Who is Clem Clements?

Clem Clements, WIXU

New Episode of Radio Retrofit, on the way. They're coming faster and more furious, lately...

This one’s for my son. It’s a bit of a trifle, and a lot of fun. And there's a message, too, if you read between the lines. It reminds me of the Parker Lewis one (sorry: The KFLM episode, of Radio Retrofit).

It’s light, and silly in places, and the musical selections are a bit off kilter, somehow, because of the character of the DJ, and the intensity of the situation. I always try to stay true to those details. It’s a big part of why I enjoy doing this. It’s a challenge. 

You wouldn’t have Johnny "Fever" happily playing Captain and Tennille, would you? Of course, not. Or "Hard Harry" spinning The Weavers? Nothing wrong with either, necessarily. It’s just the DJ's personal taste, and what the mix currently calls for. 

Each radio host has a unique and salient set of "bents," so to speak. Not to mention musical tastes, which you have to get to know, in order to set up a scenario where it sounds as though they are authentically hosting an existing radio program. ...Which they never really did. Filling in the gaps takes research, and time.

Because what I start out with is a mess, usually. Mind if I just pontificate, a minute? This new one, for example: It's fleshed out from a recording less than 20 minutes long! And MOST of that is not set in the broadcast booth, at all.

I had access to NINETY episodes, when I made the Johnny Fever mix. Each one, over twenty minutes long… And so far, I’ve only been able to wring about six hours out of that. So, how in the world can you get an hour from 20min?

You have to accept the challenge. Sounds funny, but it's true. And you have to be pretty creative and flexible, and insistent, as the breaks you'll need, to complete the task, are often not even on the tape...

Reel to reel tape

The “tape,” ha. But if you’re old school radio, you know what I mean. Airchecks.

Recordings DJs make of their on-mic presence, in order to improve their technique, or for peer review, etc.

Radio Retrofit's “airchecks” though, are fabricated from found sound samples, featuring the actors who play the DJs, in movies/tv), and they have to be assembled, or embellished upon, and/or positioned in exactly the right spot in the hour. It’s a puzzle. Not to mention, editing all the music back in.

Clem (far left) has a wild idea.

...So, my kid and I watch Bob’s Burgers, almost religiously. We identify with the characters, big time. Well, I do. I imagine he does, too.

Bob Belcher and his yearning for community, while hiding in the kitchen. His practically defeatist attitude, and the quiet resolve which lifts him over it. His wild streak. His absurd (culinary) creations. His embrace of the unusual. 

He’s an artist! And the one saddled with the most responsibility, which forces him into a more conservative role, in order to protect his family... And that sucks, for him. He’d resent it, but he loves them, you know? He’d rather be rubbing elbows with the weirdos at Rocky Horror (Vampire Disco Death Dance, in his world), or rooting for his favorite freeform radio DJ, at WIXU, in Seymour's Bay, New Jersey.

Bob remembers listening to Clem Clements when he was a bit younger, and just starting out on his own. So, he loves this old school DJ, who plays by his own rules, says whatever he wants, and even plays his own records. ...much to the station’s chagrin. 

And unlike WKRP, station management doesn’t tolerate it. In fact, he's let go, and the whole station gets shuts down, by invisible corporate interests, from ...elsewhere. Far, far away. Replaced by a robot in LA, or something like that...

The robot's a stand-in, of course, for the corporate radio stronghold, and its stranglehold on the creative culture of radio. It’s been choking the life out of it, for the past thirty years.* …Clem’s had enough.

This perspective really isn't the wide-eyed idealism of a college student, or an anarchist, by the way, which some critical thinking readers might be thinking... It really is bad for everyone, but the bankers.

It's not just the DJs, with their dreams and... "integrity." It harms every community, when the market is controlled by a single company, and it's a big risk, politically, when that company owns the majority of stations in the country. Or it especially was, until the internet... But we won't go there.

To learn more, look up The Telecom Act of 1996, and HERE is a webpage where a guy tries explaining it in more detail, and keeps it so you don't have to be an industry vet to understand. Moving on...

Clem wows on carts

Bob finds Clem Clements, working at a bowling alley, and can’t believe what’s happened to his hero. This is an outrage! And it’s happening all over the country, for a generation and more...

Clem explains all this to Bob and, the stars in his eyes direct him to join Clem's cause. Which of course he does. Bob’s good like that. And before the episode’s even fully wound up, Bob and his son, Gene, and daughter's, Louise and Tina, are down at the station, barricaded into the unused studio, with Clem (voiced by my favorite man on tv, Nick Offerman), doing a pirate radio broadcast from his old stomping ...frequency.

All just to feel alive. To express dissent. It’s a protest against the state of radio. It's a statement about the value of local, and keeping it real, and having an authentic voice. It’s wildness. It’s rebellion. Because self expression and local community is what matters.

Not the station owner. That’s why I've chosen not to work like that, and that’s why Clem got fired… There are few to no radio jobs for creatives on the fringe. Dare I say the avant garde? When commercial radio, nationally, is THIS homogenized? Yeah, Clem Clements is practically avant-garde. 

So, I made a cute, crazy hour from all this, and the minutes just fly by. And it’s a good palate cleanser, after the longer, more epic opus, of Hard Harry's mix, last month. Clem is just as mad, but he’s older, and he’s a little tired. But there’s that fire, still… Time to flip the money changer's tables, no matter how performative the gesture.

I got to play a little of it for my boy in the car this morning, and as any Dad will tell you, if something you did makes your teenager smile, you can assume you must be doing SOMETHING right.

Made my day. Hope this adds to yours. The news I mean. Stay tuned to The Sheena's Jungle Room stream, in July, to hear the hour in question. Looking forward! Jon

*By the way, that thirty years is the exact same thirty years of my radio "career." I was learning production for radio, in Chicago, in 1994, and by '95 had decided to head back to Minneapolis, to enroll at state university, in order to qualify for inclusion at the college radio station I'd watched go live, in '93.

By '96, I was the production director, in 1998, I put out my first record and by '01 was syndicating the program I'd begun two years, prior, and podcasting the show in 2003. Took ten years off, to raise the son, I mentioned... So, 30? We'll call it twenty. Or one of the more interesting through-lines of my life...