popular thinking

DAVID LEE ROTH, THE FIRST-DAY LIVEBLOG

I listened to Diamond Dave's radio debut this morning, so you wouldn't have to. Verdict: Hot air? Fresh air? Dead air? Try none of the above. Here is what it sounded like on Boston's WBCN-FM (104.1):

5:54 a.m., Now playing: Alice in Chains, Rooster. Somehow fitting since WBCN put closure on its Howard Stern era with an Alice in Chains song, and also because, well, here comes the rooster!

6 a.m., With the familiar drum roll intro to Van Halen's Hot For Teacher, the show starts with other strange dance beats, something that sounds slightly operatic, then a vaguely foreign female voice, saying: “Welcome to David Lee Roth, prepare to feel filthy my friend, and completely alive.”

6:01 a.m., Dave is talking. Among his first words: “This is the hottest seat in international radio here.” Then: “What do you start off with in something like this?” There are other voices in the studio, Dave calls to a guy named Hutch who sounds slightly British. Dave reads something about Morgan Spurlock and Supersize Me, then talks about what he orders from McDonald's: two cheeseburger meal, supersized, with a Coke. Then segues into talk of always a new diet pill on the market. Must be some sort of New Year's resolution ramble.

6:04 a.m., Dave asks rhetorically: “What am I doing on the radio?”

6:-4 a.m., Wait don't answer that. I used the adverb rhetorically for a reason, since Dave starts reminsicing about the first time he got a radio (or record player?) as a gift from his uncle, listening to Ray Charles when he was 7 in 1961, living at 21 Alton Court in Brookline (about two blocks from Coolidge Corner), when his dad was in college on the GI Bill.

6:07 a.m., First mention of Uncle Manny, New Yorker who started Cafe Wha?, and hired Bob Dylan for his first gig in the Big Apple. Another shout-out to Hutch, who helped Dave during his non-tryout tryout last March at WZLX-FM (100.7) in Boston. Hutch says he was born in Birmingham (England), lived in London, has been in the States for 25 years. (Looking him up online, we see he also has been a DJ for most of that time, working in the Boston area since the mid-1990s, including stints at WROR and WBOS. A Herald article search reveals he also temporarily replaced Steve Sweeney in mornings when Sweeney got booted last summer from ZLX.)

6:10 a.m., There is a toll-free call-in line: 866 313 3733 (866-313-FREE) -- a reference to the new Infinity, er, I mean CBS Radio all-talk FM "Free" format, which replaced "K-Rock" in NYC. Dave also is streaming audio online at http://www.david.freefm.com/ (links from http://www.davidleeroth.com) Dave pleads: “I’m not running for office, I’m not trying to save the world, that’s Bono’s job.”

6:11 a.m., Perhaps first full song, but Dave doesn't say what it is (female voice talking about "baby love," but it's not that Diana Ross song), all he mentions is something about people working toward their New Year's sobreity.

6:14 a.m., Dave asks if schools are back in session today, brief mention of him "lighting the menorah" over the holidays, first mention that he is a certified EMT, then talks of what to do at Ground Zero. Says something akin to "the black wall for Vietnam" needed for memory, but suggests creating housing for artists, students, as a song plays in the background ("playing a bit of a 'School Boy Crush,'" he says). “Instead of putting up another boring office building” there, he suggests new theater/bohemian district for future creative types. “What makes it the swingingest is all the style,” he says of NYC. Then he asks for phone calls.

6:21 a.m., First commercial break, fades out to Van Halen riffs.

6:26 a.m., Dave says to play the whole song, School Boy Crush by the Average White Band. This is beginning to sound a bit like, ahem, average white radio.

6:29 a.m., First caller is from Los Angeles. “Where do you work the late-shift at?” Dave asks. Caller says he is listening online, works as customer service rep at a multinational bank, is a Van Halen fan.

6:31 a.m., Dave has Hutch play Vertigo by U2 as Dave sings along, as the vague female voiceover says something about “zen and the art of hearty laughs?”

6:35 a.m., Someone else is in the studio. Don't know who(m).

6:37 a.m., Caller Jessica says, “I want to thank you Dave for being you.” She asks if he's married. Dave says making your personal life public wrecks it, says that’s what happened to Nick and Jessica. He'll repeat trend of about 15 minutes on-air, 5 minutes ads, throughout the show.

6:45 a.m., Dave says,“I think this is my first real office job.” Plays Faces' Ooh La La, sings along to lyrics, “I wish I knew what I know now, when I was younger.”

6:49 a.m., Rambling about New Year’s Resolutions? Parades?

6:50 a.m., Caller Georgie from Boston asks “Remember me?” He is singer in a band called Red Ball Jet, named after Roth's pre-Van Halen band, apparently played a party at the Palladium when Roth guest-hosted at ZLX last St. Patrick's Day? Dave ends up going on rant about need for George to get his kid educated, but at one point repeatedly says “if you know your 24 letters” (???) that you won't know any others.

6:55 a.m., Another caller, another Van Halen fan. Go figure.

7:04 a.m., “Roth…866 313-FREE” which leads to ramble about freedom and yet we cannot say the f word, how do you explain that to kids, how do you explain lesbians to kids, “You have to tread around it, not because the kid can’t handle it, but because mommy and daddy can’t handle it.”

7:11 a.m., Unknown song. Of course, notably more music without Stern, less Stern-centric ads.

7:14 a.m., Dave introduces Brian Young from California after the song. Was it Young playing? Turns out Young had at one point been guitarist in a VH tribute band called Atomic Punks, later hired by Dave to be his guitarist on the infamous 2002 concert tour with Sammy Hagar. Dave says something about Pakistanis in low-riders trying to be Tupac or Mexicans. I have no idea, either.

7:31 a.m., A couple of calls get lost. Dave quips: “What’s going on? Is Eddie Van Halen running the phones?”

7:41 a.m., How many mornings can we listen to Van Halen fans telling Dave how great he was? Then again, Stern listeners sat through 14 months of Stern telling everyone how great he was and how he was leaving for Sirius and how fans were cheering him on.

7:44 a.m., Dave makes a paramedic joke: “Mr. Rodriguez, how many of your fingers am I holding up?”

7:48 a.m., Dave quips, “I have a sex tape out, from 1982, Wichita Falls, Texas”

7:52 a.m., Dave gives a shout-out to Howard Stern, asks him what to do about Stern's old boss (and Roth's new boss) Tom, suggests he and Stern engage in "a running dialogue" about it once Stern starts on Sirius next Monday. Dave makes another Boston reference, jokes something about Tom not liking someone in the studio because he is "Boston Irish."

8:00 a.m., “This job is a breeze!” Dave says. Halfway there. He introduces his first official interview guest, Uncle Manny. They talk about Manny's childhood in the 1920s.

8:42 a.m., Still talking to Uncle Manny, now about the start of Cafe Wha?

9:09 a.m., Still with Manny? Manny says first big celebrity was Louis Gossett Jr. (!), remembers dismissing Dylan as someone who couldn't sing, didn't have stage presence. “This kid doesn’t have a frickin prayer!” Manny says. “He writes this song, The Ants Are My Friends.” The studio is laughing up a storm. Me, not so much.

9:15 a.m., Manny reads off names: Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor. “I was Richie’s first manager,” Manny says. “That had to be 1963” said Pryor must’ve been 22, 23, doing generic stuff, nothing compared to Cosby. Also lists Jimi Hendrix (as Jimmy Jones), Bobby Klein.

9:33 a.m., Finally says bye to Manny before another ad break.

9:51 a.m., Dave talks about taking flight lessons recently, says it's the hardest thing he’s done.

9:58 a.m., Dave figures he can sign off from “David lee’s tiki bunker, where the debris meets the sea...Join me tomorrow, it gets nothing but better from here.” For his sake and ours, let's hope so.

9:59 a.m., WBCN plays Pearl Jam, Jeremy