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 Dave "The Bat" Mann
Early mornings/middays
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 audio of Dave doing middays
- from Dave Mann -
** It was August, and I was doing oldies on Z-93 after they had just blown out half the staff at 98 Rock where I was doing afternoons. In came Marc Chase and some Cincy boys one night when I was doing 10 to 2. I was told to come in the next morning at 9 to talk to Marc. Realizing that you almost never survive a programming change when you are a jock, I just thought I would keep doing my commercials on the side until something opened up. I had saved a lot of money over the years and was just going to work on some other business activities. When I went in the next morning, he told me we were going after Q-105 and he thought I was one of the best DJ's he had ever heard. He wanted me to replace our midday man (Jeff Laurence) who he didn't think would like working there...he gave me a 12 thousand dollar a year raise. That night, we all met at the station and painted the oldies vans with pink house paint. Did I mention that we were completely drunk too? Well the paint job looked like it. The day we switched over, I got a call from Jon Anthony who was scheduled to go into afternoons to replace Mark Larsen. He said, "are you listening to this fucking radio station? I can't WAIT to get in there.." Neither could I...in just over a month the rating trends had us beating Q-105. After the ratings came out I remember the staff meeting. They brought in 100 dollar bills and we passed around the stack taking one off the top until it was gone. We each had made thousands in a bonus. Much would happen in the next few years...including a trip on the Power Pig float through the streets of Tampa in the Gasparilla Parade, the following February when were treated like Super Bowl champions. We were champions... champions of the radio world! I have long left radio, since there is nothing there for me now and I have chosen to make many times more money than radio could ever pay for a music D.J....but I wouldn't have traded that few first years for anything. If you would like more stories...I have them. I did middays, afternoons and middays again over the eleven years I spent at WFLZ. By the way, nobody ever did beat BJ Harris and me in a game of two on two basketball...
Dave Mann-Dave Mann Inc. 7/29/04
**STORY 2** My first gig was on a Friday night at a nightclub in North Tampa...and I was driving over with Russell the Love Muscle as my engineer and official Power Pig van driver. We were turning down to Bearss Avenue off of 275 and we were hit with a traffic jam. The Power Pig had only been on the air a couple of weeks and I thought we would just show up and take the money and run. I was wrong...the traffic jam was because of us. Cars had parked up and down the roads, in all of the parking lots...people standing on the side of the road screaming as we slowly drove by and got out. It was like Elvis had just ENTERED the building...it was an over capacity crowd of mainly 20 and up listeners just wanting to get a look at the guys who were bringing down the station they had been forced to listen to before we went on. I stayed an extra couple of hours...but we made it back to the station...with over 50 cars following us all the way back. -Dave Mann 7/29/04
**STORY 3** In all of contemporary radio history, only one radio station stands out from the rest...The Power Pig. I remember the night we decided to paint over the radio station vans with pink house paint, and then the words in black. There were six or seven of us in the lot on Jackson Street in downtown Tampa. We hadn't received any money for ransom from Q-105...and seventy-two days later we were number one in the world. A special time...a special place...not to be seen again.
-Dave Mann - Dave Mann Inc.- (from May 2004)
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Mark "The Shark" Larsen -
afternoon drive
(first couple weeks) |
- from Mark "The Shark" Larsen -
15 years! Damn Holmes, you're making me feel old! It was a very cool experience. For those of us who had been on board at 93.3 since the "Paradise 93.3" days, it was a long time coming. I came on board WFLA/WFLZ (the FM was WPDS) as production manager in early '86, and knew that blowtorch was wasting time playing Barry Manilow records, instead of kicking some Q ass. It was hideous. I went through 3 owners before Jacor bought the place -- we immediately started hipping up the music to hotter A/C, but it it wouldn't last. We had entered into a 1 year no compete with the Q's parent not to go CHR - or anything close to it, for a year, as our Jacor owned national rep firm was repping Q-105!! There was no way we could have replaced those millions in billing out of the box, so we went oldies. The odd thing was, we had a CHR staff. I hired Jack Harris from the Q, Jeff Laurence was a WLCY vet, I was on the old Y-95, Jon Rock N Roll Anthony & Dave Mann were from Q-105! And John LaVine on overnights came from a CHR. It would have been sweet in '88, but we had to wait.
So in came the Pig in September '89. The others told the story. The promo folks parked the perfectly airbrushed, logo'd Z-93 vehicles in the parking lot, pizza was served along with the fluorescent spray paint. The rest is history. The funny thing was, the original Pig was a true CHR, playing everything from Stevie B, Bobby Brown & Madonna to Aerosmith. Fucking incredible.
Tragically, across the hall, WFLA was falling apart. Gonzales was gone, Dick Norman had died earlier in the year in a car accident, Lassiter had left and Bob Schuman split for Detroit. One day the midday host who was filling in to begin, with got sick and there was no one to go on. This was when they were live & local. So I offered to fill in on 9-noon. Randy thought it rocked, I got the talk bug -- and joined the old farts across the hall. But I was waaaay proud to be the first PM driver on the Pig and do my part to crush the Q. It was beautiful.
- Mark Larsen-Mark Larsen's Morning Magazine
weekday early mornings on NewsTalk AM1040 Tampa Bay & AM1190 WAMT Orlando
www.themorningmagazine.com |
 Operations Manager Gabe Hobbs -
Radio & Records Magazine-January 19, 1990
"Monday morning (9/25/89), we decided to give them (Q105) one more shot. At 7:45am, we woke up (Q105 parent company Edens Chairman) Gary Edens in California and gave him one last chance to pay up. He passed.
And at 8am we made the change. The rest is history."
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