by JOHNSON CUMMINS

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." –Hunter S. Thompson

Remember the WKRP in Cincinnati episode when Mr. Carlson confuses payola cocaine for foot powder and after dumping an eightball of chowder powder in his shoes, his feet freeze? Leave it to those kooky fictional jocks to blow the lid off the pot of the radio payola scandals of the '70s. But were Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap blowing their whistles in vain?

Ever wonder how the hell imps like Jessica Simpson pollute our airwaves every hour? Hard work? Talent? C'mon, Poindexter, wake up and smell the foot powder.

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is heading up an investigation into radio payola after in-house memos at Sony BMG were leaked last week. Check out these little Post-It Notes scooped up at the company's New York office: "We ordered a laptop for Donnie Michaels at WFLY in Albany. He has since moved to WHYI in Miami. We need to change the shipping address." Or how about "Can you work with Donnie to see what kind of digital camera he wants us to order?" Then there's the blunt memo aimed at the WKSE programmers from 2004: "Two weeks ago it cost us over $4,000 to get Franz Ferdinand."

Also dug up was the monetary incentive memo for radio programmers to beef up spins for J-Lo: "Please be advised that in this week's top 40 spin increase of 236, we bought 63 spins at a cost of $3,600." Or "Please be advised that in this week's Good Charlotte top 40 spin increase of 61, we bought approximately 250 spins at a cost of $17,000."

With further evidence of plasma TVs, baseball tickets, trips to Miami and Playstations offered as incentives for more spins on radio, Spitzer's net is getting more clogged up as the investigation goes on. So far, Sony BMG has been ordered to pay a $10-million settlement. Spitzer promises to investigate more labels in the months to come.

Major-label payola has been around since the '50s and sadly, isn't nearly as seedy as some of the other facilitators of mediocrity. I think the real fish to fry in the not-so-free world of radio is probably Clear Channel, hogging over 40 per cent of the radio listenership in North America. Most programming is left up to a handful of CEOs who monopolize, dictate and steer the cream of the crap our way, with increased power in the radio market every day.

Solution: turn off the radio and stream Internet stations like WFMU.org, and leave J-lo and Good Charlotte to the chumps.

PS: Don't miss the celebration of all things Sabbath and sludgy at l'Escogriffe tonight, Thursday, Aug. 4, with Newfoundland's sHeavy and Moncton's Iron Giant.

HANG THE DJ! jonathan.cummins@gmail.com

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