Remembering Mike Edl

Mike calls WBAI, October 1966

Edl WBAI October 1966.mp3

"I don't have accidents, I have deliberates!" said Mike. He was a car guy, who came back from Los Angeles in the late 60s with a Porsche 911. He liked to drive the Porsche through the Lincoln Tunnel at 3am at 110mph. There was a story about Jay traveling in the trunk of one of his cars, with an intercom to Mike. While he had the Porsche he bought a VW Beetle, and promptly installed a burglar alarm system of his own design. A few days later the Porsche, with no alarm, was stolen off the street near WBAI. Later he bought a Citroen and then several SAABs. And then a Toyota Camry and then a Subaru?

After working as an engineer at WNYC-TV's transmitter in the Empire State Bulding, Mike helped his friend Andrew Berliner design the consoles at Crystal Sound in Los Angeles. The studio hosted an all-star list of clients, including Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Supertramp, Eric Clapton, and James Taylor. Most notably, perhaps, Crystal Industries is where Stevie Wonder recorded Songs in the Key of Life.

WBAI Stereo Day - a Mike Edl production

WBAI Stereo Day.mp3

It's About Time

It's About Time.mp3

Mike behind the console in WBAI Master Control at 359 East 62nd Street, the studios that Tom Whitmore, Mike Edl, Dick Demenus and David Lerner built under Larry Josephson's leadership. Those lighted buttons on the top were part of a cool delegation sytem that let three different control rooms share three different studios. Photo courtesy of Danny Cornyetz.

Insurgent Staff Members Take Over WBAI in a CoupHalts broadcasting in dispute between mgt and staff over program changes and unionization; rebel staff members try to keep station on air by taking over its transmitter in Empire State Bldg, but mgt finally has power cut off; staff opposes format changes planned by program dir Pablo Yoruba Guzman, including introduction of daily 3‐yr program of Latin music and talk; station's free style and worsening financial condition discussed; station mgr Anna Kosof, chmn Ralph Engelman and rebel staff members comment; illus (M)

Mike at one of his Middle Village picnics, with Brooklyn Technical High School classmate Ira Sachs and Mike's close friend Russell Demerjian, who died much too young from AIDs.

During his time at WBAI, Mike started Sound Concepts, Inc. with several friends, and they developed and built a number of products, including speakers that they leased to the Public Theater on Lafayette Street and a "mult box" to distribute audio to all of the stations at major news events. Later Mike partnered with Dick Demenus and David Lerner to start Current Designs Corporation. With the patronage of Ed Woodard at Acoustiguide they developed three generations of cassette tape players for recorded tours at museums and historic sites. For Acoustiguide they manufactured over 20,000 audio cassette tape players in a loft of East 77th Street in Manhattan. The players were used for major exhibitions around the country including the Treasures of Tutankhamen (narrated by Orson Welles in San Francisco) and the Search for Alexander. Current Designs went on to design listening stations for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, and sold similar units to several libraries, including the LA Public Library. Current Designs also developed a number of prototype products, including an electronic pill box that reminded the user when to take how many of which pill. Mike programmed the four-bit very low power processor in machine language. They used Macintosh computers to create their designs and run the business, and when the Macs started to overheat, David and Dick went on to found Tekserve, the original Apple Store and service shop in NYC. Mike provided technical assistance to Tekserve in many areas, including the "Take-a-check" system that used early Macintosh computers networked via RS-422.

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