GREETINGS! WHERE DO YOU WANT TO START?

Back when I was a little kid who had to watch the TV channels your folks watched, and like every other kid who saw Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show, from John Lennon to Leslie West, you wanted a guitar. Well, the birthday came and there was that $12 Sears guitar with the strings 1/2 inch off the fret board, like a saw that made your fingers bleed and hurt so much you had to stop. Maybe that was the plan? Hah. Then came the local guitar teacher who wanted you to learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Mary had a Little Lamb. HAH! No way! you wanted to learn Hound Dog! So after a bunch of weeks of bleeding fingers it went in the closet, never to be strummed again ...

That is until a kid 3 or 4 years older caught up to you in the hall at school and said "Heard you have a guitar, can you play?" Of course the answer was "yeah". So he shows up after school at your house, you bring him in and he finds out you can't play a lick. Cool enough, he teaches you E - A and B7 then says when you learn those and can switch 'em fast let me know. Talk about driven. Wake up and practice, run home for lunchr and practice, run home from school and practice ... 3 months later I am the rhytm guitar player in a Working Band!! "The Torments". Along the way the local radio station WELY was tossing out a huge stack of albums (remember those?) and the local teen Dis Jockey asked if I wanted to come up and go through the stacks. First thing I saw was this really, really wierd looking cover, it was Taj Mahal's debut,That'is when I got hooked on the Blues. The band became the Louisiana Sulfur Mine, from a picture in the encyclopedia - a big ole steam shovel dripping with nasty yellow sulfur and we began having fans who hated us and fans that loved us. A few years pass and somebody came over with Jimi's first, no matter how hard I tried, no way was I gonna ever play like that no matter how much I practiced (Never heard about a fuzz box or wha wha pedal).

Then Came Viet Nam. Every one from 18-24 went. My best car fixin' bud, the drummer from the other band in town and I, went 4-F. Now what? No more band. So while having a beer and an herbal cigarette thought NOW what am I gonna do? Don't know anything but playin guitar, staring at the radio, the DJ came on ... FLASH ... HEY if I can do that I can still "play" music!!

HERE COMES RADIO !!!

Brown Institute in The Cities! Where they took kids from all around the country and COMPLETELY erased thier accent! We studied Word lists of classical composers ,hrumph,what good is THIS?? Well, seems the Twin Cities classical station was being sold and going county so while the DJ's were leaving for new gigs my instructor (also the Program Director) hired me! Guess those crazy foriegn name lists came in handy.

Then came the first gig and first move ... lol. KDGO in Durango Colorado - $85 a week - Sinatra, Tony Bennet, Patti Paige, your parents music! Gack!! But I took the opportunity to 'smooth my chops'. Next stop KCBC in Des Moines ... Big Band. Whaaaa? Again I learned New music, now making $95 a week, but found the local Rock station on the dial where I spent my time listening. Now in a move that can only be fueled by youth (and in retrospect knowing how the AC can go down and a studio can become a sauna!) The guy on the air was having a Miserable time. I got in my car, drove to the station, walked up to the reception desk, asked the stunned secretary to speak to the Program Director. Ahem, he was standing right behind her putting memos in the staff mail slots. He turns and says "Hi, I'm the Program Director, can I help you?" Like I said ... youth ... I looked him in the eye and said " Yeah, you can put me on the air 'cause I'm better than the guy who's in there now." lol 19 years old!!! Big Brass Ones! He says "Do you know who that IS in there?!!!" "Yeah, but I can do better". In the next two weeks he fired everyone and brought in a house full of 20 year olds and we kicked butt! Oh yeah! $115 a week!! I was RICH!

I never took notice before of the long haired, bearded guys walking through the building until one day I heard this INCREDIBLE music come down the hallway when the door was opened! Had to go in there and ask WHAT IS this and WHO is it?!? "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed". Top 40 ... Done. Gotta get a gig like this! Now the road really comes into play. In those days a Program Director on Vacation or word of mouth might get you heard, you'd get a call "Wanna come work for me?" and offer you $50 or $60 more a week. You'd pack a U-Haul trailer and be off like a cool breeze. I spent about a month in the lobby, talking with record reps outside the office of Alan Stone at KQRS in Minneapolis until he finally hired me. That instructor from Brown Institute was being transffered and the morning show was opening up. Was I in Heaven? A ROOM next to the control room FILLED with albums ... Rock, Folk, Blues,Country,Showtune and guess what? Classical music! It was the Underground way, If you could make a segue that sounded great or told a story that's what you did! You could think "I really want to play that ELO tune" and go Oh Oh Oh!! I remember that Prokofiev fuge that had the coolest minute and a half in it, cue that up, segue into ELO that ended up Rockin' and then go into a Ten Years after or Johnny Winter and give the listeners a RIDE! The audience was so hip back in the day and would call you up just to say "Man, that was the coolest segue I've ever heard!! THAT was all you needed to keep your fire smokin"! While I was ther I met Wolfman Jack who worked across the street at a little daytime Soul Station that shared our towers.( You had to take power readings from the antenna bases hourly) so I saw him a lot before he became a legend at the X in ole Mexico. Cool. As I said all good things come to an end and the staff went on our merry way again. I took off on my Triumph to see the Southwest. Called Mom from Roswell New Mexico one day during a Sand storm (bike in the motel room, wasn't going to have it sandblasted!!) and she said please call Jim Channel he's driving me crazy calling two or three times a day. Did. Next, KSTP (Top 40 again?) worked with Machine Gun Kelly, Chuck Knapp and Charlie Bush and Steve Hatley. Decided I was gonna be the nastiest, most evil sounding thing on the radio (Turned out as more of a tribute to the Wolfman).

But, I missed the freeness of FM and began searching. St. Louis was next, then Louisville, then to Chicago! It was WSDM the girls and all that jazz and was turning soft rock. I was the first male they had hired in about 12 years! Then Milwaukee to theRock of Milwaukee WQFM With Bobbin Beam. Another great staff, Reitman, Space Commander Green, Joe Benson (Uncle Joe) and Mary Farrell.

RUSS ALBUMS ??

This is where Russ ALBUMS was born. Yep another new PD. I was originally hired as the Production Man (maker of commercials and promos for the station) the new guy harped at me daily " I gotta get you On The Air! We are wasting your voice in here and I want you in afternoon drive!" I kept saying how much I enjoyed my freedoms using Zappa and Hawkwind, all the old underground artists under commercials and promos, my Easel! Now Here's one of those radio stories that listeners don't usually hear. One day the PD walks in a says " Russ I need you to run the board for a few minutes, I need to talk with Rich." I said yeah, no problem (never opened the mic, just played sweepers between the songs). Around Five songs later the PD pokes his head through the door and said "I Fired Rich. You are my new afternoon guy. Listen you already missed one set of commercials, I can make those up, BUT if I don't hear your voice after this song ... you're Fired!!!" TOTALLY confused, Nervous, not really wanting to be on the air ... staring at the needle seeing it was about to come to the 'dead groove' at the end of the song I though "What do I want to do? who AM? What would John Records Landercker do NOW???" The VU meters dropping fast, song fading, I whipped the Headphones on and slapped the mic open and this just FELL Out of My Mouth.................. "Ted Nugent on 93 QFM ... and I am Russ Albums James"

MORE MILEAGE...DOES THIS ROAD EVER END?

As time went on and everyone just called me Albums the last name of James simply went away. Next came a call from Jesse Bullit and Lee Abrams to come back to Chicago to a new station that was gonna really kick ass ... WLUP The Loop! What a ride! Steve Dahl and Gary Meyer, Mitch Michaels, Sky Daniels. ..and ME??? Oh yeah, The General Manager was constantly on me to "Change your Name! You can't use that with John Records Landecker one of our main competitors here!" With a Great PD who backed me up, I remained Russ Albums, trying hard not to add the James ant the end was the concession. Here we go again. Ch-ch-ch-changes, I went to San Diego With The Bullit to KCBQ, then KILT Houston (format change to country ...bye) Them came 98 Rock WQXM Tampa. Worked with one of the most talented people I ever met, Don Swindell. Want Muhammed Ali? John Lennon? the President? even Bob Hite a local TV Newsman, Don was like working with Robin Williams and Rich Little!! More changes, Went across the Parking lot to WQYK Country! Great, Fabulous People, then off to San Diego again, to work Country with ... Jesse Bullit, back to Tampa when Mark Larsen heard the AMC Midnight Movie Express commercial said find that guy, bring him Back here now! A lot of changes at YNF, FIVE Program Directors but none that came close to equaling Carey Curlop! Staff? One of the finest group of folks I was ever lucky enough to be with! Ron & Ron - Charlie Logan - Scott Phillips - Nick Van Cleve - Becky Flash Gordon -JJ Lee- Walt Bob Marsicano and my pal Don Capone!

OF COURSE YOU'RE HUNGRY!! LET"S EAT!

Originally brought back to do the afternoon drive shift, Carey Curlop the New PD ASKED me if I would switch to Mid-Days because he wanted to use my Voice as the station Image Voice (the voice you hear Doing the ID at the top of the hour and saying "95 YNF Tampa Bay's Home of Rock and Roll" between the songs). With the mid-day shift came the ownership of the HOT LUNCH. At the time it was a call in request hour, I thought that was a little bland and passe so I asked if I could get a little creative and tweak it a little. I solicited Letters from the audience that became the "Menu" for the hour. Sometimes it was two or three 'blocks' of songs and sometimes the entire hour, when entrees came on the phones or when a Rock Star came in for an interview. The opening contained another tribute to my legendary hero as it began "95 YNF Welcome into the Hot Lunch with me, Russ Albums, the Boy in the Box ready to serve up another special menu from you designed to tickle your auditory nerves."

WELCOME ... ENTER THE WAX MUSEUM

Because of another switch in line up I was asked if I would like to take over the Wax Museum on Sunday Mornings. It took a week or two of bartering because again, I wanted a little more creative freedom to dig into the albums and play stuff that the audience did not normally hear, from my "underground" days at KQ. Again the Wax was call in request show. After some planning and a lot of wrangling with the PD I had something he 'kinda' agreed with. A Feature Artist began the hour with some of that 'inside' information you absorb off mic during interviews, backstage or on the tour bus. Then the rest of the hour was dedicated to one year. Huge fun...my Baby. It is still on in parts of the country, check my links page for AtlasMedia.info to find out where, maybe suggest it to your local Rock station, it's FREE to them. (lol)

THE ROAD RESUMES

95YNF was probably the saddest parting of all. Most everyone split for other gigs, I went to Philly and 94WYSP. Lucky again! Got to meet and work with Howard Stern AND the Greaseman. More changes and back to Tampa To WQYK again, and The Point. Then the Final Change, Radio Done. I now try my best to make a living doing Voice Overs, tough, tough job with so many great voices out there in competition for a few spots. Along the way I met the finest girl on the planet who has endured over 30 years with me and given us a Son we couldn't be more proud of! When asked if he was going into radio too ( he's got a voice!) He replies calmly, "No not a chance, I've seen it first hand." lol

BTW: Again,for those of you who wondered Russ Albums ... That's a Tribute to My Hero who came thru my pillow loud and clear and remains an Idol, from the mighty blowtorch of 50,000 watts, from the Magnificent ...."City By The Shore, WLS Chicago... BOOOOGIE CHECK! Yes It is I the Boy in the Box ... John RECORDS Landecker and Records Really is my Middle Name". Thank You John, for the inspiration to try to be good.