Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Although I was able to listen to 'Cousin Brucie' out of NYC for a time in the early sixties, I grew up listening to the 'strains' of 'Armed Forces Radio', for the most part...in other words, whatever Dick Clark and Casey Kasem deemed acceptable for America's youth to be exposed to. I was able to supplement this limited diet by '68, when we moved to Germany and I achieved a degree of 'bicycle independence'. I soon discovered that by hanging around the back door of the EM (Enlisted Men's) Club, I could hear this stuff called 'soul music'. At the AYA ('American Youth Association') building on Post, I could hear Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix on the jukebox as I took the first steps toward getting a game of billiards together. To this day, if 'Thank You' or 'Purple Haze' comes on while I'm shooting, my odds of running the table go up exponentially.

It was the radio station being broadcast at the Canadian Air Force Base across town that introduced me to real sixties music...for one thing, they played lots of Hendrix, who was banned on the U.S. military stations. The Canadians blew my mind, basically, and that's about the time my 'vinyl' jones kicked in and began consuming a good portion of my meager weekly allowance. To this day, I remember to be grateful to the Canadians for my affection for 'rock-n-roll', and to the Mexican kids I went to college with for introducing my to beneficial herbology. That's my personal 'NAFTA', baby...

KDKB FM in Phoenix in the early seventies made life liveable in that otherwise culturally bereft environment...they played amazing music, and featured a lot of great comedy produced by their staff. I really miss the golden days of radio comedy, especially the sixties chapter. Imagine growing up then in LA, and hearing Firesign Theater live...some of you LA kids should chime in with some stories of listening those cats...

In grade school I built a crystal radio..only got one channel but I did hear Brubeck doing Take Five for the first time! Later in SOCAL, it was KRLA and KFWB...on down the road, there was a channel out of Pasadena...the first "underground" station as I recall..political...would play many styles of music ..whole Lp sides etc...for some reason I can't remember their call letters

kenposurf wrote:In grade school I built a crystal radio..only got one channel but I did hear Brubeck doing Take Five for the first time! Later in SOCAL, it was KRLA and KFWB...on down the road, there was a channel out of Pasadena...the first "underground" station as I recall..political...would play many styles of music ..whole Lp sides etc...for some reason I can't remember their call letters

Just a guess, but I bet the station was KPPC, George.

admin wrote:Stan: Is there anything considered off topic on live radio? A great story, the very thing we are looking for on Radio Waves.

Not really, unless it's some personal taboo from the management. Politics used to have a line, but it's faded. The 'equal time' rule has basically gone out the window. The larger markets and the larger personalities can get away with just about anything. It's all in the case for numbers. Numbers equal dollars.
Expletives are heard far more often than years ago. Some are still way off limits. The F bomb for instance, but it happens. Similar loose lips has happened to just about everyone on the air.

During the days of turntables, records were 'cued' up for an immediate start. I was cueing up a record during a commecial break. Generally I'd keep one side of my headphones on an ear, and the other ear piece tucked behind my other ear when cueing up a record. This way I could still hear what was going out over the air, and be able to listen to the cue speaker on the console. I was attempting to cue up a song, but I couldn't hear it. I was getting frustrated thinking the cue monitor had gone out. I tried again. Nothing. So I began verbally showing my frustration by talking to myself and said " I can't hear the ---damn thing!"
I heard my tirade got out over the air during a spot. My mic pot was keyed and up. When the mic is hot, the cue speaker is disabled.
Stuff happens.

Just a guess, but I bet the station was KPPC, George.

That's it!

Let's see...the Bronx NY in the 60's, there was WMCA (The Good Guys) WABC and WWDJ (all AM stations). Then about '67, WNEW-FM started a AOR format, "The Place Where Rock Lives was the slogan.. Then there was WPLJ-FM. Only the people who listened in the '70's knew when the call letters WPLJ was an acronym for. For a bit there was, WNBC-FM doing "The Rock Pile".
Unfortunately in the late '90's WNEW-FM wound up to be the place where rock died!
There is a WNEW rock radio station online now

Just as the last of the halfway decent FM stations in Tampa were dying their slow painful deaths, there was one called "The Point" (much different than Tampa's current "The Point" radio station) which was 70s album rock.

I'd listen in the evenings to DJ Tim Harper play old Genesis and Rush and Yes and even some Nektar once, I think. He's the guy who told me about them, anyways. I'd call up and often he'd be free to chat about classic/prog rock, and seemed really impressed that someone my age (about 13-15 then) was interested in prog. I had not heard Genesis's "Trespass" yet and so he played, on air, for me, my first hearing of the song "White Mountain." I remember that being very exciting, to hear new material from 1970!!!!

Tim is still in Tampa, doing traffice reports for the TV/radio conglomerate. I still think about contacting him sometimes; I wonder if he'd remember me. Prolly not.

WYNF, Tampa Bay's Home Of Rock And Roll. 95ynf.

WQPD AM (late '70s) or Q105 (early '80s) for the top 40 stuff.

I forgot about YNF and the upside down billboards.