He's local! He's opinionated! He's obnoxious! He talks
about issues that are important to Montrealers! He's also humourless, vain, paranoid
and quite possibly insane, but what the hell!
When I first heard that Howard
Galganov would be hosting the CIQC's morning show, I laughed out loud. It seemed
preposterous, unbelievable. Are we really so far gone that the first thing we want
to do each morning is listen to Galganov railing on about the language laws?
Interspersed with his favourite tunes from the '60s? Talk about getting a bad
start on the day.
There is, though, one
interesting thing about Galganov's format. He has it written into his contract that
there will be no time delay, no jittery producer with his finger on the bleeper button (as
is the case over at CHOM with the other Howard.). When Galganov flips his lid, we
get to hear it live, as it happens, direct from the home studio in his St. Lazare bunker.
Yahoo!
Still, not all is lost on CIQC
(AM 600). Mitch Melnick, one of Montreal's better radio hosts, is trying to do
something different in his drive-home slot (4-7 p.m.). Sick of talking about sports
for three hours, Melnick has transformed his show into a loose (very loose) program that
seems to be about sports and whatever else springs into his mind. It's called
Melnick: No Limit and at this point has to be classified as a work in progress.
In other words, it could also
be called Melnick: No Format. Sometimes you'll hear raunchy comedy routines and
insightful commentary, sometimes you'll hear meandering '60s-obsessed conversations and
(gulp) local callers trying to sing like Neil Young.
Last Thursday's show, a
special broadcast, was a salute to the Summer of Love and featured interviews with people
like original '60s radical Paul Krassner and original CFOX Good Guy Dean Hagopian.
It ended with Jimi Hendrix blasting "Wild Thing" at the Monterey Pop
Festival, which was definitely fun the hear on AM radio while driving through crosstown
traffic.
At least I thought so.
What Melnick's core audience of sports-crazed jocks thinks is another matter - I'd
say there's a good chance they'd rather be listening to minute-by-minute updates on how
much the Habs SUCK. Melnick knows this is a problem - he's referred to it repeatedly
on air - but seems determined to sail full-speed-ahead regardless of which way the idiot
wind blows.
And speaking of Dylan:most of
the music on Melnick's show is good, but for my money there's too much mainstream rock and
blues, Why not put Bob and the Boss on the back burner every once in a while and
play something for the kids (I hear they like Wu-Tang Clan and Ween). Or maybe let
the supporting cast (cute-sounding reporter-at-large Patricia Caporali, wisecracking
producer Scott Saxon, socialist agitator Terry Haig, spaceman Bill Lee, right wing
seamhead Jeff Blair, etc.) pick more tunes? Or would that doom the show for certain?
Anyway, you've got to hope
that Melnick knows what he is doing and is not just waiting for the right moment to leave
town for a bigger station or perhaps the Peace Corps. At least he's taking some
chances, and in Montreal that makes him a valuable radio commodity. Someone who -
with a bigger budget and proper support - would probably make a pretty good morning-show
host.
