This recollection begins a series of such from legendary freeform
programmer "Dumptruck O'Neill"...
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I'm sure by now that I've told you most of my most memorable hotel &
rock starts stories, so I'm not gonna start recycling today, but with
some thought, particularly after seeing the Richards/Stills headline
and the Jimmy Gordon Kills His Mother Story in L.A when the voices
told him to and with some research, probably another 3 or 4 dozen
incidences that would point to 1972 as the highwater mark of the sheer
lunacy of the music scene; those who made it, played it, on stage and
on air, pimped it, bought and fed the monster...
I read a small piece on somebody's blog once on how she ended up at
KFML one evening and was astounded at the absolute primal, criminal,
pharmaceutacal atmosphere in the studio while I was on the air. She
went on to say that if it was true of me, there was no reason to think
it would be otherwise for others. "people were bringing crucibles of
blow to the show" she wrote "and they were happy if they could just
stay a while and do some of it there, before leaving it with the disc
jockey".
If I remember, and I speak only of my observations....this was the
time when we truly thought we were untouchable, protected, provided
for by everyone except the guy who wrote our pay checks. So, the local
community who had come to feel part of the whole thing knew what it
took to keep the engine blowing steam and they just made sure we were
able to maintain a mind set that enabled us to blow the walls down.
Anyone who listened to the various Denver/Boulder stations during that
period has a story. Keith Moon and Walsh and others tore them down,
we blew them down. '72 was THE year. By 73, the whole thing had
started to slip into a jaded, laconic bunch of addicts, surrouded by
friends and aquaintances, and narcs, we learned too late, some of us,
all carrying firearms and needles.
The radio had started to slip just a bit more interested in the next
visit that the next set. And while we were waiting, mainstream,
creepy radio chains were stealing our formats and combing it's hair
and shaving it's beard and doing remotes at the drag races. I
remember all too well, one of the brightest promotion man - yes they
REALLY DID EXIST - sent on a nationwide tour just to make certain
one member of a certain 4 name supergroup got on and off planes, got
sober enough to at least start a set and then pack his face til he
couldn't sing. He didn't have to tune his instruments, he had people
for that. I was dragged along to one of the pre show wake- up
sessions at the hotel. Not pretty and I think someone was trying to
tell me something, but I wasn't listening either.
67 & 68 were really naive and really only made possible by The
Beatles and Rolling Stones. Generally it was "block" programming,
slipped in when the woners were probaly sleeping or drinking, but not
listening. Late '68 and '69, we were working with grown-up toys with
lots of power. '70 - '73, FM had buried AM. When we started, FM
radios for cars were a special order item. It took an act of congress
to make them mandatory so we could stop handing out 8 track tape
converters to play FM.
I can't believe this scroll started over the date of a show. It would
have been really weird if the Stones had taken that P. Spector
direction that pops up on missing. Some of those sound like the were
meant for release barring a little more sweetnin'. Jez a li'l bit
mo...
The quality is amazing. Somewhere along the way I found a Neil on
Home Recs out of Europe that is really quite amazing. Another to look
for, but I need to narrow the date for you is the Derek & Dominoes I
saw/heard at the Berkely Community Center in Bay Area in late '70,
early '71. The promo guy and I were so close EC sweated all over my
bowling shoes. Oh and they really really played. There must be a board
tape and the acoustic there were impeccable. It was the famous. "Hi, I
a surgeon and I have a lb. of pharmacutical that needs to be done, but
I wanna be here. No problem. They were crazed, but it was a good nite
for it...
