A Prehistory of KROQ 1968-1978
DanielDG
The following is a haphazardly assembled composite history of KROQ 106.7 FM
from 1968 to 1978. I wasn’t a listener at the time so this account comes from
research. If you were there and have stories, corrections or memories to
share PLEASE contact me. I would love to fill in gaps in the story. I must
thank Dan Hirschi and Todd Hawley for their work in documenting KROQ history
that I have used extensively. See the source list at the bottom of the
message for more complete references.
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A Prehistory of KROQ 106.7 FM 1968-1978
Researched and written by Daniel Greer (Dani...@aol.com)
Depeche Mode’s Concert for the Masses at the Rose Bowl in 1988 was billed the
Tenth Anniversary of KROQ 106.7 FM. Wire, Thomas Dolby, and OMD also played
that night, with Depeche Mode’s set recorded and released for posterity as the
101 live album. Ten years earlier, KROQ began (relatively) uninterrupted,
commercial broadcasts of the "Roq of the Eighties" format that they pioneered.
As the years rolled on, this radio format that KROQ invented would change
names to "New Music" and then to "Alternative". KROQ’s daring and style is
emulated everywhere and the station’s existence is taken for granted by us
listeners in its home town of LA. We may have celebrated 1978 as KROQ’s
birthday, but the story really begins in 1968.
In LA in 1968 there was no KROQ; just KPPC 106.7 FM and KBBQ 1500 AM. KPPC FM
was broadcasting religious programming. The station was owned by a
Presbyterian College. KBBQ AM was a country and western station. The two
stations we’re as yet not affiliated.
Tom and Rachel Donahue brought the free-form rock radio format that they helped
start from the bay area to LA’s 106.7 FM in 1968. In the late 60’s, FM
free-form rock was the new alternative to traditional Top-40 AM radio. As it
turned out, the new non-format format was also the precursor to the
ultra-conservative AOR (Album Oriented Rock) format of today (KLOS). At any
rate, KPPC became a legend of early FM radio.
In 1969, the DJ’s at KPPC walked out on the station in what was called "The
Great Hippie Strike." They would later reemerge at LA’s KMET. This mass
walkout would set a precedent for many spontaneous outages at 106.7 FM.
1972 was the year in which 1500 AM in Burbank took on the call letters KROQ and
changed its format to Top-40 AM radio, playing The Beatles and Chicago, among
others. The station also hired big time DJ’s such as the now ancient (or
dead?) Charlie Tuna. You can hear a 1972 aircheck of his program on KROQ 1500
AM at http://www.reelradio.com/gifts/. KROQ called itself the "ROQ of Los
Angeles", and continued to until at least 1978.
In 1973 KROQ bought KPPC. During the process, KPPC fired the existing DJ’s and
ran the FM station automated. In Fall of that year, 106.7 FM became KROQ-FM.
The two KROQ’s similcasted most of the time with a free-form rock format.
Punk hadn’t happened yet, so what KROQ played in these early days, well, your
guess is as good as mine.
KROQ was a money losing venture. In the Summer of 1974 KROQ stopped paying
their DJ’s (another tradition on the early ROQ). They all split and the
station hobbled on for a couple more months with not-so-professional DJ’s (is
this how they found the Poorman?) and were forced off of the air in a dramatic
moment. From one hearsay account, a listener heard someone at the station say
on the air, "Get the fuck off the air! Get the fuck off the air!" Followed
by the DJ’s declaration "KROQ will rise again!" and then silence.
During the next four years KROQ was an unpredictable presence on both the AM
and FM dials. According to Greg Shaw, of Bomp records fame, one moment they
would be playing an entire Standells album from start to finish, then the next
moment they would be off the air for who-knows-how-long-this-time. Sometimes
broadcasting from strange and unknown locations, legend says they spun records
from a bomb shelter for a time.
Around 1976 KROQ had their own club, the Cabaret. It was one of the few places
new, unsigned bands would get to play in a town full of cocaine-snorting,
beautiful-music-making rock stars. After all, Rodney Binginheimer’s English
Disco had been out of business for a while by then, and there was nowhere else
cool for kids to go. The Caberet’s existence, however was short-lived. By
this time, Rodney had landed his famous (and still running) Sunday night
program "Rodney on the ROQ". Rodney’s show featured, among other things, LA’s
first radio exposure to Blondie, the Ramones, and the Runaways. The first
punk and new wave on KROQ probably was played on Rodney’s show.
In fact, in March of 1977, Rodney conducted his first ever transatlantic
interview, not with London Calling’s Beverly, but with none other than Sid
Vicious and Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. You can hear a clip of Rodney’s
interview with Sid on the Sex Pistols video cassette, "Buried Alive" aka "Sex
Pistols #1". The interview took place before Sid was officially in the group.
Sid probably wasn’t on junk quite yet but he still acts like an idiot. Just
another adventure on Rodney on the Roq! The show was like a war
correspondent’s transmissions from the front lines as LA was having a punk
rock riot of its own. Local bands like the Germs, the Weirdos, the Zeros, the
Nuns, the Dils, and of course X were among the bands that Rodney played on his
show. You can see Rodney playing MC at a punk show featuring locals like the
Dils and Berlin Brats at the Roxy in LA, in the Cheech and Chong film "Up in
Smoke".
In one final crazy, irresponsible finale, KROQ once again found that it
couldn’t make payroll and the DJ’s went apeshit and bailed, taking all of the
station’s records with them. Except for Rodney—he stayed. In 1978 Jed Gould
had just graduated from USC with his eye on becoming a serious TV news
reporter (can anyone image that?) In a twist of fate, he was hired on as KROQ
scrambled to get new jocks, eventually to champion the causes of such
essential acts of KROQery as Devo and Oingo Boingo.
Some time the same year, KROQ got rid of its AM station and Rick Carroll became
the new program manager who would change the face of LA radio forever by
paddling KROQ directly into the New Wave. Programming was by this time evenly
split between classic rock, such as T. Rex, Bo Diddley, the Rolling Stones,
Bob Seger, and Lynard Synard and the New Wave of the Sex Pistols, Talking
Heads, the Cars, Ian Dury, and Blondie. The new wave would continue to
consume more of the ROQ’s air time until 1982 when there was almost nothing
but. In 1982 a widowed Rachel Donahue returned to 106.7 FM to spin records
during morning drive time. And the beat goes on.
Some Sources:
* Todd Hawley (see the Unofficial KROQ FAQ, question 15 paraphrased, and
hearsay taken)
* Greg Shaw (Interview in Flipside magazine early 90’s paraphrased)
* Robbie Fields (linear notes to the Best of Rodney on the ROQ CD paraphrased)
* Jed "The Fish" Gould (on-air reminiscing, early 90’s)
* Craig Lee (book Hardcore California paraphrased.)
* Pleasant Gehman (linear notes to DiY: We’re Desperate! The LA Scene
1976-1979 paraphrased)
* Dan Hirschi’s Unofficial KROQ/KPPC Archive (consulted for research)
http://www.primenet.com/~hirschi/
* 1972 KROQ 1500AM Charlie Tuna aircheck at ReelRadio website.
http://www.reelradio.com/gifts/
* 1978 KROQ 106.7 FM Larry Woodside aircheck transcript at the Museum of
Television and Radio website. http://www.mtr.org/exhibit/rnr/modern1.htm
...and others I can’t remember.
Places to go:
At the Unofficial KPPC/KROQ archive http://www.primenet.com/~hirschi/ you can:
* Look at really old KROQ stickers (back to 1976, at least)
* See photographs of the old Progressive Rock-looking KROQ mural, X, Devo with
Jed the Fish (1978).
* Hear old KROQ station ID’s. (perhaps going back as far as 1974)
* Read a KROQ DJ history that is in progress and a funny story or two.
(1968-1982)
Get the Top 106.7 Song Lists for 1980-1997 (except for 1983) from the World
Famous Unofficial KROQ website at http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/9293/kroq.html Notice the old wave songs on the 1980 and 1981 lists.
Rick Ermshar
Aloha from Hawaii, Daniel --
Very nice job of writing the pre-history of KROQ!!! Congratulations!
Perhaps I can fill in a few holes, and then let me know if you have any
questions. I worked for KPPC/KROQ from 1969 to 1978, mostly as their News
Director but also as DJ.
>> In LA in 1968 there was no KROQ; just KPPC 106.7 FM and KBBQ 1500 AM.
KPPC FM was broadcasting religious programming. The station was owned by
a Presbyterian College. KBBQ AM was a country and western station. The
two stations were as yet not affiliated. <<
Actually, KPPC was owned by a group called the National Science Network,
which owned some dozen or so stations across the country. KPPC began its
life on Colorado Avenue in the basement of the Pasadena Presbyterian
Church -- hence the "PPC" in the KPPC call sign.
In 1969 we moved to 99 S. Chester, which is about one block west of
Pasadena City College. This was a small two-story office building built
around a neat little garden courtyard. We had the west side of the
building -- offices were upstairs, and the studio, production studio,
newsroom and library were downstairs. At some point in 1969 we started
simulcasting KPPC on both the FM and AM frequencies, but only on Sundays,
and for breakaways we used the production studio as the AM studio. The
main broadcast studio had huge glass windows looking into that garden
courtyard, and was a great place -- wish I could tell you some of the
stories of things that happened in that studio!!! Hehehehehehehe...
One that I remember all too well was doing a live interview with Jim
Croce right as my 6-hour shift began. After 45 minutes, he left for the
airport at LAX... and several hours later I was still on the air and had
to announce that he had died in a plane crash. (sigh)
Anyway. During this period we had Shadoe Stevens, Jeff Gonzer, Jimmy
Rabbit, Bob Salas, and a bunch of others, plus the comedy group The
Credibility Gap doing the news and a terrific engineer named Mike. What a
fabulous time to be in radio!!!
One of our "interns" was a young boy we called The Kid -- he filed the
albums and ran errands and was basically a "go-fer", but he desperately
wanted to be a DJ and worked real hard at it, so we finally let him fill
in on the graveyard shift a few times and he gradually worked his way up
the ladder. Today he is the #1 DJ in Chicago: Steve Dahl.
Also at this time, we were always getting tapes from folks who wanted to
work with us. One guy named Barry Hansen sent in a VERY funny tape that
was so good we gave him a couple of hours every Sunday night, though at
first he worked for free until we decided if he was going to work out.
After a few weeks, Barry decided to use a different name -- Dr. Demento.
Guess he "worked out", eh? <g>
>> In 1969, the DJ’s at KPPC walked out on the station in what was
called "The Great Hippie Strike." They would later reemerge at LA’s KMET.
This mass walkout would set a precedent for many spontaneous outages at
106.7 FM. <<
It was this walkout that was the basis for the hit movie "FM" -- go rent
it, watch it, and enjoy!
As for the "spontaneous outages" that you mentioned, most of them
happened when Jimmy Rabbit drank too much Jack Daniels and locked himself
in the studio, and we had to 'pull the plug' on the electricity to get
him to come out! Hehehehe...
And about that "bomb shelter" that you mentioned -- it really WAS a bomb
shelter, and it was at the base of our broadcast antenna up on the
mountain. If electric power went out at the main studio, we had the
capability of going up there and least staying on the air with some very
basic equipment up there. Didn't happen very often, thank God.
Another cute story: DJ's are relatively normal people (HA!) and sometimes
need to use the bathroom during a long shift. Remember the band called
"Mountain"? Most of their tracks were very very long, and I'd put them on
if I had to go down the hall. One time, I put on a track that was about 9
minutes long, so I kind of dawdled and wasted a little time in the
bathroom reading a magazine, then after 8 minutes walked back into the
studio to see the telephone lines ALL blinking and the needle at the very
front of the record stuck on a scratch -- YIKES!!! Eight minutes of
nothing but a scratch on the air!!! What else could I do? I announced
that it was a new release by Yoko Ono, and segued right into the next
song. <g>
I had a speaker installed in the bathroom the next day.
>> In 1973 KROQ bought KPPC. During the process, KPPC fired the existing
DJ’s and ran the FM station automated. In Fall of that year, 106.7 FM
became KROQ-FM. The two KROQ’s similcasted most of the time with a free-
form rock format. Punk hadn’t happened yet, so what KROQ played in these
early days, well, your guess is as good as mine. <<
Actually, my guess is probably *better* than yours! <g> Only because I'm
not guessing -- I was there.
The story we staff were told was that the FCC had found out some things
about the National Science Network and ORDERED them to sell KPPC, along
with the other stations they owned across the country. We were given
absolutely no notice about this, and Bob Salas was the last DJ on the air
at KPPC. Those of us who were there all gathered in the studio, and the
very last song played on KPPC was the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always
Get What You Want". After that song, the station went silent.
We cried, we drank (and stuff), and we had a Farewell Party at my house
that lasted for almost four days.
The signal was off the air for about three weeks. The new management
refused to answer the telephones, so NOBODY in the general public knew
what was going on! Except some of us talked to the local press, like Bob
Hilburn from the LA Times, so the story got out.
A few of us were hired to help with the changeover, to show the new guys
where things were and how it all worked. The new Program Director had
been hired away from a *classical* station, of all things! And the very
first format of KROQ was (are you sitting down?) BIG BAND
MUSIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I clearly remember the first day, and the very first hour of KROQ's
existence. The new PD did the first show wearing a suit and tie, fer
Chrissakes!!! This guy thought he knew it all, so when it came for him to
start talking after the first couple of songs, I let him ramble on for a
few minutes before I finally reached over and slid up the CORRECT knob
for the microphone -- the fool had been talking to himself and NOT on the
air! Hehehehehehe...
In any case, the Big Band format didn't last long, as you might expect,
and the station went off the air again.
At this time, the 13 people who formed the ownership of KROQ hired a guy
named Gary Bookasta to act as General Manager. I could tell you a *lot*
of stories about this jerk, but I'd probably get sued. Bottom line was,
we all hated him. A lot.
Except for one thing. He moved the studio from 99 S. Chester up to two
penthouse suites in the Pasadena Hilton Hotel on El Molino Avenue!!!
WOW!!! Did we ever love that!!! The studio itself was in one penthouse
suite on the west side of the hotel, and the offices were across the hall
in another penthouse suite. For God's sake, we could order ROOM SERVICE
while we were on the air!!! We did that a lot. <g> And we even had a
bathtub in the bathroom, where... well, I probably shouldn't tell you
what used to happen in there. <g>
By now, the format had returned to good old rock and roll.
And yes, this is the same time we brought Rodney in to do his Sunday
night show. For those of you who know Rodney, you can only imagine what
the staff and patrons of the Hilton thought when they saw him walking
through the lobby every Sunday with his Rod Stewart hair and the silk
pants and purple velvet high-top tennies!
We were in the Hilton for about a year and a half (maybe two years?),
then moved to a temporary studio right across the street while they were
building a new studio one block up on El Molino Avenue from the Hilton.
It was just after the move into the new studio that the paychecks began
bouncing (thanks a LOT, Gary Bookasta!) and that's when I bailed out. One
of my good friends, Jerry Kaye (he called himself Jerry The Junker on the
air), stayed another month or two and never ever got paid. I used to drop
by to visit, and the entire staff was VERY angry at what was going on
with the management.
This was in 1978, and I guess right after we left the owners finally
fired Gary Bookasta or perhaps they sold the station... I'm not sure
exactly what happened. Iit was after all this that the new Alternative
format started.
Personally, I became an advertising copywriter for several years, then
became the Editor In Chief of a boating and sailing magazine, and now I'm
living in Hawaii and loving it -- still writing and doing photography for
the boating magazines, playing bass for some of the Hawaiian slack key
guitar players, doing a little voiceover work, etc.
Hope all of this fills in some of the blanks in your story, Daniel!!!
Keep up the good work.
Rick
JSM
I thought that they focused on local rock in their early years.
John E. Bredehoft wrote:
>
> In article <19971108223...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
> DanielDG <dani...@aol.com> wrote:
> >The following is a haphazardly assembled composite history of KROQ 106.7 FM
> > from 1968 to 1978.
>
> And a danged fine one too.
> I hope Scott Hagie saw it.
>
> >In 1973 KROQ bought KPPC. During the process, KPPC fired the existing DJ’s and
> > ran the FM station automated. In Fall of that year, 106.7 FM became KROQ-FM.
> > The two KROQ’s similcasted most of the time with a free-form rock format.
> > Punk hadn’t happened yet, so what KROQ played in these early days, well, your
> > guess is as good as mine.
>
> I remember (or at least I *think* I remember) Shadoe Stevens talking with
> Kevin & Bean and saying that KROQ played Queen, among others, during that
> period. Can anyone confirm this?
> --
> "Theo Tres Thr3 Presents the November Project"
> will *not* appear on
> <http://users.deltanet.com/~jbredeho/tt3/>
> but "My Colony" and "Knot a Bone" *have* been posted
Rick Ermshar
John wrote:
>> This was not Barry Hansen's first involvement in radio. He did his
undergrad work at Reed College (music major, thesis on Wagner, I believe),
and was very much involved with KRRC at the time. <<
Sure, most DJ's came from college radio stations. What I meant was that
KPPC was Barry's first PROFESSIONAL radio work, and it was the beginning
of his "Dr. Demento" character.
Out of curiosity, where is Reed College?
Rick
Big John
In article <644t7n$pae$2...@newssvr03-int.news.prodigy.com>,
ZZS...@prodigy.com (Rick Ermshar) wrote:
> John wrote:
> >> I remember (or at least I *think* I remember) Shadoe Stevens talking
> with
> Kevin & Bean and saying that KROQ played Queen, among others, during
> that
> period. Can anyone confirm this? <<
>
> Sure, we played Queen at KROQ! They were HOT at the time!
> But then, back in the KPPC days we also played a lot of Monty Python
> comedy routines, and that was before they'd released the movie "In Search
> Of The Holy Grail" and became famous. Our phones used to really light up
> when we played their stuff...
> Rick
KROQ was also the first to play AC/DC in LA, Van Halen anywhere and I heard
that later on, around '80 they were the first to play Motley Crue.
Good luck requesting any of those old "KROQ bands" now.
Big John
Fox Sports West
--
Remove -NOSPAM- from the munged reply-to address
John E. Bredehoft
In article <643d90$14lu$1...@newssvr03-int.news.prodigy.com>,
Rick Ermshar <ZZS...@prodigy.com> wrote:
>Also at this time, we were always getting tapes from folks who wanted to
>work with us. One guy named Barry Hansen sent in a VERY funny tape that
>was so good we gave him a couple of hours every Sunday night, though at
>first he worked for free until we decided if he was going to work out.
>After a few weeks, Barry decided to use a different name -- Dr. Demento.
>Guess he "worked out", eh? <g>
This was not Barry Hansen's first involvement in radio. He did his
undergrad work at Reed College (music major, thesis on Wagner, I
believe), and was very much involved with KRRC at the time.
Rick Ermshar
Rick Ermshar
A couple more things I forgot to mention...
Daniel wrote:
>> In 1969, the DJ’s at KPPC walked out on the station in what was
called "The Great Hippie Strike." They would later reemerge at LA’s KMET.
<<
KMET was a popular place to work at the time, because it was the only
UNION station in Los Angeles and they paid a LOT more than everyone else
did.
When I left KROQ in 1978, I talked to KMET too. The $$$ were terrific,
but I didn't like the setup -- the DJ's sat in a small room with just a
table and microphone, looking through a large glass window at the
engineer sitting in the next room who was actually doing all the work.
Since I enjoyed all of the "hands-on" aspects of the job, I passed on the
KMET offer.
Back in the early days of KPPC I learned a helluva lot from a lady DJ
named Barbara Birdfeather (yes, she was part Indian). This amazing woman
had notebooks full of info on almost every rock song, including the intro,
exit, beat, key, etc. Her segues were absolutely impeccable, and she
could do an entire show that sounded like one looooooooooong song, or she
could do a set that slowly worked its way up and down the musical scale,
or any other number of very clever tricks. She was an inspiration to all
of us, and we each took it as a personal challenge to be ARTISTS in
seguing records. Sometimes we'd even speed up or slow down the turntables
(remember THOSE? <g>) just to see if any of the other DJ's would catch
the difference in the song. That's why the KMET arrangement of the DJ NOT
mixing the records himself was unacceptable to me. It took most of the
fun out of the job.
Anybody remember the KMET jingle? "Little bit of heaven, 94.7, KMET,
tweedle-dee"!!!
From the e-mail I received yesterday, a lot of you seemed to like some of
the little stories, so here's one for ya -- I was asked to produce a PSA
(Public Service Announcement) for the Girl Scouts and their cookie drive.
(All stations were REQUIRED to do a certain amount of PSA's. That was
cool with us, because we were really active in community service.) Well,
as I was reading the copy for the Girl Scouts PSA, I laid down a music
track that was the instrumental section of David Bowie's song
"Suffragette City". I'd timed it out so that right as I finished speaking,
Bowie ended the instrumental with that famous line "Ahhhhhh, wham, bam,
thank you ma'am!"
The Girl Scout officials were NOT amused. (sigh) Sheesh -- they had no
sense of humor!!!
By the way, folks -- please don't send me e-mail!!! If you have some
questions or comments, I think it would be better to ask them right here
in the newsgroup so *everyone* can participate, okay? Thanks!
Gotta fly over to Kauai just for the day, so any new posts will get
answered tomorrow morning.
Aloha from Hawaii...
Rick
John E. Bredehoft
In article <644tc0$suq$1...@newssvr03-int.news.prodigy.com>,
Rick Ermshar <ZZS...@prodigy.com> wrote:
>John wrote:
>>> This was not Barry Hansen's first involvement in radio. He did his
>undergrad work at Reed College (music major, thesis on Wagner, I believe),
> and was very much involved with KRRC at the time. <<
>
>KPPC was Barry's first PROFESSIONAL radio work, and it was the beginning
>of his "Dr. Demento" character.
>Out of curiosity, where is Reed College?
>Rick
Portland, Oregon. Steve Jobs spent a semester there.
Back to topic: if anyone else has '70s era KROQ stories, please share
them. They're fascinating for those of us who started listening to
KROQ when Poorman and Blade were doing the morning show (or, in some
cases, when Tad started appearing).
Imagine a timeline that starts with whoever and includes Steve Dahl,
Poorman, MMM, and Tad. Imagine all four of them on the station at
the same time. It's easy if you try...
Rick Ermshar
John wrote:
>> This is off the KROQ track (I've crossposted to a couple of L.A.
radio groups), but exactly when/how did the KMET mystique begin? <<
I'd say it began in 1969 or 1970, when the Donahues moved over from KPPC.
Rick
John E. Bredehoft
In article <644t2d$pae$1...@newssvr03-int.news.prodigy.com>,
>called "The Great Hippie Strike." They would later reemerge at LA’s KMET.
> <<
>
>UNION station in Los Angeles and they paid a LOT more than everyone else
>did.
>When I left KROQ in 1978, I talked to KMET too. The $$$ were terrific,
>but I didn't like the setup -- the DJ's sat in a small room with just a
>table and microphone, looking through a large glass window at the
>engineer sitting in the next room who was actually doing all the work.
>Since I enjoyed all of the "hands-on" aspects of the job, I passed on the
>KMET offer.
>Anybody remember the KMET jingle? "Little bit of heaven, 94.7, KMET,
>tweedle-dee"!!!
[snip]
This is off the KROQ track (I've crossposted to a couple of L.A. radio
groups), but exactly when/how did the KMET mystique begin? By the
time I moved to L.A. in '83, the upside-down KMET bumper stickers were
all over the place. Obviously *some* people were attached to the
station...
Also I'm interested in any stories regarding KFWB in the '60's. One
of the Beach Boys biographies piqued my interest in that station...
Incidentally, for those who haven't been keeping track of radio merger
mania, KFWB, KNX, K-EARTH, and KROQ are now all owned by one company.
(KFWB and KNX are all or mostly news, K-EARTH is '60's oldies, and
KROQ is KROQ.)