The Misadventures Of Black Frank (The Life of a Metal Radio DJ) – PART ONE: The Night We Stole KORN


By: Frank Webb

#1 – The Night We Stole KORN

        People are always telling me what a great storyteller that I am. That comes with having a lot of great stories. I have decided to share some, no particular timeline or order. This one will say a lot about how rock radio was back then and how different it is now compared to back then.
       It was early 1995 and I was amazed by what was going on around me. I had been at my part-time job as a deejay on 100.5 The Fox for over two years. The metal show that was given to me almost as an afterthought, The Metal Pit, had taken off and was achieving great ratings. My first program director, Buzz Casey, who gave me the show, told me that the show was good for our image as a station with an attitude, but that the audience would be small, mostly pimply faced kids with black tee shirts calling me all night screaming “SLAYER”. Well, we had plenty of them but, to the surprise of station management, we got a lot more than that. Sure, I played the Slayer and stuff that nobody thought that they’d ever hear on the radio, the Obituary’s and the Six Feet Under’s, but I also realized that there were bands that were starting to appear that I felt were the future of rock on the radio. Their songs had good hooks and melodies, things that you had to have in order to get airplay, but they were also incredibly aggressive and incorporated elements of growling “Cookie Monster” vocals and even the evil Rap.
          I knew that the rock programmers and consultants were uncomfortable with the new stuff that was starting to be impossible not to play on a rock station. On my very first Metal Pit, I played 2 bands that had never been on the radio here, Tool and White Zombie. Within weeks, both were in regular rotation, so I knew that I had something.
        They tried to fight back. Buzz was gone and our new program director, Peter Smith, had no choice but to do what the management told him and flood the airwaves with Hootie and the Blowfish. It didn’t work. Ratings went down. Rock radio was at war with itself over what else to play besides the grunge that was and still is so popular.  Personally, I think that the darkness of Cobain and the like may have opened the door for the genuinely angry shit that followed. I hated hearing Hootie on my station, so I knew what I had to do. I joined the nu metal army. One by one, in addition to the real aggro stuff, I started putting in the new bands. Not everyone liked it. I did get some calls from the more hardcore people telling me to “stop playing that shit and play Pantera“. I felt that I was saving rock radio, so I faded the heat and continued playing the new bands. Korn was one of them. In late ’94, I got a single from them called “Blind” I liked it, especially the little jazzy break at the end of the song. I played it. I did not give a fuck what people thought.
          Lots of things changed as 1995 began. Enter Michael Lee as program director of the Fox. He was local, from Lexington, and had worked here as a deejay on the old Rock 102 so he understood the Louisville market. He also understood that we’d become too tame so he began to make us heavier. The fact that our morning show went from Bob and Tom to the much more edgy Howard Stern didn’t hurt either.
          We had competition now too, as the boys across town started WQMF, or Q2, to try to knock us down a peg. Their PD, Rick Jamie, was a very competent guy who was almost obsessed with finding ways to get the Fox. The first official Korn single, “Chutes and Ladders” comes out and, for some reason, Michael decides to hold off on playing the song. That gave Rick an opening at Q2 and he jumped on it, putting the song into heavy rotation. A show was booked at Louisville Gardens and the record company, pissed off at us, gave the presents on the show to Q2.
       I’ll always give Michael the props for being a great card player. He called everyone’s bluff. Weeks passed. Q2 was not really promoting the show that hard, their ratings were far below ours anyway, Korn had a following, but they were still a new band. With a couple of weeks until showtime, things looked like a train wreck. Advance ticket sales were not that good, so the promoter freaked out and moved the show to the smaller Brewery Thunderdome (popular venue in Louisville during the late 1990’s). Right around that time, a conversation was had between Michael and the record label, who obviously sent out the S.O.S. I wasn’t in the room, but I will say this, all of a sudden we start spiking the Korn song, giving away tickets, and talking about THEIR show. They never took presents away from Q2, they said it was too late. I was also asked to hammer Korn on the Metal Pit over the weekend and give away some tickets. I gladly did so.
          The night of the show, it was all hands on deck. Our entire staff was there and, with the added promotion by The Fox and the smaller venue, the place is packed to the rafters. Korns‘ tour bus is parked directly behind the stage and there’s a door that goes from the bus right to the middle of the stage. Inside the Brewery, Jamie and his staff are prancing around like proud peacocks, taking undue credit for the big crowd. At one point, he approached me and sneered “Hey Black Frank, hope you’re having a good time at OUR show.” What Rick Jamie didn’t realize was, at that very moment, Michael is on the bus with the band and the record rep making a deal. While the backup band is playing, Michael comes running to me and pulls me to the side. I’m with my girlfriend, he’s new to the station and doesn’t know me that well, so he looks at my girl and asks her “How big are his balls?” “Pretty big” she replies. Michael turns to me and asks “Do you wanna steal this show?” “Fuck yeah!!! is my response of course. Then I get the plan. He goes back on the bus and seals the deal. I am to take a couple of big guys, Metallica Tom was one of them, and go stand by the stairs next to Jamie, who’s getting ready to go do stage announcements in front of a crowd that’s literally crawling over itself in anticipation of Korn coming on. I was to watch that backstage door. If Michael stuck his head in and give me the sign, my buddies were to block Rick and I was to bum rush the stage, grab the mic, and let it loose for one minute, promoting The Fox and making sure to tell people to go out and buy the CD, which had just come out.
           The four of us just stood there with all the chaos going on around us. Rick was so caught up in the moment and probably rehearsing in his head what he was going to say while holding his prop, a longneck Budweiser in his hand. He never saw it coming. In an instant, Michael stuck his head in the door and gave a thumbs up sign and it all worked with military precision. The boys never put their hands on Rick, but they did not let him pass. I hopped over them, ran up and snatched the mic and began screaming at the top of my lungs. I introduced myself, got the crowd to chant “Fox Rocks”, told ’em to go buy the CD, and had ’em chanting ‘KORN KORN KORN’ as I put the mic down and ran off the stage as the band came filing through the back door.
        Rick Jamie was last seen that night slamming his beer down and running out the front door wondering who’d screwed him and Michael and the rest of our staff piled on me like I had just scored the winning touchdown. It was one of the greatest moments of my career and the real birth of the nu metal era on The Fox. Hootie was dead.

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