Radio today. Sigh.

Steve,

I got my L.A. Top 40 stations mixed up there. B. Mitchell Reed...I have only heard him on the Cruisin series...fast talking and energized to the max! My Father worked as an Engineer in Top 40 radio so I was directly exposed to and loved it in the 60's. Great fun, energy and such a wide variety of music.

My biggest benefit was getting all those extra DJ copies of 45's during the 60's. I was very fortunate!

Bill Drake was sort of the father of radio consultants and formatting of Oldies and Top 40 stations. He must have been a former on-air DJ?

Bob

 

It sure was but the only DJ I can remember is Sam Riddle. I mostly listened to KRLA back then I think it had a little wider playlist.

 

I'm with ya Sckott!
I worked in radio on and off between 1978 and 1991. I got out of it and to be honest, I don't miss is it. Got real sick and tired of reading off of pre printed liner cards. ("We Play the greatest music ever blah, blah, blah").
In my opinion radio has been going downhill the last twenty years. Not fun for the listener or the announcer. I point the finger at numerous corporate ownerships and the overpaid consultants, who dictate what your gonna hear (and won't hear) from an office thousands of miles away.
Oh yeah, the pay stinks if you work in the business too, unless you're some big shot or make it to a major market station.

 

Steve,

Boss Radio---A Boss station with Boss jocks playing Boss songs that the Boss told them to play---I remember it well....

Bob

 

Steve, I really dig the Golden Age of Underground Radio comp that I got from Tom. Any chance that we'll see more of these?

 

I sure do remember them. My favorite was the Dave Hull the Hullabalooer. KRLA also put out a couple great comp LPs 21 Solid Rocks, and Son Of 21 Solid Rocks. I still have my Son Of, but I don't think it's playable any longer. I'll have to dig it out and hit it with some Disk Doctor.

 

Scott or Steve, did you ever get to hear Hal Lifson's unfortunately brief retro show on KRLA a couple of years back? Played nothing but 60's AM radio tunes and vintage commercials, had guests like Hal Blaine and Nancy Sinatra, talked about the old record stores in the Valley back in the '60s. Very nostalgic. An absolutely wonderful show!

Ray

 

I found one of my old paychecks and thought "wow, the pay at that time wasn't too bad!" and then I realized it was a 2-week consolidated paycheck.

Pirate Radio should be more fun, and easier. The DJ was hired out of the fact that he had talent, emulated and entertained the listening audience, had style and spoke proficiently.

The station I used to work for is hiring kids out of college now who's only emulation/relation to the audience is body piercing. They pay them $10 and hour to try and board-op Howard Stern and read the news. They have no feel for the music, and play the same sh:t that was hot when I was there. It's like I've never left, and it's gotten worse.

Embarrasing also (and this applies to all small and big stations) is corporate entities are paying stations big money to be at clubs and appearences that just aren't happening. The jock shows up at the Swill Monger in Bumtown, and it's.... "come on down! come on down! I got prizes!"

What the jock has is T-shirts form the beer company, and k-chains with the station logo on em. People's expectations have risen to the point where they just don't want that crap. The record companies won't give you giveaway product anymore, unless it's a level 5 artist that can't get laid or paid. Then you have 400 copies of Shelly Whocares and they're in digipacks, so you can't even use them for jewel boxes when they get dumped. This is called "being at a remote". Everyone who's been in radio has been there. So, if the jock embarassingly sits there in the rain on a Wednesday night with crap for prizes and a poor Marti connection (connecton to the station) he has to use the cell phone in the rain, freeze his butt off, and make $50 to humiliate himself and clutter the airwaves with his useless poop.

Sorry. Think I've been in radio? I don't have any anamosity either...nooo... not me.

Screw it. I say deregulate the lot, and let Pirate radio cream the pants off of commercial stations. Hey! All you need is a PC, exciter and an opitmod (for stereo) and just start playing Mp3's though the chain at will!

My girlfriend said; "If they're automated now, what about requests??"
I basically laughed and fell on the floor for a few seconds; "Like they'll even pick up the phone! There's NO ONE there! The same jock on the air now is at the grocery store picking up his groceries! He's done his whole shift in 20 minutes recorded to hard drive, and they just need to pay him part time for saying the similar phrase 10 times in a row and leave."

If every listener knew that the stations were automated, I betcha they woulnd't even listen.

 

Sckott,

Excellant post!

One nice thing about being the all-night weekend jock that I was, is that never had to work any lame remotes. In fact, I actually did my show from the station's transmitter studio versus the "downtown" studio so I could make the proper log entries and make sure that the station's 9 tower directional pattern did not suddenly go out of phase. That was from 1969 through 1973 before the demise of AM Top 40 radio as we know it.

Bob

 

The FCC needs to do what the chairman said he was going to do years ago, make it easier for the little guy to muscle in on the dial.

 

I think it may be at www.reelradio.com

Hey, Steve and others, if you have old airchecks that you find from major market radio (or major talent) send it in to the website address! They really appreciate that kinda thing.

Jack Armstrong had similar returns to radio. Not sure if they used PAMS though. Radio had balls with the right people. They took REAL drugs too. Not just Zoloft and Tylanol. Imagine a 25 year old hairy guy on speed and LSD cuing up records on a $1000 Thursday and the secretary who's in love with him sends up a coffee from Dunkin Donuts. WOOO HOOO! The limiters riding so hot, everytime he tries to talk normally, he blows the diaphrams in the mic 3 inches from his face. Also include the fact that you're listening to AM radio, heavilly compressed. The wall of sound is in his cheeks and dental work. 97-5! WZAU! THE BEST MUSIC! DAVE CLLLLARK 5! ANY WAY YOU WANT IT BABY! WOOOOO! OH YEEEAH!

Totally check the site out good, fellas. Even a genuine aircheck when Kennedy got shot, and Dallas Radio news had to cut totally into the music portion of the program like....whenever they had to! Old school!

 

Great AM Top 40 Stations...from the Golden Age

Friends,

Listed below are some great AM Top 40 stations that I either heard (mostly at night) or listened to on family vacations during the 1960's:

WABC--New York 770khz (home of Cousin Brucie)
WQAM--Miami 560khz
CHUM--Toronto 1050Khz
WCKY--Cleveland 1100khz
CKLW--Windsor, Ont. (Detroit) 800khz (Terry Knight was a DJ there)
WING--Dayton, OH. 1410khz
WLS--Chicago 890 khz (great sound, not compressed, at 50,000w, non-directional they did not have to overly compress their sound)
WCFL--Chicago 1000khz (home to the famous "Chicken Man" radio comedy series)
KXOK--St. Louis 630khz (added echo to everything, Johnny Rabbitt was the top DJ)
WLAC--Nashville 1510khz (played R & B and Soul at night, exclusively)
WDGY--Minneapolis 1130khz
WHB--Kansas City 710khz
KOMA--Oklahoma City 1520khz (50,000w directional signal (at night), heard throughout the west at night as far away as Phoenix)
KIMN--Denver 950khz

If anyone can add to the list, please do so!

Bob

 

Steve,

Are you having one of those days! Maybe, we can help.

Bob

 

Was Emperor Bob on KRLA or KFWB?

 

Wow, Jimmy Rabbitt, did you ever hear the country album he put out. Great music.

 

I'm all fer Toga Rock III SACD.
Even the title has a nice ring to it.

 

I forgot - An Orson Wells outtake. Great stuff, same page, down a little from the top of the list.

http://www.reelradio.com/philpott/index

Orson Welles Voice-Over Session (5:11)

Hillarious...!

 

I think Elvis Costello really got it right when he said

"And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools
tryin' to anaesthetise the way that you feel."

--"Radio, Radio" from This Year's Model (1978)

 

Scott Muni, Started on AM, moved to FM. A pioneer in FM commercial free radio of the 60's.

 

Re: Great AM Top 40 Stations...from the Golden Age

Bob, did you ever pick up WKNR in Detroit? According to my father, that was the Top 40 station in Motown in the '60s.

Speaking of Detroit, should you ever make it up this way by all means give a listen to one of the great music shows on WDET-FM (101.9). 'DET is an NPR station operating out of Wayne State University, and their music programming is a much-appreciated resource in an otherwise barren radio market.