Back to AM Radio

For the first time since the summer of 1979, I did a show on an AM radio station yesterday. And boy did it bring back memories. Cruisin’ KLYC on the dial 1260 in McMinnville Oregon is everything that radio used to be. Sure the technology is different; digital files have replaced the old 45 RPM records and cart machines but the station has the soul of radio back when AM radio was king of the airwaves.

For example, my show “Flashback Saturday” immediately follows the local hour long farm report; “To the Root of It,” there was a full local newscast and local sports were features during the broadcast. The local commercials brought back memories of The Taylor Street Pharmacy, Doug Broome’s and the Marion Burnside Auto dealership commercials that peppered the log back in the day. And ad-libbing public service announcements about spaghetti suppers for veteran’s organizations and pet rescue organizations sure brought back memories of fun times on the radio.

And there is a strong air team my fellow DJs; Wes, Sasha, Kevin, Dave, Ben, and Steve, all have decades of on air experience that bring back the best of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Mixing with the local DJs are some great syndicated shows; Casy Kasem’s American Top 40, Back to the 70s w/ MG Kelley and When Radio Was; all bringing back the golden age of radio.

One of the things I like the most about KLYC is that it is truly a holdout from the trend of corporate radio station ownership; a “Mom and Pop” station. And the station owner is in daily contact with each one of his on air. And best of all, he has given each of us the freedom to make his or her mark on our time slots. More than one he has said “It’s your show – go for it!”

The sense of DJ camaraderie at KLYC, WUSC-FM and the online stations where I have shows running is another thing that was strong back in the day that I missed during the time I wasn’t in radio. There is a brotherhood and sisterhood there for sure.

The war stories told in gatherings are rich in history and the ties that bind: Who has not tried to break up the person reading the news. I remember two of the most unflappable news guys in my past; Mackie Quave and Mike Rast.

Mackie was such an old pro that he never missed a beat if you turned the news copy upside down. If you had the temerity to set the bottom of the teletype paper on fire, you got “That Look” from him that said “Really, that is your best shot?” And he would continue to read while he swatted the fire out with his bare hand and continued to read until he reached the charred edge of the news copy.

We tormented Mike Rast unmercifully as he performed his daily tasks, never flubbing a word or even breaking a smile. Now, lest you get the wrong idea, all of this was good natured fun. Mackie and Mike “gave as good as they got.” Their practical jokes were legend. Like the time he surreptitiously removed the weather forecast from my “remote box” just before I drove out to Doug Broome’s Drive In for my nightly broadcast from the restaurant. I didn’t discover what he had done until I played the weather sounder and dove into the box for the forecast. After I did a rather sloppy ad-libbed forecast on the air, the studio telephone rang and all I could hear was Mike laughing and then a hang – up. I wound up calling the weather bureau’s recorded forecast and scribbled it down for the rest of the shift that night.

Something similar happened once for the half hour news. Mike normally read the news from the station during my show except on nights that he recorded George Buck’s jazz shows. On those nights I read the news from the remote site. One night, Mike took the news copy out of the box in order to replace it with fresh copy. Unfortunately I left before he had a chance to get the replacement copy back into the box. It was all good. I still gave him a ride home after the show like I did every other night.

I’m looking forward to spending some time in the morning with Amanda and Sebastian, the DJs that precede and follow me on WUSC-FM. If things go normally, Harrison will be joining me as co-host. When he’s there, the time really goes fast as we share the war stories from our times in radio. It’s a pretty good thing that there are off switches on those studio microphones some of those stories are wild! Oh MY!