ARLO

Makin' everday a classic rock experience

By Jeff Maisey

If you've ever met disc jockey Mike Arlo, one thing is immediately obvious, aside from his trademark handlebar mustache: The Mike Arlo you hear from 10 to 3, mid-days on WAFX –FM 106.9 The Fox is the same upbeat Arlo off the air and in real life. The guy who's been serving up "The Electric Lunch," "Arlo's Archives," and other great programs for the last 32 years (on FM99 and The Fox), is honestly enthusiastic about classic rock, has an encyclopedic knowledge of rock 'n' roll history, appreciates his loyal listeners and thoroughly enjoys what he does for a living.

And that's just a first impression.

He exudes an insatiable lust for life and makes every effort a positive experience.

While Arlo has co-starred in the locally produced Dr. Madblood television show since its inception nearly thirty years ago, he has also appeared in most of his radio station's comical TV ad campaigns, even when it entails impersonating Britney Spears.

"I'll do anything for a laugh," said Arlo. "I have no problem with self-deprecating humor. I thought the whole concept was a hoot. Watching the playback, it makes me laugh. I have interviewed senatorial candidates, presidential candidates, governors, Jimmy Page, Bernie Taupin, Ray Manzarek of The Doors, some of the heavyweights of rock and roll, and yet, after three decades, I'm going to be remembered as that guy in the Britney Spears outfit on the TV."

What you might not know about Arlo is that he's an avid NASCAR fan, digs yard work, turns the bratwurst over on his gas-powered grill, listens to Tchaikovsky, hikes in the Great Smokey Mountains, and has been known to catch a fish or two in the Chesapeake Bay. His modesty shines through when he squints and grins while beaming about his wife Lauren's homemade sauces. He's also a captivating storyteller.

With a magnetic personality, Arlo's neighborly friendliness created an instant and unbreakable bond among listeners.

"Any time you tuned-in, it sounded like he genuinely was somebody that you liked to like," said former FM99 program director Ron Reger. "He came across that way. And even now, as I tune-in every once in a while, I'll still hear him on the air and it's like hearing the voice of a good friend. But even for the people who didn't work with him, I think people had that reaction."

Mike Arlo, who turns 59 in June, was raised in Virginia Beach in a navy household. He still wears his Princess Anne High School class ring with pride -- the class of 1966.

Before his career in broadcasting, he attempted numerous trades.

"I was an engineer with the power company (VEPCO), dug ditches, bent steel reinforcement rods, did roofing; you name it, I have done it," said Arlo. But then a change presented itself. "I was doing standup comedy, just dreaming about one day getting into broadcasting. This friend of mine had a club and said, 'I'll pay for the equipment, just bring your record collection in and on Wednesday nights do a progressive night. It was a little bar on Rosemont Road. Doing that I met the guys who were jocking at the old Stereo 99, and they had just switched it over; they were going to go full-time rock and roll. They were going to call it FM99. They brought me in (1975) and introduced me to the program director, and I got a gig working part-time. Then they hired me as a full/part timer when they decided to go 24/7 rock."

Prior to 1975, most people listened to AM broadcasts in their cars, homes, and on mobile hand-held transistor radios. The AM format was dominated by pop, R&B, and country and western music. FM stereo broadcasting was still considered an emerging technology.  It featured, as Steely Dan put it, "no static at all," due to its noise immunity, and with a wider bandwidth was a better quality broadcast than AM.

"In the early days, FM radio was almost like college radio," said Arlo. "AM radio was very structured. FM radio gave you a lot wider range of musical choices. But there were a lot of new, high quality bands out there at the time."

A significant portion of those exceptional bands are today categorized as "classic rock artists." They fit the format of the pre-1996 FM99, which was dubbed AOR, or album oriented rock. Though many of the albums by groups like Emerson, Lake & Palmer and the Rolling Stones had "hit" songs, most of the material played on the radio was album tracks. It was the antithesis of pop music. 

"In 1975, we were able to play everything from Earth, Wind & Fire to Chicago, Carly Simon, along with Led Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult," said Arlo. "We were able to do that because the structure was so different. We were offering an alternate choice. Who knew that FM radio was going to explode?"

According to Arlo, the first FM station in Hampton Roads -- Tidewater back then -- to rate number one by Arbitron was FM99.  Since that monumental moment, in 1976, no AM station has regained the number one position.

An important aspect of what Mike Arlo and FM99 were doing at that time was turning people on to new music. Arlo is credited with being one of the first disc jockeys in the country to break records by Firefall, Blackfoot and Asia, among others.

"In those days, when Ron Reger was the assistant program director and Bruce Garraway was the program director, they completely trusted Arlo's instincts to know his audience," said Sean Brickell, who at the time worked promotions for Atlantic and Elektra Records. "We could take records in there and he would jump on them in no time. He had tremendous ears."

Reger compared Arlo to a performer on stage knowing what the audience wanted to hear.

That sentiment is echoed by Brickell, who believes more people have listened to Mike Arlo than any other jock in the history of local radio.

"If the world would just leave the Mike Arlos of the world alone, radio would actually be an exciting medium again," said Brickell, currently President of Brickell & Partners Public Relations. "All this programming and researching (today), I mean, good God, listen to your ears folks. And that's what he did."

There is no substitute for knowing your audience, believes Arlo.

"We were playing (Jimmy) Buffett here when stations in Columbus didn't because we have water, we have boats, and we have warmer weather," he said. "People here related to Jimmy Buffett's music in a much bigger way. His albums sold much better here than in Columbus, Ohio -- two areas of population about the same size and yet completely different tastes. You can't program them the same. You have to trust your gut."

Times have changed since the glory days of FM radio in the late 1970s, when a new, unknown record could make its way from the mailbox to the airwaves in a matter of minutes. Things have become scientific.

"We pretty much target adults 25 to 54," said current WAFX - The Fox program director Mike Beck. "It's the baby boom generation; it's the biggest segment of the population. We go out and do research; play them songs and ask them to rate them; and they tell us what they want to hear. And we give them what they want, which is their favorite songs that they grew up listening to."

The Fox has a variety of programs designed to appeal to a broad scope of classic rock listeners, including the A to Z weekend, where they play their whole catalog, to the occasion "deep cut," an album track not considered a hit song. But Arlo notes, they can only go but so deep. He said deep album tracks might make 200 folks very happy but on the flipside, 30,000 people are likely to be confused.

"When I hear a piece of music, I go back in time and think about what I was doing and what the circumstances were in my life; when I first heard that song and what it meant to me," said Arlo. "And it's the same thing for our audience. In a classic format you're dealing with nothing but the memories of people's lives. You are the soundtrack to somebody's life. They don't want to hear surprises; they want to hear songs they know the words to. They've got enough challenges and B.S. going on in their life that in the real world when they tune in to their favorite station they want to hear their favorite song.

Can you really sit and listen to anything off Fleetwood Mac's Rumors or anything off the Hotel California album and go, 'I can't stand that?' I can't, and I've been playing them a couple times a day for 30 years. It's good. It's quality stuff.

"You now have to be very careful what you play. I know it's real popular to go, 'Corporate radio has no leeway for fitting songs in that don't fit the format.' Well, duh. If you do that you're not going to be in the business for very long. I've watched stations come and go, and personalities come and go, mostly because they're not performing at the level people want them to. People expect certain things from a classic rock station. If we're doing classic hits and not playing Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Boston, Crosby, Stills & Nash; if we were leaving those groups out, some person would be into four of the five, but not likely the fifth one. I had a guy call up upset about Elton John: 'You play too much Elton John.' How can you be tired of this one but request something that's just as burned out with just as many spins?"

 One of the things Arlo likes about his job is interviewing bands. He records his conversations, most of which occur by phone, and edits them for broadcast. But he is cognitive of his listeners.

"I try to ask questions, like when Plant & Page were here a few years ago, where if you (the listener) had a chance to be there, what would you ask them? What would you want to know?," he said. "I ask about the name. I asked Page about the name (Led Zeppelin). That was a neat story, because for years the popular myth was that he ran a name by Keith Moon of The Who, and he said, 'Yeah that'll go like a frickin' Led Zeppelin.' And that's not exactly accurate. It was the New Yardbirds; that was the name that he (Page) had. Keith actually did come up with the name (Led Zeppelin) but he had it for a band that he, Jimmy Page, and one of the guys from Mott the Hoople (were going to form). Of course, they all thought it was a hoot. They ended up going back to their respective groups and all becoming famous. It was just cool to have him talk about that."

Arlo considers his conversations with Harry Chapin, Bruce Hornsby, Robbin Thompson, and Jimmy Page to be his favorite interviews. He gets frequent calls from his friends in Chicago, the brass-powered group that had hits with "25 or 6 to 4" and "Wishing You were Here."

"We were laughing the other day, Walt (Parazaider) and I," said Arlo, "about we're in that odd 2 to 5-percent of the people on planet earth that actually get up in the morning, think about what they're going to do that day, and look forward to getting to work because you can't believe they actually pay ya. "Money for Nothing" should be my unofficial theme song, because I come in here, play great music, talk to people on the phone, see them at concerts and go to races with them, and they pay me. God bless America!"

Arlo emphasizes the importance of traffic and weather updates, as well as newsworthy events.

When Hurricane Isabel wreaked havoc upon Hampton Roads, people suddenly rediscovered battery-powered radios. A significant portion of the local population relied entirely on radio broadcast for vital information. It was a moment in time Arlo will never forget.

"The day after the hurricane was probably my favorite day in radio," he said. "We did a five-hour talk radio show; gave people directions to ice; put people up with highway information, because if you remember, trees were down all over the roads. It was really cool talking to people in their cars and listening in on transistor radios and calling in on their cell phones."

 Just three months later, it was Arlo operating in a makeshift sort of way. He underwent a rather complex surgery on his back. Within a month he was on the air again, but did his show from home. 

"Through modern technology," he said, "we were able to hook up a digital line from my house, plug it in to a little magic box; I plugged the microphone in one side, had a walkman for my headphones, and I could talk to my buddy Pat who was running the studio here, and he would give me the out-cues of the spots and the time-cues, a go, 'Okay, you've got thirty seconds to live.' And I'd just pick up the microphone, do the break; they were sending the logs to my computer; I was printing them out at my house. I was able to download all my email from the listeners from the website. I was almost spoiled, because here I am sitting in my nice easy-chair and looking out the window at the birdfeeder hanging over the deck and looking at the river, which we have a much better view of thanks to the hurricane. It was so relaxing and nice. The only time it got a little weird was when the UPS guy showed up one day and we have three dogs and they went nuts."

Sign-offs were important in the ol' days of radio. Arlo has two.

He says "bicycle" originated from his friend, Marvin Chapel, who is a bodybuilding coach. He uses it because it's an "attention getter." It is the other daily goodbye that says it all about Mike Arlo.

"It's 'Make it a great day, ' which started when I was doing the overnights. You can ruin a perfectly good day with a bad attitude. The glass is half full or half empty; it's completely up to you."      

ARLO’S TOP 10 CLASSIC ROCK ALBUMS

1. Abbey Road, The Beatles  

2. Zoso, Led Zeppelin  

3. Dark Side of The Moon, Pink Floyd 

4. Hotel California, Eagles 

5. Joshua Tree, U2 .  

(Tie) On The Threshold of a Dream, Moody Blues.  

7. Ten, Pearl Jam  

8. Alchemy, Dire Straits    

9. Nothing Like the Sun, Sting 

10. L.A. Woman, The Doors