CONTACT: Joyce Linehan/Ashmont Media, (617) 282-2510, joyce@ashmontmedia.com

WMBR DJ JON BERNHARDT CELEBRATES 25 YEARS ON THE RADIO WITH A PAIR OF BENEFIT CONCERTS FEATURING HIS FAVORITE BANDS

Photo of Jon at WMBR sometime in the 80’s available for download at http://www.ashmontmedia.com/AMR_bernhardt_photo.html

(Cambridge, Mass. — April 24, 2009) WMBR disc jockey Jon Bernhardt will celebrate his 25th anniversary with the morning Breakfast of Champions radio program on Friday, June 26, from 8 – 10 a.m. To mark this auspicious occasion, he has convinced the bands that have been played the most on his program to perform at a pair of benefit concerts at two Boston area clubs. UK legend Bevis Frond will play in his only U.S. appearance on Sunday, June 21 at TT the Bear’s along with the Condo Fucks and Sleepyhead. Versus reunites to play Church with Rebecca Gates (The Spinanes) and more guests TBA, on Saturday, June 27. Proceeds will benefit WMBR. Tickets for both shows are on sale now.

On his June 26, 2009 anniversary program, Bernhardt plans to count down the 33 songs he’s played the most over his 25 year career. With the painstaking meticulousness of an actuary (see below), Bernhardt spent 18 months typing all 25 years worth of  playlists into a database, so that he could figure out which bands and songs he played the most. Many of those bands will be heard on the June 26 program, and some will probably be as much of a surprise to listeners as they were to Bernhardt himself.

Sunday, June 21, TT the Bear’s, 10 Brookline St., Cambridge

The Bevis Frond — #1 on Bernhardt’s career playlist — makes a rare appearance, having last played the United States in 2002. Matador recording artists the Condo Fucks feature all three members of Bernhardt’s #2 band, Yo La Tengo. Sleepyhead, who released a song that tied for #1 on the list, opens. (18+, $20, advance tickets at ticketweb.com, or at the venue. Call (617) 492-0082 for more information.)

Saturday, June 27, Church, 69 Kilmarnock St., Boston

Versus, who haven’t played in Boston since 2003, and are the #4 band on the list, reunite especially for the occasion. Also appearing is Rebecca Gates, whose band The Spinanes, released the other song tied for #1. More artists TBA. (21+, $15, advance tickets at ticketweb.com, or at the venue. Call (617) 236-7600 for more information.)

Bernhardt began volunteering at the M.I.T. community radio station in September, 1983. His first Breakfast of Champions program was broadcast on Thursday, June 28, 1984, but by the fall of 1986, he had settled into the Friday morning slot of the indie-rock institution, where he remains today. He was named “Best College DJ” by The Boston Phoenix. Throughout his tenure on the Breakfast of Champions, he has been an early champion of many bands that later achieved a modicum of fame and success. During the day, Bernhardt works as an actuary for a major metropolitan insurance company. He’s held various jobs there since graduating college. When he’s not being an actuary or a disc jockey, he can often be found playing theremin, both in the Lothars and as a solo artist. No promises, but if asked nicely, he may do a few numbers at these shows. He lives in Somerville.

WMBR is the MIT campus radio station, broadcast on 88.1 FM between 20 and 24 hours per day, 365 days a year. The station transmits at 720 watts, effective radiated power from the top of the Eastgate Building in Kendall Square in Cambridge, Mass. Programming includes a wide range of music shows, public affairs programs and eclectic audio entertainment.

Playlists for all of Jon Bernhardt’s radio shows, as well as a select number of other WMBR jocks, can be found at http://www.track-blaster.com/wmbr.

WMBR broadcasts at 88.1 FM in Cambridge Massachusetts, and on the Internet at http://wmbr.org.

Thanks to the editor of the picks, “Madam Internet”, and also to Google Alerts!

Yep, I got an email the other day from my friend Marc in Chicago that he’d seen the ad while watching a Simpsons rerun on Fox 32! I’ve asked the ad agency if they can get me a schedule of when it will air again; if they respond, I’ll be sure to post it here.

Marc also shared with me his own “True Castle Story“:

“when i first saw the ramones in 1982? at Metro, me and my friend went to see them and on the way home we stopped at a White Castle and we’re eating our sliders and the Ramones actually walked in for some burgers. I must have been 17 , best rock experience with White Castle until you of course ;-)”

I’ve been interviewed a bunch of times over the years. Inevitably the writer always gets something wrong. Either misstating some fact, misquoting me, or putting one of my quotes out of context. This piece is the first I can remember where the writer got it perfectly. She edited down a long and rambling conversation into a fast-paced Q&A, yet managed not only to keep the facts straight, but also to allow my personality to get through.

So, kudos to writer Linda Laban, and also to photographer Wiqan Ang who took some great shots.

During the program, which you can download here, I was quoted (in actuality, they quoted me quoting Herb Deutsch) and then thanked at the end. I highly recommend listening to the whole thing. Thereminist Pamelia Kurstin was a guest; she performed live and played beautifully! Also, they posted a brief but very nice interview with me where I talk about the White Castle Saga, how I first became interested in the theremin, and other fascinating insights.

This White Castle thing’s really got legs. Earlier this week, I was interviewed about it by the Boston Globe, who say they’ll be running the story sometime in the near future. Of course, I’ve probably jinxed myself by talking about it now.

I’m having trouble embedding them into this blog, but here are the links:

theramin 1

theramin 2

[edit 4/27/07: Perhaps due to a nudge from me, they fixed the spelling of the youtube titles]

[edit 6/30/08: The White Castle folks have taken down the videos, but I posted my own copies of them here and here]

We arrived at the location right on time at 8, and I was immediately taken aback. So many trailers — so much equipment — so many people — all to shoot two 30 second ads in one day. Logically, I understand that there’s a certain amount of overhead you need to shoot anything, but part of me was overwhelmed by the tableau that greeted me.

I found “my” trailer — really a small dressing and makeup area that shared space in the back of the makeshift production office — and settled in with the breakfast burrito I’d grabbed from the food truck a couple of trailers down. Susan the Wardrobe Stylist was there, as was my makeup guy, Torsten. My ears perked up when I overheard someone asking Torsten if he’d be going to the Oscars on Sunday. Turns out, he was the head of the makeup department for Little Miss Sunshine! I told him that meeting him completely outshined my spotting of Kiefer the night before. Torsten made me up, but it was so natural looking that, even when I looked in the mirror, I could barely tell I had anything on my face.

I still had a lot of time to kill. The prop truck that held, among other things, my theremin, hadn’t shown up yet (most likely due to an oversleeping Assistant Prop Master). So I walked over to the house where we were going to shoot. There was lots of activity, with various crew members setting up lights, those huge screens they build behind the lights, and various props (presumably ones that weren’t on the missing truck). I wandered back to the trailer, got into costume, and it was soon time for the shoot to begin.

I set up my (fresh off the prop truck) theremin, and (encouraged by David), warmed up one last time with Video Killed the Radio Star. Needless to say, there was much laughter and applause. It turned out that the huevos-filled Silvertone amp we’d selected yesterday was too noisy, so we plugged the theremin into a more hum-free amp off camera and used the Silvertone as a prop only (don’t tell anyone!).

It had been decided that we would film two different versions. One would be the bluesy call-and-response version I’d come up with in my audition, but with lyrics newly written by the ad agency that scanned better. The other would be more freeform hand-waving. In both cases, I started by facing the camera and saying matter-of-factly, “This is my theremin, and this is my song about White Castle.” In the first few takes I said something longer than that, but after several conferences between David and the ad people, it was shortened so that everything would fit comfortably into 30 seconds.

The day before, David had told me that he wanted me to “be myself.” This concept went further and further out the window with each cry of “More Huevos!” from David. The concept of this first version congealed as follows: A nerdy guy (me!) introduces my White Castle song, and then transforms in an instant to an over-the-top white blues singer… playing a theremin. At the end, I howl into the air, “I got the Slyder bluuuuuuuues!” Then I look into the camera and say, matter-of-factly again, “thank you.”

I lost track of the number of takes we did. At one point, I started getting hoarse, and someone brought me a cup of hot tea with lemon and lots of honey. I thought my voice lost some “authenticity” after drinking it, so I held off getting another cup until I was all done singing. Method acting, baby!

After countless takes of my bluesy theremin playing and vocal howling, followed by that second cup of tea, we moved on to the second version. The day before, we’d tried this with me reading the lyrics like a beatnik poem, while playing in a freeform style (“So the theremin is like my bongos?,” I asked David. “Exactly,” he replied). They didn’t seem to dig that, so we did a bunch of takes of me starting with the same introduction, but then going wild on the theremin sans any “lyrics.” Sometimes, I held a Slyder in one hand and its box in the other, playfully bringing them towards the pitch antenna and then near my mouth, while my hip worked the volume antenna. Other times, I did windmills (à la Pete Townshend), jumping up and down before collapsing on the couch behind me. It was quite a workout!

Once these basic takes were done, we moved on to some medium shots, some closeups of my head and, finally, just my hands playing the theremin. These last shots were relatively easy. As a radio DJ, I’m used to being able to control my voice, but there’s so much more to think about when you’re in front of a camera! While I was never nervous during the shoot, I was stressed out, worrying about what my face looked like, whether I was smiling (or not smiling) too much, etc. The hand close-ups were a breeze in comparison.

Finally, shortly before 2pm, David announced “That’s a wrap!”, and there was much applause (but no laughter — that would have been weird).

We broke for lunch and I walked down the street towards the lunch truck. Every time I’d pass someone, even if I hadn’t spoken to them before, they’d smile at me and tell me what a great job I’d done. It was flattering but a little strange. I got some food and walked to the eating area — two long tables covered by a large canopy on a hill above the trailers. I sat with the ad people and asked them something that I’d been dying to know: How did they get the idea for the ad? Did they want to have a theremin player singing a song, so they searched youtube and found me? Or did they come up with the concept after stumbling upon my youtube video? Tom, the senior producer of the creative team, told me it was a little bit of both. Back in October, they wrote a script where an actor says that he likes White Castle so much, he’s written a song about it. He then plays his song on the most wacky instrument imaginable, like a ukulele. They poked around youtube, stumbled upon my video, and decided that a theremin would be perfect. It was even more flattering, but strange, to think that these ad people in the Midwest had been talking about me for four months before the casting call went out looking for me.

As people were finishing lunch, a cake appeared. I had mentioned that it was my birthday, but I didn’t expect this! They used those candles that can’t be blown out. Har-de-har-har. And for one final time during my White Castle Adventure, there was much laughter and applause.

Cake was cut and handed out by me (why does the Birthday Boy have to do all the work — I’ve never understood that tradition), and then I walked back to the house to pack up my theremin. While there, I wandered into another room where the next spot was about to start shooting. In it, a woman proudly displays her latest creation — a black velvet painting of a White Castle restaurant. Part of me wanted to stick around, but I would have just been in the way. Plus, the adrenalin that had gotten me through the day was starting to wear off. Either that, or the sugar crash from the birthday cake was kicking in. At around 3:30, I gathered up all my things with Chris (the producer-in-training) and he drove me back to the hotel.

I finished off the day by having a relaxing birthday dinner at Casa Vega with Drew & Kristin (who kindly drove me back and forth between the hotel and restaurant), Aimée & Joe (and their adorable two-year-old Emeline), and Sean. The group surprised me with a birthday flan, presented by a gang of singing waiters (who, thankfully, were not wearing sombreros). As the stress of the day evaporated, and the margharita entered my bloodstream, I found myself ready to collapse from exhaustion. Once back at the hotel, I barely had the energy to brush my teeth before falling into a deep sleep.