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I first became interested in FM radio back in the late 60's in San Francisco. I was doing
my folk act at Bay Area coffeehouses and bars and somehow got myself invited to KSAN's studio in S.F.
to play an on-air benefit for the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic. Tom Donahue was the live
host . He was the original 'free-form' (the DJ is the Program Director) FM pioneer. The patron saint of Rock DJ's. The
studio was overflowing to the sidewalks with the cream of San Francisco's music scene. Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh,
Stoneground, Jorma and Jack from the Airplane. I got to meet and even jam a little with John
Lee Hooker. Before I sang my song for the broadcast, Donahue interviewed me on the air as if I was a household
name. I thought at the time that he had the best of all possible jobs. Back in High School I sometimes DJ'd at weekend
dances in the gym. It was destiny knocking. In 1978 I wrangled a show at KALX FM in Berkeley,
America's premier college (UCB) station . We could play whatever we liked, and we wanted (mostly) to play Punk Rock.
Why did I, you may ask, a confirmed Clapton and Jimi fanatic, care about Punk
Rock? Simple. I just loved The Ramones from the moment I heard them. They were ? & The
Mysterians, Jan & Dean and Chris Montez all rolled into one atomic meltdown. Fun
was back in R n' R. They put the ram back in the rama-lama-ding-dong. They pulled the rotting corpse of Rock n' Roll from
it's grave and plugged it into their own nuclear reactor until it became an unstoppable Rock Monster, unleashed to save
the music and preserve the fun. Punk was about the only authentic Rock & Roll at the time. By the
late 70's, the corporate music scene in the U.S. and the U.K. was dominated by neutered, spoiled, redundant,
and overproduced hair bands and overblown, overpriced reunions. The major labels and bookers refused to have
anything to do with the 'New Wave' scene at first. Bill Graham didn't want to
know. He saw the more rowdy hard-core elements that attended certain shows as a potential security problem.
Especially after he booked the Sex Pistols at Winterland at what became their last gig. The aggressive
audience vibe was a little too much even for Uncle 'seen it all' Bill. The Bay Area could still be a gnarly,
dangerous urban environment. To the world's established Rock royalty, it was hopefully just a noisy, pimply
teenage trend that would soon go away. But the 'New Wave' launched a lot of talent that still dominates
the world of Rock; the best examples being Sting, The Pretenders, and U2. Once
Rock gets comfortable it doesn't really work anymore, and becomes pop music. Punk & New Wave reincarnated
that edge that had been suffocating. Musicians made their own recordings at the wide array of cheap studios
available, then pressed their records independently. They even had their own distribution networks. It was "Alternative"
in the truest sense. My biggest claim to radio fame back then was convincing the English Beat not to
change their name to The Beat. I told them during an interview that everyone would think they were Paul Collins and
the Beat, a sorta bubbly powerpop outfit. KALX was great in that the DJ's were showered with tickets
to all the hot shows. The major labels never got much airplay on KALX, although they desperately tried. We preferred
the homemade tapes from the garages and basements, the more raw the better. The word "Alternative" doesn't mean
all that much anymore. What you hear on a lot of "Alternative" radio format today is mostly (not
always) polished power-pop with distorted guitars or looped-out techno drones. It's all pretty safe and "arty".
There are some diamonds among the glass. There always are. Otherwise, why bother? In the 80's a lot of big shot
corporate types publicly bragged about "weeding" out what they considered the "counter-culture" from the music business
altogether. They almost did, and we ended up with a generation of Phil Collins fans. These business-types never understood
the true dynamics of Rock & Roll. It demands a subculture (real or imagined) to keep it fresh and alive. Nirvana
brought Alternative music back to the mainstream, and the architect paid with his life for the priviledge. I always believed
in those Neil Young lyrics about how Rock and Roll "can never die - there's more to the picture
than meets the eye". It's a cosmic kind of thang. The sorry state of music in 2008 is directly
attributable to the almost complete demise of worthwhile commercial radio. Any uniqueness is stomped on and made to conform
to the prevailing rotten taste. It's an old story, and unfortunately a continuing one. It's all 'entertainment 'now.
Forget the introduction of new sounds and concepts. Just keep cloning the last platinum act. A young Bob Dylan wouldn't have
gotten his toe in the door at Columbia today. It's the decade of Ashlee Simpson, fake backing trax and all on Saturday
Night "LIVE?" The internet is rapidly becoming the last bastion of free expression on the radio as even progressive
college stations succumb to the twin evils of trendiness and political correctness. The
greatest waste is so-called 'Classic Rock' stations that only program the mega-hits, like some awful K-Tel Oldies collection.
Bowie recorded a lot more great songs than "Let's Dance" and "Space Oddity", but a young listener would never know
it. Why do these 'classic' stations always play endless stacks of Elton John, the Doobie Bros., the Eagles,
and little or no Jefferson Airplane, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, or Neil Young? Simple. They don't want you to think. They just
want you to hum along to those Golden Oldies while you do your job. To them, the 60's and 70's were all about style.
True artistic exploration? Naaah, just give us a catchy hit we know the words to. Tom Donahue,
where are you? KMFB MENDOCINO: N. CALI'S LAST GREAT FREE-FORM COMMERCIAL STATION Getting
tired of the Bay Area music scene, I decided to move back to Mendocino in 1981. The Saucers was not an angry
band, but constantly being exposed to so many pissed off Punkers playing pissed-off music was getting somewhat depressing.
The scene was losing it's wit and humor and so was I. And all the sins of the 'evil corporate rock world' were creeping into
the scene. Getting decent gigs was beginning to depend on who you knew and stroked more than how good you were. Trendy
'cliques' formed and newcomers were discouraged, the death-knell for a productive scene. Jerry Garcia
was right when he was quoted as saying Rock and Roll, for all it's vaunted independence and pomp, was in many ways simply
"show business". Hearing about my stint at KALX,
former Berkeleyite and now Mendocino DJ Liz "Latenight Liz" Helenchild lobbied
for me at KMFB in Mendocino where she was program director. Owner Steve Ryan (
a big jazz fan) ran a progressive ship. Soon I was doing the weekend graveyard shift and I could still play anything
I wanted to. The first hour on Friday was devoted solely to Punk/New Wave. "The Outsider Hour" was so
named because someone told me 'outsiders' couldn't do substitute shifts. The first hour of Saturday night
was called "Radio Free Babylon" and featured strictly Reggae. I was always a Bob Marley fan. The rest
of the show (1a.m.-6a.m.)consisted of a gumbo with everything from Merle Haggard to Merle Saunders to the Dead Kennedys to
Billie Holiday. That went over Ok, But as far as Punk/Thrash/New Wave went, man, did the proverbial cards and letters
come pouring in. Befuddled hippies and folkies thought the world was ending. They couldn't comprehend it on any level and
let me know in no uncertain terms. Behaving the same way their parents acted upon hearing Hendrix for the first time.
But there were so many teenagers in town that the show really took off. THEY weren't buying Phil Collins tapes. I
had sponsors galore. Plus new bands were springing up all over town. 'Dada 'and' Jain' were
the most accomplished, and there were some great live shows. KMFB now is sort of an adult/classic station,
but at night it gets pretty eclectic . They do have Liz Helenchild & MM back
so it's still a big circle after all . What was so unique about KMFB was that for a long time it was the only station
on the North Coast anyone could get. It really was the true voice of the community, and the DJ's had a large audience
because there was no where else to go. Nowadays the local radio is somewhat balkanized into Country, NPR-LibGab,
Easy listening, and Adult Con..(choke)..gaaak..temporary. KZYX- FM Public Radio in Philo has some
great Reggae & Alt.Rock shows. Just north in Humboldt county there are two awesome FM stations, KMUD
and KHUM, that also keep the free-form tradition alive and well. After some rich good'ol boy from
L.A. bought KMFB, he turned it into a light rock horror show and fired the most creative people. There was another station
in Fort Bragg (Ca.), KOZT. Where KMFB would play, say, Dylan or Springsteen, KOZT would rather spin Phil Collins. The
Doobie Bros. is about as heavy as it got. You get the easy-listening picture. I hassled them constantly and was given the
brush off regularly until one day they said yes. They knew I was the enemy at the gate, but the clowns they had working the
turntables were losing listeners like crazy. The cultural landscape was changing rapidly in Northern California, and no one
really wanted to hear a lot of Bryan Adams all day. So in I came, and I discovered all kinds of great records hidden away
in corners so no one could ever hear them, much less play them on the air. The Ramones, Talking Heads, Blondie, the
Dead. They had good records all along, but were just culturally retarded.. I played them all and snuck in my
own collection over time. I was doing great when some a-----e bought the place and set it up as a robot-controlled station,
with pre-recorded everything. Thank God, did that ever fail. Luckily some smart people bought it later on, and it's cool
in a classic rock sort of way these days. They even have some KSAN alumni. Then amazingly this guy from Stanford(Ca.)
started a new station, KSAY. It was fully automated also, but he did have some live talk going on. I
went to see him. He was intrigued by my radio resume and offered me a unique deal. One I still drool over. He would RENT me
airtime for a measly $10 an hour. I could do Friday and Saturday nights from 9 to midnight for $60! I signed on and began
selling on-air advertising. I kept all the money for the ads. This was a great setup for making money. Sometimes I made three
or four hundred dollars a weekend selling ads. I could also play anything I wanted to. The owner, Wade, had
a nice collection of LP's left over from his college days as well. Between us there was lots of good music to play. This show
became very successful and I had to actually refuse ads. At one point I had the only live weekend FM radio show on the
North coast. All the others had been automated! My favorite Mendocino county station was actually a $15 FM transmitter my
friend MM placed in the steeple of an old church in the middle of town. It was attatched to a telephone answering
machine, so that when you called the number, you would automatically be on the air when it picked up. It had about a three
mile range, which covered most of Mendocino Village. It was totally outrageous. I figured out how to broadcast tapes over
my phone line, so I could do music shows. All kinds of people got on the air and ranted and raved. One day some guys in suits
knocked on MM's front door and showed him badges and (gulp!) GUNS! They said if he didn't take the transmitter
down, they were going to put him away. So that was the end of Radio Free Mendocino.
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