Maybe you remember the legendary "Air Aces". They were the anti-establishment DJ's heard on WABX, the first Album Orientated radio station in Detroit in the late sixties. WABX was one of the first in the country to defy the corporate hold on rock and start the "underground" FM movement. Still alive if you look hard enough. Very exciting days back then.
It also started a thirty year love/hate relationship with the ignoble Dave Dixon and myself that still carries on to this day (without him of course, he died in 1999 at 60 years old). RIP( )
I enjoyed his musical tastes and sense of segues. but he always managed to piss me off somehow. He was not known for his warm personality. I remember one time around 1993 (he was doing a pledge drive at NPR's WDET) I donated some cash to the station. Now during the pledges, it was common for callers to request a song in exchange for their money (Payola?). I just suggested (not requested) a song played back in the 'abx days that I had not heard in 20 years. Instead of acknowledging me & my hard earned money, instead of warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia, he went on a tirade about how he thought that song was a mistake, never should have been played on WABX in the first place, about how he got into a fight with the other DJ's over that song, and how stupid it was for me to even think it was a good song and so on....Boy was I hot! Jumping and cussing at the radio...He had disappeared for a few years. Got a late night TV gig in the Miami area and I had managed to forget about Dave Dixon. But here he was back on radio in Detroit, making my brain squirm AGAIN!
Over the years he never changed. Always rude and abrupt. His attitude getting him fired from one gig to the next. But his musical tastes were always what brought me back to listen to him again. NOBODY played the music he played, and very few today have a clue about what makes great radio. I remember shouting at the radio in my car, "SHUT UP YOU ASSHOLE AND PLAY SOMETHING"
As long as he played songs and shut up I could tolerate him. He steered me to places I wouldn't have got to otherwise. But when he started talking, I got madder than hell.
Nobody mentions him anymore, so I will.
So if you've done a search on the web, you might find an Obit or tribute & hopefully this page. I am the first public member of the "I Hate Dave Dixon Club" and proud of it. I should've called it the "I loved & Hated Dave Dixon Club" because I'm not the only one that feels that way.....PEACE This is Don Hicks signing off
I Hate Dave Dixon Club Members |