It’s that time again and the Burgo saga continues.
After four years in Sydney at radio station 2UW was a very eventful and exciting time for me, getting some small recognition in the radio and TV industry. This led me to being offered a job in Melbourne at radio 3AK to host my first ever breakfast shift.
It was a shift that would become the only radio time slot I would occupy for the next 50-odd years at several radio stations across Australia. 3AK like 2UW in Sydney was a top 40 station playing the latest hits with a few from the 60s thrown in.
The main competitors were 3UZ (now 3AW) and 3KZ. The guy who owned the breakfast slot on UZ was Don Lunn, and he had done so for some time, so it was a huge step up for me, not to mention the fact, that I’d arrived from Sydney, a part of the world that was treated with disdain by Melbournites.
I thought this is certainly not going to be any picnic. Anyway, I got to it and have to say made some inroads in a reasonably short time, helped once again by some TV exposure on Channel 7 on Saturday nights on a show called The Penthouse Club.
The show was hosted by Mike Williamson and a very funny lady, an institution in Melbourne, Mary Hardy. It was a mixture of topical stories happening at the time, humorous sketches, AFL football segments and the trots broadcast live on that night along with something that would become a national phenomenon in the years to come, which by the way I would become heavily involved in – TattsLotto.
On the show I would be in some of the comedy bits and when Mike Williamson was involved in another area, I would help Mary Hardy do the Lotto draw, which at this stage in its infancy, was only in Melbourne.
A unique machine had been invented to draw random numbered balls. It was certainly a complex bit of engineering and we always held our breath when we fired it up. One night I will never forget, the machine in its very early stages of operation, so not very reliable and for all of the nights for it to go wrong there I was.
For some reason it jammed in the position of releasing ball number two so consequently the machine failed to move on to the remaining cylinders to catch the next four ping pong balls that the machine kept spewing out, so, they ended up bouncing all over the studio floor with Mary yelling at me: “don’t touch them! don’t touch them! They’ll shoot you!”
You see we used to have armed guards in the studio to make sure everything went according to plan and within the very strict rules that were in place at the time.
When we watched the recording back it was one of the funniest pieces of TV. I’d ever seen. I laugh out loud when I think about it now but I can assure you it wasn’t funny at the time. We picked up the balls off the floor and as they were actually drawn by the machine in correct order it was declared legal. Strangely enough, something very similar happened here in Perth quite a few years later and I’ll talk about that in future months.
Of course, a lot of the antics on television on Saturday night made for great radio the following week. So once again with the help of TV, my radio audience started to grow and eventually I made it to the top spot in Melbourne.
A number of other stations adopted our programming ideas and it started to split the audience, but I managed to hold my own until a major management change happened which I’ll get to later.
The dramas didn’t stop just on the radio and TV. I continued in Melbourne to be asked to MC concerts by touring overseas groups, of which there were quite a few.
As I sit here writing this, a couple of stories come to mind, one involving Roy Orbison, who I had the pleasure of spending a fair amount of time with socially as well as hosting his concerts.
One of these was at Festival Hall and as I was standing on the stage waiting to introduce Roy his lead guitarist whilst holding his guitar grabbed hold of the microphone stand.
Apparently, there was some sort of short circuit amongst the electrics so when he held both guitar and microphone stand it completed the circuit and he received a very large electric shock which saw him collapse writhing on the floor.
A couple of us kicked the microphone stand away breaking the circuit which experts said later probably saved his life. Ambulance officers arrived and took him off to hospital where happily he recovered the next day.
After a lengthy delay Roy insisted the concert should go on and for the first time ever played lead guitar with his group that night and no one noticed the difference. What a talent! So many stories so little space, stay tuned.
Cheers Burgo!
