FREE FORM RADIO

Jim Ladd: The Last DJ

2011-11-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

Rock radio DJ Jim Ladd talks about KLOS dismissal

By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times

Sat Nov 5 2011 12:00 AM

Jim Ladd can drop rock-star names like nobody's business — no surprise considering music's been his business for four decades. Or it had been until late last month when the new owners of L.A. rock radio station KLOS-FM (95.5) gave the boot to Ladd, who had been holding court behind a microphone there for the last 14 years.

And that was just his latest stint at the station. Ladd logged a total of 20 years during three separate tours of rock 'n' roll radio duty at KLOS. A fixture on the Southern California airwaves, Ladd also chalked up nine years at the defunct station KMET-FM before it dumped rock for an easy-listening format dubbed "The Wave," as well as time at L.A.'s short-lived KEDG-FM ("The Edge") and at the station where he got his start in 1969, KNAC-FM in Long Beach.

"Jackson Browne once came up to me backstage at a [Don] Henley show," Ladd, 63, said Wednesday in an interview over lunch at Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel. The historic hotel is just steps from the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that was given to Ladd in 2005. "He said, 'You know, you have the greatest job in the world.' I said, 'Don't tell anybody — but you're absolutely right.'"

At the moment, however, he's out of the greatest job in the world, having been pink-slipped along with 26 others in a round of staff layoffs after Atlanta-based Cumulus Media took ownership of KLOS from Citadel Broadcasting.

His dismissal prompted a wave of angry responses from listeners, who posted emotional notes of support on Ladd's Facebook page, as well as reactions of empathy and outrage from musicians such as Tom Petty and radio peers including Howard Stern.

More than simply a popular personality on the Southland radio scene, Ladd had developed last-man-standing status in his field, the only DJ at a major-market commercial radio station in the country who still picked the songs he played rather than using a preapproved playlist created by the station's program director or outside consultants.

"I'll come through this," Ladd said, "but it still hits you in the gut."

The job cuts came so quickly that Ladd joined the ranks of the unemployed immediately after the announcement and didn't do a farewell show that night.

KLOS management declined to comment about Ladd's recent layoff.

"There's no room for, or understanding of, what I do on the air," Ladd said of his nightly shows, on which he wove together songs to reflect or illuminate a particular theme. "They want a tight format, but that's not what rock 'n' roll is all about. Rock 'n' roll is about freedom."

In response to the abruptness of his departure, and partly because Ladd's story makes for great radio, KFI-AM (640) station manager Robin Bertolucci has invited the DJ to take calls from listeners for three hours Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. at her station.

"She thought my listeners should have a chance to vent," said Ladd, who added that he expects to field calls from "some very special guests" along with those of his listeners.

In the unlikely event that listeners hold back their opinions, Ladd isn't likely to. A key part of his radio personality throughout his career has been speaking his mind unequivocally about music and the political and philosophical issues addressed by the likes of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, U2 and the Clash.

Creating a musical theme for his own situation, he quickly rattles off a set that would include Roger Waters' "The Powers That Be" from his "Radio KAOS" concept album, Bruce Springsteen's "Radio Nowhere" and Rush's "The Spirit of the Radio," which Rush drummer Neil Peart describes as being "about guys like Jim Ladd … one of the last renegades who believes that broadcasting can be art."

In one sense, the question surrounding Ladd's departure is less "Why?" than "How did he last this long?"

He transcended the status of faceless DJ, earning a level of recognition among the musicians he champions to the degree that Tom Petty cited him as a key inspiration in his 2002 concept album "The Last DJ."

Ladd contrasts the free-form DJ with today's radio air personalities who are required to adhere to approved playlists culled from market research and vetted by the media conglomerates they work for.

"Radio should be ashamed," Ladd said, "that TV is now hipper [to new music] than rock radio is."

Two decades ago in his book "Radio Waves: Life and Revolution on the FM Dial," Ladd railed about the changes under President Reagan, when the broadcast industry was deregulated, allowing corporations to buy up essentially unlimited numbers of TV and radio stations, concentrating the public airwaves in fewer and fewer hands. (Clear Channel Communications, the largest radio holder, owns about 850 stations across the country.)

"They used to have the 'seven plus seven' rule, which meant you couldn't own more than seven radio and seven television stations," he said. "That meant there were thousands of independent broadcasters who owned stations — not banks and not investment firms. You also had to hold on to a station for at least three years, which meant you had to be serving the community."

Ladd likes the wide-ranging content that has come with the advent of satellite radio and thinks it may represent the future of the kind of freedom he's managed to hold on to throughout his career.

Ladd presents an image considerably younger than his chronological age. It's a combination of his rebel-with-a-cause attitude and his rock attire: a brown suede jacket over a black mock turtleneck shirt, faded blue jeans, alligator boots and dark aviator sunglasses framed by collar-length hair.

By now, Ladd well knows that layoffs are one of the occupational hazards of his chosen profession, especially as terrestrial radio's audience shrinks with the advent of satellite and more personalized online choices such as Pandora and Spotify.

He said he's nearly finished a screenplay about the heyday of free-form rock radio. ("As much fun as you think it was," he said, "multiply it by 1,000. … As young as we were then, we knew how lucky we were. We pinched ourselves every day.")

Beyond that, he's sorting through job offers with input from his wife, Helene, and his manager.

Asked why he won't simply read the writing on the wall and abandon a philosophy that in many respects belongs to another age, he turns to the words of another rock star.

"I have to quote David Crosby, who said, 'I feel like I owe it to someone.' I owe it to Tom and Rachael Donahue for what they did [as pioneers of free-form radio]. I owe it to Roger Waters for never selling out. I owe it to the Doors — they meant that music; they were not just singing pop songs. I owe it to John Lennon for what he sang in 'Working Class Hero' and 'Baby You're a Rich Man.' Mostly I owe it to my audience. It doesn't make sense for me to do it any other way."

randy.lewis@latimes.com

PBS' "Airplay"

2011-09-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

PBS' 'Airplay' gets free-form radio juices flowing

RH 101: Freeform Radio

2011-05-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

Rock History 101: Freeform Radio

BY LEN COMARATTA ON MAY 15TH, 2011 IN COS EXCLUSIVE FEATURES, ROCK HISTORY 101

Rock has a lot to thank FM radio for. With the opening of the FM band, rock provided an inexpensive source of material that allowed for the development of formats different from the Top 40 banality. Programmers brought with them the notion that not only did the style of music have significance but also its presentation. Before the early ’60s, most music was delivered via the single, without much thought to the actual album as a whole. That changed with the development of FM.

In the early days of FM, broadcasts were principally educational programming and classical music aimed at a more “upmarket listenership.” AM stations simply duplicated their programming onto the FM band, widening their audience with little effort. In 1965, the Federal Communications Commission enacted the FM Non-Duplication Rule. Until this law, AM stations were allowed to rebroadcast the majority of their programming on their FM stations. However, with the passage of the FM Non-Duplication Rule, as of January 1, 1967, FM stations would have to broadcast original content over 50% of their broadcast day. Station programmers and owners now faced with having to create original content were forced to exit the box that was the Top 40 format and begin experimenting.

Some station programmers held the assumption that their FM audiences would be a bit more mature than their AM counterparts. As such, many gave disc jockeys more freedom and control over the material on their shows. Their style and presentation on the mic was even different from that of the popular AM hits-driven DJs and was more akin to the conversational tones often heard during Radio’s Golden Age. These “underground” jockeys would manipulate segues between songs to allow for an expansion beyond any single genre and favored non-singles over the typical two-and-a-half-minute pop song. FM’s open-mindedness also fed the creativity of bands, giving them a forum to put their art on display. This allowed for the development of longer, more complex material not suitable for Top 40 pop radio. This style of programming came to be known as freeform.

The most straightforward definition of the freeform format is simply that the program’s host is given complete and total control over the content of the show, regardless of style, genre, or perhaps most importantly, commercial viability. There was no rotation schedule to follow, and the only rules were those laid down by the FCC regarding profanity and station identification; everything else was up to the DJ. With no stylistic boundaries, programming was as diverse and unique as the personalities behind the mic. Freeform DJs shared a loose ideology, a sense of spontaneity, and a desire to expose lesser-known artists and songs. Some engaged in conversations with the listeners, drawing them into the development of the program, even entertaining live call-ins. Many leaned a bit on the radical or liberal side of the spectrum; however, aside from occasional Vietnam-era sentiments, most hosts rarely were overtly political. Looking back through eyes filtered by today’s commercial radio landscape, this concept was and still is revolutionary, especially when one considers that freeform exists in direct opposition to commercial radio’s stricter control over programming.

By the late ’60s, freeform programming was more common on FM bands in the larger markets, eventually becoming the medium and style of choice to tap into an ever-expanding youth culture. Sharing ideals such as diversity, freedom, and perhaps even a slight tinge of radicalism, freeform radio is easily thought of as a product of the ’60s. However, while its development and maturity did occur during this era, the true roots of the freeform format extended back to the beginnings of public radio–almost 15 years earlier.

The first community public radio station in the United States was Pacifica Radio (KPFA in Berkeley, California). Pacifica was launched in 1949 by Lewis Hill and a small group of fellow World War II conscientious objectors. Hill was a journalist and progressive poet who sought to create an outlet dedicated to free expression, where cultural and political ideas counter to the norm could be presented, discussed, and realized. It was on KPFA that beat poets like Ginsberg and Kerouac gained their initial radio exposure.

Shortly after KPFA started broadcasting, it became home to what is considered to be the very first freeform radio show. Though many have filed claims as such, conventional wisdom bestows the honor to author John Leonard and his show Night Sounds. It was on Leonard’s show that the listener was exposed to collages of music, poetry, and commentary seamlessly integrated into a program. Pacifica’s New York affiliate, WBAI, featured two programs, Chris Albertson’s Inside and Bob Fass’s Radio Unnameable, both inspired by Leonard’s production. KPFA staffer and freeform radio pioneer Lorenzo Milan started KRAB in 1962, a freeform outlet in Seattle, WA. Milan was also instrumental in the founding of many community stations around the nation that were freeform-oriented.

Freeform has always been more at home on the left side of the radio dial in the lower frequencies (<92MHz), where the non-commercial stations traditionally broadcast. However, after the non-duplication ruling, experimenting with freeform in the commercial band became slightly more accepted. New York’s WOR experimented with freeform under the guise of “progressive rock.” WOR’s DJ/program director Murray the K encouraged his fellow DJs to explore beyond the charts and dive deeper into the albums, even encouraging music with social messages. Scott Muni, program director for WNEW, also in New York, began tinkering with the format in the early ’60s. When Pete Fornatale joined the station in 1964, to avoid being caught up in the drudgery that had become Top 40 radio, he suggested “a rock n’ roll show that would play album cuts, islands of music that would come together in some cohesive theme.” It was this philosophy that helped Fornatale break country-rock in the New York market.

New York did not hold the rights to freeform. As the format’s popularity began to grow, other stations in other markets followed. Baltimore/Washington D.C. station WHFS dabbled in freeform when it first began, though by the time the station switched to Spanish programming a few years ago, it had already fallen far from the freeform tree. Sacramento DJ Johnny Hyde’s show The Gear on KXOA mixed live interviews with experimental music and deep cuts. But perhaps the most recognized commercial freeform station was San Francisco’s KMPX, with its DJ/program director Tom Donahue.

Donahue’s approach to programming the station was to streamline the content to focus on the music. He did away with the gimmickry typically associated with mainstream Top 40 radio. “No jingles, no talkovers, no time and temp, no pop singles”– just a hard-lined, progressively minded approach to playing music. The timing was perfect. Donahue’s makeover of KMPX began in 1967, just as the San Francisco sound was beginning to peak. Donahue was so successful at KMPX that he was asked to do the same with Los Angeles sister station KPPC. (Donahue was also an instrumental programmer with Los Angeles’ KMET and San Francisco’s KSAN during this time.) KPPC ran with a progressive freeform format until 1971, when it voluntarily responded to an FCC ruling implying stations needed to maintain stricter control over their programming. This ruling had nothing to do with KPPC but rather a Des Moines freeform station accused of “questionable practices.” To avoid any hassles, many stations voluntarily altered their programming. On a side note, KPPC became KROQ in 1973, and after program director Rick Carroll introduced the “modern rock” format, it would go on to become one of the most successful stations in Los Angeles and the United States.

KPPC’s successful change to the freeform format led another Los Angeles station, KABC, to alter direction with its programming. A year after its format change, KABC became KLOS, future home to Jim Ladd, one of the more notable contemporary DJs still practicing in the format. Ladd’s talents and desire to spread and play music for the sake of music was captured in Tom Petty’s “The Last DJ”, a song reflecting the absence of free thought and expression in pop culture and lamenting the loss of outlets like Ladd’s program and other legendary freeform shows.

The first nail in commercial freeform’s coffin came in the guise of FCC rulings such as the 1971 Des Moines ruling. The Nixon administration had grown increasingly agitated with the counterculture, at times nearing the point of paranoia. Seeing many FM stations as outlets for radical, seditious thought-speak, it sought to remove any potential threats. Using the FCC, many stations’ licenses were threatened as a means to control them and their content. As the more cautious climate of the ’70s began to creep in, programming consultant Lee Abrams developed what would become commercial freeform radio’s death knell: a format called album-oriented radio or AOR. As the decade ended, AOR and modern rock had become the dominant formats on FM and AM radio, with AOR peaking in the early ’80s.

Commercial freeform radio may not have had the support or backing to withstand political and economic pressure, but freeform radio still exists. Non-commercial and college radio stations have always been more open to the format and as such have done a huge service in continuing the sonic explorations only found through freeform. Of all these stations, there is one that is perhaps recognized more than any other when it comes to practicing what it preaches: WFMU.

WFMU began broadcasting in 1958 from the campus of Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey, and is the longest-running freeform radio station in the United States. In 1995, the station separated from the college and became completely independent. Continuing its progressive mindset, WFMU has even expanded to 15 hours a week of internet-only live programming, thumbing its nose at the language restrictions set in place by the FCC.

In its early days, WFMU featured a student DJ named Vin Scelsa and his show Idiot’s Delight. A brilliant production and eclectic mix of music and reviews, Scelsa’s show even included interviews with authors and artists beyond musicians. He continued his own unique brand of radio by taking his show to various other freeform stations in the New York market, such as WBAI and WNEW, where he continued hosting Idiot’s Delightuntil 1999 when WNEW’s format changed. Scelsa then took his show to both Fordham University’s WFUV and Sirius/XM radio, where it can still be heard.

With the mass consolidation of radio markets following the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, any freeform radio station still broadcasting faced even more resistance and pressure from commercially minded owners. As the blanching of America’s radio programming spread its mind-numbing banality, diverse and eclectic programming was forced to find alternative outlets. Some programs such as Idiot’s Delight found a home on satellite radio, while other programs such as Radio Free Phoenix exist quite comfortably on the internet. The internet and satellite also allow for programming free of FCC restrictions, thereby providing another possible route of evolution for freeform programming. However, it is college radio that has always provided a sanctuary for this style of programming. And with the rise of the internet, many of the disadvantages faced by smaller stations as a result of consolidating markets can be circumnavigated, giving college and/or independently minded stations the ability to compete locally as well as broadcast their programming, effectively, to the entire world (barring any licensing issues of course). Freeform radio has always lived a sporadic, spread-out existence; however, as long as there are DJs and program directors who are true music lovers, like Jim Ladd or Vince Scelsa, with a desire to celebrate music (and other artistic endeavors) with their audiences, freeform will always trounce any effort to stifle it. Freeform began as an experiment, and over eight decades later, the experiment is still going strong.

Len Comaratta is a freeform DJ at WUVT-FM. His show, The Rare Groove, has been broadcasting for over 10 years and can be heard weekly, every Thursday evening, 9 p.m. - mid EST at www.wuvt.vt.edu.

KUSF Shut Down

2011-04-08T10:36:00.000-07:00

The Story Behind the KUSF Shut Down

Denis Dutton (1944-2010)

2011-01-11T12:40:00.000-08:00

Courtesy Photo

1964 Denis Dutton (above) and Marty Welch prepare for election coverage

Denis Dutton, 1944-2010

Intellectual Tastemaker

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

By Colin Marshall

When I decided to start an interview show on KCSB, I figured I’d better first nail down its sensibility. My idea (born of dissatisfaction with the shallow five- to seven-minute discussions increasingly prevalent on public radio as much as from a simple desire to talk to interesting people) was to hold discussions of the greatest depth and breadth.

Having encountered so little like that in modern media, I wasn’t sure what to use as a model. Making my usual rounds through Web one day, it struck me: Why not create the radio version of the one site I check every single day?

That site was Arts & Letters Daily, a creator of trembling addicts which has slowly fed their habits since 1998. Structured like an 18th-Century broadsheet, it showcases three new pieces a day from all around the Internet, one under “Articles of Note,” one under “New Books,” and one under “Essays and Opinion.” Some of us habitués have been foolish enough to set it as our browser’s default home page. Who could resist clicking on A&LD’s famously tantalizing links?

“Dumbing down takes many forms: art that is good for you, museums that flatter you, universities that increase your self-esteem. Culture, after all, is really about you…”

“Philosopher Peter Singer wants to be on the side of the weak and poor against the rich and mighty. It’s just one of his many, uh, novel ideas…”

“Mrs. Thatcher viewed Ferdinand Mount as ‘an idle and effete youth.’ But she came to admire his powers as a wordsmith. Right she was…”

Courtesy Photo

1965 Denis Dutton in La Cumbre yearbook’s KCSB pages.

Early in my own A&LD addiction, I discovered who was responsible for these artful teasers: a certain Denis Dutton, professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. By 2000, he’d brought on managing editor Tran Huu Dung, a professor of economics at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Together, Dutton and Dung gathered the most compelling and provocative written content on the Internet, organizing it into a startlingly accessible form. Titling my KCSB show The Marketplace of Ideas, I hoped to emulate at least a fraction of this rich mixture of art, culture, philosophy, and contrarianism on the airwaves.

After a few months, I felt I the show could never truly achieve its goal without bringing on one particularly important guest: Dutton himself. To interview the man about his Web site on a show inspired by his Web site brought just the sort of strange circularity I enjoy most. As it turned out, he would visit my show not just once but twice, spending one hour in May 2008 and another in April 2009. The second time, I invited him on to discuss The Art Instinct, the book he’d written on the intersection between aesthetics, philosophy, and biological evolution. Having just been on The Colbert Report to promote the book, he thus became, I think it’s safe to say, the only guest I’ll ever share with Stephen Colbert.

That Dutton wrote such a book suggests, correctly, that his skills and interests went far beyond the maintenance of a Web site. His most hilarious side project — and, to my mind, his most necessary one — was the Bad Writing Contest, featured in his academic journal Philosophy and Literature in 1996, 1997, and 1998. Meant to eradicate the strain of baroquely meaningless prose that had gained a shocking prevalence in the academic humanities, the Bad Writing Contest found its finest specimen when it awarded first prize to this sentence from post-structuralist Judith Butler:

The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

“To ask what this means is to miss the point,” Dutton wrote. “This sentence beats readers into submission and instructs them that they are in the presence of a great and deep mind.”

Courtesy Photo

Spring 1966 KCSB board (Denis Dutton front row, third from left).

Though I suspect all his accomplishments would prove too numerous to list, I must mention that Dutton taught unusual philosophy courses, played the sitar, founded the misunderstood Climate Debate Daily, and helped KCSB become the station it is today. Joining its staff as a UC Santa Barbara undergrad in the early 1960s, Dutton held the position of general manager at KCSB when it made the leap from AM to FM in 1963. He was there to oversee KCSB’s election coverage; he was there to manage the broadcasts as news of John F. Kennedy’s assassination broke; he was there, as other early KCSBers have told me, to dart out of bed and into the station to reprimand DJs who would dare jeopardize the station’s license by broadcasting the then-rebellious genre of rock and roll in the middle of the night.

Nobody active in the world of ideas on the Internet could have suppressed their shock at Denis Dutton’s death last month at age 66. Despite his surprisingly sudden passing, I hope to live even half as colorful a life as the intellectual-tastemaking, expatriate-living, sitar-playing, bad-writing-ridiculing one he did. As a would-be fellow promoter of conversation and thought about what’s really fascinating in the world today, I can’t help but feel proud that we were both forged, in part, at the very same radio station.

KCSB-FM Turns 50

2010-11-12T12:45:00.000-08:00

http://www.kcsb.org/about/kcsb-fm-acknowledged-with-a-cover-story-in-the-new-santa-barbara-independent-annual-fund-drive-continues-until-friday-round-midnightHappy 50th Birthday, KCSB-FM, Santa Barbara, California!

KMET Retrospective

2010-09-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

A look back on KMET:

KMET Audio, 1968-71

2010-07-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

More KMET-FM, Los Angeles, freeform radio aircheck excerpts with music of the time. Appreciations to Michael J. Andrade:

WLSO.FM » Blog Archive » RockRoll360 #107 Golden Age of Underground Radio Vol. 2 (Part 1)

KSAN Audio, 1968-72 #2

2010-07-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

Here's the second part of Michael J. Andrade's retrospective listen to KSAN-FM, San Francisco, and the "Father of Commercial FM Freeform," Tom Donahue:

WLSO.FM » Blog Archive » RockRoll360 #090 - Golden Age of Underground Radio (Part 2 )

KSAN Audio, 1968-72 #1

2010-07-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

Airchecks of KSAN-FM, San Francisco, 1968-1972, interspersed with music of the time. Appreciations to Michael J. Andrade for resurrecting this material and adding to it. Much Grass, Mike!

WLSO.FM » Blog Archive » RockRoll360 #089 - Golden Age of Underground Radio (Part 1)

KMET Audio, circa 1970

2010-07-10T06:32:00.000-07:00

Michael J. Andrade's RockRoll360 is an eclectic, intelligent rock program in the vein of freeform like we used to do it, back in the day. Hear a cross between Classic Underground and AAA Radio format, along with the great music you’ll find strange oddities - sound bites, radio station I.D’s, jingles and comedy.

In this segment, Michael re-creates the sound of KMET-FM, Los Angeles, circa 1970 - with actual airchecks - when B. Mitchell Reed ruled the house:

WLSO.FM » RockRoll360

KMET Video circa 1982

2010-04-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

Here's some video of KMET-FM in what I guess to be year 1982. Little did they know the station would cease to exist as a semi-freeform station just a couple of years later.

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2010-03-05T20:57:00.001-08:00

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Ed's BeBop Videos

2010-02-28T09:28:00.000-08:00

Former KFML Nooze newsman Ed "Diamond Ed" Chatham has completely updated and revamped his video blog for easier navigation and faster loading.

( Diamond Ed from back in the day )

Check BEBOP VIDEOS

"Wildfire" - 2007

2009-12-26T20:55:00.000-08:00

As freeform rock faded in the early 1970s, there was a hope that progressive country could carry the banner...

Plastic People of The Universe

2009-11-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

Every musician's dream: to be intro'd by a national poet who becomes president after a bloodless revolution they helped spawn:

Read a little bit about the Velvet Revolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution

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Freeform BCN

2009-10-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

"Rock of Boston reborn - Ex-DJ brings WBCN to HD and Internet radio" By Ed Symkus, Boston Herald, October 18, 2009

How do you like this playlist?

1. The Rolling Stones, “Jigsaw Puzzle”
2. The Temptations, “Ain’t too Proud to Beg”
3. She & Him, “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”
4. The Rascals, “Good Lovin”’
5. Coldplay, “The Scientist”
6. Bob Dylan, “Tangled up in Blue”
7. Quicksilver Messenger Service, “Fresh Air”

Internet location:

http://player.play.it/player/player.html?v=4.7.124b&id=20630&onestat=wzlxhd3

( Sam Kopper from back in the day, on WBCN-FM )

Darn good batch of music. If all of those songs existed in the late ’60s and early ’70s, they might have been heard on WBCN [website], the groundbreaking progressive rock station that went dark in August after a 41-year run. But that playlist was exactly what came over the air one day last week on ’BCN’s heir, FreeformBCN.

FreeformBCN is the brainchild of Sam Kopper, who back in the day was a disc jockey on ’BCN’s pre-Laquidara morning shift and the station’s second program director (after a brief stint by Steven Segal). FreeformBCN is currently heard at the HD radio station 100.7FM-HD3 and streamed at WBCN.com.

FreeformBCN is automated. But Kopper, acting as a sort of one-man radio station, with programming assistance from former BCN announcer Albert O, has grand plans.

“We are bringing back the musical, the sociopolitical, the radio technique of the great days of progressive rock radio - the great days of ’BCN, ’68 through the ’70s,” he said, seated on a couch in his Hingham home.

But Kopper, 63, makes sure to point out that the station will be rooted firmly in the 21st century.

“So when I say bringing back those days, I don’t mean a nostalgia trip,” he said. “I don’t mean constantly rehashing Vietnam, or Watergate, or just the music of then. I mean bringing the consciousness, the youthful, never-grow-up spirit of that time. Musically, that means being very diverse and loving new music - being open to new music.”

Kopper hopes to go live and do away with the robotic, automated business before the end of the year. He intends to bring back disc jockeys who have something more to say than where Eric Clapton had dinner in town last night. Kopper already has ’BCN veterans, including Albert O, Lisa Traxler and Debbie Ullman, eager to sit at the microphone. And he’s got plans to get folks such as Laquidara, Norm Weiner, Tami Heidi and Kathryn Lauren to do shifts that will, through the magic of modern technology, sound live.

Fans of left-leaning politics will be happy to know that Danny Schechter, “the News Dissector,” has already started contributing commentary.

Kopper, who found a career producing live concert broadcasts, was trying to pitch the freeform idea in the early ’90s when he realized that rock radio had given up on playing new music. So he came up with a new format that used classic rock as a foundation and presented it in a seamless mix with new music.

“I took it around to people, including people at CBS, but nobody would listen,” he said. “When Triple-A Radio (adult album alternative) came around, I thought my idea was stolen. But then I realized they weren’t getting it. It didn’t have enough oomph to it. It wasn’t really eclectic. It didn’t cook. It didn’t have any attitude. It was too nice.”

Two years ago, Kopper got together with former WBCN [website] general sales manager Tim Montgomery and they knocked on CBS’ door again.

“We went in to see Mark Hannon, the marketing manager in Boston, and he got the idea,” Kopper said. “We got the go-ahead to begin building FreeformBCN.”

The station premiered on HD last February and started streaming Sept. 11. But can it succeed?

“Getting to a 24/7 staff is all about money, and money is all about drawing a lot of listeners,” Kopper said. “The Catch-22 is, I don’t think we can draw a lot of listeners and excitement without having at least 40 hours a week of live programming. We’ll likely start with a few hours per day, perhaps longer periods on weekend nights. As popularity and demand go up and CBS sees some monetizing happen, then we’ll expand hours.”

Kopper puts the station’s target demo at listeners aged 40-65, but strongly believes plenty of 20- and 30-somethings will like what’s being played.

“I always call my sons, Jake and K.C., who are 25 and 30, and ask what they’re listening to,” he said. “K.C. has eclectic, avant-garde tastes. He’s into Brian Eno. Jake likes everything from hip-hop to Coldplay and Grizzly Bear. Albert (O.) was at ’BCN from 1980 to 2003, and has got much more knowledge of that period than I do. Where we’re both coming from musically totally merges.

“Boston was and is the largest student population in the world,” he added. “People who went to school here from 1968 through the late ’80s and were affected by WBCN are now not only just all over the United States, they’re all over the world. And the Internet allows us to reconnect with them.”

But it won’t only be the pioneering ’BCN jocks making those connections.

“I want to combine us with some of the best, young, just-out-of-college radio jocks,” Kopper said. “It was in ’68, and always will be, crucial to what this is about - that we have fresh, young energy in this. We need their musical input, and we need their attitudes and young concerns.

“So it’ll be the old revolutionary masters and young radio warriors inspiring each other, using the best of the past and constantly renewing it. That is central to the resurrection of ’BCN’s greatest days, of bringing it’s spiritual attitudes and soul into the 21st century.”

Free Form BCN

2009-09-22T14:28:00.000-07:00

Boston freeform radio station WBCN still lives! Now available on the Internet:

Free Form BCN - The Revolution Returns

The Legacy of WBCN

2009-08-13T15:27:00.000-07:00

Long Live Rock - the legacy of WBCN

WBCN and "The American Revolution"

2009-08-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

Bill Lichtenstein: WBCN and "The American Revolution"

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Jim Santella

2009-08-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

[ From: "Legendary radio career framed at WBFO," By Jim Bisco, UB Reporter, August 5, 2009 ]

“No one ever taught me how to do real radio, so I felt real comfortable with my nose touching the microphone.” -- Jim Santella, DJ, WBFO 88.7 FM

To listeners who only know him for his work over the past decade, Jim Santella is the voice of the blues on WBFO 88.7 FM every weekend, working the mojo of Muddy, Buddy, B.B., Koko and everybody who’s anybody on the blues scene nationally and locally.

But to those with deeper listening roots, Santella was the voice of underground radio, introducing listeners to now classic rock bands, and before that the voice of jazz when WBFO was in its fledgling years.

He also has been a voice of reason, one of the most natural and knowledgeable disc jockeys who ever made his way across the FM dial. “No one ever taught me how to do real radio,” he says of his intimate style, “so I felt real comfortable with my nose touching the microphone.”

Santella was always fascinated by radio and, as many other youngsters did in the post-war era, built a crystal radio set. When he was 13, he talked his way into appearing on a Saturday morning teenage disc jockey radio show hosted by Bernie Sandler on WEBR. That was his introduction to the airwaves.

After acing high school, Santella entered UB in 1956 as a psychology major. When that became a struggle in his sophomore year, he left to gig around town as a jazz drummer. Then, Uncle Sam came calling with draft notice in hand. After the service, Santella returned to UB, this time as a music major—later, he would also try a stint as a theater major. His roommate, Joel DiBartolo, a bassist who later would secure a 20-year gig with the band on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” introduced Santella to his cousin, Greg Perla, who was doing a jazz show on WBFO. The meeting led to Santella beginning his radio career in 1965 with his own jazz show.

“Anything I know about radio, I got to work out at WBFO,” he says with a nod to the constant presence the station and the university have played in his career. “That was the time where the groundwork of (station manager) Bill Siemering and public radio was being set up. Public radio was developed at WBFO.”

Santella’s jazz show came after a program on quantum physics and a show on Appalachian music—block programming, he recalls, that wasn’t exactly designed to keep an audience from one hour to the next. Then toward the end of 1967, what came to be known as the underground began to rise up at WBFO.

“We went off the air at 11:30, so they decided they would extend the hours. They wanted to get a bunch of people who were willing to do a show of anything they wanted to, any kind of music, from 11:30 until they got tired. If they felt like doing an hour show, fine, then put the sign-off in and close down the transmitter. It was free-form. It was going to be called ‘Extensions,’” he recounts. “At the time, I was the jazz disc jockey. I knew about rock ‘n roll, I liked it, but I really didn’t know much about it. That’s when I first started learning about rock ‘n roll.”

Turns out he was a fast study. It was the beginning of album rock with cuts and whole sides being played from artists like Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and Jefferson Airplane, along with anything and everything that suited the DJ’s fancy. And as for nouveau rocker Santella, it was a blend of fancies to match his eclectic interests.

“The fun part, I thought, was to put together arcane kinds of connections,” he recalls. “For instance, I would play something from the first Cream album, follow it with Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, and then some folk music. It was that kind of free-form radio.”

In 1968, WYSL-FM 103.3 (now called the Edge) decided to adopt the new progressive underground format and recruit college students as disc jockeys. Santella got the job and began his commercial radio career on Jan. 9, 1969

“Everyone suddenly discovered all this music,” he recalls. “We played Elton John when Elton John was dangerous to play. It was the time of Frank Zappa, the Who, Genesis at the beginning that gave those bands the opportunity to be heard. There was no such thing as what you couldn’t play. We didn’t know anything about radio. We weren’t really disc jockeys. We were college kids who were hippies. It was my choice—so much so that I thought it was my right to play what I wanted to. Since (station management) didn’t pay much attention, you knew how to get away with playing what you thought was best.”

Actually, it wasn’t all his choice. Santella says that being on campus everyday—he also held a full-time job as stack supervisor in UB’s Lockwood Library for 11 years—he came to know what college students wanted to hear because they told him. “It was an exciting and significant time on campus. I had never been as tapped into my audience as at that time.”

The station made Santella’s reputation as a knowing purveyor of great new sounds and a wry commentator on the fiery political scene. It all came to a screeching halt four years later when Santella reputedly became the first and only disc jockey to quit while on the air.

“I remember waking up that morning and listening to the radio station and it didn’t sound like my radio station. The music was different. I called the jock on the air and asked what happened. He said they came in and reduced the library. We had about 10,000 albums and they removed all but about 500. The management wanted to get rid of the people on the air because we were thought to be not professional,” he remembers.

The die was cast for Santella who was determined to make a statement against the new restrictive format by walking off at the beginning of his 9 p.m.-1 a.m. show that night. “The date for me was significant—April 24, 1972—which just happened to be my birthday. I said (management) has the right to do what they want because it’s their station, but I also have the right to express myself. And I knew what I was going to play when I walked off the air—a Jefferson Airplane song called “Lather” (“Lather was 30 years old today, they took away all of his toys…”).

Word on the street was that Santella would never work in Buffalo radio again. He had his library job to fall back on and a month later returned to the air on WBFO with a rock ‘n roll show. Contrary to any anticipated burned bridges, however, over the next 25 years he proceeded to travel up and down the local FM dial, from 97 to 98.5 to, yes, 103.3 again, to 104, to 107.7—with a couple of AM gigs along the way—returning to 88.7 in 1997, where he has held blues court since.

Santella feels he has come full circle in his long radio career. A product of Buffalo’s East Side, he grew up in an environment steeped in rhythm-and-blues and gospel, and recalls appearances on the South Campus with such legendary blues figures as John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf, interviews with B.B. King, and his contributions to advancing the blues community here.

In the meantime, Santella finally earned degrees at UB after, as he says, accumulating credit hours (more than 300 over 32 years) like they were going out of style. His interest in film and video—scripting and shooting—earned him an undergraduate degree in English and a master’s in media studies.

Santella lives with his wife, Mary Lou, in a comfortable home near the North Campus. Although he says he has yet to use his degrees, he continues to employ his own master’s in communication—words and music—that he has earned over a lifetime of broadcasting to generations of Western New Yorkers.

Legendary radio career framed at WBFO - UB Reporter

KMET Returns

2009-07-02T10:39:00.000-07:00

[ From: "KMET returns to the air – sort of. The defunct station will be recalled in specials on KLOS and KSWD," by GARY LYCAN, OC REGISTER, July 1, 2009 ]

KMET/94.7 FM was the soundtrack of Southern California when it came to underground progressive rock in the late '60s, '70s and '80s. 'The Mighty Met' was free-form radio with dominant on-air personalities and it rocked in the local ratings.

KSWD/100.3 FM is devoting a day to KMET on July 10. This weekend, however, KMET memories will be heard when rock KLOS/95.5 FM plays three days of 'Legends' holiday programming starting on Friday.

Is it a KMET salute weekend? Yes and no. KLOS is calling it 'Legends,' but former KMET personalities are stopping by to share memories and four on the current KLOS staff were at KMET – Cynthia Fox, Jim Ladd, Bob Coburn and Denise Westwood. 'The best way to re-create a magical time is to bring in the magicians,' said KLOS Program Director Bob Buchmann. 'Luckily, many of them already work for KLOS,' he said.

Frazer Smith, ex-KMET, will guest host for Mark and Brian on Friday starting at 6 a.m. At midday Friday, KMET vet Cynthia Fox will be joined by former KMET personality Paraquat Kelley."

"Legends" programming on KLOS will continue through Sunday. Making a rare appearance will be FM rock radio pioneer Raechel Donahue.

"We're the only station to stay true to rock for 40 non-stop years. We're pumped," said Buchmann.

A full day of KMET memories and airchecks – including Dr. Demento – will be July 10 on 100.3 FM. Many fans can still recall the KMET jingle – "A Little Bit of Heaven, Ninety-Four Point Seven – KMET – Tweedle-Dee." Its farewell song on Feb. 14, 1987 was from The Beatles "The End" – "and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

KMET was replaced KTWV ("The Wave") with a smooth jazz format that continues today.

McQueen Signs Off

2009-06-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

Dave McQueen, late evening news anchor on KCBS, did his last reports Friday, capping a radio career dating back to Houston in the early '60s. By decade's end, he was on KSAN, in its free-form rock years, a standout, with his authoritative newscaster's voice, on a station known for its laid-back DJs. "I had the good fortune to spend more than a decade at KSAN getting paid to spend time and scheme with some of the brightest, most talented people in radio history, at a time of musical and journalistic ferment not seen in a century," he said.

When those times changed, McQueen adapted, taking on carpentry jobs between radio stints. "I've worked in just about every radio format," he said, from country (on KNEW) to rock (on KFRC and KKCY, "The City"), and including smooth jazz at KKSF. As he reasoned: "A microphone is a microphone." But few announcers made radio sound better. In his blog on SFGate, Rich ("Big Vinny") Leiberman quoted media analyst Paul Stern saying that McQueen had the "best pipes" in the world.

-- Ben Fong-Torres

Radio Unnameable Film

2009-06-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

Radio Unnameable tells the story of legendary New York City disc jockey Bob Fass, who pioneered free form FM radio on his long running program of the same name.

For nearly fifty years, a devoted following of night people have tuned in at midnight to hear Fass’s spontaneous mix of music, politics, poetry, social activism and open dialogue amongst fellow listeners.

Bob Fass has consistently served as a conduit for the culture at large, whether it be playing an instrumental role in the early careers of Bob Dylan and Arlo Guthrie, launching the Yippie movement with Abbie Hoffman or remaining a steadfast enthusiast for young activists and artists of today. Since it’s conception, there have been no boundaries for Radio Unnameable.

Fass’s unique and influential program has blazed a trail for everything from NPR to Howard Stern. Yet even so, whether against the FCC, the changing landscape of FM radio or the countless station managers at listener sponsored WBAI, Bob Fass has had to fight many battles over the years to keep his show on the air.

The documentary film Radio Unnameable is not only about Bob Fass and his legion of listeners but also the story of FM radio, it’s evolution, and the struggle to keep free expression on the airwaves.

For more information and to donate to the project, please go to:

RadioUnnameableFilm

Birth of KFML

2009-06-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

Recently, I received email from Patricia Bancker, the wife of the original owner of KFML before it was freeform, when it was a classical station. Here is what she wrote:

"I was noting some of the information you have online about KFML and I never see you mention the actual birth of the station, which you may find of interest. My husband, Evert Abram Bancker, Jr., purchased the station while he was living in Chicago attending the University of Chicago and moved it lock, stock and barrel from Chicago to Denver.

"His vision was of a purist classical radio station, which is what KFML was originally. He also had, in the lower below ground level beneath the station on Fillmore Street, a record/hi-fi store which also sold high end electronics and furniture. That was known as the Allegro Music store. It had two huge fish tanks at the entrance and usually had a huge lizard whose name was Quazimoto tied outside at the entrance. The lizard finally broke loose one day and made the front page of the Denver Post as it was captured and placed in the zoo.

"As Evert was well in advance of his time, the station of course didn't make any money. He tried to manage with subscriptions but was certainly ahead of PBS and that didn't work very well. KFML ended up in receivership and was purchased sometime in the early 60s by a family who maintained some of the classical repertoire, but gradually it evolved into what I heard (we had moved to Europe by then) it became, which is what you are speaking about.

"... My husband's first wife, Janet, is still living and might remember some of the old staff that worked there. I simply cannot recall any names, but some of them did stay with the new owners after it went into receivership. I recall the attorney in the receivership, who remained a friend, was Leslie Gross. Leslie was killed flying into Aspen in a small plane from Denver in the 60s. Not that that makes any difference. If Janet recalls any details however that may be of interest I will pass them on to you..."

KPIG Dries Up

2009-03-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

KPIG continues to decrease the number of live DJ's, marking the beginning of the end.

John Leonard (1939-2008)

2009-03-04T09:42:00.000-08:00

John Leonard was extremely important in the creation of what became known as "Free Form Radio" and its derivative spellings. While I would not say he was the "Father of Freeform Radio" -- that is Bob Fass' mantle -- there is no denying Leonard's influence.

( John Leonard image courtesy of KPFA )

[ From: "Above the Fold: Remembering John Leonard - Literary lions celebrate the legendary critic," By Charles Kaiser, COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW, March 3, 2009 ]

Family members, former colleagues, important writers, and intimate friends gathered yesterday to praise the critic John Leonard for his “love of the life of the mind,” his “incomparably informed generosity,” his reluctance to “pan books or movies or TV shows or children, except when absolutely necessary”—and his unlikely dependence on just ten words: “tantrum, cathedral, linoleum, moxie, thug, dialectic, splendid, brood, libidinal, and qualm.”

Leonard died of lung cancer the day after Barack Obama was elected president last November, but his family waited until what would have been Leonard’s seventieth birthday to celebrate his life.

The two-hour-and-ten-minute memorial at the Unitarian Church on Central Park West in Manhattan began with a thirty-second welcome from Fran Lebowitz, who strode to the podium in a black suit jacket, white dress shirt, blue jeans, and brown boots—an outfit Leonard would have appreciated, partly because it could have been a sartorial homage to himself.

Lebowitz is one of scores of writers—Toni Morrison, who was also present, is another—who loved Leonard for who he was, and for the fact that he was the first critic to propel her to prominence from his most powerful launching pad, The New York Times.

Here is how Leonard celebrated the then-unknown Lebowitz, when she published Metropolitan Life:

To a base of Huck Finn, add some Lenny Bruce and Oscar Wilde and Alexis de Tocqueville, a dash of cab driver, an assortment of puns, minced jargon, and top it off with smarty-pants. Serve without whine. This is the New York style, and I for one am glad that it survives and prospers because otherwise we might as well grow moss in unsurprising Omaha.

Obviously, he had spotted a kindred spirit.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Leonard was the critical wunderkind of the New York literary world. Hired as an editor of the Sunday New York Times Book Review in the fall of 1967, Leonard became a daily book critic in 1968 and the editor of the Book Review at the end of 1971. No other journalistic ascent has been more meteoric than that.

Three months into his tenure as the Book Review’s boss, Leonard published an issue mostly devoted to books attacking the Vietnam War. He kept the top job at the publication until 1975, when his incapacity to adjust his principles landed him in the position of the Times’s “cultural critic” at large instead. When Leonard returned to being a daily book critic, his review of Lou Cannon’s new biography of Ronald Reagan was killed outright by his increasingly conservative boss, Abe Rosenthal. Then Leonard panned a book by Betty Friedan, a close friend of Rosenthal’s, and the frequency of his daily book reviews was cut in half. Leonard left the paper in 1982, but remained an occasional contributor to the Book Review until the end of his life.

Earlier Leonard had worked for the National Review and had been a student at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley he was also the impresario of “Nightsounds” at KPFA, the local outlet of the Pacifica Foundation, which was one of the earliest promoters of what we would later call the counterculture. Larry Josephson told yesterday’s gathering that tapes of “Nightsounds” were sent by fourth-class mail from KPFA to WBAI in New York, where a young late-night announcer named Bob Fass would play them. This made Leonard the father of free-form radio, a format embraced by Josephson, Steve Post, and, most famously, Fass—whose “Radio Unnameable” on WBAI launched a crucial anti-Vietnam hymn called “Alice’s Restaurant” a few years later.

Josephson called Leonard his “mentor, model, and friend. And my moral compass.…”

John wrote with a machine gun, spraying his readers with a dazzling and daunting fusillade of language.…John never sold out. Let me repeat that: John never sold out.

Before Berkeley, Leonard was an undergraduate at Harvard, where he caught the attention of Victor Navasky with a front-page piece in the Harvard Crimson, under the byline “John D. Leonard” (like “James B. Reston,” Leonard later discarded the middle initial as unnecessary).

Navasky, the future editor of The Nation (and future chairman of CJR), was then publishing a satirical magazine called Monocle, which was the subject of one of Leonard’s earliest, unbridled attacks. Yesterday, Navasky read the lead of Leonard’s story:

In this somber age of Nixon, Nikes, and Maidenform Bras, we make very few demands on anyone with the courage to be funny. But even within this abysmal temperance, we look at the latest issue of Monocle (a magazine of political satire) much like the young man watching his mother-in-law plunge over a cliff in brand new Cadillac—with mixed emotions.

Navasky responded with a letter inviting Leonard to become one of Monocle’s contributors. Leonard eventually agreed—resulting in “Confessions of a National Review Contributor,” which he offered in the form of a parody of a letter from Whittaker Chambers to his grandchildren.

It was Leonard’s son who yesterday identified the ten most important words in his father’s gigantic lexicon. “Freud, I’m sure,” Andrew Leonard said, “would caution against the perils involved in posthumously editing one’s father.”

And yet when Leonard taught criticism at the Columbia Journalism School, his stepdaughter, Jen Nessel, recalled, “his first assignment was to trash a classic, and his last assignment was always for the students to review their fathers.”

Nessel remembered Leonard as “a giant head, a benign version of the great and powerful Oz before the curtain’s pulled back.” His first words to his granddaughter Tiana, Nessel recalled, were “class struggle.”

Next up was Toni Morrison, who called Leonard “the first critic who took me seriously as a writer.” When she left Lorain, Ohio, Morrison had New York on her mind. She assumed the city would be “fast, smart, generous, open-minded, and free. It wasn’t all of those things all the time—but John was.”

E.L. Doctorow said he had been stunned when Leonard had tracked him down to apologize after the Times Book Review had run “a short dismissive review of a novel of mine, The Book of Daniel.”

Here was the editor of the TBR apologizing for a bad review!.…He did not draw his identity from the job he held, the institution he served. With that brilliantly capacious mind he seemed to have read everyone, and to be on top of everything. A mind of swift-moving, synaptically fired thoughts so that his sentences seemed to race along and sometimes pile up in their effort to stay abreast.…Those club-sandwich sentences.

Then Doctorow offered an example of Leonard’s capacity to eviscerate with economy, by quoting his review of Norman Mailer’s The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing in the New York Review of Books:

[Mailer wrote] “That is one of the better tests of the acumen of the writer. How subtle, how full of nuance, how original, is his or her sense of the sinister?” [Leonard asked] (George Eliot? Chekhov? Stendhal?) “Few good writers come out of prison. Incarceration, I think, can destroy a man’s ability to write.” (Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Rimbaud, Koestler, Genet, Havel, Solzhenitsyn?) “It is not only that no other man writes so well about women [as D.H. Lawrence], but indeed is there a woman who can?” (If not Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer, Grace Paley, Toni Morrison, or Colette, how about Shikibu Murasaki?) “It is possible that Bellow succeeds in telling us more about the depths of the black man’s psyche than either Baldwin or Ellison.” (No, it isn’t.)

Like his very close friend Molly Ivins, Leonard was adored by many of us for his unflinching left-wing principles. His review of James B. Stewart’s DisneyWar enumerates a few of them:

But those of us who grew up dreaming of teaching, journalism or nonprofit social service, for whom the point of an economy is to provide jobs, food, medicine and space for its citizens, for whom leveraged buyouts, hostile takeovers, prestaggered cash flows and capital liquidity ratios were a superstitious sort of Pythagorean number mysticism—who have always rooted for Jesse James, Calamity Jane and Willy Loman against railroads, Daddy Warbucks and J. R. Ewing, who have lined up with deerslayers and river pirates against J. P. Morgan as immortalized by Steichen, the avatars of Donald the Vulgarian and the severed ear of a kidnapped Getty—are nauseated by the celebrity chic of the megapolists who show up every year at Herb Allen’s Sun Valley media and entertainment conference to get their mugs shot by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair, who would have fired Franz Kafka for looking in his mirror, seeing the modern corporation and inventing workmen’s comp, who might even have been happier in Regency England, when the poor were hanged for poaching rabbits. But then we have also wondered why the downsized and homeless haven’t stoned the smoky windows and slashed the radial tires of every stretch limo on the streets of the imperial city.

Boy was he prescient about that “superstitious sort of Pythagorean number mysticism.”

Leonard was an alcoholic who stopped drinking a couple of decades ago. In the words of his colleague Eden Ross Lipson, “he had sobriety long enough for an entire career, and used it generously.” But he was always conscious of the dangers threatening scribblers everywhere. This is what Leonard said about them in that same review of Mailer quoted by Doctorow:

Of course, it’s virtually as if writers are there to be ruined. Look at the list: booze, pot, too much sex, too little, too much failure in one’s private life, too much attention, too much recognition, too little recognition, frustration. Nearly everything in the scheme of things works to dull a first-rate talent. But the worst probably is cowardice—as one gets older, one becomes aware of one’s cowardice. The desire to be bold, which once was a joy, gets heavy with caution and duty. And finally there’s apathy. About the time it doesn’t seem too important to be a major writer, you know you’ve slipped far enough to be doing your work on the comeback trail.

Remarkably, Leonard never succumbed to any of those dangers. As Jen Nessel put it, “he was deeply principled in ways you don’t see much anymore.”

Last year Leonard hung on just long enough to celebrate the seventieth birthday of his wife, Sue Leonard—and to cast his vote to end a forty-year-long era of conservatism in America. Only then could he allow himself to let go.

Above the Fold: Remembering John Leonard : CJR

Bob Fass Documentary

2009-02-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

There's a Bob Fass video documentary in the works. An intro reads:

"Radio Unnameable tells the story of legendary New York City disc jockey Bob Fass who pioneered free form FM radio on his long running program of the same name. For nearly fifty years, a devoted following of night people have tuned in at midnight to hear Fass’s spontaneous mix of music, politics, poetry, social activism and open dialogue amongst fellow listeners..."

"... Bob Fass has consistently served as a conduit for the culture at large, whether it be playing an instrumental role in the early careers of Bob Dylan and Arlo Guthrie, launching the Yippie movement with Abbie Hoffman or remaining a steadfast enthusiast for young activists and artists of today. Since it’s conception, there have been no boundaries for Radio Unnameable. Fass’s unique and influential program has blazed a trail for everything from NPR to Howard Stern. Yet even so, whether against the FCC, the changing landscape of FM radio or the countless station managers at listener sponsored WBAI, Bob Fass has had to fight many battles over the years to keep his show on the air. The documentary film Radio Unnameable is not only about Bob Fass and his legion of listeners but also the story of FM radio, it’s evolution, and the struggle to keep free expression on the airwaves."

MALC1975-1_KMIO

2009-01-07T18:57:00.000-08:00

"You're Listening with Malcolm..." (1969-1992)... Here are the latest archived airchecks. See the sidebar, also:

"You're listening with Malcolm..." First of four airchecks from my brief freeform days at KMIO-FM, Sinton/Taft (Corpus Christi, Texas, radio market). KMIO-FM became better known as KNCN-FM, progressive rock. Length: 0:46:56; Quality: Fair.

40 Years of Fornatale

2008-12-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

[ From: "40 Years of Free-Form Radio, the Circle Unbroken," By Ben Sisario, NEW YORK TIMES, November 20, 2004 ]

It could very well be 1964: Pete Fornatale is preparing for another radio show on WFUV-FM, the station of his alma mater, Fordham University, just two blocks from where he grew up on 188th Street in the Bronx. He lines up the Beatles, the Beach Boys and some left-field stuff like Ahmad Jamal and Al Hirt. For inspiration as a host, he looks to Jack Paar.

But this is 2004, and Mr. Fornatale is no longer a Fordham sophomore, or a radio novice. For almost exactly 40 years, he has been one of the cornerstones of free-form FM radio in New York, playing long sets of classic rock connected by themes of his choosing.

After a long run at WNEW in the 1970's and 80's, when he shared the airwaves with jocks of similarly discursive styles like Scott Muni and Vin Scelsa, and some time at WXRK (K-Rock) in the 90's, Mr. Fornatale and his weekly show, ''Mixed Bag,'' are now back at WFUV, where he began his career on Nov. 21, 1964.

''I love the idea that I've come full circle,'' he said the other day from his home on Long Island, where he was busy preparing tonight's show, which will be on WFUV, 90.7 FM or WFUV.org, from 5 to 8 p.m.

Mr. Fornatale, 59, still comments extensively on the music in his friendly, professorial voice. (He taught English at a Catholic high school for a few years after graduating from Fordham.) He remains a happy contrarian about the state of mainstream radio. Then as now, he used his show as a soapbox against regimentation and uniformity.

When he started in 1964, he said, ''commercial radio was still mired in the Top 40 blather of the day.''

''Hit records separated by commercials just was not doing it for me and my peers anymore,'' he said. ''So I suggested a rock 'n' roll show that would play album cuts, islands of music that would come together in some cohesive theme. Each song meant something, but the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.''

At WNEW he helped break country-rock into the New York market, playing records by Poco and Buffalo Springfield, among others, that did not have a great deal of airplay elsewhere on the dial. And he never forgets his loves.

''I'm dedicated to the idea that musicians have validity well beyond their Top 40 shelf life,'' he said. ''I'm as interested now in what Roger McGuinn is doing as I was when I first heard 'Turn, Turn, Turn' in 1965.''

After 40 years Mr. Fornatale's themes can be almost academically dense. Recent shows have included a tribute to great inventions on the 214th anniversary of the founding of the United States Patent Office.

The themes can also be on the facile side. An annual ''Color Radio'' show has the Beatles' ''Yellow Submarine,'' Joni Mitchell's ''Blue,'' Love's ''Orange Skies'' and so on.

Still, his idiosyncratic style keeps people listening. His time slot on WFUV has about 30,000 listeners each week, the station says.

Allen Levinson, 48, an investment manager from Upper Saddle River, N.J., says he has been a loyal listener for 25 years and digs the what-will-he-play-next aspect of the theme show.

''It becomes like a party game,'' he said. ''You feel like you're actually sitting in a room with Pete and playing a game of Trivial Pursuit.''

Mr. Fornatale is modest about the origins of the free-form radio format. He didn't invent it, he said, nor can it be known who ever did; it's just an idea that was out there in the 60's.

His only goal, he said, is to entertain and educate.

''If you give me the right idea for a program,'' he said, ''I can give back to you a three-hour journey where, if you tune in at any time, you're likely to hear something that will entertain you, but if you take the ride with me, when we get to the end you'll say, 'Wow, what a long, strange trip it's been.'''

----------------------------

Too bad Pete didn't give credit where credit is due on who and how freeform started.

Ashford Rocky Mountain Obit

2008-12-26T19:25:00.000-08:00

[ From: "Bill Ashford, legendary DJ of Colorado free-form radio," By Rebecca Jones, Rocky Mountain News, December 26, 2008 ]

Bill Ashford, a Colorado pioneer in the underground "free-form radio" genre best remembered for his years as a disc jockey at Boulder's KRNW and Denver's KMYR and KFML, died Dec. 10 in Ocala, Fla., his home since 1993. He was 66.

At the time of his death, Mr. Ashford was... the producer and programmer of The Rock Garden Show, a free-form rock Internet radio station.

Mr. Ashford spent his life in broadcasting, starting with getting his own radio show at age 14. But it was at the fondly remembered KFML that Mr. Ashford found legendary status, at least among early 1970s Colorado listeners.

"This was progressive radio, with an open-ended, free-form approach to programming, low- key and genuinely hip disc jockeys playing album cuts regardless of length or sales statistics," said longtime Denver music critic and author G. Brown. "And Bill was the hippest of them all.

"He had encyclopedic knowledge. He could take you somewhere with a set he would craft. He perfected the art of the segue, going from one key to another. It was a rhythmic thing, crafting these sets based on his knowledge of the music. It was the halcyon days of radio."

"He was dedicated to what he did," said Thom Trunnell, now a Denver deliveryman, and the onetime program director for KFML. "He believed it was important, as we all did. He had a way of knowing who was doing what, how to present it.

"He had a lot of connections and knew how to get information about bands and performers sooner than the rest of us did. He was a musician's disc jockey."

Born Dec. 5, 1942, in Fletcher, N.C., Mr. Ashford's first album was a Bix Beiderbecke 78, a Christmas gift from his father. It was to be the first of many.

"Duke Ellington once said there were two kinds of music: good and bad," said Trunnell. "We tried to present what was good. And Bill really had an ear for that."

Over the course of his career, Mr. Ashford worked at radio stations in Denver and Boulder; Fayetteville, N.C.; San Francisco; Austin, Texas; Lake Tahoe, Calif.; Indianapolis; Grand Rapids, Mich; Colorado Springs; and Ocala.

He was also a songwriter. He co-wrote Floods of South Dakota with his then-wife, singer Judy Roderick. Years later, Tim & Mollie O'Brien recorded a version that in 1992 was nominated for a Grammy.

"He was always all about the music," said Gail Ashford, his wife of 31 years. "Because he was a songwriter, he was always coming up with a good tune, a good lyric.

"As I clean the house now, I'm finding all these scribbled notes everywhere. He would get up in the middle of the night and put song sets together because he would have them in his head. He'd be dreaming about this stuff. It was like living with an artist who painted with music.

"To me, Bill will always live on in a good lyric well written, a beautiful melody well sung and a screeching guitar riff."

Last summer, Brown tracked down several old Denver DJs, including Mr. Ashford, for a special tribute to the Summer of '67 on Denver's now-defunct KCUV.

"He had a four-hour stint on the show," Brown said. "We got so many calls from people who remembered him. To reconnect like that was really a joy for me."

Mr. Ashford is survived by his wife, Gail Ashford, of Ocala; four daughters, Mary Ashford Rohrich, of Steele, N.D., Holly Ashford, of Tallahassee, Fla., Hannah Ashford, of Tampa, Fla., and Erin Ashford, of Tallahassee; a stepbrother, Roger Ashford, of Charlotte, N.C.; his stepmother, Margaret Ashford, of Newberry, S.C.; five grandchildren and one great- grandchild.

Bill's Ocala Obit

2008-12-17T10:03:00.000-08:00

Bill Ashford's obituary from his local newspaper in Ocala, Florida. There is also an on-line guest book where friends can leave messages about Bill and for his family:

ASHFORD, WILLIAM MARION "Bill" 66

Ocala - Mr. William Marion "Bill" Ashford, age 66, of Ocala, Florida, went with Jesus on Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at West Marion Community Hospital. He was born December 5, 1942 in the Smokey Mountains of Fletcher, North Carolina, the son of the late, William Marion and Frances Ashford. He moved to Ocala, Florida in 1993 from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

At the young age of 14, Bill had his own radio and TV show, and continued through the rest of his life as a radio and TV announcer, as well as a music programmer and song writer. In 1992, Bill received a "Grammy Award" nomination for his song, "Floods of South Dakota", published by Sweet Southern Music Publishers. He was a consummate music man and word man his entire life. He worked in radio in Fayetteville, N.C., Denver, CO, San Francisco, CA, Austin, TX, Lake Tahoe, CA, Indianapolis, IN, Grand Rapids, MI, Colorado Springs, CO, Ocala, FL and The Villages. He was a Pioneer in "Free Form Rock Radio" and one of the original founders of "Internet - Free Form Music" and he is known for producing and programming "The Rock Garden Show"! He is also a member of Broadcast Music Incorporated.

Bill loved writing songs and collecting music, old albums & radios, traveling in the Smokey Mountains and to the Oceans abroad and was a die hard, North Carolina "Tar Heels" fan of both, football and basketball, but most of all, he loved spending time with his loving family. He is also a parishioner and lector at Queen of Peace Catholic Church of Ocala, FL.

He is survived by his loving wife of (31) years, Gail Ashford of Ocala, FL, his 4 daughters, Mary Ashford Rohrich of Steele, ND; Holly Ashford and husband William Galotti of Tallahassee, FL; Hannah Ashford of Tampa, FL and Erin Ashford of Tallahassee, FL; a step-brother, Roger Ashford of Charlotte, NC; his step-mother, Margaret Ashford of Newberry, SC; his (5) loving grandchildren and a beloved great-grandson.

... The family request in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Alpha Center for Women, 118 N. Pine Avenue, Ocala, FL 34475, in Memory of Mr. William M. "Bill" Ashford.

Ocala.com | Star-Banner | Ocala, FL

BILL ASHFORD (1942-2008)

2008-12-12T08:18:00.000-08:00

Legendary freeform programmer Bill Ashford has passed on to that control room in the sky -- where there are no cue burns, records and CD's don't skip, and the new music endless...

There's a fair amount of information about Bill at this site. Please use the Google search bar above the "Free form Radio" masthead to search within this site. An external search will also bring stuff up, but most all of it is linked here.

Notable links include:

Bill's Ocala Obit

Ashford Rocky Mountain Obit

Bill Drake (1937-2008)

2008-12-01T08:58:00.000-08:00

Bill Drake and the Drake Format were not well-loved amongst those of us doing freeform in the early 1970s. It was OK if he stayed on AM, but when he moved to FM, he became an enemy.

Well, that's all passed us now. We see where things have gone and, as we feared, Bill Drake was instrumental in tightening the playlists of the future. His influence is still pervasive throughout radio land to this day.

Thanks to Lee Baby for letting me know about Ken Levine's tribute to Bill Drake:

By Ken Levine: Bill Drake 1937-2008

Main comments page at ReelRadio.com

WKRP Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T12:06:00.000-08:00

The classic WKRP Thanksgiving episode, in its entirety, with some advertisements, but very good video quality:

John Zacherle

2008-10-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

William Berger, at WMFU, posted the following, just in time for Holloween. I echo a lot of what he wrote about Zaccherle. As a little kid growing up on Long Island, NY, in the 1950s and early 1960s, no Holloween was complete without Zacherle. Later on, he stayed with us as a freeform disc jockey... Be sure to listen to the Zach singles!

Vinyl Finds: Halloween Special - Zacherle Singles!

During my father's term as Program Director for WPLJ-FM (1974–1988), I was privileged to spend time in the halls and studios of what for much of that time was New York's #1 album rock station. It was a young music freak's fantasy: I got promo LPs, attended concerts for free, and sat in on live broadcasts. My favorite DJs to hang with were always Carol Miller and John Zacherle.

Zacherle (aka Zacherley) had been a TV horror-film host in ghoul makeup for most of the 1950s and early 60s (there are several clips on YouTube), and in the early days of FM's popularity he was an innovator of free-form radio, when WPLJ was called WABC-FM. Though PLJ's programming was fairly structured by the late 1970s, the form was still much freer than the computerized formats seen on the commercial FM band today.

Every Halloween, WPLJ would let Zach become a ghoul again and program his own show (he would also occasionally don his makeup and entertain at staff parties.) One year, I'm guessing '77 or '78, I sat in the cramped studio on Halloween watching Zacherle make radio magic. My love of horror films and rock music reached critical mass that night. At the age of 60, Zacherle was super cool and probably more up on things than many of his younger colleagues. I remember that he played something from the Dead Boys' first LP and also held up a copy of Pink Floyd's Ummagumma and said, "Billy, have you heard this one?"

During that time, Zach also presented me with copies of his two 1960 novelty singles, "Dinner With Drac" and "Coolest Little Monster" — below are all four sides as mp3s. (Except for the comic masterpiece "Hurry Bury Baby," these songs are available on CD and are presented here just for fun, in-browser listening.)

As the 70s became the 80s, radio formats tightened, mic styles became zippier and much of the old guard at WPLJ were being replaced or moving to less-commercial stations. In the post-disco era, FM had become the dominant force of music delivery, with a narrower presentation. I know that it was one of the saddest days of my Dad's life when he had to let John Zacherle go. Zach, now 90, still does Halloween radio (most recently on WCBS-FM) and continues to be an inveterate hipster and a cool ghoul.

Mike Pell: Fall of FM Radio

2008-10-19T16:39:00.000-07:00

In his 10th year at WLSO, Mike Pell does an audio lament to "The Fall of FM Radio."

Great music and poetry included. Scroll to the bottom of his posting to reach the podcast link:

WLSO.FM » Mike Pell » ROCKOLLECTIONS: THE FALL OF FM RADIO

Listening with Malcolm

2008-10-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

It's taken a couple of years, but I have finally digitized every aircheck of mine I could find -- thankfully, I was pretty conscientious about taping my shows from about mid-career on. I have created a "Listening with Malcolm" channel that contains some of these airchecks, along with tributes to others. These are available in the mp3 player in the sidebar of this website and will be changed, periodically. I hope you enjoy these.

Malcolm, KGUL Am & Fm, Port Lavaca, South Texas

101+ Stairways

2008-09-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

WFMU's Beware of the Blog: Stairways to Hell (MP3s)

Wigwam Remembers KFML

2008-09-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

[ Stumbled on this posting from Wigwam Jones Wilson entitled "KFML, Wax Trax, and How to Wreck Your Life" about Wax Trax and the last iteration of KFML: ]

A group of us were asked recently if we could name the 'record album' that had changed our lives. Judging from the massive response, a lot of people feel that a given album by a particular band DID change their lives.

But I had to be honest. For me, it was not an album - it was a radio station and a record store.

The radio station was KFML, and driving to Golden High School in 1977 in my oil-burning 1972 Chevy Vega, it was the hippest thing going. I found it by accident, and the DJs were so shocking, I kept it on just to see what would happen next. The first song I heard was one that I had never heard before in my life - "Concrete Jungle," by The Specials.

The record store was a frequent advertiser on KFML - Wax Trax, in downtown Denver. Run at that time by two wonderful women and their many cats, it had not one single LP by any band I had ever heard of, other than what I had heard on KFML. My first visit, I left clutching a copy of "Concrete Jungle" by The Specials, and I soon came back for "Mirror Star" by The Fabulous Poodles.

I could spend hours recalling all the time I spent there - all the friends I dragged in - all the people I met there. It was there that I found out about the "Rocky Horror Picture Show," and subsequently mispent the next two summers, attending every midnight show at the Ogden and trying to dress like Eddie. I used Wax Trax as a Gom Jabbar of sorts - if I took a friend there and they didn't *get it,* we'd never be friends - we were too different.

In every young person's life, there comes a time when he or she must decide if they like bands like Kansas and Boston and AOR music in general (or whatever the current bands are that fill this slot), or if they think those bands suck and thus forever mark themselves as a person who will not accept the status quo; a person who will be always be disliked by the mainstream lamers.

Down the first path is happiness and contentment, and a soul-numbing blandness that soothes while it destroys.

The second path - well, it's all I know. And I would not go back for anything. But it is not for the weak; only for the disturbed.

Thanks, Wax Trax. Thanks, KFML.

posted by Wigwam Jones at 12/11/2006 04:13:00 PM

60 Million Buffalo

2008-08-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

60,000,000 Buffalo has now been released on CD. Below, please find a review of what was once an album, followed by a brief bio of Bill Ashford...

60 Million Buffalo - Nevada Jukebox

While Zephyr made their mark first, this band was easily as popular in Colorado during the '70s. In fact, these two bands shared the stage on more than one occasion, with a friendly competition between Judy Roderick and Candy Givens, the two lead vocalists. 60,000,000 Buffalo were known for their original material, arrangements and Don Debacker's guitar work. They completed one of two contracted albums for Atco, Nevada Jukebox, then broke up. They epitomize loose, funky Rocky Mountain rock & roll in the '70s.

Bill Ashford

Bill Ashford is a radio veteran of over four decades, starting in his high school years in North Carolina. He made a giant leap from there to Denver, Co., after experimenting with underground radio in late 1966-1967. He became one of the pioneers to help build one of the first five full time underground/freeform FM stations in Denver, along with others in L.A., S.F., N.Y.C., and Detroit. He went on to work in several other major markets and is currently living in Florida with his wife and grown children, operating a 24 hour a day full time freeform stream called The Rock Garden, and hearable at freeformrock.com.

He is also a songwriter, having co-written many titles, recorded by several artists including his own band in the early 1970's, "60,000,000 Buffalo", whose album has just been digitally remastered and released by Collectors' Choice Music at collectorschoicemusic.com. One of his co-writings, "Floods of South Dakota", recorded by Tim & Mollie O'Brien, was nominated for a Grammy in 1992. He has also reviewed artists and their work for All Music Guide.

Ashford is currently filling out his days writing a book about his days in the wildly experimental days of FM radio between 1966 - 1978. Working with collaborator Malcolm Gault-Williams, he expects to finish it in 2009.

Buffalo Chip

2008-08-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

Last couple of months, a good number of us former KFML staffers have been conferencing via Skype. One sorely missed brother is the legendary Buffalo Chip (RIP):

Image courtesy of Hamilton Agnew

Radio Paradise

2008-05-29T12:06:00.000-07:00

Radio Paradise continues to do a great job. Listen by going to:

WNEW.com

2008-04-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

WNEW is back... kind of. Check it out online at:

WNEW.com: "Where Rock Lives"

Here's some video from 1982. Shows a little bit of Scotso:

Trial fo The Chicago 10

2008-02-28T08:12:00.000-08:00

Appreciations to Bob Fass for giving me the heads-up on the new film about the trial of the Chicago 10. Much of the sound in the film came from Bob Fass's "Radio Unnameable." Here's a clip combining real audio from Bob combined with animation (the film also contains good archival footage):

Malcolm's Recommendations

2008-02-02T08:55:00.000-08:00

I'm adding a link to Amazon.com resources relevant to freeform radio. It will always be in the sidebar. To go there, click on:

Freeform Radio @ Amazon.com

Jean-Francois Bizot

2007-12-27T13:16:00.000-08:00

Jean-Francois Bizot

OFF THE TRUCK 004

2007-12-01T08:21:00.000-08:00

For those of you not on the mailing list for the Freeform Radio Google group, here's another installment in the "OFF THE TRUCK SERIES" where my friend and legendary freeformer Bill Ashford lays it out...

-------------------------------------

THE MIDNIGHT RIDER

Sitting here doing my show today and listening to Patti Smith sing
"Midnight Rider," I have one of those in the mirror moments when I
wonder why I keep doing this. It's sure not the glamour although I
certainly had my share of that, "living the life I sing about in my
song", as Judy Roderick sang on a long ago out of print album on
Columbia. Quite to the contrary, it's quiet these days. A long time
and space from my start in 1961 in Fayetteville, N.C., trying to sound
like those top 40 "Good Guys" on WMCA, and Cousin' Brucie and Scott
Muni on WABC. What a time, I didn't know a turntable from a toenail.
All I knew is I had to to it. I had to, just not being cut out for a
lifetime in retail management that my dad wanted so much for me to
have. I couldn't. Sorry, Old Man.

I have been quite fortunate, making a king size jump from Fayetteville
to Denver in '68 that people still talk about. It just didn't happen
that way, but it did for me and soon with a handful of scruffy
pioneers, we helped invent something full time that we had been
messing with, at least in my case, since 1966, when we started
inserting Beatles and Stones album cuts into the playlist and playing
Mothers of Invention singles as "golden oldies", til I got busted by
the owner and told to knock it off. That's when the tape went to
Denver and two weeks later, we were on our way, my wife, daughter,
adopted son and our German Sheppard, driving to Alabama with our hair
tucked up under baseball caps, hoping not to get killed. I don't
think the flower on the back of the Volkswagon helped much, but we
made it on the George C. Wallace, Great White way, past the Arkansas
muddy river pirates to Denver. We discovered there that cowboys
didn't much like hippy boys either. Not for a couple of years when
they began to realize that long hair on men was attractive to women
and suddenly they were long haired cowboys.

I lived a life in rock radio I never imagined, running with the
artists, blind eyed high and drunk for days, weeks at a time and
managing to turn out good radio. We were for a while #1 in our key
demo in Denver. We had grabbed the gold ring, but as usual, the
owners grabbed the gold and we were doing a lot of different things to
stay alive and we did until ultimately, our dream was stolen pieces at
a time by business men and copycats who didn't have a clue why we did
what we did. I still know some of them and they still don't know.

Anyway, that's a longer story better told by others. Now I'm an old
man living quietly with my family in the South. I have my souvenirs,
photos with my heroes who were peers at the time, boxes of promo junk
and children who are curiously interested in the old pics they see of
their old man with people they've only read about. I also have a body
riddled by cancer, lung disease and a heart attack. All that gross
abuse was fun, but you WILL pay for it in time, so the drugs we used
to take for fun are just medically necessary.

I get up every morning and come into my home studio and stream to the
world, the music I loved then and the newer music I love now. I
confess to being especially prickish to criticism. If you can't say
something nice, just shut up, don't try to pidgeon hole me. Just like
the old days, I sometimes lean heavy on the blues, or Americana or
whatever and if I'm lucky, it all merges well and I've had a good
day. I have a bad habit of asking what people I respect think of it
and if they find fault, I get pissed. Just tell me it's OK and leave
me alone because after all these years I have discovered this: I do
this because I can't help it and I've always done it not for you, but
for me. I have to be happy with it, and like those holes in one in
golf, that's what keeps me coming back everyday, sick or not, to see
if I can nail another one. I hope so and I do truly hope you like it
too, but in the end, I'll do it one way or the other.

Keep Freeform Rolling,

BILL ASHFORD
(aka "Dump Truck O'Neill")

The Rock Garden

Vin Scelsa 40th 'Idiot's Delight'

2007-11-09T08:28:00.000-08:00

[ Excerpt from: "Vin Scelsa marks 40th anniversary of 'Idiot's Delight'," By DAVID HINCKLEY, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, November 8th 2007 ]

Vin Scelsa, whose "Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight" is heard on WFUV (90.7 FM), marks his 40th radio anniversary starting this weekend.

This Saturday night, 8-midnight, he'll be joined by past colleagues, including Rita Houston and Meg Griffin, former WNEW-FM and CBS journalist Robin Sagon, his K-Rock and WNEW producer, Kara Manning, and his WFUV producer, Kim Ferdinando.

Scelsa started his radio career on WFMU and has kept the free-form flame burning. Besides eclectic music, his shows may include readings from novels.

On Dec. 13 at Lincoln Center, Scelsa will receive the 2007 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award.

In announcing the citation, ASCAP said, "Vin Scelsa, a mainstay of New York radio for four decades, is one of the last true free-form radio hosts. He is a sharp raconteur, a champion of new and unusual music and, with his devoted listening public, an important tastemaker."

Vin Scelsa marks 40th anniversary of 'Idiot's Delight'

Wikipedia

2007-11-09T07:47:00.000-08:00

A growing resource on the history and current state of Freeform Radio is Wikipedia:

Freeform (radio format) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WFUV Archives

2007-10-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

You can hear the recent programs from Vin Scelsa and Pete Fornatale on WFUV at:

WFUV Public Radio: FUV Audio Archives: "Search by"

Summer of Love 40th

2007-10-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

Old Leadfoot has some highlights of the Summer Of Love 40th Anniversary Special available for streaming at his website at:

Old Leadfoot: Summer of Love 40th Anniversary mp3

After some preliminary songs, the stream includes highlights from the free concert held in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco on September 2, 2007 to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Summer Of Love (1967). Ends with some great cuts off of The Mothers' "We're Only In It For The Money."

My bro from KFML days, Ed Chatham shot some footage of the set-up:

Jake Einstein, WHFS, R.I.P.

2007-09-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

[ Except from: "Jake Einstein, 90; Took Area Radio From Pop to Rock," By Matt Schudel
Washington Post, September 16, 2007; Page C07 ]

Jake Einstein, a colorful radio innovator who launched the Washington area's first alternative rock station, WHFS-FM, which left a lasting mark on the region's music scene in the 1970s and 1980s, died Sept. 12 at his home in Potomac from emphysema and complications from an aneurysm. He was 90.

Mr. Einstein had been a newspaper columnist, speechwriter and advertising salesman before becoming general manager and part-owner of the low-rated 2,300-watt Bethesda station in 1967. Within a year, he introduced rock-and-roll to a staid musical lineup, and the station's fortunes began to rise.

Under Jake Einstein, WHFS promoted local bands and brought musicians into the studio for interviews and performances.

In 1971, WHFS -- then broadcasting at 102.3 FM -- became Washington's first 24-hour rock station and quickly blossomed into a cultural force. Mr. Einstein gave his young DJs freedom to broadcast whatever they wanted, and for the next 12 years WHFS was at the center of Washington's progressive music scene, attracting a loyal following of students, musicians and young urbanites.

It was the first local station to play such bands as REM, U2, Simple Minds, Depeche Mode and the Cure. It furthered the careers of then-undiscovered stars Bruce Springsteen, George Thorogood and Emmylou Harris, who sometimes showed up at the studio. WHFS played the records of many local groups as well, including Tru Fax & the Insaniacs, the Bad Brains and Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band.

"It seemed like an unlikely place to be the center of Washington's music culture, but Jake took a chance, and it paid off for him," said Mike Schreibman, president of the Washington Area Music Association and a part of the D.C. music scene since the 1960s. "He gave voice to a type of radio that, without him, wouldn't have happened. It was a real sense of community."

When Mr. Einstein became general manager of WHFS, the station had been on the air for six years and was lucky to draw 800 listeners a night with its format of pop, light classical and jazz.

"Then a guy named Frank Richards came in one day wearing cutoffs and a leather vest, played me a tape of rock music from Los Angeles," Mr. Einstein told The Washington Post in 1983. "We were losing so much money that another couple of dollars couldn't hurt, right? So we put him on. My God, the calls! I never knew we had an audience!"

In 1969, three would-be DJs -- Joshua Brooks, Sara Vass and Mark Gorbulew -- approached Mr. Einstein with an idea for a free-form rock-and-roll program. They went on under the name Spiritus Cheese (derived from a cheese company in New York), and a new era was born.

"It was Jake's vision that FM radio and rock-and-roll were about to collide," said Mr. Einstein's daughter, Rose, who briefly worked at WHFS. "He saw it as an all-night format that would sustain a station."

Within months, WHFS was drawing an average nightly audience of 32,700 listeners. Spiritus Cheese lasted just a year -- someone complained about a four-letter word in a Firesign Theatre skit broadcast on the air -- but by then the station had found its niche.

The station's rock-and-roll DJs -- who included Mr. Einstein's sons David and Damian as well as Tom Grooms, Adele Abrams and Josh, Cerphe and Weasel -- became known for their shrewd and esoteric musical selections drawn from the station's 20,000-volume record library. They explored the byways of rock, blues, jazz, reggae and even classical music but seldom included tunes from the Top 40.

"There were no restrictions," said Jonathan Gilbert, who began broadcasting as Weasel on WHFS in 1972. "We would play everything from [experimental composer Karlheinz] Stockhausen to bluegrass -- sometimes in the same set."

The station promoted local clubs and concerts and invited musicians to drop by for late-night interviews and impromptu performances.

"Jerry Jeff Walker took his whole band to the studio," recalled Joshua Brooks, who was part of the Spiritus Cheese trio and later broadcast as Josh. "We had to put the drummer down at the end of the hall. They were on from 12:30 till 6 o'clock in the morning."

Under Jake Einstein, WHFS promoted local bands and brought musicians into the studio for interviews and performances.

The hard-rocking Thorogood played an after-hours acoustic set in the studio, and on another night, members of a San Francisco all-star band got into a fistfight on the air. Once, when Jamaican reggae star Peter Tosh was being interviewed, Mr. Einstein found the studio filled with billowing clouds of marijuana smoke. He walked away, and the interview continued.

"Jake got it," Brooks said. "He didn't know about the music, but he trusted the DJs."

"It wasn't just about spinning records," Rose Einstein added. "It was about the community of music."

Jacob Einstein Jr. was born in Baltimore on Aug. 5, 1917, and grew up in Catonsville, Md., as one of 13 children.

He found his first job in radio in 1939, selling advertising at WINX-AM in Rockville. He worked for a newspaper in Flint, Mich., before moving to Annapolis in 1942. He sold advertising for a radio station, wrote speeches for a state senator and moved to Denton, Md., on the Eastern Shore, in 1953. For several years, he wrote a local newspaper column called "Einstein's Theory."

In 1964, he became an advertising salesman at WHFS, the area's first stereo FM station. (The call letters stood for Washington High Fidelity Stereo.)

Described in news accounts as "cantankerous and quarrelsome" and "crusty and ebullient," Mr. Einstein had a powerful personality.

"Jake had many different sides," his daughter said. "He'd tell you, 'If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you.' "

A sign on his door read, "If he ain't yellin', he ain't sellin.' "

A strong believer in local programming, Mr. Einstein never ran a syndicated show on WHFS. On Sundays, the lineup included a smorgasbord of ethnic programs in Greek, French, Italian, Spanish and Arabic, as well as Jewish and German music shows.

In 1983, despite a grass-roots campaign that elicited 17,000 letters of protest, Mr. Einstein sold WHFS for $2.2 million. He took the call letters to a station he had bought in Annapolis (broadcasting at 99.1 FM) and rehired many of his old DJs. In 1987, he sold WHFS and WNAV-AM for $8.2 million.

Mr. Einstein later owned a low-wattage alternative rock station (WRNR-FM) in Annapolis, as well as WYRE-AM, before selling them in 1998 to game-show host Pat Sajak and retiring.

He was married for 35 years to Rosamond Einstein before they were divorced in 1977.

His second wife was Rena Einstein.

Survivors include his wife since 2001, Teresa Tizon Einstein of Potomac; seven children from his first marriage, Timothy Einstein of Sterling, David Einstein of Cape St. Claire, Cass Collier of Baltimore, Jake Einstein III of Salisbury, Damian Einstein of Potomac, Rose Einstein of Los Angeles and Mimi Husser of Frederick; 23 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.

In 1997, seeking to explain his unexpected rock-and-roll radio success, Mr. Einstein said, "I've always been an alternative guy."

KCAC-AM

2007-09-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

Freeform radio pioneers in Phoenix, Arizona, include the likes of William Edward Compton (aka Bill Compton) and Dwight Tindle...

(Bill Compton)

... and stations like KRUX-FM, KCAC-AM and KDDB-FM...

(KCAC Staff circa 1971)

There's a fabulous resource on KCAC, with some links to KDKB and other info on the stations and staffs at:

KCAC Lives!

KPPC in Detail

2007-09-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

Jim Hilliker has written what must be the definitive history of KPPC AM & FM. Here's a small excerpt that pertains to KPPC-FM's freeform era:

CHURCH SELLS ITS RADIO STATIONS

The days of station ownership by Pasadena Presbyterian Church were soon ending. The church leaders apparently found that programming and running a commercial fm station full-time was a lot more work than putting their non-commercial AM station on the air only two days a week. KPPC-AM and FM were sold five years after the fm went on the air, but the church kept the 1240-AM transmitter in the basement of the new chapel building, along with its 25 by 35 foot main studio with perfect acoustics (designed by Clayton Blake), two smaller studios, record library, shop, and a reception room. The church rented out the studio and transmitter space to the new owners.

Those new owners, Crosby-Avery Broadcasting, purchased KPPC, effective October 5, 1967. The sale was first reported in the Los Angeles Times on August 12, 1967. The purchase price was $310,000 for the AM & FM. The story indicated that besides the Sunday church services, KPPC-FM/AM was broadcasting news, “middle of the road” music, and a variety of community-oriented public affairs programs. At that time, these community-oriented programs on KPPC included a show called “About Science” featuring interviews by nationally known scientists, arranged in cooperation with Caltech and distributed by the National Education Network to 110 member stations; “What Is a City” produced by the Pasadena Rotary Club, and programs by the League of Women Voters of Pasadena, Pasadena Coordinating Council and the Pasadena Arts Council. The newspaper story indicated that the AM signal reached a distance of about 55 miles, which may have been a generous estimate for the signal to be heard on the average AM radio of the day. Station officials were also quoted as saying the station would likely remain in Pasadena, but at a new location. However that did not take place until 1970.

In 1967 the station had a staff of 10, including station manager Edgar Pearce and program director Bob Mayfield. The church had put the two stations on the market about a year earlier. Pearce told the Times the fm had not shown a profit for the church, but added, “…its income had markedly increased in the past several years.” Church officials reportedly felt the money used to subsidize the AM & FM could be better spent elsewhere. Pearce said, “A commercial effort such as radio in the non-commercial atmosphere of the church is just not compatible.”

The new owners would soon use KPPC/fm to change the course of L.A. radio. However, the new licensee was still required as a condition of the station sale, to continue broadcasting the Sunday morning services of Pasadena Presbyterian Church over KPPC-AM.

By this time, 1240 AM was an obscure weak signal buried among the many more-powerful AM radio signals in and around Los Angeles vying for advertising dollars, while KPPC was still non-commercial. That was about to change after nearly 43 years. KPPC-AM's schedule had increased at this time to roughly 22 hours per week: Sundays from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday morning, and Wednesday nights from 7 p.m. until midnight.

NOT YOUR FATHER’S KPPC

In late-1967, the new ownership and management at KPPC decided to broadcast a format on 106.7/fm that could not be done on AM at the time. It was already on the air at San Francisco fm station KMPX, which was also owned by Crosby-Avery. The programming, initiated by Tom Donahue was called "free form underground" or “progressive rock” radio, which gave the flower children and counter-culture of the day a radio voice of their own. It was unlike any of the Top-40 AM rock music stations in the country, which is what the new KPPC djs/air personalities were rebelling against. The decision was made to simulcast the KPPC/fm format on 1240-AM when it was on the air, so KPPC-AM became the first AM station in the U.S. to air such programming. It was a mix of long-play rock album cuts straight from the hippie-drug culture of the time. The disc jockeys were relatively young (though some were a bit older), were into the music and sounded very "mellow," as if they had woken up from a deep sleep and were about to doze off again. They communicated one-on-one with the young listeners. It was a style of talking on the air much different than the fast-talking, high energy djs on the pop/rock AM stations of the era. Unlike the AM music stations popular then, these djs didn’t talk over song intros and didn’t repeat the call letters over and over or play jingles. They played sets of several songs in a row without talking, and they played longer songs and rock music that couldn’t get airplay on AM radio then. Many young people who found the new FM station liked this format, with very few commercials, and language they could understand. The younger generation opposed to the policies of Presidents Johnson and (later) Nixon, a generation against the Vietnam War and the draft, social injustice, and who didn’t trust anyone over 30, had a radio station they could identify with, when they discovered KPPC. So, KPPC-AM could be credited with helping to start what would become a hugely popular fm radio station in Los Angeles and across the nation, by broadcasting the 106.7 FM station on 1240-AM on Wednesday nights and Sundays.

Here’s a piece of KPPC trivia that I did not find out about until December 2006! According to radio historian Bill Earl, in 1967, Tom Donahue tried to change the call letters of KPPC AM and FM to KHIP, but the station owners would not let him.

According to Ted Alvy’s Web site, KPPC’s change to freeform underground rock music got started with this lineup:

“Exactly 10 years after KFWB went Top 40, Program Director Tom Donahue debuted his KPPC hipster air staff on January 2, 1968 in the basement of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church:

*

6AM-11AM LES CARTER (KBCA/fm)
*

11AM-4PM ED MITCHELL (KFRC)
*

4PM-9PM B. MITCHEL REED (KFWB, WMCA)
*

9PM-MID TOM DONAHUE (KMPX-FM, KYA)
*

MID-6AM DON HALL (KPPC/fm)

The original 1968 KPPC air staff also included TED ALVY (Cosmos Topper) and STEVEN SEGAL (The Obscene Steven Clean).”

A man named Jay Murley had worked in sales at KPPC-FM/AM back then. He was about to be named FM-AM sales manager in March of 1968, when the air staff went out on strike, and according to Jay, “the fiscal structure came apart.” In 1973, Jay Murley wrote an article for the AM band DX club IRCA (International Radio Club of America), called “Not Your Average Radio Station.” In his story, Murley wrote the following about KPPC:

“With candid discussions of grass, acid, pot and speed, and anything else that might pop into some freak’s head (from studios where contact highs were unavoidable), KPPC-AM quickly became something much different from its original intended purpose. Those studios (in the church basement), thankfully, were separated from the front office by good air conditioning — for staffers and guests who didn’t appreciate contact highs.”

Murley also explained in his article that due to the twice-a-week simulcast, KPPC-AM forced the first exception to the FCC rule then, which said AM & FM stations could not duplicate programming more than 50% of the time if located in major markets. Crosby-Avery Broadcasting claimed in 1968 that it was the fm programming that was intended to be unduplicated, while 106.7/fm was being duplicated about 8% of the time on KPPC-1240 AM on Sundays and Wednesdays.

Murley referred to KPPC-AM’s engineering in 1968 as “atrocious.” He wrote, “Who worries about modulation on a hundred-watt share-time station, when your total music needs involved half-a-dozen pipe organ solos a week, or a few numbers from an off key choir?” As for the previously mentioned KPPC wire antenna system, Murley said KPPC’s flattop was different. While the antenna design looked good, Murley described it this way: “It’s roughly parallel with all the leaky auto ignitions of Colorado Boulevard. It’s anchored to a structure that anchors the printing press of the daily paper published next door. KPPC has a static machine for an AM long-wire (antenna), the sort of static machine that does a job on 1240 and local adjacent channel operations, such as the black-programmed KGFJ on 1230.”

“In spite of its extraordinarily limited schedule and its very limited coverage pattern (barely reaching West Hollywood’s Sunset Strip, never reaching the Pacific and covering less than a third of the Los Angeles market within the half-millivolt contour), this relic out of the past once performed a key function. It offered to the listener without the fm set the chance to sample free-form underground radio during its initial growth period, without having to listen to a friend’s fm. FM set sales skyrocketed among 18 to 24 year-old males, audiences jumped and the rest is history,” Murley concluded. This goes along with what James Mason told me about why the church didn’t keep the AM when the fm was sold in 1967. Apparently, new owners Crosby-Avery wanted 1240-AM to promote the fact that if listeners wanted to hear B. Mitchel Reed and other KPPC djs playing this music every day, the listeners should go out and buy a radio with FM, so they could hear KPPC fulltime on 106.7, and not just the two days a week that 1240-AM was on the air with the same music. So, the church replied, if you want the AM station, you’ll have to continue to broadcast our Sunday service. The new owners agreed to that requirement.

One of the KPPC djs in those days was Ted Alvy. Ted related to me a story that shows the strange connection between the older AM station and the fm in those days, when many of the “older generation” members of Pasadena Presbyterian Church still tuned into KPPC-AM every Sunday morning to hear the church services from 11 a.m. to noon. However, they soon got an “earful” of what the younger generation liked, when the church service ended on 1240-AM and the noon simulcast began on 106.7/fm and 1240-AM. Ted recalled that incident:

”I remember that sometime in the fall of 1970 (soon after our fm station went full power from Flint Peak), KPPC/fm reclaimed the AM signal on Sundays at noon, when it started its simulcast of our hippie underground music, as KPPC AM & FM for the rest of Sunday (just after the end of the church service broadcast on KPPC-AM). An uninformed part-time deejay once played a ‘blue’ routine by Lenny Bruce just as the simulcast began, and our station gm got a serious complaint from a shocked Presbyterian Church listener. The KPPC studios were now located at 99 South Chester (since Les Carter took over as pd on April Fools day 1970). My memory is a little foggy here, but sometime later our fm may have also simulcast (on 1240-AM) for an hour or two on Wednesday night after the church service ended.”

According to then-chief engineer Mike Callaghan, a similar incident was heard over KPPC-1240 when the Sunday church service ended earlier than scheduled, due to technical problems:

“A fraternity brother of mine, Mike Mathieson, was running the board at 99 S. Chester one Sunday morning, when the mike at the Church suddenly opened and a hurried voice said, "This concludes this morning's service from the Pasadena Presbyterian Church. We now return you to the main studio.” Period. No warning, no nothing. (The church's console had started smoking). Mathieson had absolutely NOTHING cued up or ready to go. Veteran dj Don Hall was pulling records for his 12 Noon shift, and he handed Mathieson an LP and said, "Here, play this!" Mike grabbed the record and, greatly relieved, started tracking it. "GIVE ME AN 'F' -- GIVE ME A 'U' -- GIVE ME A 'C'.......” – It was The Fish Cheer From Woodstock. The old ladies tuned into ‘God Squad’ never even had a chance to turn it down. Mathieson didn't say a word. He just stood up, lifted his license off the wall, and walked out the door, never to come back.”

KPPC Strike of ’68 Brings Changes

KPPC had its share of growing pains and problems, just a few short months after the sale and format change to “free-form underground” rock. Both KPPC/fm and sister-station KMPX djs in San Francisco went on strike at 3 a.m. on Monday March 18, 1968. Ted Alvy explains how and why this took place:

“KPPC and KMPX employees went on strike against harassment by the management and their attempts to prevent artistic and personal freedoms by replacing the long haired, bearded, or barefoot employees who created success at both stations. Tom Donahue resigned his management position to join the strike. Management bled both operations financially, as checks bounced week after week while most of the salaries were far below the average in the industry, often below the level of decent subsistence. Management misrepresented the goals of the striking employees in order to induce people to work as scabs.

After the strike ended at the end of Spring of 1968, some employees returned to KPPC, because KMET would only hire B. Mitchel Reed. Some good deejays played music in the church basement studios, but with little overall direction. So it took the sale of the station and the hiring of Les Carter as pd and building the state of the art studio near Cal Tech at 99 South Chester to allow a freeform air staff that was both creative and influential in spreading good music over the airwaves. The increase to full power with a transmitter on Flint Peak in September 1970 gave KPPC/fm a much bigger audience, even against KMET/fm with their powerful signal.”

Alvy went on to say, “I believe that KPPC/fm had two amazing Underground Radio airstaffs: if KMET had hired the KPPC air staff with B. Mitchel Reed, Tom Donahue and Les Carter in June 1968, KMET would have revolutionized radio in Los Angeles, and across the country, as it would’ve made lots of money playing lots of great music, with many imitators; if the program director Les Carter’s creative air staff had not been fired on October 24, 1971. The freedom given to intelligent deejays at KPPC was responsible for its creative success.”

Charles Laquidara, who had an incredibly long and successful career in rock radio in Boston as host of his Big Mattress morning show on WBCN until 1996, got his start in radio at KPPC. After getting his Bachelor’s degree in theater arts from Pasadena Playhouse, Charles tried radio announcing as a job, while seeking acting roles in Hollywood. Charles was at KPPC twice, first in 1965 and again in ’68 after the church had sold the FM and AM stations. In an email to me, he passed on these memories:

“I worked at KPPC as a part-time Classical music announcer in 1965. [Actually got a write-up in the Pasadena Star-News from the Arts/Entertainment editor, who called me the "refreshing new voice on Classical radio" because of, "his simple, straightforward delivery, which brings classical music to the average working folk..." [Think he was saying I didn't sound snobby and sophisticated like most announcers of the genre.] I still have the article somewhere – very proud of that one! The show was a Sunday night feature called ‘KPPC's Opera of the Air,’ I believe. I left in 1966 to return to Boston because of illness in the family, and when I came back to radio at KPPC in 1968, it was an Underground Rock station. I was hired as the late night 10 p.m. – 2 a.m. announcer and worked there over a year. Because I didn't know that much about Rock – and only a bit of Classical, I got some kind of reputation [or notoriety!] as the "crazy dj who mixes the Beach Boys with Bach and Jazz with Jagger." Soon I was offered a job in Boston to replace Peter Wolf, who was leaving WBCN to form the J. Geils band.”

Charles also added that when he returned in ’68, an event at Griffith Park took place one day to pay tribute to Lenny Bruce. Charles told me that suddenly, without warning, a bunch of Los Angeles police officers swooped down on his group and attacked them for no apparent reason. He told me that young people today would have a hard time understanding this time [late-1960s] in the USA, when people in their teens and 20s didn’t trust anyone over 30, and the police who were supposed to protect you, were not your friend. Charles says he realized then that he could mix his radio entertainment show with serious social commentary of the day. He talked about the Griffith Park incident on his radio show that night and did much the same on future KPPC shows.

Mike Callaghan, who has been mentioned previously in this article, started at KPPC in May of 1970. Mike gave me the story about how he started working at KPPC, his first job in radio broadcasting: “I was taking the Electronics Curricula at Pasadena City College, and one of the classes prepared you for the FCC First Class License. The teacher, Ken Johnson, told us on the first day that if we passed the test and got the license before the course was over, he'd give us an 'A' and we'd never have to come back to class. It made sense to me, so I studied like mad and passed. When the license arrived I hung it on the wall at Dow Radio, where I was selling radio parts. One of the KPPC people came in, saw the license, and asked if I wanted a job. I'd always been interested in broadcasting, so I interviewed and got hired. That was in the basement of the church. We had a Collins FM transmitter, and when it rained we'd wait until it stopped and took the station off long enough to drain the water out of the cable that went to the antenna. KPPC's [FM] signal was terrible. One of my first jobs, as the new chief engineer, was to design an antenna made out of a broomstick and coat hangers. We called it the "KPPC Super-Signal-Sucker Antenna" and sent hundreds of copies of the plans to listeners that wanted to hear us better.”

I asked Mike to please share at least one interesting memory or story about operating the stations: “It was so loose it was ridiculous. When we were building the new studios so we could get out of the [church] basement, we ran into last minute problems. The dj on the air kept saying how excited he was to be getting out of the basement, and it was I who had to call [literally about 2 hours before we were supposed to move] and confess we weren't moving for a few more days. The phone in the basement rang and rang, and finally someone answered. I asked who it was, and back came the answer, ‘Oh, this is Howie!’ ‘Howie? Who the heck are you? Where's the dj?’ ‘Oh, he went out to get a sandwich.’ ‘He did, eh? Who's running the radio station?’ ‘Well, I guess I am... Anything special you'd like to hear?’ ‘Ah, Howie, do you happen to have a license to run a radio station?’ ‘License, why on earth would I want a license?’ And so it went.”

Mike added that generally, there weren’t any problems between the church and this underground rock station operating from its basement: ‘The church left us alone. Their business manager, Bill Benke, was my contact if I needed anything [circuit breakers reset, etc.]. I only called him once on a Sunday afternoon, and he was totally ripped. Not happy at all about coming in. Generally speaking, there weren't that many people in the basement at one time. The Church heard about the 'Flashing Statues' and did ask us to leave. But by that time, we'd already had the Beatles, Stones, and other stars down to the basement. It was more of a drag for us to ask them into a church than it was for the church.”

Mike includes this funny story about the statues on his own Web site. Just one month after starting at KPPC, Mike managed to get the entire station kicked out of the basement studios. As the new chief engineer, Mike had rigged a set of plastic statues of the Holy Family with lights hooked up to the cart machines. When the first spot [commercial] was done playing, Joseph would light up. When the second spot was done, Mary would light up. Also, when the disc jockey turned up the volume too loud for the transmitter, Jesus would light up. Quoting from the Web site, ‘The church elders decided it was time to get the ‘heathens’ out of the basement and gave us two weeks to move. The deadline to move was a Sunday, and the party held in the basement Saturday night is still legendary. About a month after the studio move, we started building a new transmitter plant on Flint Peak between Pasadena and Glendale.” (Photo: Mike Callaghan)

I also asked Mike about the AM’s 100-watt signal when he worked there and if the AM usually simulcasted the fm station twice a week. Mike replied, ‘The AM ground system was better than you might expect. When it signed on in 1924, the IRS donated a bunch of copper stills they'd confiscated, and they were buried around the perimeter of the newspaper building. Copper straps went up the sides to the roof and were tied together. The signal was really crappy, though. No real ground wave to speak of. When I did a request show with Art Laboe from a root beer stand in East Pasadena [on KPPC-1240 AM], I had to buy a top-notch Sony receiver to make sure we were on the air. Even so, I did get QSL reports from as far away as the Hague in the Netherlands. That one made my day.’ (Author’s note: I believe the copper stills used as part of the ground system came later than 1924. KPPC’s antenna from 1924-1936 was on top of the church roof, not on the Star-News building. The church got permission in 1931 to use the former KPSN antenna system atop the Star-News roof, and that’s where the copper stills for the ground system were placed, possibly in 1931 or when the antenna system was re-done in 1936 for the power increase from 50 to 100 watts). Mike added, “If I had nothing else to do on a Sunday afternoon, I'd feed it [KPPC-1240 AM] from the Production Studio and play stuff I'd brought from home. No one cared. When there was a significant election in Pasadena about the School District, I took a tape deck to the meetings and ran them on 1240 on Wednesday nights.”

Mike recalled more about the move from the church basement:

“I remember all this well, as I was still in school when we moved. The exodus from the basement to 99 S. Chester was in May of 1970. After that was done, we started on Flint Peak, and that move was in September. What it meant was that less than 6 months after being named chief engineer, I had moved the entire station to new digs. KPPC-AM did stay in the Church basement. It was remote controlled from Chester St. And on 'Black Sunday', when the staff got fired [October 24, 1971], the jocks all were despondent when the FM went off and the police walked in and gave the staff 5 minutes to clear out or get arrested for trespassing. They all forgot the mike was open and the AM was still on the air. Now THAT is an aircheck I'd like to have!”

There’s much, much more to the KPPC/fm story during its “underground rock” glory years, including details of its format, air personalities, photos, etc. For more details, you are invited to explore these Web sites put together by Ted Alvy and Mike Callaghan, which are dedicated to the memory of KPPC/fm: KPPC, DUCK RUSH (Neon Mallard) KPPC-FM 1967 – 71.

As Ted points out, a lot of talented people came through KPPC/fm during that era, including all the previously mentioned names above, along with The Obscene Steven Clean (Steven Segal), Dr. Demento (Barry Hansen), The Credibility Gap (Richard Beebe, David L. Lander, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer), Don Hall, Mississippi Fats (Joe Rogers), Miss Outrageous Nevada (Susan Carter), Johnny Otis, Cosmos Topper (Ted Alvy), The Firesign Theatre and Jeff Gonzer. Other names that I’ve found associated with KPPC during this general era include Paul Anthony/Ralph Hull (1968); Steve Dahl (1972); and William F. Williams (1971). My apologies for not finding and including more of you. I hope those from the fm side can tell their history one day. Also, for an excellent overview on the history of this era of American broadcasting, a good source is the chapter “The FM Revolution,” from the excellent book Listening In — Radio and the American Imagination by Susan J. Douglas. You may be able to find it at your public library or at a used bookstore.

GRADUAL END OF UNDERGROUND ROCK BRINGS MORE CHANGES

KPPC AM and FM were later purchased by the National Science Network on October 8, 1969. I asked Ted Alvy if he knew why Crosby-Avery sold the stations. Ted said he believed Avery was ill and Crosby had financial problems. Ted added that two years later, General Manager Doug Cox fired the KPPC air staff on October 24, 1971. He claims that Cox also convinced the National Science Network that program director Les Carter was putting the station license in jeopardy for various violations the djs supposedly committed. The new owners also forced KPPC to run commercials for their own products, such as Isodine mouthwash and Kerid eardrops. Ted said Isodine turned out to be on a federal list of products known to be ineffective. Mike Callaghan remembers that National Science Network also wanted to run their pharmaceutical ads on KPPC/fm’s subcarrier, a hidden channel you can’t hear on a regular radio.

ART LABOE SHOW BRIEFLY HEARD ON KPPC

Mike Callaghan told me that L.A. radio legend Art Laboe was heard for a short time on KPPC-AM around 1972. So, I sent an email to Art to find out why he was on the low-powered Pasadena outlet. Here’s his email reply:

“In about 1970, Dick Moreland [previously with KRLA in the 1960s], program director of KPPC/fm decided he would like to try my old drive-in show on his #1 fm station KPPC/fm, but first he would try it out on his KPPC-AM station, 100-watts, which only broadcast Wednesday and Sunday evenings. For 4 hours each of those days, I was on from 8 p.m. to midnight. Just that one day per week. A restricted license held over from when KPPC-AM was owned by the Pasadena Presbyterian Church. PPC being the church's call letters. The show was on for about 3 months and for the 1st time in history was IN the Arbitron ratings. Quite a feat since it could only be heard in the general area of the church and [the signal] cut off at the freeway leading to L.A. The show was successful, but never got scheduled on the fm. That's the story. Thanks, Art Laboe.”

Mike believes Art’s show was heard on KPPC after the October 1971 firing of the air-staff: “It was later than 1970, because Dick Moreland didn't become the pd until after Les Carter and his cronies were fired. KRLA’s Doug Cox was the station manager, and Moreland was the pd. I remember being at a meeting at Moreland's house when he was picking the replacement air staff. He said, "Hmmm. Let's see who else I owe a favor to...”

Larry Miller, KMPX

2007-09-02T22:07:00.000-07:00

Vancouver Freeform, 1967-68

2007-08-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

[ Excerpt of "When Vancouver rock radio bubbled up from the underground," by Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun, August 08, 2007 ]

During the Summer of Love in 1967, Tim Burge was a Boss Jock with Vancouver's CKLG-AM.

Frustrated with playing sappy pop singles while the psychedelic music scene was exploding, especially after attending the Monterey Pop Music Festival in the San Francisco Bay area, Burge suggested to LG managers that they try a new format, similar to that being pioneered by San Francisco disc jockey Tom Donahue at radio station KMPX -- a free-form, acid rock format that became known as underground radio.

His idea fell on deaf ears at CKLG. Oddly enough, Vancouver radio station CJOR, owned by businessman Jimmy Pattison, agreed to give the format a try.

Burge claims it was the first rock radio program of its kind in Canada at the time: During his 8 p.m. to midnight shift, he played everything from jazz (John Coltrane and Roland Kirk) to the Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix.

The show lasted only three months.

Burge recalls that Pattison was at home one night, listening to his station, and was shocked to hear Burge playing Hendrix's Third Stone from the Sun, a spaced-out psychedelic rap that fused together slowed-down sound effects, jazz and rock guitar.

Days later, CJOR hired a new program director, Red Robinson, who told Burge that his "hippie dippy garbage" had no future.

"He also suggested I get a haircut," Burge recalls.

After the program was canned, CJOR went back to playing Engelbert Humperdinck and Patti Page songs.

One Vancouverite who protested the loss of Burge's show was a young University of B.C. law student, Mike Harcourt.

"I regret your decision, Mr. Robinson," the future Vancouver mayor and B.C. premier said in a letter that Burge still has. "Mr. Burge's program excited me about radio programming for the first time in years . . . Unfortunately, you have turned him into one of the thousand and one DJs across the continent spinning out a phoney 'adult' sound reminiscent of the Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies."

But Robinson didn't relent and Burge went into exile at a Victoria station.

But CKLG called next spring, in March 1968, wanting him to return to CKLG-FM, which was adopting the underground rock format. Burge became a DJ and also assumed music director duties at the station, whose new DJs would include Terry David Mulligan, John Tanner and J.B. Shayne.

"It really was a wonderful time in radio," recalls Burge, now known as Pamela Burge. "It was free form. I remember Jimmy Page, then with the Yardbirds [and later Led Zeppelin] coming into the studio with his guitar and playing."

Now a community support worker in the mental health field, Burge has been living as a woman since 1993 and had a gender change in 1996.

He also recalls Mulligan decided one weekend to allow the public in for a tour of the CKLG-FM studio. "People were lined up inside and smoking pot. I remember one of the managers came in the next day and the place stunk."

Another pioneer in Vancouver radio in 1967 was 24-year-old Bill Reiter, who owned Bill & Bob's Record Shop, which sold rhythm-and-blues and soul records in the world's narrowest building at 10 East Pender St. in Chinatown.

CKLG program director Frank Callaghan asked Reiter to host an experimental program on CKLG-FM, which at the time was playing classical music and wanted to appeal to a younger audience.

Reiter called the show Groovin' Blue -- the title of a 1961 jazz album by Curtis Amy and Frank Butler. It was the first of its kind in Canada, playing only play black music: the latest R&B, soul, blues, jazz, funk, gospel and salsa. It first aired in September 1967 on Saturday nights from 6:30 to 8:30. Six months later, when CKLG-FM switched to all-rock, it ran 6-8 p.m, Monday through Saturday.

The 100,000-watt signal could be heard by fans in Washington state, recalls Reiter, who says a New Yorker phoned one night to say he'd recently been on a freighter in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, heading to Vancouver from Japan, when he picked up the Groovin' Blue signal. The Big Apple denizen said he couldn't believe anyone in Canada was playing New York conga drum hero Mongo Santamaria, as well as Pucho & his Latin Soul Brothers.

Reiter recalls that many recording artists got their first Canadian airplay on the program: Ollie & the Nightingales, Marva Whitney, the Dapps, Sy Risby, the Joe Tex Band, Sly & the Family Stone, the Trials of Jayson Hoover, Freddy Robinson, Mabel John, Oscar Toney Jr., the Raelettes, O'Dell Brown & the Organizers and Melvin Van Peebles.

Groovin' Blue lasted for two years, ending in mid-September 1969. Reiter says the Groovin' Blue format will make its home next February on the Internet via radio station WAGR, which he will co-host with Sunny (Sweet Daddy Fonk) Wong, Al (There's This Line) Foreman, Buddy Bok & Harry Bok (Chow) and voice-actor Jim Conrad.

nhall@png.canwest.com

How KFML Began

2007-08-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

Received this from Herb quite a while ago and did not want it to get lost:

>>>>||<<<<||||||||||>>>>||<<<<

Malcolm,

Wow! What an incredible treasure you have compiled! I loved Bill Ashford’s summary of Free Form and KFML. Not a day goes by that I don’t recall something about those incredible times (sometimes with horror—lol).

Brian Kreizenbeck was the man who initiated KFML. Thom Trunnell and I were sort of stranded at a station, KOME, in San Jose when Thom and I contacted Joe McGoey for a personal meeting in Denver. The deal would be that everybody would be paid $100 per week and we would split the profits every month. And that’s how it all came together as a sort of “collective”. I was the “sales manager”. I became totally caught up in the marketing and creativeness of Free Form back when KMYR was on the air. That station was staffed by some ex-KMPX air staff, as well as Ashford, Trunnell, Don Bridges, Ed Hepp and Jim Mason. A whole other saga.

I am so grateful that you have created this historic portal.

Best,

Herb Neu

(Picture of Herb courtesy of KFMLNooze.com)

OFF THE TRUCK 003

2007-08-18T23:09:00.000-07:00

Dumptruck O'Neill told me about his early influences, especially WLAC-AM, outta Nashville, 1961-1968...

Please go to:
OFF THE TRUCK 003

Red Dog Saloon, 1965

2007-08-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

Red Dog Saloon, Virginia City, Nevada, 1965... At last there's a DVD with footage of and about those days.

As one reviewer put it, if you're looking for stories revolving around the popular bands during those times, don't buy this DVD. But, if you have ever heard or read of the Red Dog Saloon, or -- better yet -- were a part of it if only for one visit, then this DVD is a must-have.

Amongst other things, it contains the only known footage of the Charlatans, the real pioneers of the San Francisco music scene circa 1965-66. Also, there are excerpts of the Red Dog Reunion concert back in the early 1990s with the Charlatans and Big Brother And The Holding Company. Lynne Hughes is there, too. The background of the Light Machine is explained. Interviews with people from the scene less famous than the typical names associated with it. Oh yes, and music. Music that is virtually forgotten by most of us today but still belongs and is easily identified as part of the dawn of psychedelic rock.

Product Description
With music by The Charlatans, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Lynne Hughes, Mark Unobsky, Dan Hicks, Alice Stuart, Ph Phactor Jug Band, Final Solution, Wildflower, Boston Wranglers, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service

Directed By: Mary Works

Their names and music became legendary: Big Brother & the Holding Company, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the house band - The Charlatans. If the psychedelic sixties were born in the dancehalls of San Francisco, then they were conceived in a saloon in Virginia City, Nevada where the musicians carried Winchesters & the kitchen served French gourmet meals.

The psychedelic era fostered cultural growth and artistic expression. The Red Dog Saloon was the incubator for the lightshow and psychedelic poster art, an entire lifestyle that truly defined a remarkable era and defied classification as it weaved it's tapestry of free love and music, which the Grateful Dead would spread around the world.

Filmmaker Mary Works (assistant editor "Titanic", "Saving Private Ryan") was entrusted with access to the lives, antics and attics of this unique extended rock and roll family that grew out of these wild times.

DVD Features - A conversation with the filmmakers, Where are they now?, Jim Marshall Photo Gallery and Interview

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Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #16145 in DVD
Released on: 2005-07-05
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Formats: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Original language: English
Number of discs: 1
Running time: 91 minutes

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Editorial Reviews
Michael Simmons - Rolling Stone, L.A. Weekly, High Times, BAM
"The best documentary on the `60s ever made. Red Dog Saloon rocks!"

Joel Selvin - San Francisco Chronicle
"…engaging affectionate…full of characters whose eyes still gleam…"

Audience Member
"...an amazing piece of Rock & Roll history...far reaching significance in the overall story of 20th Century America"

----------------------------------------------

from "Haight Ashbury - A History" by Charles Perry:

"Around the same time that Owsley's name was becoming a household word in some households, there were rumors of a project that seemed designed to alleviate the adventure shortage. Some crazies were opening a totally Old West saloon with folk music in, of all places, the semi‑ghost town of Virginia City, Nevada.

"Virginia City wasn't actually such an odd place for a hippie saloon. The old boomtown capital of the Comstock Lode silver rush already had a colony of exotic people, including some psychedelic users. The latter group was centered around a second‑generation bohemian named Don Works, a member of the peyote‑eating Native American Church who had moved out to the Comstock country to be with his coreligionists among the Washoe and Piute Indians.

"Works lived on a little plot named the Zen Mine after a pair of nonproducing mine shafts running into the dusty hillside behind his cinder‑block cabin. The idea for the Red Dog Saloon had been formed there a few months before, when Works, a tall desperado type named Chan Laughlin (who had once owned a Berkeley folk music coffeehouse), and a rich folkie named Mark Unobsky were stranded in Works' two‑room cabin by a blizzard. With nothing to do but get stoned and play the board game Risk, they started fantasizing about a folk nightclub to enliven the mountain evenings. It actually sounded plausible, because there was no decent nightlife around for competition, and particularly because folk musicians were always passing through Nevada on their way between the Boston‑New York scene and San Francisco‑Berkeley. Some fairly big names might be willing to stop off and play a relaxed night or two.

"That was the original plan, anyway. Unobsky bought the old Comstock House building on C Street, near the original claim of the wild silver rush that financed the Civil War and drove Germany off the silver standard. Bohemian carpenters were called in from Marin County, and Laughlin was dispatched to San Francisco for antique red velvet drapes and brass fittings.

"On one of these buying trips Laughlin stopped off at Pine Street, where he'd hidden out for a while a few months before when he figured the police were after him for smuggling marijuana. While he was talking up the excitement of this stylish folk cabaret in the hills to a Pine Street friend, he met a fellow with a long blond Dutch boy haircut and a missing front tooth who was dressed to the nines in Edwardian duds. It so happened that this Edwardian dude with the elusive, slightly formal manner had put together a musical group that might fit right in.

"His was not a folk group, though, but a rock and roll band called the Charlatans. Well, why not? The Beatles, Dylan, this band in Los Angeles named the Byrds that was being called a folk‑rock group—suddenly it was clear that a hip rock and roll band was just what the Red Dog needed. And the Charlatans already had a following. Bob Hunter, the Dutch boy blond with the missing tooth, was a culture hero in certain circles at State College for his elegant Edwardiana. The pianist, Michael Ferguson, had the same sort of stature and had once run an unheard‑of kind of store at the edge of the Haight‑Ashbury. Magic Theater for Madmen Only had sold nothing but antique clothes, knickknacks, a little art and a lot of marijuana stash jars.

"The only problem with the band was that Hunter, an artist and boy‑wonder architect, had conceived the Charlatans as a sort of pop art statement, an American response to the British rock groups. At the moment it was really only the concept of a rock band; they had hundreds of publicity stills, featuring Edwardian clothes and twenties rowing‑crew uniforms, but had never rehearsed. For months now they'd been growing their hair down to their shoulders—much longer than the Beatles' hair—and carrying on like a rock band at parties, and now it was time to get down to finding out what they could play. A lot of work needed to be done. Hunter, for instance, couldn't play anything but tambourine and autoharp, and there were those who said he couldn't play that.

"The Red Dog became a sort of Pine Street project. A collage artist and one‑time motorcycle racer named Al Kelly went up to Virginia City to work on the remodeling. Ellen Harmon, the rangy woman who shared his tiny room in Pine Street where the walls were painted with pop art sound effects ("Poww!" "Bawannnngggg!"), went as a waitress. There was an abstract expressionist painter on Pine Street who managed two of the apartment houses, a shaggy‑bearded Southerner named Bill Ham. His light shows, which were like moving abstract paintings projected in brilliant colors on a screen, were Pine Street's favorite evening entertainment. He designed a light box for the Red Dog that would pulsate with color in time with the music.

"Altogether, a couple of dozen people from San Francisco moved up to Virginia City for the Red Dog project. After a number of delays and false starts, the Red Dog Saloon finally opened on June 29, 1965, advertised by a poster drawn by the Charlatans' pianist in a sort of old‑timey medicine‑show style that described the band as "The Limit of the Marvelous." The band moved up to Virginia City on opening day with one loudspeaker and a ten‑watt amplifier.

"The sheriff came to see opening night. The new place was the only nightclub in town, and people had been pushing him to look into it anyway. All these city people dressing in vests and string ties and celluloid collars—and that sign out front, too, with the slavering red dog on it.

"But he had to admit they'd done a hell of a job as he mounted the plank sidewalk, rebuilt and roofed over just as it had been in the 1860s. As he pushed in through the swinging doors, he could see they'd spared no expense on the interior, either. All period furnishings, red and turquoise velvet drapes with a lot of gold braid, the whole place painted red with black trim. The bartender was in a striped shirt with sleeve garters, and the waitresses were all in saloon‑maid bodices and net stockings. Some of the customers knocking back the beer and bourbon were in old‑time getups as well.

"A couple of things, you couldn't figure whether they were out of place or not. Maybe in the 1860s there could have been a 380‑pound Washoe Indian bouncer in a top hat and a Rainbow Girls sash. The musicians in those days surely didn't play rock and roll, but maybe they did get as looped as these guys on the stage seemed to be, rolling their eyes and staggering and trying to play each other's instruments.

"But all told, it was enough to touch a man's heart. The least the sheriff could do was to honor the hallowed Code of the West, which held that when a man entered a bar he checked all his firearms at the door. "Check my gun?"

"Without blinking an eye, Don Works plucked the pistol out of the sheriff's hand, threw a practiced glance down the barrel, spun the chambers, cocked the hammer and fired off two quick shots into the floor. "Works fine, sheriff," he said.

"Rock and roll meets the Old West—the possibilities were staggering. The Charlatans' gig stretched on far longer than the planned two weeks. People told their friends about it, and some of the posters made it back to San Francisco, where they tended to be handed around from person to person rather than posted. More and more people made the three‑hour drive just to see whether it could be true, an Old West Bar with a hip rock band in the Edwardian style.

"As a matter of fact, the Charlatans had started changing their style. Stuck in Virginia City week in and week out, they and everyone else working at the Red Dog fell into the Old West style. In a way it was the only thing to do: get a pair of chaps and a ten‑gallon hat and spend the afternoons picking off jackrabbits. Owsley's LSD had been around since opening night, and on Mondays, when the Red Dog was dark, the staff would have LSD parties. The sense of the frontier grew stronger and stronger.

"Some of the people envisioned the Red Dog as a movie. Chan Laughlin would lecture about it: "This is an Old Western town, and we're more Old Western than anybody else. Remember, when your feet hit the floor in the morning, you're in a Grade B movie. This is that saloon down the street where the manager has his office under the stairs and all the gunhands sit around out front and periodically he comes out and motions a couple of them to ride away and rustle some cows. It's that place, complete with fancy girls going around bending over tables and the music and people roaring and ordering more drinks and carrying on."

"Yes indeed. Everybody started wearing the clothes and carrying fancy firearms. Each bartender as he came on shift brought his own personally selected bar pistol. After a while the Charlatans had a set of matched‑caliber Winchester rifles they would carry onstage and lean up against the amplifier before picking up their guitars. Now, what was all this fuss about the Beatles and their so‑called flashy style?"

See Red Dog discussion at:

Rockin' At The Red Dog

John Peel

2007-07-27T12:14:00.000-07:00

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio announcer and journalist. Although not known for doing a freeform show, the kinds of music and elements he incorporated into his programs were the same as many of the early freeform stations in the States. His eclectic taste in music and his honest and warm broadcasting style was akin to "The Father of Freeform," Bob Fass. Little known in the United States, John Peel was a popular and respected DJ and broadcaster in the British Isles. Amongst many other accomplishments, he was one of the first to play reggae and punk on British radio and was a significant influence on alternative rock, Pop, British hip hop and dance music. He was the longest-serving of the original DJs of BBC Radio 1, broadcasting on it from 1967 until his death in 2004...

There are extensive John Peel archives, with playlists and downloadable programs. Here's a good place to start:

Kats Karavan

For a good overview of who John Peel was and his contributions, please go to:

John Peel Wiki

Early KZAP History

2007-07-25T16:44:00.000-07:00

Back in 2004, Alex Cosper wrote about the early history of KZAP-FM, freeform radio in Sacramento, late 1960s. Give a read at:

Early History of KZAP

(Cartoon courtesy of www.paulbasye.com)

Alex Cosper also wrote a short, fairly accurate history of freeform radio at:

History of Freeform Radio

Pissing Contest

2007-07-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

Little bit of a pissing contest going on between Michael Walker, author of "Laurel Canyon" and KMPX/KSAN alumnus Ben Fong-Torres about L.A. (Laurel Canyon) vs. San Francisco during the Summer of Love (1967). Goes like this, Walker starting out:

---------------------------------

WALKER: Fallout from my New York Times Op-Ed piece about about the relative merits of San Francisco and Los Angeles during the Summer of Love continues.
The latest, as reported by San Francisco journalist and rock historian Ben Fong-Torres in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle...

FONG-TORRES: Michael Walker, author of the excellent social history “Laurel Canyon,” recently wrote an essay for the New York Times, “(Don’t Go Back to) San Francisco,” which The Chronicle also published.
It should’ve been printed in green ink because Walker was so envious of the attention given this city as ground zero of the Summer of Love 40 years ago. “As a lasting cultural artifact,” he wrote, “San Francisco’s Summer of Love can’t hold a stick of incense to the rafter-shaking sounds coming out that same year from a Los Angeles neighborhood 370 miles south, above the Sunset Strip.”
He refers, of course, to the title of his book, and to the amazing array of talent that lived or hung out in the canyon and produced such seminal hits as “California Dreamin’,” “For What It’s Worth” and even that wear-flowers-in-your-hair number.
Well! Edward Bear, for one, was incensed (pun intended). The former KMPX and KSAN DJ, e-mailed the article to friends, drawing this sage comment from Dusty Street, who worked with Bear: “I beg to note that (free-form) radio was started in San Francisco, where these bands got the airplay they needed to become successful, and it was Tom Donahue (at KMPX) who brought FM rock to L.A., after it had been established in S.F.”
Despite the rivalry between the cities, there was cross-pollination between San Francisco and Los Angeles that informed the music and culture of both.

WALKER: Nevertheless, as Laurel Canynonite Frank Zappa recalled:

ZAPPA: San Francisco in the mid-’60s was very chauvinistic and ethnocentric. To the Friscoid’s way of thinking, everything that came from THEIR town was really important Art, and anything from anyplace else (especially L.A.) was dogshit. Rolling Stone magazine helped promote this fiction, nationwide.

WALKER: Zappa also noted that “no matter how ‘peace-love’ the San Francisco bands might try to make themselves, they eventually had to come south to evil ol’ Hollywood to get a record deal.”

WALKER: In the end, more great records came out of L.A. that summer and beyond. As Chicago Sun-Times rock critic Jim DeRogatis noted in his retrospective of the Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow, which contained the band’s signature hits “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love”:

WALKER: The fact is, with a few notable exceptions like the sophomore album by the Jefferson Airplane, there wasn’t a lot of great rock made in the City by the Bay at the height of the psychedelic era.

-----------------------

Let me weigh-in a bit, here:

1) Freeform Radio started with Bob Fass at WBAI-FM, New York in 1965. I consider him to be "The Father of Freeform Radio."

2) The first commercial station to play the new music that was coming out but wasn't being played on almost every station was WOR-FM, New York, beginning in Summer 1966. WOR-FM was not "freeform" in format, however.

3) Tom Donahue was the first one to format a commercial FM radio station, KMPX-FM, beginning in April, 1967, in San Francisco. I consider him "The Father of Commercial Freeform Radio."

4) Tom Donahue took programmatic control of KPPC-FM, Pasadena (L.A.) in November 1967, bringing Freeform Radio to Los Angeles for the first time.

As for the music, I guess it depends on your tastes. But, if you were into psychedelia, there is no question that San Francisco was the epicenter.

KCUV's Summer of Love

2007-06-21T08:47:00.001-07:00

In honor of the Summer of Love, Denver's KCUV is doing an all-day tribute (today only, 6/21/2007 -- available free via Internet) to those days, featuring guest programmers:

Bill Clarke came out to Colorado in 1963 for college at the University of Denver. He became a disc jockey at KLZ-FM -- the first FM in Denver, if not the whole USA, to play album versions of rock hits -- before a two-year hitch in the Army brought him to Vietnam. He's now the Consumer Champ at 7News and a 20-year veteran at the station.

Bill Ashford was on the first full-time airstaff at KFML, Denver's pioneering "free form," or "underground" station. The emergence of KFML-AM and FM was a major influence in the Denver area radio market, a departure from programming tradition -- every disc jockey was free to play whatever music he chose in whatever sequence his ideas suggested.

Max Floyd started the original KLZ-FM along with Bill Gardner. He went to Kansas City and started the original KY102. He left for a bit in 1980 and came back in 1983, and he has been there ever since. Max is included in the group of pioneers in the broadcast section of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Jay Cooper was part of the "new crew" on KFML. Jay interviewed and introduced an amazing array of musical up-and-comers during the four-year run of Ebbets Field, Denver's premier concert venue of the '70. Hundreds of the shows were either simulcast live or recorded for re-broadcast on KFML. Jay has the beard.

Thom Trunnell, a free form programmer par excellence, was one of the founding fathers of KFML.

Larry Bensky Retires

2007-06-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

Veteran newsman and activist Larry Bensky has retired, after 40+ years.

(Bensky image courtesy of flashpoints.net)

A two-hour audio documentary covering Larry's career in radio was produced by Aaron Glantz and narrated by KPFA News' Aileen Alfandary. It is available in mp3 format at:

Sunday Salon: Bensky Tribute

Also posted there is an mp3 file of the Bensky tribute of June 2, 2007.

All three hours are worth a solid listen. There are a lot of stories of freeform days and Pacifica.

(Bensky at KSAN image courtesy of Jive95.com)

Laufer in for Bensky

2007-06-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

[ Excerpt from KPFT Program Director Ernesto Aguilar's blog, concerning two legendary freeform broadcasters: ]

Laufer Replaces Bensky

Berkeley, June 1st - KPFA Radio 94.1 FM has hired award-winning journalist, broadcaster and documentary filmmaker Peter Laufer. Laufer will host the popular Sunday morning program, formerly called Sunday Salon, following Larry Bensky’s retirement. Laufer, who got his start in KPFA’s news room, has won many of the most prestigious awards in broadcast journalism including a George Polk Award and Peabody Award.

Laufer worked at the legendary freeform rock station KSAN and was a member of the award-winning KSAN news team that reported on the shootout at San Quentin Prison that occurred during the attempt at breaking free George Jackson. While a correspondent for NBC News, he also reported, wrote, and produced several documentaries and special event broadcasts for the network that dealt in detail with crucial social issues, including the first nationwide live radio discussion of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. “Healing the Wounds” was an analysis of ongoing problems afflicting Vietnam War veterans. “Hunger in America” documented malnutrition in our contemporary society. “A Loss for Words” exposed the magnitude and impact of illiteracy in America. “Cocaine Hunger” was the first network broadcast to literally trace the drug from the jungles of Bolivia to the streets of America, and alerted the nation to the avalanching crises caused by the consumption of crack cocaine.”Nightmare Abroad” was a pioneering study of Americans incarcerated overseas.

Laufer has written on issues ranging from the imprisonment of Lori Berenson in Peru to the rightwing Minutemen militia on the US-Mexico border for AlterNet, Mother Jones (where he set up Mother Jones Radio), and other alternative publications. Laufer’s books include “The Question of Consent: Innocence and Complicity in the Glen Ridge Rape Case” about the rape of a developmentally disabled schoolgirl by a gang of her classmates and the effect of the case of the health of the local community, “Inside Talk Radio: America’s Voice Or Just Hot Air” about the rise of conservative radio, and most recently “Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq”, published by Chelsea Green. Other books have focused on US-Mexico immigration, migration in Western Europe, and the US invasion of Iraq.

“Over the last several years my friend and colleague Larry Bensky performed radio magic Sunday mornings”,” says Laufer. “He combined an array of intriguing guests and audience participation with his own curiosity and thorough knowledge of current affairs to create a radio show that entertained while it informed. It is a privilege to seize the KPFA microphone now that Larry’s decided to retire from the show.”

“Peter brings a stellar background in journalism, strong progressive politics, and intellectual substance to the program,” says interim general manager Lemlem Rijio. “We are very pleased that he will continue the tradition of thoughtful, in-depth programming on Sunday mornings”.

Laufer... can be heard from 9-11am on KPFA 94.1 FM or KPFB 89.3FM in the Bay Area and KFCF 881.FM in California’s Central Valley, or online at kpfa.org.

MONTEREY POP 40 Years Ago

2007-06-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

NPR has Lou Adler and Michelle Phillips doing a slight retro on MONTEREY POP as it was 40 years ago. The NPR page also includes video of The Who and The Mamas and Papas, along with audio from Big Brother, Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix...

[ from NPR: ] 'Forty years ago this week, at the dawn of what would become known as the Summer of Love, a musical experiment unfolded in Monterey, Calif.

'The Monterey International Pop Festival, which preceded Woodstock by two years, brought together a diverse group of big-name acts including the Mamas and the Papas and Jefferson Airplane as well as some then-unknown performers, notably Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

'The 1967 event was organized by Lou Adler and the late John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas and it was caught on film by documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker. Adler and singer Michelle Phillips look back at the event.

"Some of the greatest performances of all time happened at Monterey," Adler tells Renee Montagne.

'Michelle Phillips, a member of the Mamas and the Papas, remembers how Hendrix amazed the crowd — and fellow artists — with his jaw-dropping performance, playing his guitar on his back, behind his back, lying down and setting the instrument on fire.

"I had never seen anything like it," Phillips says. "And I didn't understand that it was kind of theater. I was used to people singing and harmonizing and taking care of their instruments. It was shocking for me to see this kind of behavior on stage."

"The festival also exposed soul great Otis Redding to a new, primarily white audience, whom he called "the love crowd," Phillips says.

"A whole new audience opened up to him," she says.

'Redding was killed in a plane crash just months after that performance. A few, short years later, Hendrix and Joplin died within weeks of each other. Their performances at the Monterey Festival have become part of music legend.'

Sgt. Pepper's 40th

2007-06-08T09:41:00.000-07:00

The Beatles', Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released June 1, 1967, in Britain, and on June 2 in the United States. The album became a phenomenon, spending 15 weeks at the No. 1 spot in the Billboard Top 200. The success came after the Beatles had announced that they would no longer tour...

Even AM radio was forced to play songs from the album — but the record was perfect for the then-new frequencies of FM. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was certified gold within two weeks of its release...

Take the link above to check out NPR's audio retrospectives, including complete original versions of "Getting Better," "Within You Without You," and "A Day In The Life."

Laura Ellen Hopper, R.I.P.

2007-05-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

"KPIG's founder and program director, Laura Ellen Hopper, dies at 57"

By Wallace Baine
Santa Cruz Sentinel staff writer

ROYAL OAKS — Laura Ellen Hopper, the longtime program director and co-founder of KPIG 107.5 FM, died Monday from complications of lung cancer. She was 57.

Hopper of Royal Oaks was widely known to fans of KPIG as the mellow midday disc jockey who loved to champion emerging country/folk singer/songwriters, but she also was largely responsible for shaping both the sound and the public image of one of California's most idiosyncratic and beloved radio stations.

"Laura Ellen was the heart, soul and glue of KPIG," said "Sleepy John" Sandidge, a longtime KPIG on-air personality and friend. "Losing her is like losing an old-growth redwood tree"

After a persistent cough, Hopper had been diagnosed with cancer less than two weeks ago. It was then she learned that the cancer had spread to her liver, said her husband Frank Caprista, also KPIG's general manager. On Friday, her liver began to fail. She had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for years. Caprista said that his wife died early Monday morning without pain.

In 1975, Hopper originally helped found KFAT in Gilroy, a free-form country station notorious for its rejection of conservative radio conventions. After KFAT went off the air, she re-emerged with local attorney Leo Kesselman in 1988 to found KPIG in Watsonville, finally making a success of the station's renegade format in the 1990s.

Under Hopper's direction, KPIG married KFAT's pugnacious country/rock programming with a more savvy business plan. Eventually, the station became instrumental in establishing a new radio format, Americana, which emphasized artists who were often ignored by mainstream country radio, such as John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker and Peter Rowan. In the 1990s, KPIG's prominence in the Americana genre gave it the power to provide career-making exposure to such performers as Robert Earl Keen, Todd Snider and Iris DeMent.

Funeral services for Hopper are pending. Fans interested in updates on plans for memorial events can go to KPIG's Web site at www.kpig.com. The station is also setting up a forum for fans to reminisce and reflect on Hopper's career and influence.

-----------------------------

Additional links:

KPIG
KFAT Gallery
KFAT Online Archive
Mercury News (includes comments)
Lard Almighty
KPIG Squealing
Google Search

'Morning Becomes Eclectic' turns 30

2007-05-29T02:49:00.000-07:00

KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" has been on the air for 30 years, now. Hard to believe, when most of our gigs could be measured by one or two or three years... Not freeform, as promoted, but, on occasion, close...

'Morning Becomes Eclectic' turns 30 - The Money Times

Dusty Street

2007-04-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

Travus T. Hipp shouted out some good news about Dusty Street. You can listen to this day's newscast, along with word about Dusty at:

TTH: Dusty Street

OFF THE TRUCK 001

2007-04-14T22:34:00.000-07:00

Dumptruck O'neill is back!@

OFF THE TRUCK 001 - Freeform Radio | Google Groups

KFML Homepage Updated

2007-04-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

I've added all the external links to the KFML homepage, so as soon as you visit the site, you get to see the locations, with links, for other related pages with even more info. Click on the staff Boulderado pic, below, to get there:

Freeform Forum / Google Group

2007-01-29T14:44:00.000-08:00

Notice the new sign-up box in the sidebar. There is now a Google group for discussions related to freeform, past and present.

I tried the forum approach back a couple of years ago and a number of us found it useful for sharind stories, recollections and perspectives. Unfortunately, it was hit by some spammers in Eastern Europe, so I had to shut it down in 2005.

Google does a pretty good job combating spam, plus they are investing more time and energy to improve their groups capabilities. So, we'll give it another go and see what happens.

Like I did with the original forum, I'll be taking excerpts of my book in progress, about freeform, and posting them at the Freeform Radio Google Group, in addition to what you all post there. I will appreciate any feedback on the book that you can give me.

Please go to:

Freeform Radio Google Group

KPOO San Francisco

2007-01-26T09:52:00.000-08:00

KPOO-FM still broadcasts in the Bay Area and now even streams over the Internet at: http://66.134.90.174:8080.

"In 1971, with the help of broadcasters Lorenzo Milam and Jeremy Lansman, several community organizations with no prior radio experience applied for an FCC license to begin broadcasting community issues on the premise that any community group with something to say should be able start a low-powered radio station to serve that community. The result of that act was KPOO, the first Black-owned, noncommercial radio station west of the Mississippi River. Wade Woods remembers, "None of us knew anything about radio, but we had created the Fillmore Media Center, including video and audio." Two years later, Joe Rudolph took over as Station Manager.

"In the early days the station was housed at Pier 1 in San Francisco. In 1973 the station was asked to leave and moved to a garage on 532 Natoma Street, located in the South of Market neighborhood. KPOO broadcasted from the Natoma location (pictured right) until 1982 when once again it was necessary to find new housing. It moved first into a condemned building at 1325 Divisadero, then an old victorian structure up the street, before finally purchasing its permanent home at 1329 Divisadero in 1985..."

KPOO San Francisco 89.5 FM: About Us

"Prime Green"

2007-01-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

NPR's Terry Gross interviewed Robert Stone and there's some great stuff in it about Neil Cassady, Kesey, Kerouac and the Pranksters. Click on the title of this posting to go to the audio interview. Here's a write-up from NPR:

"Novelist Robert Stone has written a new memoir that begins with a stint in the Navy in the late 1950s, continues through his work as a journalist in Vietnam and then includes his counterculture years in the 1970s, taking hallucinogenic drugs, cross-country road trips, and hanging out with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. His memoir is, Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties. Stone's novels include Dog Soldiers (which was adapted into the film Who'll Stop the Rain), and Outerbridge Reach."

"Something In The Air"

2006-12-27T09:21:00.000-08:00

[ Excerpt from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 26, 2006, By Roger K. Miller ]

There's a new book out about radio that focuses on the rise and fall of FM rock, and also touches on freeform's place in the history of it all...

"SOMETHING IN THE AIR: RADIO, ROCK, AND THE REVOLUTION THAT SHAPED A GENERATION"
By Marc Fisher, Random House ($27.95)

"Virtually everyone in radio," Marc Fisher says, "believes the medium has become less fun, less creative and just plain less worth listening to than at any point since its birth."

Surveys show that listeners believe it, too, and have been turning off, tuning out and dropping out at an increasing rate for the past decade.

So why do station owners, in that popular definition of crazy, keep doing the same thing over and over, hoping for a different outcome? Fisher's highly informative and insightful book provides some persuasive answers.

Although radio seems closer than ever to the death that has been predicted for it since the advent of television, writes Fisher, a journalist and radio columnist for the Washington Post, "like most old media, radio defies predictions of its death."

The book centers on the rock revolution in radio, but that topic is actually only a fraction of its coverage of the medium from the middle of the last century down to today, taking it through several stages:

The early 1950s, when it first struggled to reinvent itself; the development of the Top 40 format and the rise of rock 'n' roll, which became a "bonding agent" for American youth; the emergence of FM, the counterculture and free-form radio; niche specialization and dependence on market research; and digital and satellite technology.

Along the way he discusses dozens of personalities and phenomena, including Todd Storz, pioneer of Top 40, men such as Hunter Hancock and Alan Freed, champions of the "race music" that morphed into rock 'n' roll; the hand-held transistor radio as an instrument of individualism, freedom and rebellion; the night talkers, most notably Jean Shepherd; and much more.

As for the fine mess radio finds itself in today, basically it comes down to radio executives' market-researching, Balkanizing and consolidating the medium nearly to death, although Fisher does not summarize it in so many words.

Research has taught stations to chase after the same demographics using the same music or talk shows presented in the same format, in the process slicing themselves into ever narrower sections of the market.
Radio mostly ignores one-third of the recorded music sold in this country -- jazz, bluegrass, zydeco and others. About half of all stations offer one of three formats -- talk, adult contemporary and country; add oldies and religion and you're up to 71 percent.

Exacerbating this is a 1970s innovation: computers. They make possible stations that are "fully automated robots of pop culture" needing no on-air talent.

Tying it all into a neat, bland bundle is consolidation, whereby a media conglomerate owns many, most or even all of the stations in a community, all of them broadcasting the same pap, sans personnel, from a remote computer...

It shows, coincidentally, what a time of ferment and creativity the supposedly bland 1950s were.
"Something in the Air" ends, appropriately, with a throwback, station WLNG in Sag Harbor, Long Island, run for decades by Paul Sidney.

It is a throwback to not only the 1950s and 1960s, but to a time before standardization: "Everything the consultants say to do," Sidney boasts, "I do the opposite."

Sidney and WLNG have achieved what Fisher maintains has been sorely lacking -- radio's long-ago emotional bond, its sense of intimacy and community with those who by law are supposed to be the true owners of the airwaves ... the American public.

(Roger K. Miller, a former newspaper book-review editor, is a freelance writer, reviewer and editor. )

Bill Ashford Live Today

2006-12-20T10:40:00.000-08:00

For all of you who are moaning and growning about the lack of freeform in the present day, you have not checked into Bill Ashford's "The Rock Garden." The following are excerpts from how the project depicts itself:

"... the Rock Garden... is the outgrowth of a chance telephone conversation between John Sutton and Bill Ashford in 2004. Sutton and Q Hutchison were already working together on quality jazz streams from studios in Parker, Colorado, and dispersed world wide by Warp Radio.

"During that first conversation from Florida to Colorado,, the rock stream came up and how it was just languishing because there just weren't enough hours to devote to what would obviously be a major start up. Deals were struck and the project, still unnamed began. Ashford, Sutton and Hutchison poured every laser stroke and vinyl tic when absolutely necessary, obscure to some, but not all, into a mountain of music . Ashford then agreed to work with Hutchison to develop flow streams, that have absolutely nothing to do with playlists. This is a stream of consciousness presentation that rarely sounds the same from day to day...

"Ashford already acknowledges that he was here before the cooling of the earth's surface. Dinosaur Rock indeed. John Sutton jumped into radio with both ears around 1969 and just will not go away. He was one of the men with an impeccable taste and understanding of Jazz, that made KADX-FM, one of the finest jazz stations, ever. Not unlike other trailblazing gems, few though they were, this man and this station were thrown into the water, with an anchor attached. Sutton discovered there are many ways to peel the layers of the onion, so came Oz Productions, in partnership with Jonas Olmsted and the hired gun musical sensibilities of Ashford and his wife, Gail, and others, made tapes for clubs, parties, bar mitzvahs, front range frozen faced week long parties and any other requests. Good, but gone too.

"Sutton eventually hit on a syndicated big band jazz show that aired throughout the nation, primarily on am. Sutton and the real talent in the family. Denise, formed Warp Radio and it would be easy to say the rest is history, but it's not. Warp is currently one of the top 5 and still growing radio broadcast streaming companies on the internet. Next comes Q. Hutchison, whom we're not entirely sure about at all, except to say he wrangles all five current streams on Warp Radio, including his own new offering, Continuum, which is his own uniquely twisted stew of music new and old, balanced with a strong interest in audience participation that keeps Continuum fresh and fun. Q started in radio at 16 at WLBH in Mattoon, IL starting as a staff announcer and board operator. Over the next seven years Q wore many hats, Program Director (making sure programming and staff were in the right places), Music Director (picking out good tunes), News Director (writing and reporting news), Sports Director (reporting sports, sometimes even play by play and color commentary at local sporting events) and the occasional engineering job wiring and rewiring studio equipment. Q moved on to Warp Radio in July of 2000 and still wears a lot of hats. Good thing he has a size 7 7/8 noggin!

"Bill Ashford has been around so long that his rumors have grown their own extended legends. When asked about the many sites, quotes, tribute pages and blogs that exist in remembrance of stations he has been seen in and the man himself, he simply replies that all stories are true, but some actually happened. A couple he will admit to are that he really did believe there were people living in the family console radio and that he did get his first radio job as a teenager in Fayetteville, NC when he just walked in and asked for it. Any experience? Yes sir, listen to it all the time.

"There was a folk music club in Fayetteville, kind of a halfway house for artist to have and extra gig each way between the clubs of New York and Coconut. Most stayed with Ashford when in town and he started traveling to New York and hanging with the first wave of folk-rockers... He heard Bob Fass on WBAI and Rosco and Muni [on WOR]. It was spiritually obvious that THIS was how radio should sound. Ashford's battle cry became "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows..." Actually, the CIA suggested a few changes to his show being broadcast just outside Ft. Bragg, NC.

"He took his family to Denver, where he became one of a very small circle of people to start one of the first five 'underground/freeform' fm stations in America. New York, San Francisco, L.A., Detroit and Denver, where he and that small group of the obsessed, assembled to set Colorado on fire. They were all eventually bastardized by corporate America and what you have now is Album Rock radio.

"During that chance phone call in 2004, it was decided that what we were missing was a freeform station. Not a copy, tribute or heavy guitar metal death machine. What was needed was an outlet that did as it did in the beginning, play whatever the moment called for lyrically, rhythmically and spiritually. We have not stopped building Rock Garden for one day since we agreed in 2004 to treat listeners as we would like to be treated. We have made only one conscious deletion and that has been to leave most jazz out as we already have four fine jazz streams (jazzexcursion.com, dinnerjazzexcursion.com, smoothjazzexcursion.com and vocaljazzexcursion.com) and some pop stuff heard on Continuum...

"Just like '68 or '70 or now, everyday is different. Currently Ashford is the primary player/programmer at The Rock Garden, with considerable help from Q, who listened to Bill talk, then created and weighted categories and style rotations to create something that sounds like Ashford is there, which he is in the mornings, or not. John and Denise Sutton, Q Hutchison and Bill Ashford are the Rock Garden, open twenty- four hours a day, playing music you love, or just don't know you do yet."

---------------------------------------

Image at top of Bill Ashford at KFML-AM & FM, Denver, Colorado circa 1971 courtesy of: http://www.kfmlnooze.com/

Full Text at: http://www.freeformrock.com/about.asp

Bob Reitman's 40 Years

2006-12-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

"Knockin' on retirement's door -- Reitman is knocking on retirement's door after 40 years on local radio"

By TIM CUPRISIN
tcuprisin@journalsentinel.com

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Bob Reitman's daily conversation with listeners ends Wednesday, when the 64-year-old Reitman wraps up 26 years as the lead guitar on the WKTI-FM (94.5) morning show.

In the 40 years since he began talking into a microphone at one station or another on Milwaukee's FM dial, he's played out much of his life in public. Still, like everybody, there are things he hasn't shared, and won't share now.

What he's more than willing to talk about are the twin passions that have shaped him: poetry and rock 'n' roll and, especially, the blending of the two in the songs of Bob Dylan.

To look at a life that's been broadcast on the radio since the 1960s, it's helpful to break the story down into its five decades, a period where the evolution of FM radio paralleled Reitman's career:

The '60s

The setting: Bob Reitman came of age in the very first wave of rock 'n' roll. "The guys a year ahead of me didn't get into it, because it wasn't cool, because the freshmen were into it," he recalls of his days at Whitefish Bay High School.

As he moved into his 20s, poetry became important to him. "One of the big things for me back in the '60s were poetry readings at the Avant Garde Coffee House, that was critical."

It was there that "a guy came up and told me his friend was running that show and was leaving town and would I like to do the show." That poetry program, "Sense Waves," on WUWM-FM (89.7) started Reitman's broadcasting career in 1966. He was soon doing a music show on WUWM, "It's Alright Ma, It's Only Music."

As the decade progressed, he made the move into commercial FM radio at the old WZMF, then in a free-form style where deejays were their own program directors.

Influences: While Bob Dylan is the broad canvas of his influences in the 1960s, Reitman points to one song that shows the merger of poetry and the music: "Chimes of Freedom."

"I remember the girl upstairs in my apartment building was a beatnik. I was sick, I had a cold or something, and she brought that down and said, 'Why don't you listen to this?' I mean I'm just listening (to) this song and all of a sudden these words come out, and I've never heard anything like it," he recalled. "Stopped me cold, I mean, I froze in my tracks. It was like a revelation."

He reads from the lyrics: "Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail, the sky cracked its poems in naked wonder."

A quote: "It was the crucible, because that's when I went to WUWM and then we went from there to 'ZMF, that all happened in the '60s. At WUWM, we got ratings. That's because there was a significant amount of people out there that wanted to hear that kind of music. They weren't getting it from top 40."

(Reitman, WZMF, 1970)

The '70s

The setting: Starting off the decade at WZMF, he moved on to the old WTOS and then to WQFM, as FM rock radio moved steadily from that unencumbered style to the strict formats of modern radio. His visibility was rising, with Reitman earning a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for an on-air stunt, staying on the air at State Fair Park for 222 hours and 22 minutes in 1976, while he was at WQFM.

Influences: While there are musical forces that shaped him in the 1970s, from Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" album in 1974 and Bruce Springsteen's 1975 concert at the Uptown Theater, Reitman points to the birth of his daughter, Jessica, in 1972.

"That was beyond words. We spent a lot of time together because her mother and I got divorced when she was about 3. So we spent at least three days a week together until she was 18. The great thing about having children is getting to see the world again through the eyes of a child.

"Her mother, Lois, was instrumental in Jessica's growth as a person. Her mother and I have remained friends all these years. Jessica showed me that even if you come from a broken marriage, if both parents are really close to the kids, and they both love that child, then the kid will be OK.

"That was more important for me than being a disc jockey or anything, was being there for her and trying to be a good father."

A quote: "That whole decade went from free-form radio of the '60s into formatted radio in the late '70s. It was painful to watch it. It went away an album at a time, almost a song at a time. If the ratings would drop a little bit, they would panic, and start pulling albums out of the library, or marking only certain cuts that could be played on the albums that were left in there."

(Reitman, 1973, WQMF)

The '80s

The setting: WQFM fired Reitman in early 1980. He took a few months off and traveled the country, returning to Milwaukee. He was picked up later that year by WKTI-FM, where he was partnered with Gene Mueller two years later. Producer Gino Salomone joined the team, adding a third personality to the mix. (WKTI, like this newspaper, is owned by Journal Communications.)

Reitman and Mueller did a cameo appearance on NBC's "Cheers," hosted a pioneering broadcast from the Soviet Union well before the end of the Cold War, and got national attention for a bit during the height of the Cabbage Patch Doll craze.

In that legendary stunt, Reitman and Mueller announced during the holiday season in 1983 that a B-29 would drop 2,000 of the hot Christmas toys over County Stadium. Shoppers were told to show up in the parking lot with a catcher's mitt on one hand and a Master Card in the other. Two dozen people showed up.

"That was lightning in a jar. That was something we did on the air. We made it up. We did it and we were done with it - went on and did the rest of the show and forgot about it. The phones started ringing around noon, and it ended up being on two of the network news programs, over 100 newspapers all over the world, Sports Illustrated. It was ridiculous, but it was the antidote for the poison that was going around."

Influences: Professionally, it would be Dallas Cole, then WKTI's program director.

"Dallas knew how to teach me to do morning radio, and he also brought a guy over named Gene Mueller," Reitman said. "It didn't take long to realize that this guy was a genius. He just filled us up and we were receptacles. We went with the game plan, and it worked."

A quote: "The thing that I loved about doing the mornings with somebody like Gene was the spontaneity, the seat-of-your-pants kind of radio. We were never held on a short leash. Nobody ever came to us and said, 'Don't do this.' It wasn't out of control, but there were enough double entendres that I felt worked because the older people would get it and it would go over the kids' heads."

The '90s

The setting: While the morning show continued on through the decade, Reitman began to focus on his health, after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, the disease that had killed his father in 1988, six months before the birth of Reitman's son, Bobby. A third child, Johnny, was born in 1993.

Influences: Again it's Dylan. You can't get through a decade of Reitman's adult life without him. And in a decade of personal changes, including another divorce, the music obviously helped him get through it.

"After a series of albums that were maybe not his greatest, 'Time Out of Mind' blew me away," Reitman said.

A quote: "The cancer gave me the chance to go on the air and tell guys to get this thing checked because I caught it early and I'm cancer-free for seven years."

The '00s

The setting: The show changed dramatically in 2002 with the addition of former WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) anchor Amy Taylor to the team.

"The dynamics of the show change when somebody else comes in, and I think Amy brings us to a whole new level," Reitman said. "I think it's good. I didn't get to work with her long enough to get to know her as well as Mueller and Gino. It takes a while."

But for Reitman, who was wrestling with personal problems that he doesn't want to go into, he focuses on a sunny September morning in 2001, when a plane slammed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

"That was comparable, in my mind, to the Kennedy assassination. We were on the air, we watched the second plane go in. It was rough times for me at that point.

"The only thing I could think of doing, and what I did, was I got in my car and I drove out to Holy Hill. Not to pray, but to go somewhere that was stable, something I could look at or feel that was stable, because it was so terrible.

"Mueller took over, you know how good he is, and he and Gino stayed there all day. I couldn't. I couldn't do it. And I couldn't do it because I wasn't as emotionally strong those couple years. It was a tough time in my life."

Influences: There are two of them, both intimate. The first is his mother, Alicia.

"She went through the prostate cancer, she lost her husband, my dad. She went through it again with me, and we won, you know, we came out OK. She's helped me through a number of divorces. I think the world of her, I take her out to dinner once a week, talk to her every day. It makes me really happy that she's 88 and I'm going to be 65 and we're still really close. There's years, you know, when you're in your 20s, you're off on your own. Maybe you come home for Thanksgiving, maybe you don't. But as you get older, maybe your parents get smarter."

Then there's his wife, Nancy. He met her the week after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"This darkness that I've alluded to, a person that really got me out of that and basically made me believe, I guess, I could love again, was my wife, Nancy. I told my mom if I ever mention the 'm' word, shoot me. That really was a monumental thing in my life. I had basically given up in terms of any kind of relationship."

A quote: "During my toughest times, doing that show gave me solace, it gave me comfort. Which you would think would be maybe the last thing I'd want to do, is go on the radio. But, in fact, that was one of the only things I could do. Eventually I got better, and now I'm fine. But radio, thank God, was a source of strength for me."

Epilogue: The end of Reitman's run in the mornings comes with a few years left in this latest decade of his career. And he's not exactly signing off for good. A new version of his old WUWM radio show, "It's Alright Ma, It's Just Music" debuts Jan. 25 in the 7 p.m. Thursday slot on the public station.

Reitman will again be playing records, real records, of the music that's been so important to him.

And, yes, he'll be playing more than Dylan.

-------------------------------

Full article with pictures are at:
Bob Reitman

Milwaukee DJ Stories

2006-12-07T10:27:00.000-08:00

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, FM disc jockey recollections, mostly about 93QFM are at:

93QFM: The Halcyon Daze.

Also contains a great video of the Isley Brothers doing "Who's That Lady"... remember the extended play version? Gets me going even now...

93QFM: The Halcyon Daze.

Bob & Lynnie Fass

2006-12-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

Just received this from Lynnie Fass:

"Hi, Malcolm! Great story about Bob Fass (and me) in this weeks December 4, New Yorker AND there're be a book out in January, "Something in the Air" by Marc Fisher , Random House about progressive radio. Thanks for being here, I hope you are well. Lynnie"

(Bob Fass and Abbie Hoffman back in the day, image courtesy of altmanphoto.com.)

Link to Fass audio at THE NEW YORKER: FASS: New Yorker

KFML, July 1971 - Part 2

2006-12-01T12:01:00.001-08:00

Ed did a follow-up video tribute to KFML. It is at Ed's collection of videos on YouTube. The exact path to the video is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okl3gcGX9BQ

KFML, July 1971 - Part 2

2006-12-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

Ed did a follow-up video tribute to KFML. It is at Ed's collection of videos on YouTube. The exact path to the video is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okl3gcGX9BQ

New KRNW-FM Website

2006-11-25T18:06:00.000-08:00

Finally got it together. Here's the place for KRNW Vets to share their stories and network. Go to:

KRNW-FM, Boulder

KFML, July 1971

2006-11-23T12:52:00.000-08:00

KFML AM & FM, Denver, Colorado, July 1971...

Ed's at it again, this time with a video retrospective with an actual aircheck of The Warhog's, circa July 1971.

You gotta check this out:

KFML, July 1971

'Whiter Shade of Pale' in Court

2006-11-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

'Whiter Shade of Pale' now a court case By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer
Mon Nov 13, 12:55 PM ET

LONDON - Two former 1960s rock stars appeared before a music-loving judge Monday for a showdown over authorship of one of the decade's most iconic songs.

The organ strains of Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" sounded through Court 56 of Britain's High Court as the band's former organ player, Matthew Fisher, sued an ex-bandmate for a share of copyright in the multimillion-selling song.

Fisher's lawyer, Iain Purvis, said the song "defined what is sometimes called the summer of love in 1967," and had achieved cult status.

He said Fisher had composed the organ melody, and particularly the eight-bar Hammond organ solo, which gives the song its distinctive baroque flavor.

Purvis said the solo "is a brilliant piece of work and it is crucial to the success of the song."

"Our case, in essence, is that Mr. Fisher wrote the entirety of the organ tune," he said.

Fisher is suing Procol Harum singer Gary Brooker and publisher Onward Music Ltd. for a co-author credit and a share of the song's copyright and royalties.

Brooker, who is credited as the song's author with lyricist Keith Reid, says the pair wrote the song before Fisher joined the band in March 1967.

Brooker has said the melody was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air on the G String" and "Sleepers Awake."

Defense lawyers said the fact Fisher had waited almost four decades to bring his claim was "bizarre and obviously prejudicial."

"Mr. Fisher's claim should fail on that ground alone," they said in court papers.

The song, renowned for its mystifying lyrics — beginning "We skipped the light fandango, turned cartwheels cross the floor" — topped the British singles chart for five weeks and was a top 10 hit in the United States. Rolling Stone magazine has ranked it 57th in a list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

Purvis said a Web site compiled by a fan lists 771 recorded cover versions, "most of them, sad to say, disastrous."

Fisher, now a computer programmer, left the band in 1969. Brooker, 61, still tours with Procol Harum. The two sat facing Judge William Blackburne and did not look at one another on the first day of the five-day hearing.

Blackburne later asked Fisher to play the organ melody on an electric keyboard near the witness box.

Blackburne, who studied both music and law at Cambridge University, requested access to the keyboard and sheet music of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" so he could run through the song after court hours.

Judges are not always familiar with popular music, and Purvis noted that "one always risks in these cases a 'what-are-The-Beatles' moment" — a reference to a famous but possibly apocryphal story of a judge who purportedly asked that question during a case in the 1960s.

"But I'll hazard that your lordship is familiar" with "A Whiter Shade of Pale," Purvis said.

"I am of an age, yes," said the 62-year-old judge.

___

On the Net:

http://www.procolharum.com/

'Whiter Shade of Pale' now a court case - Yahoo! News

Wireless Internet Radio

2006-11-02T09:20:00.000-08:00

Wireless Internet Radio is here.

TorianWireless.com - Tune In To The World:

"The InFusion allows users to listen to any radio station in the world that streams through the World Wide Web, without the need for a computer. Its compact and stylish design (around the size of a business card) allows maximum portability to travelers and those stationed abroad who want to stay in touch with local news, sports, and music.
InFusion Features
Access any Internet radio station from around the world without the need for a computer

Select from thousands of stations

16 presets for your favorite programs

MP3 player and storage

FM radio receiver

Time shift recording feature with timer option

LCD backlit display (blue)

Stereo headphones

Internet Radio feature requires appropriate WiFi hot spot
Specifications
Audio Playback MP3, RealAudio, AAC, OGG.
Audio Capturing Format MP3
FM Frequency Range 87.5 – 108 MHz
Display Backlit LCD (Blue)
Storage Media/Capacity SD MMC Card / up to 4GB
Wireless LAN WLAN 802.11b
Connectivity 3.5mm earphones, Mini USB
Dimensions (L x W x H) 77.6mm x 59.5mm x 22.7mm
Weight 100 grams
Battery Life/Type Li-ion/5 hrs iRadio, 8hrs MP3 "

Wolfman Jack

2006-10-30T12:01:00.000-08:00

Just finished reading Wolfman Jack's autobiography, published in 1995, just a couple of years before his death.

Any of us who were roaming The West in the late 1960's and throughout the 1970's well know Wolfman. Reading the book, though, was eye-opening to me, as it connected a lot of dots. You know, disc jockeys keep track of other disc jockeys on some level, so I knew a lot about Wolfman, already. But, reading the autobiography was just a lot of fun and explained a lot about what I already knew. I highly recommed Have Mercy!: Confessions of the Original Rock 'N' Roll Animal

Remember "Earth News" from the '70's? Here's the Earth News bio of Wolfman that is pretty accurate (click player button twice):

powered by ODEO

LAID BACK

2006-10-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

NPR's Tom Moon wrote a nice short retrospective on Gregg Allman's Laid Back, one of my most favorite albums of all time. The interview includes links to full versions of "Midnight Rambler," "Please Call Home" and "These Days."

NPR : Gregg Allman: A Classic in a Quieter Space

Steven Fromholz

2006-09-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

Received a comment to a previous FreeFormRadio Blog posting from Steven Fromholz's sister. As comments tend to get buried, I wanted to pass along a lot of the relevant info and some more that we have traded via email:

--------------------------------------------------

(Steven with the late B.W. Stevenson, image courtesy of www.stevenfromholz.com)

"... came across the comments left last year on Steven. Thought I'd let everybody know that he's back entertaining, writing music and accepting gigs again! He's spent the last 3 years recovering from the stroke he had in April, 2003 -- but tough as always he's right back at it again -- including guiding rafting trips and trail riding gigs -- and a most happy man! I've just finished a new website for him at http://www.stevenfromholz.com if anybody wants to check it out and you can email him directly on the first page of the site. I know he'd love to hear from you guys -- thanks so much for your interest and caring!"

"I'm making an attempt to get his name back out there so he can go forward again. The music business is tough, as you are aware and although Steven says "It's not so
much of a coming back as a going on" -- the truth of the matter is it's a
coming back! It's the folks like you and the "posters" on your site that
have kept him/his name going during the recovery period. Thank you, thank
you, thank you..."

(Steven Fromholz with dinner, image courtesy of www.stevenfromholz.com)

Steven Fromholz appearances (see website for more):

October 7, 2006 - Tommy Alverson's Family Gathering at Tres Rios, Glen Rose, Texas

Nov. 10-12 - Gourmet River Trip, Terlingua, TX

(Steven with Kinky Friedman, image courtesy of www.stevenfromholz.com)

FBI vs. John Lennon

2006-09-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

Historian Jon Wiener was a consultant on the new documentary "The U.S. vs. John Lennon." Wiener spent 14 years fighting to gain access to the FBI's secret files on the former Beatle.

NPR : Probing the FBI's Files on John Lennon

Mike Heron, 1971

2006-09-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

... this nearly forgotten LP of London rock circa 1971 should have been huge. Among the A-list friends gathered to support Mike Heron -- the guitarist, singer and songwriter of the Incredible String Band -- on his solo outing are Richard Thompson, Steve Winwood, John Cale of The Velvet Underground (then in the middle of making the Nico record), Ronnie Lane, Elton John and members of The Who...

NPR has drawn a bead on this "Shadow Classic"... their coverage includes three full song excerpts that are great to listen to!

NPR : An All-Star Rock Jam That Transcends Egos

Laurel Canyon, Late 1960's

2006-09-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

NPR has a fine review of Michael Walker's book "Laurel Canyon..."

--------------------------------------

"In the late 1960s, just as San Francisco was having its own Summer of Love, a rustic canyon at the heart of Los Angeles was also in bloom with songs that defined the moment, written and performed by the bands that defined a generation.

"High above the city, the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas, Frank Zappa, Crosby Stills and Nash, The Eagles, Jim Morrison and a host of other talents found a wild refuge just a short hitchhike from the noise and neon of the Sunset Strip.

"Laurel Canyon was home to entire bands, and the hangout of choice for every rock 'n' roll legend, or wannabe, who passed through Los Angeles. Michael Walker's nonfiction book Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood charts the highs and lows of a celebrated part of music history..."

PF Sloan's Back'

2006-08-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

Some 30 years later, one of the best song writers of the 1960's is back in action, writing and performing.

PF Sloan notably wrote "Eve of Destruction," "Secret Agent Man," "You Baby" and "Where Were You When I Needed You."

NPR has an audio interview with him, with some samples off his new CD "Sailover." I listened to "Eve of Destruction" thinking about how much I wished he would have rewritten the song to fit today's issues, keeping some of the original, but not all. Oh well, it's a good idea. Maybe someone will take it on and it will become a hit again...

NPR : PF Sloan's Long Road Back from 'Destruction'

Wolfgang's Vault

2006-08-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

Wolfgang's Vault owns the master recordings to more than 5,000 live Audio and Video performances from concerts that Bill Graham Presents promoted from the '60s through the '90s. Also, they have era T-shirts, posters and other memorabilia.

My mind has been blown just by listening to a half hour of the collection. To hear King Crimson do "Epitaph" at the Fillmore West in December 1969 was near a religious experience... They're streaming live at:

Vintage T-Shirts, Rock Posters, Concert T-Shirts, Concert Posters, Rock T-Shirts, Concert Shirt, Music Memorabilia, Concert Tees

KFML 1972-0408 Audio

2006-08-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

A rare KFML audio discovery has been made by Fred Fell who recently got in touch with me. Here's what Fred wrote:

"I actually found tape of a show from April 8, 1972 (which I deducted from the promo's from upcoming events) which is hosted by "Bill Bard". It is about 45 minutes of a great set and includes the original commercials as well. There is one slight flaw in the tape, but other than that it is in really good shape and still sounds great.

"I had slapped on a tape hoping to get some good music to take along on an outing to Gross Resevoir above Boulder that evening. I did have a chance to listen to it before we left, but once we got there and set up (it was a quasi band practice with lots of refreshments) we turned it on and just were amazed at the flow of the set. There were three 45 sets in total on the tape but the quality of the last two were sadly beyond salvaging. The 45 minutes I have are in order:

God is alive, Magic is afoot - Buffy St. Marie

Commercial Break
Budget Tape and Records - Melody on Budda Records
Shane Diamonds
Promotion for Leslie West, Corky Lane & Jack Bruce and Free, Sunday, April 9, 1972
Public Service announcement - Ride to Washington D.C. for David Harris

Water Song - Hot Tuna
Box of Rain - Grateful Dead
Heart of Gold - Neil Young
Tonight I'll Be Staying Here with You - Dylan
Colorado - The Flying Burrito Brothers

Commercial Break
Promotion - Continental Divide Raceways - Drag Racing (man we really caught a rush off this bit if memory serves me)
Up Your Alley
Pierce Volkswagen

Many A Mile to Freedom - Traffic
You're Only as Pretty as You Feel - Jefferson Starship with Papa John Creech

"And sadly that's where it ends....but it is just so great to listen to it and catch the wonderful eclectic spirit of such a great station that made such a big impact in my life.

"If you're interested in it get back with me. I have moved it to wave format and cleaned up a lot of the noise but that's about it. As I said there is one tape flaw that occurs during one of the commercial breaks.

"Thanks for the great website and the pictures and sound bites!"

Fred

----------------------------------------------

"... I went ahead and converted this to 160kbs mp3 just to give you a chance to see if it is worthwhile or if anyone has any interest in the original tape. As near as I can remember this was originally recorded in my home studio on a TEAC tape transport at 15ips (I think...maybe we only had 7.5ips then I don't recall). I know we had a lot of strange filters and wah-wah and reverb boxes and other various do-dads around that may or may not have been involved in this but from listening to it and playing with it a bit I think the original recording is pretty true to what came over the air. I think the receiver was a Kenwood and was run through a pre-amp before it was sent to outputs (I am showing my age here cause I am struggling to remember just how it was set up that day). I dropped the tape to a 120 minute cassette which is what we took up to the mountains that evening... Maybe someday that cassette will turn up and it may yeild even more of this session. As near as I can rememeber the recording started early on a Saturday morning and finished before noon, cause then I transposed it onto cassette and went out the door around 3pm that evening. I do remember that the West, Lang and Bruce concert was the following Sunday night, cause we even mentioned that perhaps we should come down from Gross Resevoir and catch that show (we didn't); Bill Bard also notes "this Sunday night" so I deduced that the tape had a high probability of coming from April 8, 1972.

"I had to keep this under 100mb to be able to send it via yousendit, if you like what you hear we can work out another arrangement for the wave file.

"Let me know what you think of it."

Fred

----------------------------------------------

Message from Malcolm to everyone:

I've put this up on the server I use for the KFML files. You can download it by either clicking on the following URL or right clicking and designating download:

http://www.legendarysurfers.com/ffr/kfml/SOUNDS/kfml-1972.04.08.mp3

Can anyone fill some info about what they hear? Was this during the strike? I don't hear any of the vets on this recording... Add your comments under "comments," below...

ARTHUR LEE, R.I.P.

2006-08-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Arthur Lee has passed on. LOVE was and still is one of my most favorite groups. I never lost an opportunity to play them when I spun records in freedom (freeform).

Ed Ward did a good audio bio of Arthur Lee, broadcast over NPR. Follow the link at the bottom of the page to listen.

Arthur Lee/LOVE Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Lee_(musician)
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/11086397/arthur_lee_19452006
http://www.lovewitharthurlee.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/profiles/love.shtml

Recommended Listening:

NPR : Honoring Rock's Arthur Lee

Lee Abrams

2006-07-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

(CNN) -- Lee Abrams, Congress and capitalism played major roles in shaping today's AM and FM dials.

As a consultant in the '70s and '80s, Abrams (with his business partner, Kent Burkhart) devised the "Superstars" album-oriented rock format that many FM stations, once bastions of free-form radio, followed.

The stations became incredibly successful, pushing once-powerful AM music stations to news, talk and sports. (Those AM stations, looking for programming, in turn made stars of syndicated talk-radio hosts.) But they were also slammed by many critics and listeners for marketing a rather homogenized sound.

From there, money and Congress took over. The 1996 Telecommunications Act relaxed limits on radio station ownership and radio companies sometimes bought several stations in the same market. Criticism of corporate radio deepened in the '90s, especially after companies tightened playlists and automated or simulcast functions.

Well before that time, Abrams had moved on. He defends his early work -- "If anything, we saved [FM radio]," he says, noting that free-form stations were too "out there" for many listeners -- but says that terrestrial radio now has "way too much discipline."

CNN.com - How terrestrial radio got here - Jul 20, 2006

kfmlnooze.com

2006-07-11T12:12:00.000-07:00

Legendary KFML newsman Ed Chatham is working on another KFML-related website called "KFMLNOOZE."

Here's what Ed wrote about KFMLNOOZE:

"The object of this site is to continue to act as the guy next door and let you know of stuff I think may be of interest to you as I did back in 1971 at KFML in Denver. As a newsman I will be featuring video and audio glimpses of some of my favorite individuals out here in the San Francisco Bay area as well as folks I have videotaped over the last 20 years from here to Louisiana and beyond. So kick back, smoke em' if ya got em' and join me as I mosey on down memory lane..."

Please visit:

kfmlnooze.com

KPIG Cuts Staff

2006-07-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

This just in...

KPIG RADIO CUTS STAFF: THE CORPORATE SWINE GNAW AWAY AT QUALITY AGAIN
By Brad Kava, 11:20 AM in Brad Kava, Music, Radio

The firings of two KPIG disc jockeys last week may seem like a small thing, but it was front page news in the Santa Cruz Sentinel Saturday---and rightly so.

KPIG-FM (107.5) is one of the nation's last bastions of freeform radio, where music is chosen with some panache and integrity. It was one of the first roots rock music stations in the country and, despite corporate ownership, has maintained some quality in playing serendipitous rock, bluegrass, blues and country.

But bit by bit owner Mapleton Communications, which owns 27 mid-sized stations and has owned the Pig since 2001, has been hacking away at the quality.

First, it dropped its annual summer concert, the "Swine Soiree." Now, it got rid of its overnight DJ's as a cost cutting measure. Never mind that they made $10 an hour, or at most $10,000 a year and the savings don't come near outweighing the loss of real quality radio. Deejays Jessie and Terrence were let go, and afternoon jock Ramblin' Ror was cut from full to part time.

This is one of the last stations to maintain an overnight deejay, but as real radio fans know, that is one of the most important times to hear a live voice, or have someone to call and ask what that great song you just heard was.

"There's no other radio stations from Seattle to Los Angeles that has one," corporate spokesmouth Dale Hendry told the Sentinel.

Remember when owners competed and tried to offer the public something better than the other guy had? Nowadays it seems like the corporate objective is to cut things to the barebones and make as much profit as possible, so you can fly off into the night to your Hawaii pad on your private jet with your $100 million when you sell your "beloved" media property.

Sad days indeed.

A+E Interactive: KPIG RADIO CUTS STAFF: THE CORPORATE SWINE GNAW AWAY AT QUALITY AGAIN

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