Rick Shannon is an unemployed FM rock DJ considering a change in career. But just as he begins selling off his record collection, a job offer comes from a small station in Mississippi, where a DJ recently stopped showing up for work.
After discovering an audiotape that might explain the fate of the missing DJ, Rick decides to look into the matter. Sensing a new career path, he assumes another identity: Buddy Miles, PI, naming himself after the one-time drummer for Jimi Hendrix.
The result is classic Fitzhugh. A wickedly funny amateur investigation that turns up blackmail, murder, arson, and a major FCC violation. The suspects literally come out of the woods, ranging from a divorcé who rents construction equipment to a former local beauty pageant queen (Miss Tire & Auto Parts) to the station's general manager and the president of a local personal finance company (who has peculiar ideas about collateral).
This smart, satiric, southern romp of a novel draws heavily from the author's own experience as a Mississippi-born FM radio disc jockey from the 1970s. An offbeat and hilarious whodunit that redefines the meaning of classic rock.
Radio Activity
By Fitzhugh, BillWilliam Morrow & Company
ISBN: 0380977591Chapter One
It was hard to say which lookedmore depressed, the seventies-era shopping center or theman pulling into its parking lot. Bothhad seen brighter days, though in fairnessit had to be said the man wore itbetter than the shopping center.
He called himself Rick Shannonand there was a semitragic, end-of-the-line aspect about him. Time had chipped the youthful cockiness off theoutside, but some of his underlyingswagger remained. There were men Rick's age who envied his thick head of hair; others envied hisfreedom. The two things Rick had plenty of, freedom and hair,the currency of the sixties. But, like the songwriter said, the formerwas just another word for nothing left to lose. The latter,well, Rick could still lose that.
There were more weeds than cars in the parking lot. Half thestorefronts were boarded, the rest were just waiting for the othershoe to drop. Rick parked his truck. This was exactly what heswore he'd never do. But here he was. He killed the engine andsat there, staring at the dashboard. The gas gauge. Empty. Same ashis wallet. He mumbled, "Fuck."
Rick was unemployed again.When he worked, he worked inradio. He'd grown up listening to AM, when "Yesterday" and"Satisfaction" were Top 40 hits, when radio was all about singles.But his first job was on FM,during album-oriented radio's heyday.He'd been the youngest jock at the station when Imagine and StickyFingers were new. A few decades later Rick was doing the nightshift at KBND-FM, Bismarck, North Dakota. Rockin' the SiouxState at 99.9. The pay was adequate and Bismarck was, well, it wasmore like every other city these days. The same franchised fastfood and twenty-screen cineplexes lining indistinguishable maindrags, town after town. Rick had worked in dozens of cities. He'dseen it everywhere. Homogenization was just a sign of the times.
Especially in radio. More stations owned by fewer corporations.Consultants and music researchers conspiring to makeeverything sound the same. And they weren't even looking forsongs people liked. The research was geared to find songs peopledidn't dislike. That's what they played to keep listeners until thenext commercial break. That's what so much of radio had become.
So Rick had been playing all the rock radio clichés untilClean Signal Radio Corporation bought the station and broomedthe staff. It was Clean Signal's fifth station in the market and it showed. All sense of community had vanished as the satellite feedbounced in voice-tracked jocks from Chicago and Florida.
As he had walked out of KBND's studios with his final check,Rick had thought about how media watchers in the fifties hadpredicted that television would be the ruin of radio. He wonderedif anyone would appreciate the irony that radio had killed itself.
Rick mailed tapes and résumés all over the country and spreadthe word on the grapevine. He was available. A rock-steady prowith production skills, on-air talent, whatever. Rick tried not todwell on the fact that he and all the other DJs of his era were likesilent movie stars at the dawn of the talkies. By and large theirskills didn't transfer to the new iteration of the medium and theywould soon be forgotten and replaced as things changed.
And now Rick found himself parked outside a storefrontunder a sign that said: b-side vinyl -- we buy and sell usedtapes, cds, and lps. It was either this or start bouncing checks.
Rick looked down at his arm. He knew that big fat vein, blueand pulsing, was a potential source of revenue, a renewableresource he could tap again and again. But he also knew plasmadidn't fetch much, and besides, that had always seemed to Ricklike such a sure sign of having reached the last resort. He couldn't bring himself to check in there. Not yet anyway. So he had tapped his record collection instead.
Looking up and down the sidewalk in front of the shoppingcenter, Rick saw only one person, a man who looked to be in hissixties. His shopping cart brimmed with indistinguishable bundles, folded cardboard boxes, a water jug, plastic bags filled with crushed cans. His face was sunburned and peeling as his cracked lips wrapped around the mouth of a bottle.
Rick took this as a reminder that things could be worse. Hegot out of his truck and walked around to the other side. Heopened the passenger door and looked at the box filled with rarealbums, including an original UK version of Pink Floyd's ThePiper at the Gates of Dawn, signed by the entire band. Rick hadpromised himself that he wasn't going to part with that for lessthan two hundred. Of course, more than once he'd made thepromise that he'd never sell any of his records, but things change.
Rick picked up the box and kicked the door shut. As heapproached B-Side Vinyl, the homeless man made eye contactand extended a hand. "Help out a fellow record buff?"
Rick paused, a sympathetic look on his face. "Sorry," he said,shrugging with the heavy box in his hands. "Trying to get sometogether myself."
The old man gave a nod. "Don't sell 'em all," he said. "Hangon to something, you know, just in case."
Rick smiled and said, "Thanks for the advice." He pushed thedoor open and stepped inside. The bouquet of cardboard, dust,and vinyl welcomed him. Nothing else smelled quite like a roomfull of old albums. The cobwebs in the corners of the store spokevolumes. There were no other customers, just the owner sittingbehind the counter reading a magazine. He lowered the magazineand looked over the top of his glasses. "Cleaning out your attic?"
Rick set the box on the counter and said, "Something likethat."
Continues...Excerpted from Radio Activityby Fitzhugh, Bill Excerpted by permission.
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