the Beacon Theater to meet the star, Dylan’s ears perked up at the mention of the station. “WNEW?” he exclaimed. “Yeah, that cat from your station came out to see me. I heard that show. He was cool. Great. Best interview I ever did. Want some whiskey?” He proffered a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

Dan-o didn’t feel vindicated by the praise and still pines for a second shot. But Muni has yet to get his first recorded conversation with the man, perhaps because Scott rarely travels to do an interview, preferring the subject be brought to him. Even though his son, Mason Munoz, worked for CBS Records and accompanied Bob on tours, he couldn’t convince him to pop up and pay his dad a visit. And the only time Dylan did go to a radio station, it was under such bizarre circumstances that few of his fans were aware that it happened.

WKTU was a disco station that never would dream of playing a Dylan record. They were doing a charity radiothon with their star jock, a man using the moniker “Paco.” For a brief period, his was the highest-rated show in town, as he spoke in a deep rumble reminiscent of Ricardo Montalban, thrilling the Studio 54 crowd. Paco was friendly with Arthur Baker, a producer of disco records who was enjoying some popularity with rock artists who wanted to freshen their sound with the new rhythms. He remixed Springsteen’s “Cover Me” and “Dancing in the Dark,” largely to the consternation of Bruce’s fan base. But now he was working with Dylan in an attempt to make the folk rocker more commercially acceptable. When his Latino buddy Paco called asking for some artist help for the radiothon, Baker promptly squired Dylan up to KTU. CBS Records launched a massive cover-up to hide the event from Muni, who would have gone ballistic had he found out. That’s how much the music community respected and feared Scottso.

But all Pete Coughlin saw was a gray-haired old man who had outlived his usefulness. In Chernoff, he saw a wimp who thought he knew more about radio than Jeff Pollack. And Pollack, pulling Coughlin’s strings, saw Muni as an obstacle to the changes he intended for WNEW—changes that would come swiftly if he had anything to do with it.

In his first couple of days at the station, Coughlin lost any chance he had with the staff over one incident. Word of the story spread like fire on a gas-soaked cross. Muni was on the air, playing a Chuck Berry song, when the new general manager summoned Chernoff to his office after hearing the opening riffs.

“Why are we playing this nigger music?” Coughlin demanded to know.

Chernoff couldn’t believe what he’d just heard and asked his boss to repeat the question. He did so without hesitation, and Chernoff, still reeling, asked that he convey his feelings to Scott Muni directly. Mark retrieved Scottso and marched him back into the office. Coughlin asked the question again, without rephrasing.

Muni and Chernoff looked hopelessly at each other. Scott merely said, “You keep stepping in shit, don’t you? Do you realize what would happen to us if what you just said became public? You can’t be serious.” He turned on his heel and headed back to the studio.

“I feel like some Motown, Fats,” he told his engineer upon arriving. “Pull out some Supremes, Temptations, and Four Tops.” Those groups comprised the next few sets on the air.