Ed Ryba, and What He Did For Me (or TO me!)

by John Quimby, Former Program Director, K-LITE FM, Santa Barbara, California

The story of my work and friendship with Ed Ryba for the last 35 years really ought to be a book. I’m not sure anyone would believe everything I could put in it.

It would include the time Ed did an entire airshift on KXFM, Santa Maria, California, featuring the actual cartoon voices of Rocky and Bullwinkle – which he edited from the original voice over sessions of the Bullwinkle show – into a custom script in which he interacted with LIVE on a music radio station in a coastal cow-town.

It would include the nights we “borrowed” the radio station’s mobile transmitter unit and did live broadcasts from backyard BBQ’s with the entire on-air staff (and friends).

It would include the time the station air staff walked out of the rain and into the dining hall of a private school to give a listener an “Entertainment Care Package” of albums, dinners at local restaurants, and movies at local theaters, from their favorite radio station.

It would include the summer when you could drive down the main street in town on Saturday night, roll down the car window and hear everything on our radio station without turning your own radio on. It was just like American Graffiti but it wasn’t a movie. It was us. In real time.

For decades we worked together with others to help build 2 great radio stations. But that wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for Ed. Or should I say, Ed’s ears. 

I got fired from my first radio job and went back to flipping burgers. Ed was the Program Director at the sister FM rock station of the top 40 AM that fired me. “You got fired for being funnier than the PD” he said. And then he asked me to make him a demo and apply for a job at KXFM.

Radio was all I ever wanted to do and I firmly believed (and I still do) that harnessing the “theater of the mind” is more powerful than putting a creative vision onto a tiny screen. So I opened my demo with a mixed media piece. I used archive audio of a NASA space flight and laid my best Walter Cronkite impression on top of it. “CBS News coverage of the End of the World will continue in a moment.” Cronkite going to a commercial break as the world was ending was a risky opening move. I think it was all Ed needed to hear. I got the job. What I didn’t know was that it is the kind of creative risk he loves.

Throughout our work together I’ve bounced an idea off of him and he says, “Yeah, that’s funny! And here’s how you could make it better.” Ed never rejects a creative idea. He gives you his take on what makes it good or how to make it better. 

I can create concepts, I can write scripts. I can perform. But early on I had no technique. I didn’t know how to “make” the medium. I didn’t know how to be a producer. Ed patiently taught me how to “play” a studio like a musical instrument. How to make a recording. How to edit and the importance of timing. And he still listens to my work and says, “Yeah but you should make it better.”

And that’s where Ed’s ears come in. He can evaluate what he’s hearing and tell you exactly what needs tweaking. Not just the sound of the recording, but the words, the timing, the delivery, the effectiveness of the concept. If you want to know what he thinks, he’ll tell you exactly what he hears. It isn’t always easy to “get” (understand) his notes, but he’s usually right. After 35 years I can tell you why. He doesn’t just do this stuff. He lives this stuff. He knows the electronics, the history, and the operations. He’s a voice talent, a wordsmith, and a musician who can read and write music and play a multiple of instruments. He’s a recording engineer, an editor, a director, a technician and an able critic. And he’s really funny.   

After working for Ed and being coached on producing, not just a spot but an entire medium, he stepped out of radio and I went on to be Program Director of K-LITE radio in my home town of Santa Barbara. Just 90 miles from LA, the city had a legacy of great local radio. I wanted to win with a combination of that legacy, a respectable light pop format, with a dose of strong personalities. Something was missing. I couldn’t always communicate to the rest of the staff the level of performance I hoped we could deliver. Finding weekend staff was particularly awful. At one point I was reduced to hiring a cocktail waitress the boss met in a downtown bar. I called Ed. And he came to work for me at K-LITE. Suddenly I had a pro handling prime time on the weekends. And he knew exactly what we trying to deliver. That version of the station was number 1 and Ed helped me win my home town and build a legacy station that is still there.

Ed takes justifiable pride in his technical skills and his ears. But he’s got a higher sense of media, of listeners, of art and ideas. Both of us were and are huge fans of The Firesign Theatre, the comedy troupe which pioneered absurd radio comedy and the weird and the “far out” concepts of deliberately mixed culture and media. Free expression from very different creative individuals working as a team is a pretty high bar to cross. Somehow we did it live on the radio every day as employees of a broadcast station owner who really had NO idea what we were doing. And you’ll never see (or hear) that again.  

Ed and I came into media before “shock” and “talk” radio and when we’ve worked together we’ve sought to creatively surprise and delight the listener. That’s the sweet side to all the prickly critiques and all the creative debates I’ve ever had with Ed. On the air we were never mean to anybody on purpose. Just a little subversive and that’s rock n roll. 

Back in the 80’s, at the end of the broadcast day a handful of us would meet at Ed’s place to work out the next day of programming on the radio. We’d hit the highlights of the day, smoke a joint and laugh and then we would work on how we’d make it better tomorrow.

Ed once took a razor blade to a tape of a Jack in the Box restaurant commercial. The spot ended with a testimonial voice. A woman says, “This isn’t really fast food.” and the jingle sings “Jack In the Box!” Ed’s quick wit made a perfect tape edit with razor precision and it played on the air – just once. In the edited version the woman says, “This isn’t really food”…and cue the jingle.

That little edit. That little bit of subversive comedy. That tweak his ear picked up in the language. That is how Ed has routinely changed the direction of commercial media.