He appeared on stage in Brendan Behan's The Hostage at Circle in the Square, The Execution of Private Slovik with Dustin Hoffman, and The Man with the Golden Arm at the Cherry Lane, among other New York productions.
Nowhere else in the early 60s could you hear callers and hosts alike criticize LBJ [President Lyndon B. Johnson] for escalating the War in Vietnam, encourage men to burn their draft cards, or talk in glowing terms about their drug experiences.
[citation needed]Fass collaborated with Gerd Stern and Michael Callahan's media collective, USCO,[6] which had produced sound fields for Timothy Leary's Fillmore East shows, then dove in and began creating mixes on the air.
scene in the film, Network, grew out of an actual incident when WOR's Jean Shepherd exhorted his listeners to throw open their windows, stick out their heads, and shout, "Excelsior!
Apparently embarrassed by the idea of dirty hippies doing their work for them, city trucks were dispatched in the wee hours to clean the block, from top to bottom, a hitherto unprecedented occurrence.
When they arrived armed with brooms, mops, sponges and cleaning solutions and discovered the original mission had been accomplished; they simply moved down to 3rd Street and started scrubbing there.
Abbie Hoffman became a household name in August 1967, after he led an anti-capitalist demonstration at the New York Stock Exchange, showering the traders with dollar bills.
Radio Unnameable became the communications hub of the Yippies!, the Youth International Party, started by Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Fass, Krassner, and a few others, to bring flower children, acidheads and old lefties together into one group that could change the course of American society.
got worldwide attention that October when they applied for permission to levitate the Pentagon during a massive anti-Vietnam War demonstration that attracted 50,000 to Washington, D.C. Fass can be heard on tapes of the event (along with Ed Sanders of the rock group The Fugs, and Mountain Girl) chanting, "out demons, out!"
As the panicked crowd streamed for the exits, over 200 cops cornered them, throwing individuals like Village Voice reporter Don McNeill, through glass doors, and dragging others out and arresting them.
After the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, Fass provided in depth, ongoing alternative coverage, giving listeners and independent investigators a chance to grieve, discuss theories, express opinions and trade information considered too controversial for the major media.
In the weeks leading up to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, callers and guests on Radio Unnameable debated the wisdom of marching directly into the path of Mayor Richard J. Daley's troops.
Vin Scelsa, later a major NYC radio broadcaster in his own right, then a WBAI listener, told Jay Sand, "We all should have been indicted as co-conspirators, not just the Chicago Seven.
Several years later, Dylan produced his epic song telling the story of the unjust conviction (Hurricane) and formed his Rolling Thunder Revue specifically to raise funds for Carter's defense.
Fass calls the subsequent retrial and vindication of Carter "one of the great cooperative efforts where hippies and blacks united to achieve change before Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition."
The stand off ended with some staff members seizing control of WBAI's transmitter at the Empire State Building, while others (including Fass) remained barricaded in the studios, broadcasting until the phone lines were cut and the police arrived to haul them away.
Fass reassembled the members of The Lovin' Spoonful on the air, emceed the Phil Ochs Memorial, and flew to Houston to celebrate Jerry Jeff Walker's birthday, which he taped and played on the radio.
As of 2016, the show was also being heard on a small syndication network, at the time flagshipped at WFTE in Mount Cobb, Pennsylvania (which went out of business later that year) and hosted from his home due to declining health.
Krassner became a regular, along with Timothy Leary, Wavy Gravy, (aka comedian Hugh Romney), filmmaker Robert Downey, David Amram, comic actor and writer, Marshall Efron, the club performer, Brother Theodore, and Kinky Friedman (years before he began writing mystery stories and took up politics).
Notable guests include investigative reporter Mae Brussell, Abbie Hoffman commenting on the Chicago Seven trial, a planning session for the Central Park Be-In, and the first radio appearance of Phoebe Snow.
A long list of musicians have appeared on Radio Unnameable, including Townes Van Zandt, David Peel, Richie Havens, Jose Feliciano, Joni Mitchell, The Fugs, Karen Dalton, Patti Smith and Phil Ochs (parodying "Positively 4th Street"; half pretending a comic competition with Bob Dylan, but later telling disapproving callers that it was Dylan's right to play with an electric guitar and a band behind him).
Other performers include Taj Mahal, Paul Siebel, Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, Skip James, Rosalie Sorrels, Tiny Tim, Jake & the Family Jewels, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys, Melanie, Penny Arcade, Rambling Jack Elliot, Tom Rapp and Pearls before Swine, Frank Zappa, Jeremy Steig, The Holy Modal Rounders, Sis Cunningham and Sammy Walker.
Remembering the appearance of the Brooklyn Black Panthers on Radio Unnameable back in the day, Fass said, "I kind of like it when people come up a little hostile and suspicious and I and the audience warm them up and win them over by the end of the show."
Fass spent about an hour and a half talking to the caller live on the air, as other WBAI workers contacted the police and the phone company attempted to trace the call.
When a Daily News reporter arrived at his home, wanting to take his picture, Fass passed him a photo of his colleague, Larry Josephson, through a crack in the door.
[citation needed] In his book about life at WBAI, Playing in the FM Band, Steve Post describes Fass as "a gigantic man with receding blond hair and thick black-rimmed glasses, with hands so huge they appeared to dominate his enormous frame.
Post, who began as WBAI's bookkeeper before hosting a program of his own, The Outside, describes how Fass took him under "his ample wing" and allowed him to watch him at work, teaching him what he knew, demystifying the whole process.
Larry Josephson, who would become WBAI'S morning man and eventually station manager, remembers the first time Bob motioned him into Master Control: "It was like Dorothy entering Oz."
[citation needed] In 2005, attorney Neil Fabricant, President Emeritus of the School of Social Policy at GWU, organized a rent party for Fass.
[citation needed] When speaking today to those who listened to Bob Fass regularly throughout the '60s, one can sense an almost spiritual reverence that they still hold for Radio Unnameable.