Radio Survivor

Long gone, but not forgotten station "The Quake"

I am a college and community radio loyalist and these days I never listen to commercial radio unless someone else has put it on and I have no way to control the radio (during cab rides, in doctor’s office waiting rooms, and perhaps via cheesy hold button music, etc.).

Since coming up with a list of my favorite commercial radio stations is VERY difficult for me, I’ve had to turn to the last commercial radio station that I can proudly declare myself to have been a fan of: KQAK-FM out of San Francisco in the 1980s.

I’ve heard that people are most passionate about the music of their youth and that many never get past that period musically, becoming permanently stuck in the sounds of their teen years. Well, for me, I was a teenager smack dab in the 1980s and my favorite commercial station helped me transition from the heavier rock sounds that I listened to in the late 1970s (on KSJO and KOME) to the emerging new wave sounds of the 1980s.

“The Quake” was on the air from 1982 to 1985 and is most known for its “Rock of the ’80s” format (which they launched in April 1983 after an initial stint as an album rock station). The station went off the air in June 1985, just a few months before I headed off to college. Many of us were saddened about its demise and tearfully sat by our stereos tape recording its final hours of programming. Somewhere in a shoebox is my tape of the last hours of The Quake and tidbits from recordings by others can be found online.

The station played a mix of new wave, punk, rock, reggae, ska, pop and goth sounds. On “The Quake” I heard bands like Depeche Mode, Book of Love, Strawberry Switchblade, X, The Cure, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, and Siouxsie and the Banshees for the first time.

I also enjoyed Alex Bennett’s morning show (take a listen to his first show on The Quake here) and found him to be much more entertaining and intelligent than his counterparts on other stations. He also introduced me to the Bay Area comedy scene, with his multitude of guests.

Quake DJs in general were a lot of fun, from the comedic Tim Bedore (with his segments like “The Bible According to Tim”) to the approachable, music-loving Big Rick Stuart. On his website, Rick Stuart shares some memories about The Quake, including the program director’s philosophy about adding music to the station. Rick writes, “I would sit in with Oz sometimes at music meetings and he would add weekly current songs with a nice theory. One for the boys, one for the girls, one for the older rock fans, and sometimes a weird song.”

For me, one of the lasting influences of the Quake was that it brought me to college radio. It opened my ears to a wider range of sounds and when it ceased broadcasting in June 1985 I switched my listening to the left side of the dial, becoming a college radio fan. I discovered all of the amazing stations at colleges south of San Francisco and started listening to KFJC, KZSU, KSJS, and KSCU. A few months later I was off to college near Philadelphia and became a fan of the student stations at University of Pennsylvania (WXPN) and Drexel (WKDU) and started DJing at my campus station WHRC.

Another “modern rock” station, Live 105, appeared on the commercial radio scene in San Francisco in 1986. Attempting to replicate some of The Quake’s adventurous programming, Live 105 caught my attention periodically from about 1989 to 1995 (when I couldn’t get college radio reception in my San Francisco apartment). But, my heart still belonged to the long-departed Quake and increasingly to college radio.

KUSF Offices

For me, the main reason that I’m so addicted to doing a radio show week after week is the music. I’m interested in new, independent, underground, and underexposed sounds and artists and the easiest way for me to get access to this music is by volunteering at a college radio station.

I’m lucky that at my station, KFJC, we add as many as 40 items to our library every week. The music that KFJC adds isn’t necessarily new, often the Music Director is adding things that are decades old that may not have gotten much exposure when they were initially released.

Even though I’m at a station with a  massive record library and am exposed to new sounds every week; I still get the chills when I hear an amazing artist on the radio who I have never heard before.

For my #1 Top Radio Show I have to give credit to a college radio DJ at University of San Francisco station KUSF: DJ Schmeejay, the host of Radiodrome every Tuesday morning from 9am to noon. On several occasions while listening to his show, I’ve had to pick up the phone and call to find out more information about the incredible music that I was hearing. A few of the artists that he’s helped me to discover are Vashti Bunyan and Virginia Astley, two women producing ethereal sounds with folk and psychedelic influences.

KUSF

I remember calling to find out about Virginia Astley and he told me that it was a hard-to-find release that he’d picked up at a KUSF Record Swap. Probably that very night I headed up to KFJC and found numerous Virginia Astley LPs in the library and learned that may of them hadn’t been played in over a decade. So I played her music on my show as well, exposing more listeners to the treat that I’d heard on a fellow college station.

What I like about DJ Schmeejay’s show is that he crafts interesting sets of music, with a mix of new and old across a range of genres that make sense sonically. You might hear lovely folky sounds from the 1960s, beautiful atmospherics from the 1980s, or a seriously old school Jimmy Durante piece.

I talked to DJ Schmeejay over email about his nearly 7-year-run hosting Radiodrome and he shared with me some of his thought process behind the program and also how his role as one of the Music Directors at KUSF leads to some interesting finds. Here’s a bit of our conversation: (more…)

KZYX- Home of "Trading Time"

One of terrestrial radio’s many benefits is that is has the capacity to be a resource for the local listening community. Since in recent years there has been less and less local content on commercial stations, there’s a great opportunity for college and community radio stations to put even more emphasis on the needs of the listening audience in one’s backyard.

My all-time favorite local radio show is on the community radio station KZYX in Philo, California. “Trading Time” is call-in swap show (airing every Saturday morning from 11am to noon) that allows people in Mendocino County to advertise goods for sale, rides needed, or items that they are looking for. It’s like a community bulletin board on the radio (or a live version of Craigslist).

The folksy hosts of “Trading Time” introduce callers, repeat details about the various items for sale, and read off emails and snail mail-delivered listings that have come in from other neighbors. Although on the surface listening to a bunch of people calling in with items to sell or trade might sound mundane, there’s something about the show that is riveting. It provides a real slice of life for the local community and you get to hear a cross-section of folks sharing news of what their current list of cast-offs might be.

Scenery near Philo

Someone might call in offering an old truck. Another caller could be seeking a ride to San Francisco. And yet another might be looking for a couch. In addition to calling in live during the show, members of the community can also submit their listings of items they’d like to buy, sell, trade or barter to the station by snail mail or by using an online submission form.

If you don’t live near Philo, similar shows air all over the country, including the following:

KSCJ 1360 AM in Sioux City, Iowa:  KSCJ Swap Shop is on the air Saturdays and Sundays

WJXR 92.1 FM in Jacksonville, Florida : Swap Shop airs Monday through Saturday mornings

Mid Kansas Radio in McPherson, Kansas: Swap Shop airs daily. You can also check out some of the daily listings on their website. Today they’ve got free puppies and someone is looking for a lava lamp.

WGNS Talk Radio in Murfreesboro, Tennessee : Swap ‘n Shop has been on the air since 1947! Some of the latest listings include hay, pit bull puppies, and a “wheel barrel” for sale and someone who is looking for help fixing their “fridge.”

KGAS in Carthage, Texas: KGAS Radio Swap Shop is on the air weekday mornings. Callers can list up to 4 items in 30 seconds. No firearms allowed and only clean and sanitized mattresses.

Skulltime for Kids Pirate Shirt

Debuting back in 1987, way before pirates were ever deemed cool and a full 8 years before “Talk Like a Pirate Day” was ever conceptualized, Skulltime for Kids hit the airwaves of Foothill College radio station KFJC 89.7 FM in Los Altos Hills, California.

Captain Jack, the creator of the show, told me that the original idea for the program was born during a graveyard shift that he did with a fellow DJ in which they pretended to be pirates. He said that those initial late night shows were hilarious and that other station staff members encouraged him to base a show around that concept.

So, in 1987 Skulltime for Kids began as a Wednesday afternoon “children’s show,” hosted by the pirate Captain Jack.

The early years were a solo operation, with Captain Jack playing children’s records and spinning tales about his pirate life. He always alluded to a character called Skully, who was the “phantom bartender on Skull Island,” but it wasn’t until 1992 that another DJ offered to join the show in order to bring Skully to life. By 1996 or 1997 Skully was a regular fixture on Skulltime for Kids and around that time I started listening to the show (and joined the staff of KFJC).

There are a lot of things to love about Skulltime for Kids. There’s always plenty of banter about pop culture and music trivia and over the years I’ve found the show to be the “go to” place for news about dead celebrities, as they do rousing tributes to recently departed pop culture fixtures. Both Captain Jack and Skully are also thrift store junkies, so they often play amazing vintage children’s records with songs and stories from the past. (more…)

Dr. Demento (image from www.drdemento.com)

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the Dr. Demento show began in 1970 on Los Angeles freeform station KPPC as a “rarities” show.

By 1974 the popular radio program, which specializes in a mix of music and comedy, moved into syndication all over the country.

Hosted by former college radio DJ (at the Reed College station), music historian, and record executive Barret Hansen (aka Dr. Demento); the show has celebrated not only novelty recordings, but also rare musical and comedic gems.

When I was a kid my sister and I used to spend hours and hours listening to the Dr. Demento show, cracking up over the silly comedic songs that were aimed at just our level of maturity. (more…)

The Shadow Radio Drama

In sharing my list of my 5 favorite radio programs, I’m going to be mixing it up a bit by offering up some selections from both my past and present. So, I thought I’d begin with some of the earliest radio that I remember listening to. I’m pretty much a non-commercial radio loyalist these days, but like most people my early years of radio listening tended to happen on the commercial slice of the dial.

I have vivid early childhood memories in which I’m in my bedroom late at night, with the lights off listening to the radio drama “The Shadow.” I can’t remember the station that aired this, but chances are that it was a San Francisco-based AM radio station (most likely KSFO).

Listening to these suspense-filled shows as I nodded off to sleep as a small child not only was one of my first introductions to the concept of radio as a companion; but was also the first step in my eventual embrace of horror fiction. Listening to “The Shadow” probably paved the way for me reading creepy Stephen King stories by the age of 11.

These days radio dramas are few and far between, but you can catch archives of “The Shadow” and various other vintage dramas online and over some terrestrial stations. Here are a few suggestions of both classic and contemporary radio dramas: (more…)

I think I can speak for my fellow Radio Survivors when I say that we really enjoyed putting together our run-down of the fourteen most important radio trends of the last decade. And yet, we’ve barely scratched the surface of the many aspects of radio that we really love.

So, beginning this month each of us will run down our own personal Top 5 of something radio-related. For January that Top 5 will be our favorite radio programs. These programs can be local or syndicated, commercial or noncommercial. But what joins them is that each of us thinks they’re amongst the best that broadcast radio has to offer. We’ll be counting down our Top 5 radio programs beginning this coming Monday, January 25.

We’ll share our Top 5s the last week of every month. We also hope that you’ll share your responses to our picks, along with posting your own favorites in the comments.

We’re also interested in your suggestions for future Top 5 countdowns. If you have an idea post it as a comment or drop us an email to editors@radiosurvivor.com.