Category Archives: Remote Broadcasts

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On January 15, 2011 Chris and Ally recorded their 44th episode of the SmorgShow Podcast live from Baba Gonesh’s Restaurant, “The Hidden Palace – A Taste of Baba!”.   It was a long road for Baba to get his restaurant up and running, and during this episode Chris and Ally discuss Indian cuisine, customs for eating out in an Indian restaurant, and even sample many selections from the buffet.   Old friend and Smorgasbord show regular Jerry Malauskas joins in on the festivities.    Jerry is a proud vegan and absolutely craves the taste of Baba!!

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Chris and Dave’s live ”broadcast” from the Carlisle Banquet Hall in Lombard (06.29.84).  This was actually a fake remote broadcast with actual party sound effects to create the illusion of a real party taking place. Dave and I put together the background atmosphere soundtrack at the College of DuPage radio station sound effects library that morning. The show was apparently so realistic that listeners actually started to show up in droves to the Carlisle looking for Chris and Dave and the free food.  The Carlisle called the radio station to complain as we were packing up for the evening.  This was our little “War of the Worlds”.  Too bad we didn’t get this good of a turn out for our real remote show from the Barn three months earlier! We actually got this idea while listening to all the other radio stations broadcasting from the Taste of Chicago. We thought it would be cool to have our own “Taste of the Smorg”. This is the entire broadcast from that evening.

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Here is a long-lost video clip of Peet’s blues classic – Live from the Barn.

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Barn Show Plot

We had given away 200 seats on the air for this live broadcast. Both Lisle and Downers Grove cable stations were there to tape the show for a later broadcast. We had 3 local bands open for us. We spent about $100 to rent the place and Peet plopped down an additional $150 or so for pizzas. This was to be the show to push us in the upper stratosphere of high school radio fame! What could possibly go wrong??

March 17, 1984 – Peet’s 20th Birthday, and the day the largest snowstorm of that season hit. Naperville got 12 inches of snow dumped within a 10-hour period. Since most of our audience relied on their parents for transportation, a total of 7-10 people showed up. There was some good news – No one gave us the finger that night. Needless to say, for the next three months, Peet and I had pizza as an ingredient in everything we ate (sandwiches, salads, cereal, etc.).

I drew the sketch that is shown here in study hall (where I got most of my creative ideas). I forgot to add the actual people – yeah, that’s it – that was what the problem was!

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After about 45 minutes we realized no one was going to show up. We left the stage and this punk rock band took over. These guys were $#%holes. They were pissed off at the world. What were they pissed off for? They were getting free air and stage time. Plus they didn’t have $150 worth of pizzas to deal with. If you look closely in the right photo above, you will see the lead singer flipping off the video screen. He spent the entire instrumental trying to raise the screen which was still projecting Peet’s face) before finally giving up.  Tough guys!

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Backed by local band “Denied Remarks”, Chris and Peet perform “Stuck in the Slammer Blues” live at the Naperville Barn.

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The Bill

$87.00 sure seemed like a lot of money to a 17-year old. That was what I owed the Park District for renting out the Barn for that evening. Note that this is the SECOND NOTICE. I think it actually ended up making it to THIRD AND FINAL NOTICE before I had enough money to pay it off. Peet had his own bill to worry about – $130 for the pizzas. This bill might actually be the starting point of my establishing a credit record.

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This is classic Jerry Malauskas, and actually one of my favorite moments from the Tivoli broadcast. Jerry sings a cover of that old Simon and Garfunkel song. The crowd is polite for the most part, but when Jerry struggles to find the right guitar chords, they begin to get a little noisy. We gave him the spotlight and he delivered. I don’t believe I have an actual shot of the performance, but I did find a picture of Jerry and it was actually taken at a bar, so I think it is relevant for this.

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Two performances of Peet’s classic blues number were performed at the Tivoli that night – one acoustic, and the other one with the full blues band. Jerry brought his saxophone out for this and it rocked the house.

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Tivoli Bowling Alley – Yes, I know what it sounds like he is singing here. So did many other people who called up when this was on the air wondering why a high school radio station would allow such profanities to go out over the airwaves. When we explained what the title of the song was, each complainer seemed a bit embarrassed after we asked “what did you think he was saying?”

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Our 2nd Remote Broadcast at the Tivoli Bowling Alley was a huge success.  At first it was a bit intimidating walking into the bowling alley/pool hall where the town burnouts called their home.  We set up our equipment, and they all sat down waiting for us to entertain them.  We decided to make them part of the show, so if we failed to please, they had everything to do with it.  It ended up being a blast, especially when the charming young lad in front of me recited this lovely holiday poem.

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