Review: Davidzon “Rooshkie Radio” Speaks Russian and Ukrainian Community’s Slant On The News; Music Eclectic; Helps My Russian Lessons!

And now…I will unleash my over three decades as a radio broadcaster upon a review of a radio station that is the only one I currently like to listen to…, “Rooshkie Radio, WSNR”, Jersey City.

The first time I ever heard of Russians, “Boris and Natasha” were cartooned Russian agent caricatures I used to watch on “Rocky, The Flying Squirrel” show as a boy. On the nightly news back then, Chet Hutley, David Brinkley or Walter Cronkite would talk about the “cold war threat” from them and quote the newspaper, “Pravda”. Simultaneously, the movie, “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!” premiered to my young consciousness and then, linguistically via the Cuban Missile Crisis during President Kennedy’s administration in the early 1960s, when then, First secretary of The Soviet Communist Party and Prime Minister, Nikita Khrushchev performed his shoe-pounding rant at the United Nations’ General Assembly.

Then came the dancers at club “NV” Nashville and my meeting my fiancee`Inna via our “Cafe Skype”.
All of which obviously begat these days when I listen daily in the car on my commute to work and my laptop to “Rooshkie Davidzon Radio”, WSNR 640. The AM radio station’s music has a wide variety and very cool, often hip playlist; the Russian talk is helpful to my learning the language of my fiancee` who lives in Ukraine, but is part of the Russian speaking population there (there are two linguistic factions in Ukraine). I bet the old communist establishment of the Soviet Union is turning in it’s grave at the sound of this American-style, non propagandist radio station’s format!

Listening to this station daily (and appreciating their radio elements) augments my Pimsleur Approach Russian CD lesson learning that I began in April of 2012. They have a full spot (commercials) load and the many telephone numbers of the advertisers, spoken in Russian, has helped me learn to count from zero (“нулевой” or “nul”) to twenty (“двадцать” or “dvadtsat'”) in Russkiy!
Their production is entertaining; the image elements enlightening and even when the automation fucks-up, it doesn’t take away from this very American-style terrestrial “Rooshkie” radio station. They have a featured traffic reporter girl, Natalia Bystritskaya, who is bubbly, humorous and in a “good mood” always!

The all-important morning show is anchored by a man who I call “the Russian Frankie Crocker” because of the jazzy background music bed that he does his talk over, Vadim Yarmolinetska.
His laugh and self-deprecating way of handling caller and topics makes him easy to listen to even if you cannot translate or understand every word. I always get the “flavor” of what they are discussing!

Another notable listenable is Alexander Grant who, I determined a “sleuth” journalist personality without the benefit of understanding all of the words in Russian. It is awesome how with the power of just a few linguistics and a background in radio formatics I can decipher subject of their talk shows.

I love their production, the spontaneity of how they handle callers and even when the automation burps. Their image liners and fill bumpers are really the creative “radio” that I learned to love when bitten by the bug back in 1972 at Adelphi University’s WALI/WBAU.

When not talking, WSNR is eclectic;(boring) especially after seven o’clock U.S. eastern time and on weekends. Weekdays, the live over-the-air broadcast ends at 7p.m. but can still pick up the stream of music online. Sundays they are over-the-air all day until seven p.m., including a sports talk show Sunday evenings. The music mix is eclectic where you’ll hear everything from traditional Slavic folk and acoustic tunes to Barbara Streisand, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Abba, Tina Turner and any electronica club jams that slip-in, (much less than when I first found this station, by-the-way) remind me of the hot Russian chicks I played for at club NV in Nashville, TN, circa 2004! I do not have to understand every single word in order to know what is going on due to my radio intuition and knowledge of the radio clock and vocal inflections! I notice a dearth of male American R&B or dance vocalist artist on WSNR’s musical playlist, however. How about some Sylvester from the disco days?!

** My advice to Mr. Gregory Devidzon, President of “Davidzon Radio” is do not sell-out to any U.S. radio corporations like Clear Channel! Please! пожалуйста!! Also, Advice: Please install and use the “cough switch” more! I hear too much coughing over the air! WTF? It is needlessly rude and unprofessional.

If you do, you will lose your radio station’s unique identity, political posture and entertainment values. Take it from someone whose radio career was abruptly discontinued by the corporatization, deregulation and automation which hit us beginning back in the early 1990s.
This is their website url, http://www.davidzonradio.com/index.htm and you can also dial them up streaming on any number of sites like tunein.com/radio/
As one of my LinkedIN.com comrades, Yuri Neshitov put it regarding my Russian learning methods, “You are at better position with learning Russian because love is the best teacher, tutor and assistant in this job… you a lucky man!”

Pickhitt: I give WSNR Four stars **** out of a possible five for live radio content in this day and time as a former radio personality. This is likely a brokered deal with WSNR.
One thing I recommend is that they add a PLAYLIST or “now playing” to their website so that we what tunes we are listening to after talk hours on line and so we can support the artists whose music they play! As a former radio junkie, I love that I cannot understand all of the bad news of the day and commercials! Otherwise they would be just another cookie-cutter station I would not listen to as a professional. lol I dig their hourly station ID production and choice of filler music also!

I pay particular attention to understanding the words that I can make-out when I hear the word “Ukraine” mentioned during their hour or half-hour news updates these days, knowing that my Inna, is in Kiev and political turmoil is spreading via a corrupt Russian-puppet regime “President” who should resign….

Review – Political Talk Radio Host Drops Dance Music Magic

Privet! Hey its me, the modern-day reluctant music critic! lol “Sigh”…

Back when I was stuck and loving it independently in Nashville, Rob Redding, America’s Independent Voice, came across my job-networking radar as a young man who, ironically, had listen to my toils on legendary New York City radio stations, WBLS-FM, WWRL-AM, and 98.7 Kiss (WRKS)-FM. His notice of me was and still is very flattering in all of my humility.
Therefore, it is with great honor that I espouse upon his latest shifting of gears by stepping out of his character as a political talk radio host with a DANCE music album release entitled “Unleash The Whip!” [ Crystal Castle imprint via Amazon.com, iTunes and Redding’s Web site ReddingNewsReview.com] (I hope I got that title right, lol). I am shocked that he even sought to send me these tracks because I have been forced-out of the music industry and after resisting the warnings of the late Sonny Taylor, et al I accepted and retired from the ill music industry for many years now.
I got tired of being thought of a a one-dimensional, part-time “DJ”! Then two-and-a half years ago, a great Ukrainian woman came into my life and I happily smelled the java, made the transition into Sales of other items and machines that could much more likely earn me the real money for me to marry my soul-mate, Nina, and fade into the new horizon I have planned for us.. Thanks for trying to bring me back out to write this, Rob!

I liked tracks # 4 and # 5 initially, and then the rest.
Not sure I am “comfy” with this whole “Whip Him” concept which reminds me of the days chronicled in “Roots”; yet I try not to take things too seriously in-general.
Also reminds me of (thematically because of title) “Let It Whip” [Dazz Band] and a one hit soul radio wonder of the 1970s called “C’mon Everybody and Do The Whip!”lol Good production on these over the internet cuts – but I still rather hold a CD in my hands or a vinyl 12′, Rob!

So, what we have here is seven semi-contrived dance tracks; great production on the versions provided by Rob Redding’s surprising international producer contacts in the dance music production world, such as Swedish producer, the 25 year-old Audio Paradyn and Kalim Stavros, who is 46, sampled and dubbed-over, under and throughout his musings about racial politics in the United States. I love the international aspect , as you know if you’ve followed this blog at all (“Cafe` Skype”).
Whether this sells or hits the charts high on the dance floor charts is far from my waning abilities to predict such. My equipment is in-storage as are my once acute acumen to “program” music from the gut like my radio inspirations did. Rob would have been Inhotep Gary Byrd back in the early 1970s! So, who is next, Rush Limgaugh’s greatest hits over Rush??
Therefore, do not be surprised if “Unleash The Whip” isn’t a
stupefactional, superfluous hit! “Where’s the whip?” Here it is in video:

I “bless”it with three-and-a half ***s – but what do I know at this stage?
Pickhitt: Rob the flogger has penned three Amazon Best Sellers this year and they are, “Where’s the Change?: Why Neither Obama nor the GOP Can Solve America’s Problems” and “Resurrection: A Historical Anthology of two African-American Philosophers” and “Disrupter: Pathway to Political Independence.”

You can please chime-in with your opinion with a musical comment while I go back to the financial district. “Whip” THIS!
!

Obama not Divisive, Talk Radio Is and FCC Gave It License to Be That way

My car has a cassette player along with the CD player and radio, and most of the time, while I  drive around town, doing my errands,  I play a cassette from my glory days on the air.  Not  all the time, but recently I have played some stuff from the mid-1980s when I was at  my personal “mountaintop” on the number one New York City radio station.

Later in the day, I got back in my car, not playing the cassette, and due to hitting the “scan” button rather than my programmed FM stations, I heard host Michael Savage act like his surname on one of these political talk stations, ( local Cumulus, one of the evil radio empire’s outlets) espousing about how “Obama is the most divisive President in history!”  As I’m driving, I thought how stupid and potentially racist this host sounded, unabashed at the divisions and anger that he was creating with his words upon those ears within the sound of his voice.  President Obama is still cleaning-up the mess of eight years of Bushwacking part deux. I thought,  “How can the managers of these radio stations allow these ‘little Hitlers’ on the air daily?  The do not practice  “free speech”, it is ignorant hate speech sanctioned by the selectively three-monkey mentality of the FCC of the past twenty years. 

Then it came to me again that it is this kind of “talk radio” that is responsible for creating all of these “angry voters” because  they are the divisive ones.  How did they get  this way, you ask?  Intelligence – or the lack thereof on the radio today on these stations.  Simply, the FCC now will allow anybody on the radio or TV.  When I began in radio, in order to even break [open] the microphone on the air, you had to pass a difficult test: the FCC Third Class License exam.  Although I hated studying how to calculate the plate voltage and the plate current at the time, I now look back on the process as one that filtered these casual “entertainers with an agenda” who have become so prolific and selfish with their messages that they’d rather create havoc under the guise of needed political discourse which become controversy that veils any positive discourse, than espouse messages of diverse unity and commonality for all peoples from we true radio professionals that even went to school for it or paid the “dues” necessary to get to the major markets.

I bet none of the popular political talk show hosts, from Limbaugh to whoever, could pass that test if it was required today!  Happily, if that were the case, none of them would be allowed on the radio!

The remedy?  Please, Federal Communications Commission, bring back the Third Class License test as it was when you abandoned it, so that intelligent broadcasters can return to the air who may disagree without yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater.  America, put political “talk radio” out of business; advertisers pull your spots!  PUL-EEEZE, for the unity of the U.S.A.’s sake – and what is left of terrestrial radio (which sadly, ain’t much); dont you think?  Holla back.

Pickhit Update:  Congresswoman shot in Arizona made me come right back to this post. This is what I mean, tragically and graphically illustrated. Make people get FCC licences to be on the air – it is one way to filter the hate-speech that can insight lunatics like this shooter .

CryBabies,”Obamaspill” and I’m the Good Humor man

Below is an email I received from a man who used to be on the radio with me as a Community Volunteer on this University radio station. He likes to bounce things off of me, his educated Black American “brother” and that is all well, and good.  It is how we SHOULD communicate. We usually have good laughs about it; we all are ONE.  Maybe he knows I am really “the Good Humor Man” – like the sign implies, a chocolate bar on the outside, but creamy vanilla on the inside – as I was raised by my middle class Black American, first-of-their- free-generation-to-be-able-to-do-civil-service-jobs-across-the- board parents – of course.   However, this one I had to push back on him about. Please read the original email in-part below and first, then my response to it and judge accordingly.  Email address deleted to protect the guilty.

—–Original Message—–

From:

To

Sent: Fri, May 28, 2010 4:24 pm
Subject: oh just another political observation…that might piss some of you off…lol

took them several weeks to get their story straight on this one.  and it wouldn’t have come to this point had a fox journalist not asked obama about it yesterday at his “blame the oil company” press conference of which even cnn and msnbc are saying was horrible.  and after their lunch yesterday, bill clinton, who has never lied under oath, takes the hit.  lmao.  this is undoubtedly one of the most corrupt administrations to come along in years.  and the main stream media is slowly but surely having to wake up and acknowledge it.   and imagine had the oil spill taken place under bush’s administration.  the press would be screaming about it and blaming him for it and the total lack of response to it.  ironically very little has been done by the current administration about it.  how many weeks has it been now?  of course i am skeptical of all politicians and o has given me more reason to be.  he’s proven to be just another puppet.  and i loved his comment about how desperate the oil companies are getting having to drill for oil miles beneath the ocean floor.  duh, since we refuse to allow them to drill our biggest on land oil reserves what are they supposed to do.  it appears to be much safer and ecologically friendly to drill on land, so maybe they will wake up and issue more on land oil drilling permits.  but i am not holding my breath. I mean if we can ban all domestic oil drilling, then the middle easterners will hold all the power.  rock on king o rock on.  ha!

White House Used Bill Clinton to Pressure Sestak…….blah, blah blah…

 And the Achilliad response;

Now I like a good humor bar as much as the next guy and maybe more than many but…no LOL here.

I don’t “do” politics or religion…too divisive.  However, I WILL say this, and whoever can take it back to the racist talk radio pundits like Limbaugh who just want to nit-pick the First Blackish President of the United States and stir the caldron of hate.  President Obama (as much as you do not like to “hear” that expression) did not CAUSE not bears any “responsibility” for the BP/Deep H2O Horizon ( sounds like a sci-fi movie btw) oil spill disaster.  Actually No President can do much about a sudden natural or as in THIS case, man-made disaster.

Let us reset the timeline TRUTHfully now…

If we are to play the “blame game” visa v ANY of our recent leaders then Jock Ewing aka George HW Bush and his evil son “JR Ewing”, or “dubya” of the oil barons of the group should bear the brunt of it for putting in-place the access to drill in the Gulf of Mexico for US and worldwide oil companies, as well as those going back to the 1940s who began to drill and did not advertise it to the civilian population. 

Last time I checked, President Obama (I LOVE to say that) was not on-duty when those deals were made with a WINK and a Nod like the old “good ole boys (white man) network is legendary to do.  So STOP  the stereotypical race baiting double standard NOW .  The Bushwakers and Reagan endorsers are more complicit than our present President EVER will be over the past twenty years, and President Obama is only trying desperately to clean-up their mess while not seeming subservient in the role of another Blackish man having to clean-up after foolishly arrogant and greedy “white guys”.  This will have nothing to do with his “legacy”, none of us is perfect and last time I looked the most recent really “corrupt” Presidency was Richard Nixon’s. 

I know some white American people (esp. males) have trouble with a Blackish man in the Presidency, but get over it…it is our turn and NOW you get to see what it has been like for “US” lo these many past scores and decades, when our voices went unheard.  And what is with this calling him a “King”?  Oh, soo do some want to be like England again, eh?

 ’nuff Said’ as Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee used to say.  The plug needs to be pulled on hate talk radio; those who advertise on these divisive shows should be ashamed of themselves and their bank accounts funneled to those of us regular positive and friendly people who can use the money.

Hey! What ever happened to the Good Humor Man Ice Cream Truck, anyway? I loved those creamesickles!