Premiere: The Early Years

We started Premiere Radio Networks in 1985. My partners included Steve Lehman, Tim Kelly, Ed Mann and Kraig Kitchin. We had three shows. They were The Plain Rap Countdown (later changed to Plain "Wrap" after it was deemed we were far too white to rock the other spelling), National Lampoon's True Facts (a mini feature) and The Cla'ence All My Children Update, (starring Brad Sanders)

Virgie Chica, circa 1986, holds an archaic data storage device known as "the floppy."

We had no employees and two interns. Bob Borquez and Tony Hudson. They both went on to become our first employees and they were followed, to the best of my recollection by Cathy Cogan, Dave Price, Paul Paradiso, Melinda Ruben, Virginia Tavera and others I am forgetting.

Bob Borquez and Pyp, circa 1985, demonstrate the ancient art of "juggling land lines."

That little company went on to become a monolith, now a gigantic arm of Clear Channel with nothing on its website to reflect that we were there. I don't know a lot about who works there now. It must be sort of like going to High School and giving no thought to the kids who went there before you.

But at High School, there would at least be a display case with a photo or a trophy. People began their careers at Premiere. That means a lot. My last original partner, Kraig Kitchin, recently stepped down. It's a good time to remember.

If you clicked on the link to Premiere above, please note that our little web site was created and launched by Eric Canale in 1998.


Eric created Premiere's original web site in 1996 using a 28.8 modem and some of his will to live.

And now, here we all are, out on the internet with blogs and My Spaces and facebooks and podcasts and You Tubes, creating and writing and recording and viewing and listening and sharing and noticing that life has a way of spinning us around so that sometimes we land facing backwards and longing to pull some of our past into our future. That's what this blog is about.

Pyp circa 1989, looking very much like he had just narrowly escaped from Wham.

That's what happened when Melinda Ruben visited her local Verizon store last week and found Paul Paradiso (who we call Pyp, short for Pretty Young Paul). Melinda and I had been searching Google to find Pyp. We found him the old fashioned way. By accident. He has been living, for the past nine years, two blocks away from Melinda! (of course, we must give some credit for this find to technology, since she did find him at the Verizon store.)

Shocking? Yes it is and there is more. they both have the exact same kind of dog! Only Pyp dresses his dog, Joan up in stylish outfits which he claims she loves.

Melinda at the Premiere Christmas Party, circa 1990, torn between two dates.

Does she chose the dazzlingly gorgeous actor... or the tall dude? (young Gabriel Damon, from "Newsies," is the son of longtime Premiere Radio man, Dave Price.)

And so it was that we planned the reunion which inspired this blog. Melinda, who we call Mel wanted to bring Virginia who we call Virgie Chica (even though it's longer than just saying Virginia.)

They all came over with three dogs. Mel has two and Pyp has one. We talked and laughed over the din of the dogs. They were snarling, yapping and wrastling all night long. And then they suddenly all darted down the hall towards my office and bedroom. We were later to discover that either one dog took two dumps or two dogs took a dump apiece, but suffice it to say, I found a dump in the office and a dump in the bedroom which nearly scared the dump out of me which would have brought the total to three.

Mel, Pyp and Virgie, circa 2008.

After cleaning up after the dogs, the reunion then inspired me to begin looking through old photographs of which I had taken loads because back in the early days of Premiere, we published a weekly newsletter called The Premiere News and World Report and we would fold and staple and label and send this pithy little rag to radio stations and record companies and celebrities we had interviewed who would then either dump it in the trash and/or, in the case of Rob Schneider, actually call and tell us to stop sending it to him.

Doggie gone wild.

That having been said, it was a very funny and inventive publication (rivalling this blog) and one of my proudest moments came when we received a fax from Herb Sargent (Great Veteran Saturday Night Live Writer) asking to be placed on our mailing list because he dared not open Dana Carvey's mail while Dana Carvey was on vacation) I pinned that fax to my bulletin board.

Why am I blowing a whale, circa 1999? The fax from Herb Sargent is on that bulletin board... somewhere.

More about our newsletter next week when I have a chance to scan a copy for you. Right now, let's celebrate the wonderful team that created Premiere Radio Networks. The first 15 years were rare and special and I treasure that time and what we achieved together.

Premiere founding partners, Ed Mann and Tim Kelly (with Kelly Aquino and Michelle Cabral lurking)

Premiere Founding Partner, Steve Lehman, circa 1998, eating one of a drawer full of Power Bars.

Premiere Founding Partner, Kraig Kitchin struggled for the will to share his gift basket with Susan Gold Kovinsky, circa 1989.

In the photo above, circa 1988, I see Steve Lehman, Ed Mann, Tim Kelly, Joe Cipriano, Me, Brad Sanders and Cathy Cogan. Please Click Here for more Vintage Premiere Photos.

In this photo, circa 1992, I see Dave Price, Cathy Cogan, Chris Schell, Will Kohlschreiber, Susan Gold, Me sitting on Bob Borquez, Kelly Aquino, Ed Mann, Alan Wenkus and Danny Lang (I could be wrong about some of the faces.) And why were we wearing shorts? Maybe it was extremely casual Friday.

Help me identify us and remember what we did together. It was a blast.