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"MOODS" TURNS 5 JAN. 14 ON LAST WPMD
SHOW; MOVES TO 1050 AM
November 21,
2005
Along with
announcer, Jay Boatman and the rest of his crew, early in 2006, Vince
Daniels and his talk-variety show, "The Many Moods of Vince Daniels"
will be on in Los Angeles at 1050 on the dial from KCAA A.M.in Loma
Linda. KCAA also streams on the internet. Additionally, the station is
carried on satellite. According to Daniels, who made the brief
announcement on his November 19th show, "I am excited to be part of a
line-up that includes talk personalities as diverse as Don Imus, George
Putnam, G. Gordon Liddy and Al Franken. It will also be cool to have
audience interaction since KCAA' s studios are on the top floor of the
Carousel Shopping Mall. Since the new station intends to have me do the
show live on Saturdays, and I'm not able to be in two places at once,
sadly Jay and I will need to leave WPMD."
Upon hearing the news, Craig Breit, longtime WPMD faculty advisor and
friend of The Many Moods host said, "we're not letting him get out of
here that quickly in the new year. After-all, his program celebrates
its 5th anniversary on January 14th. I'm happy we were able to work
something out with Vince where in exchange for his hanging around until
that date, he would allow me to put together an anniversary
celebration/send-off party for him. All are invited to attend on
January 14th and we'll incorporate these festivities into his last
show. I am saddened to lose him. He has been one of the most consistent
voices and talents on our station, and has been my friend for 25 years.
At the same time, I'm happy that another station has the same good
taste in programming as we do."
Says Breit, "I'm also happy to say that I have made an executive
programming decision to continue his show in both of his weekend time
slots well after he has moved on. He has several episodes that have not
yet been repeated. He also promises to send us some edited best of's
from his new station. Plus, it is my intention to continue
promoting his website on our website."
Is it many "moods" or multiple personalities? Vince Daniels is
also known to some around the station as Jim Dunlap. Dunlap
functions as a part-time instructional aide for Breit's radio
broadcasting program at Cerritos College in Norwalk, CA where he began
as one of his students in August of 1980. "Jim usually comes back to us
when he is between professional gigs," remembers Breit. "Five years ago
I was in desperate need of a board operator for our fledgling sports
program. I knew that Jim had given up on radio sometime in 97 or
98 and refused to crack a microphone as long as he lived. Sometime in
the mid-90's he really became mired in some pretty ugly memories of
having been molested as a child. When it all caught up with him,
he just sorta tuned out on everything and everyone. I knew he was
desperate for money and so I had this 5 hour a week job where all he
had to do was push buttons and make our play-by-play announcer sound
good."
"As long as I live, I'll always cherish that Friday night in September
of 2000 as the most important night in my broadcasting career,"
remembers Dunlap on how his new persona came to be. "The
play-by-play announcer was a guy named Nick Pecarich who nobody
liked. Honestly, in all the years prior that I spent at that
radio station on and off, I never heard it sound any better. This guy
was totally having fun. He was into it. This was the kind of guy who
had such a sense of sportscasting and painting word pictures that he
could make the popcorn smell somehow waft through your speakers.
Sitting there that night, I wished I had it in me to sound that good,
or even care enough to open a microphone." That was the last
thing Dunlap was going to do. Until the first commercial break, when
Nick called out for John, the old board operator who had just
left. John was only there a brief while to train Dunlap to take
over his job. Apparantly nobody mentioned that to Nick. "So
I jumped on and talked to Nick off the air. He asked me who I
was, and I told him that I was his new board operator. He said he
needed me to go on the air with him and to give him stats for the high
school football game we were doing. I told him I wasn't going on
the air. So he asked me my name, and I told him that he did'nt
want to know my name because I did'nt have a good name for radio. I
often tell people that my career was born between commercials and
station identification and they think I'm exxagerating. But I'm
not."
In fact what happened is that Pecarich, fighting a clock, told this
board operator whose real name he never knew that "you have 30 seconds
to come up with one, because you're going on the air with me whether
you like it or not." Dunlap once worked at a station where the program
director named him Jim Daniels. "That was the worst, most
uncreative radio name that anyone ever tagged me with." He recalls the
thought process that went on during that fretful 30 seconds. "At
the time I was caught up in watching a show called WISEGUY where the
lead characters name was Vinnie Terranova. So with Vinnie I had
half of it figured out. The next thing I'm thinking is that it
has to be sports related. I thought how most sports announcers
have two first names, like Al Michaels. Somehow I went back to
Jim Daniels, the name I hated most. For some reason, Vince
Daniels was a guy I could relate to, and I thought might relate to
others. I took a name I liked and a name I hated and put 'em
together. That's what radio's about, right? Take the bad
with the good." Then the moment came.
After station identification, Dunlap rolled the bumper music as the
play-by-play guy came on and said "Nick Pecarich here at Bellflower
stadium and joining me back in the studio is the newest member of our
WPMD sports team, Vinnie Daniels." Pecarich repeated that name
over and over, dispelling any doubts in Dunlap's mind of where he
belonged, and that was behind a microphone again. "The more he
said my name, the better I felt about myself and the more I would
loosen up and start talking. The more this happened, the more I
would get the creative bug to start inventing and creating and
ultimately dreaming of doing a talk show of my own. If not
for Nick Pecarich, there would be no Vinnie Daniels today.
This is a guy that everybody warned me was an egomaniac that never gave
anyone a chance because he always wanted the spotlight for
himself. If that was the case, then why was he always propping me
up and giving me microphone time? I still believe to this day
that if you proved yourself to Nick, and showed him that you had what
it took, he would let you do half the game."
While the future host of "The Many Moods" may not have thought of a
name for his show on that September night, he certainly knew its
premise. It was to be a show that offered a voice to those that
thought they had no voice. And to occassionally offer validation
and approval. "As adults, we're reminded not to rely on constant
approval by others." Before he could accept himself as
Vince Daniels, Jim Dunlap needed someone else's approval one last time,
from a guy that he hoped was tuned in and listening. And he
got it. It came in a Saturday morning phone call, the day after
his first night of board-opping with Nick. It was from the guy
who offered him that job, Craig Breit. It was 5 words.
"Welcome back to radio ... Vince."
Over the Christmas Break in 2000, there was a T.V theme that Daniels
couldn't get out of his head. It went, "Dobie, loves a gal
that's dreamy, Dobie ..." he was trying to remember the exact title of
that show. When he remembered it was "The Many Loves of Dobie
Gillis," is when "The Many Moods of Vince Daniels" came to
him. The show debuted Wednesday nights starting on January 17,
2001. In those days, Vinnie was determined to raise the bar in
the hope of attracting other quality shows to the station. He
wanted to take the 5 months of shows he just generated and repeat them
over that summer. He created a 2 and-a-half hour "Best of Vince
Daniels" show. In those days, there was no weekend line-up,
except for endless Country Music on Saturday, and 24 hour Religious
shows on Sunday. In the Summer of 2001, Daniels compiled the best
shows that were stashed in the WPMD archives. It was the same
programs rotated in a different order every weekend that included "The
Jazz Lounge," "The Sounds of the BubbaMaster," a syndicated rock show
called "Joe's Blue Plate Special" and of course Vinnie's highlight
shows. These were rotated in with occassional blocks of Country
Music. The Sunday Religious stayed 24 hours.
Shortly after in 2002 came other radio veterans who needed a place to
play, and thus the "WPMD Saturday Block" was born, with continuous live
shows in predictable time slots. This was also be the case in the late
afternoon and evening hours of Tuesday. At this
point, while Vinnie continued as an instructional aide for WPMD, much
of his time was spent working at an Orange County talk station as a
board operator. He was encouraged to find some time to bring "The
Many Moods" back to WPMD and to join its Saturday block. In
January 2003, it would finally happen, after a long absence from
Wednesday nights, of which Daniels remembers logging only 5 shows for
all of 2002. "When I moved over to Saturdays and had my own
regular time, and made the commitment to maintime my airtime, is when I
feel everything started falling into place for me. Along
the way, I've been privaledged to be part of this cutting edge internet
station. There was a time that I had free reign to program the
station and actually produce special marathon weekends or to package
the holiday programming and to give it my own sound. In a very real
sense, its like being given something to mold and shape. Its hard
work, but it's fun. Then there came a time when the concerns of
the overall of the station frankly overwhelmed me, and it was time to
back off and just focus on producing my show."
Having done that, Daniels now feels that he's gone as far as he can go
with WPMD and that its time to get out while he's on top of his
game. The estimated listening audience on KCAA in the daytime on
Saturday is at 10,177 listeners per quarter hour. At this new
station, he'll be able to entertain a phone guest while being able to
take callers to talk to that guest. At WPMD, with only one
incoming line, that was impossible. Before he goes however, Vinnie will
close this very long, oft-times frustrating and moreover fulfilling,
chapter in his life. In addition to 2 new holiday specials that
he'll host on November 26th and December 10th, Daniels will be LIVE
with 3 final regular shows on December 3rd and 17th, 2005 and of course
the last one, on his 5 year anniversary, January 14th, 2006. All from
4:00-8:00pm (PST). |
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