🚀 go-pugleaf

gbfmif wrote:

> I begin to believe that I am a stone age throwback, no longer viable in
> today's economic world as it pertains to "commercial" or even "educational"
> radio. Maybe the death of Filmore and Winterland was actually the end of this
> era in conjunction with the whole AM/FM Underground concept. (I wonder how
> many folks even know what I am referencing)
>
> To answer your question, it was not necessarily new or old songs ("local" or
> "commercial" - though I spent a lot of time finding both that would fit
> together in a "show") being played (circa end 60 and early 70 per se) nor was
> it the jive of the DJ's (though the good ones - in my opinion - refused to cut
> off the end of a song with the next song or talk over the end and beginning of
> a song with (from my view) idiotic talk, or walk over either with a
> commercial), a typical AM deal at the time - and sure were not the high speed
> hype of AM or even early FM DJ's (I can still do both voices and deliveries)
> but the "good ones" were the ones who took some time to set up a set of songs
> and then execute the set (yes, half the time the DJ sounded somewhat wasted,
> however, so were most of the listeners at that time - lets be real - mid to
> late 60's early 70's FM (or for KAAY Little Rock - AM and others) late at
> night "underground" radio, most of us listening were wasted - least I was, as
> were most everyone I knew - (maybe that's why I liked it - no judgment - just
> experience the sounds) and lets not forget the background "theme" usually
> played while the DJ was on - and as best possible (for my part)  if  a song
> ended on a drum roll, I fed the next song in the set that started with a drum
> roll (hard to do, and sometimes you had to go with the background underlying
> harmonics of song one which was consistent with the underlying harmonics of
> song two and sometimes the verbal theme of song one fit with the verbal theme
> of song two and sometimes, you just had to make a break from lets say a
> sequence of Black Sabbath to Vanilla Fudge to something totally different like
> Virgil Fox) (remember to back announce at least every hour or if you had to
> make a set break, back announce and set up the next set)
>
> This approach also encompassed usually playing LONG cuts intermixed with the 3
> minute wonders (Legend of the USS Titanic - Jamie Brockett, fit reasonably
> well with McKendry Springs - Flying Dutchman, which could go to Kraftwerk -
> Trans Europe Express.- (lets not mention Tonto's Expanding Head Band and White
> Elephant and It's a Beautiful Day and Calling Occupants of Interplanetary
> Craft and Major Tong and BareFoot Jerry - Funny Lookin Eyes and Vigilante Man
> or Hawkwind or - well the list goes on) If you were going to do short song
> sets, then Classics 4 - Spooky could work with Lemon Pipers - Green Tambourine
> and on a good night after a few more of this ilk, you could slip in Dylan -
> Subterranean Homesick Blues before hitting Moody Blues - Timothy Leary.
>
> Am not sure this makes any sense to anyone who has not sat at a console
> connected to a transmitter and blown off the corporate play list and
> commercial announcement requirements (do the station Id at 12 and 6
> religiously) and tried to program a show of music (regardless of local or
> commercial or management requirements) and got away with it.
>
> If Clyde Clifford (KAAY Little Rock - Beaker Street) was on today, I would
> still drop anything I was doing to listen to his show, every night, no matter
> how broken my reception might be.
>
> Am not sure this answers your question, but describes to some degree the
> passion and loyalty I had to these radio "shows"

I answered this through e-mail because I didn't know if you were going to post or
not.
But the gist of what I said was this. I remember the first days of FM too. I
think a key difference
was that the DJ's were not jukeboxes that played what they were told to, but
people with real
personalities that chose music they liked and put it together in very creative
ways.
One of the things I remember is the feeling that you never knew what was going to
be played
next, and it was always exciting to hear how they would mix songs. I remember
once some
long song with a long lead was mixed with another shorter song in the middle of
the lead, and then
when the short song was over, they mixed into the original long song again. I
said to myself,
can you do that?  Because it was so unexpected and exciting. Today none of that
happens and
everything seems so scripted.

Tom/Musea
http://musea.digitalchainsaw.com