Entries Tagged 'Radio' ↓

Simply awesome.

The Greenhornes Live at KDHX (April 7, 2001)

The Greenhornes were in town on tour almost eight years ago now, and were kind enough to drop by the station to record this short live set before heading down to the Rocket Bar for their show with the Swag and Holy Infants. This recording was featured on episode #279 of The Wayback Machine the next day. Enjoy!

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Probably my biggest personal accomplishment of the past week was the creation of a new and improved Twitter account that I took it upon myself to create for our wonderful local community radio station, KDHX FM 88.1. If you’ve been on Twitter for a while, you may have noticed that KDHX already had a Twitter account, but it wasn’t really getting used to promote anything going on at the station, and in fact, had a grand total of three tweets, with none newer than April 27, 2008.

At the same time, I’d been following what is probably the most popular independent community radio station in the nation, WFMU from the New York City metro area. I’d been really impressed with the way in which they updated Twitter with all kinds of cool stuff going on at their station. WFMU’s Twitter account had over 2,000 followers and was getting updated several times each day, helping to promote the station to its fans all around the world at a time when Twitter appears to be growing by leaps and bounds. Genius!

“Damn,” I thought to myself, “it’d be nice if KDHX had something like that.” That was when the proverbial light bulb sputtered on over my head and I suddenly realized I could quite easily set something up for the station my own damn self that would do even more than what WFMU was doing for its fans, and that was to create an account that automatically updated everyone (sorry, “tweeted”) every time a new show was about to come on the air, plus include tweets from the KDHX blog. Any additional information could always be tweeted manually by myself or someone at the station (who I’ve yet to really talk to in great detail about this) anytime they had an announcement they’d like to make.

The way I went about doing this was to go and gather up all of the pertinent information about KDHX’s daily program schedule and create a new program calendar using Google Calendar. The reason I wanted to use Google Calendar was because it has a way of sending out reminder e-mails for every event, or, in this case, program. I would have these e-mails sent directly to my e-mail address in Gmail, and I would use a filter to have those e-mails automatically forwarded to a special “e-mail to Twitter” address that I got after signing up with a free service called TwitterMail. TwitterMail would then, in turn, automatically update the station’s new Twitter account a couple of minutes before the start of every program. After a bit of tweaking with the input fields and whatnot, I finally got it to work the way I wanted it. I discovered, for example, that the outgoing Google Calender reminders were limited to about 60 characters for the Subject field, which was the one that I wanted to contain the name of the show, the name of the host or DJ, and a quick link for people to tune in online. Some shows simply had too long of a show/host name combo to make that work, so a shortened direct link to KDHX’s website was used instead of the slightly longer direct link to the streaming audio (live.ram) file. The longer link file got truncated if it, along with the show/host names, extended beyond 60 characters, and that truncated link didn’t work at all, so I had to ensure that each show’s reminder didn’t have too many characters in the subject field, lest someone not be able to get a good link they could click on from the tweet. Make sense? Well, if not, don’t sweat it. The bottom line is I got it working pretty well and even those shows that are tweeted with the shortened “www.kdhx.org” link will still take people to the station’s website where there is a “Listen Live” link right there on the front page. Pretty easy to figure out. And so far I have to admit that it’s been working great and I’m even seeing people retweeting their favorite shows when they come on. It’s also great for me, personally, because now I am also reminded of when my favorite shows are about to come on, so I can quickly turn the station on to hear ‘em, something I wasn’t doing much of lately because most of the time I’d completely forget about them. So that was the main point of doing this, to help others such as myself get reminders via Twitter about KDHX’s programs. I think it’ll work great for the station and may even help expose it to some new listeners, not only locally but all over the world as well. So if you’re on Twitter, by all means, please follow KDHX! And while you’re at it, feel free to go ahead and follow me as well. Thanks.

These are fucking great (of course the visuals help, which you [unfortunately] won’t get if you listen on the radio, but what’re ya gonna do?)… Enjoy!

Don’t look now (oh, OK, go ahead) but there’s talk on FACEBOOK of all places of bringing KYMC back from the dead. Now, obviously, it wouldn’t really be KYMC… no one is planning on starting a new brick & mortar public radio station in suburban West St. Louis County (and they’d be big ol’ fools for trying to do such a thing, especially in this economy), but it would instead be a more modernized version, with an exciting new name, and operating online as a streaming-audio “Internet” station and/or podcast. I’m kinda, sorta part of this as I used to be a programmer at KYMC back in the 1980s (I still haven’t gotten around to posting any of my old air-check tapes, but SOON, I promise…) and am friends with the girl that set up this KYMC FM 89.7 Alumni Facebook group.

What the hell is KYMC, you may be asking at this point? KYMC was a small public radio station out in Ballwin, MO, that was owned by the YMCA of Greater St. Louis (the ONLY YMCA-owned radio station in the world), and it’s where I got introduced to the world of broadcasting after first joining up there with my friend, Bruce Clayton, during my senior year of high school. The station existed for about twenty-nine years until the YMCA finally axed it in January of 2007. When I first joined KYMC, I think it was only a 10-watt station. Later it was upgraded to 20 watts and I think at the most it may have been around a hundred watts, broadcasting as far east as Creve Coeur and west as St. Peters.

So am I excited about it? Eh. Not really. I mean, I guess it’s cool that they’re coming together to work on a project like this, and I’m in no way intending to throw any water on their fire, but honestly, with KDHX (struggling to stay afloat) in town as well as thousands (millions?) of other online “stations” out there begging for more ears (and dollars), is it going to be worth the effort? Did KYMC have that big of a following to easily and seemlessly translate that listenership into instant listeners today? Probably not, but hey, who am I to criticize them for their efforts? More power to ‘em!

So, anyway, with all that said, I wanted to post about it here in case some of you may know someone who used to be a DJ at the station… or maybe you know someone that was just a big fan or supporter. In that case it would be great if you could pass the info along to them about that Facebook group. The more people they can round up to get involved with this, the better the outcome will probably be. Thanks!

UPDATE: Interestingly enough, not long after posting this entry I happened to check out KYMC’s entry on Wikipedia, and read the following:

In July 2008 and with the final remain silent authority about to expire, the YMCA of Greater St. Louis reached an agreement to sell this station to Missouri River Christian Broadcasting, Inc. The deal was approved by the FCC on August 22, 2008, and the transaction was consummated on September 19, 2008. The new owners announced plans to return KYMC to the air with religious programming as a member of the Moody Broadcasting Network, including some programming as a simulcast of KGNV in Washington, Missouri. On October 30, 2008, KYMC was granted a main studio waiver allowing the station to be run from facilities far outside the station’s community of license.

Ha! Looks like the “resurrection” (pardon the pun) has already begun! Moody’s motto, by the way: “Think Biblically, Live Christianly, Serve Effectively, Evangelize Constantly”

Oy vey…

Just got word from my friend, Valis:

Trip Inside This House radio show debuts this Tuesday, November 18, 5:00 to 7:00 a.m. on KDHX!

……….psychedelia in all its manifestations.

From Bob Thurmond:

Have you listened to 1430 AM KZQZ? They are a throwback to the (old) KXOK format and play obscure ’50s & ’60s stuff INCLUDING instrumentals. Steve “ELVIS” Davis does a lame show on Saturdays. Most other slots seemed filled with pre-recorded segments. Doctor Boogie plays some really good stuff, too. Look into this. I have heard some stuff on this station that I have not heard anywhere before.

I haven’t checked this out yet but I will now fo’ sure! An “oldies” station that actually plays REAL oldies? Sign me up!!

As I’ve posted here before, I was a DJ on KYMC 89.7 FM from early 1984 through mid-1989, hosting a few different music shows including Pipeline Radio Fanzine. The show was originally called Ground Zero but I renamed it in honor of the original Pipeline radio show on KWMU after that program was canceled in September of 1985. “Radio Fanzine” was added to the name in honor of the short-lived punk rock fanzine I put out while in college at CMSU in Warrensburg (also called Pipeline). Sometime in the late ’80s I acquired a KYMC T-shirt, which I had almost completely forgotten about until a couple of years ago, when I found a photo of myself wearing it at my parents’ house in St. Peters in the spring of 1988:

So recently I used that photo to design a new, updated version of the shirt, complete with a Pipeline Radio Fanzine logo on the back! I added the shirt to the TIRC T-shirt shop on SpreadShirt.com and you can order one for yourself here. Here’s what it looks like:

The shirt is $16.99 plus shipping and features Spreadshirt’s awesome, durable “flock printing process” which gives the designs “a velvety feel, like a thin layer of plush.” Much nicer than any screen-printed shirt I have ever seen! I really made the shirt so that I could buy one myself and wear it, but I thought it might be a good idea to leave it up online in case anyone else would want one, too. If you’d like one of these WITHOUT the Pipeline logo on the back, you can have that, too, for just $15.99.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Doubleday Publishing had a broadcasting division. They owned stations in several cities: Denver had KHOW, Minneapolis had KDWB, Detroit had WLLZ, Washington D.C. had WAVA, New York had WAPP, and St. Louis had KWK (which, by the way, had been a prominent St. Louis R&B station in the 1960s).

Doubleday had purchased KWK in 1976. At the time, their frequency was dark. A flood had damaged the transmitter three years earlier. When they did sign on in November 1978, they began as Top 40. One year later, they (as well as other Doubleday stations) shifted their format to AOR, and added an FM. KWK’s tightly focused format proved very popular for several years, until CHR regained popularity in 1983.

What was unusual about this station was that both KWK AM and FM had separate AOR formats (not to mention the fact that AOR was a rare AM format anyway). They did a morning/afternoon drive simulcast, but they had different jocks at other times of the day.

KWK-AM featured a two-hour program called “Freeform,” which aired six nights a week. The show included a mix of new wave and progressive rock cuts.

I had been a fan of KWK in the late ’70s/early ’80s and listened to it probably more than I listened to KSHE-95. I was aware they were also broadcasting on the AM dial but I didn’t mess with that much since the signal was pretty weak and it sounded so good in FM, anyway. Why bother with AM, right?

John Hutchinson

Well, sometime in early 1983 my world was turned upside-down by the discovery of a nightly radio show on KWK’s AM side called “Freeform” that was hosted by a British DJ named John Hutchinson (“Hutch” would later go on to be the board op for David Lee Roth’s shortlived syndicated morning show in 2006). I stumbled upon this show one night while I was bored and flipping through the AM dial, just goofing around, basically. The funny thing is, I had the tape running while I was doing this…

But before getting more into that, a little background: Prior to hearing that show, I was your typical teenager listening to typical teenage rock and pop of the era, mostly the stuff that I’d hear played on the FM side of KWK… my favorite band throughout junior high (ya know, “middle school” as they call it now) was ELO and I also had records (and 8-tracks!) by bands like Foreigner, Queen, Blue Oyster Cult, AC/DC, REO Speedwagon, Rush, Judas Priest, Bowie, ZZ Top… you name it. I also loved ’50s and ’60s rock’n'roll and would often listen to (and tape record) songs off of the oldies station. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Creedence, Kinks, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Doors, Monkees, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc. I’d listen to Casey Kasum on the local Top 40 station and would make my own lists of songs that I liked, and run out to Peaches and buy the 45s… mostly early ’80s new wave pop hits by bands like Bow Wow Wow, Felony, J. Giels Band, The Vapors, The Waitresses, Wall of Voodoo, Missing Persons, The Tubes, The Fixx, Thomas Dolby, The Stray Cats, The Romantics, Romeo Void, Berlin, Blondie, The Cars… you name it. Looking back, I’m not sure why but I just never seemed to be exposed to any of the really early punk or new wave music that was making such waves internationally from around ‘77 through ‘82. It’s probably because I had other interests (baseball, girls, my silly coin collection, etc.) and I’d be one of those late bloomers when it came to going headlong into music.

Once I did get clued into the fact that there was something else out there aside from the bland and predictable AOR that I’d been listening to for so many years, I could usually find some of this stuff at Peaches, and would take chances on full-length LPs that had that new wave look about them (Devo, Adam & The Ants, Sex Pistols, Robert Gordon, X, B-52s, Joe Jackson, Fabulous Poodles, Gary Numan, XTC, The Clash, The Buzzcocks, Ramones, Elvis Costello, The Polecats, The Knack, Split Enz, The English Beat, etc.). This was before the days of challenging college or independent, public radio (for the most part), there was obviously no Internet and it was also before we had MTV. Jet Lag Magazine and a few other local punk & new wave fanzines had been in print for a couple of years, but it would be a while before I would know of their existence. Luckily, I didn’t live very far from KYMC, and I discovered that station (at the time with a power output of just 10 watts – barely covering a ten-mile radius around the West County YMCA) around the same time and that, combined with the aforementioned discovery of “Freeform,” greatly increased my interest in this exciting new music and also my desire in wanting to host a radio show of my own, and it wouldn’t take me long before I was on the air myself at KYMC, spinning, of all things, ska and reggae! (It wouldn’t be until my senior year of high school that I would hear hardcore punk for the first time, thanks to friends introducing me to bands like the Circle Jerks, Fear, Minor Threat and the Germs.)

Anyway, so here I was, a very musically curious 17-year-old kid hungry for something, ANYTHING different or unusual. I was already sick to death of the typical ’70s arena rock that I’d grown up listening to, so I would turn on the radio on my Zenith boom box and go up and down the radio dial, first FM, then AM, in search of whatever interesting stuff I could find. That’s how I discovered this show on KWK AM 13.8 with a host that was playing this great mix of new music without regard to your typical radio format boundaries. Punk, pop, new wave, rock… all on the same show, and a commercial station at that. Talk about a breath of fresh air! I was hooked. I made many tapes of this stuff that I’d hear on the radio, but unfortunately only kept a couple of them. I still have several tapes of my shows on KYMC and may put together a couple podcasts of that stuff in the near future… we’ll see.

Below I have a link to an MP3 that was ripped from a cassette tape I recently unearthed in my basement. I had obviously stuck the tape in the deck, hit record, then started scanning the dial for something worth taping. That is when I happened upon “Freeform”… you can hear it right there on the tape, flipping through some stations, then settling in on KWK, fuzzy static and all (the station had a pretty weak signal). The first song I heard was Sting’s version of “Tutti Frutti” from the newly released Party Party soundtrack. It sounded decent, so I kept the dial on the station and continued to record much of that show. After that I listened religiously. John Hutchinson was responsible for introducing me to a lot of artists I’d never heard before, and played others that I’d only heard on KYMC, heard about from friends at school, or had seen the records in the shelves at Peaches. Within a few months I had been transformed from being your typical ’80s teenager into a full-on punk/new waver.

So with that, I present for you, KWK Freeform, circa January or February 1983. As I mentioned before, KWK’s signal was a little rough when I recorded it, but I think you’ll enjoy this one:

Download MP3

I did some further digging online recently and found a couple of other recordings of the same program from a few months earlier that someone else had put online. I downloaded them, re-ripped the files in mono (for a much faster download) and added them to my Blip account, too. These are from October 22, 1982:

PART 1 | PART 2

Enjoy!

Hey creeps, if anyone would like to try to get a new garage punk/surf/trash radio show (similar to The Wayback Machine) rocking and rolling on KDHX, now’s your chance. Nico, the station manager there, told me to let anyone know who’d be interested to get in touch with him ASAP. I guess they’d kinda like to fill the forthcoming vacated slot with similar programming, which, to me, could be the biggest compliment of all for the years I’ve put into my old, rusty ship.

Anyway, if you’re interested, you can call Nico at the station and ask what exactly you’d need to do: 314-664-3955 (M-F/9-5).

Thanks, and good luck! (and stay sick!)
kopper