Favorite FM stations from the past

[JohnS.]

I'm wondering if folks here have any radio stations or DJ's from the past that are really memorable. Seems like radio has steadily gone down hill in the past couple of decades. Such a shame. I'm originally from central Massachusetts and can remember WAAF in Worcester,when it first came on line about '69 or '70. Something happened to the station in '71 and was never the same after. After that, I spent several hours spinning our TV antenna and searching for alternatives. My location at that time had a bit of a pipeline towards the CT area and I stumbled upon WPLR in New Haven. What a great find that was... great people and great music. Anyone else care to wax nostalgic here?

 

[tentoze]

I lived outside Atlanta in '71, and WREK, the Georgia Tech student station, was exceptionally good, as I recall. They had a program in the evening called "Music You Have Never Heard" that exposed me to quite a few things I indeed had never heard.

In the mid to late 80's, a public radio station in the Dallas area (forget the call letters) played exceptionally good music, and gave me my first exposure to the likes of John Hiatt, John Gorka, and The Waterboys, among others, and I'm still grateful to them to this day.

 

[ekmanning5]

If there is anybody from the Chicago area that can help me with this I'd appreciate it; in the early 70's there was a station that called its program "Triad Radio". I don't remember the station's call letters. The program played all kinds of way out stuff, Kraftwork, early Pink Floyd, Amon Duul, for example. They mixed it in with more recognizable stuff. Have not heard a program anything like it since.

 

[pbda]

Boston had a lot of good radio stations in the seventies. I only remember WAAF from the mid-seventies. Also recall WCOZ (the Co-zone) and WEEI (Softrock FM) with fondness.

 

[2DualsNotEnough]

KROQ in Los Angeles was the first station in LA to play punk and New Wave back in '77.It used to be just late at night,but later became a staple,until by the mid '80's it just turned into mainly novelties.
Jimmy

 

[thedelihaus]

Yesh, great rock station WCOZ becoming JAM'N 95.5, a hiphop/R&B/Top 40 station.

WAAF becoming a shadow of its great self.

WFNX, which had great cutting edge music, now also a shadow of itself.

But the saddest letdown was WBCN, which used to have Billy West (voiced Ren & Stimpy), The King Biscuit Flower Hour, Charles "What's Up-Chuck" Laquidera (and his alter ego Dwayne Ingalls Glasscock), and Mark Parenteau (pre-unflattering, immorally defunct, shameful and career wrecking child molestation period).

EBCN is still around, but is not magic like it once was.


Info about the wayward Mark Parenteau, from a blurb in the Boston rock Mag The Noise's October posting-

"Former WBCN DJ Mark Parenteau is out of prison and back in Boston. We’re told the legendary jock, who pleaded guilty in 2004 to second-degree child sexual abuse, is living at a halfway house in Cambridge and starts a part time marketing today for his longtime friend Bill Blummereich owner of the Comedy Connection. Parenteau, a prolific partier during his days at ‘BCN was accused of having sex with a 14-year old boy in Washington DC, where he was working at the time as the comedy program director at XM Satellite Radio. Parenteau who left ‘BCN in 1997, served the bulk of his three-year sentence at a federal facility in Lexington, KY."

 

[nbourbaki]

WSHE - Miami/Ft Lauderdale

In the early 70's album rock. Great sound quality, great selection of music. They slid into a repetitive progressive rock format. A rather vocal opposition to the first Gulf war doomed the station and was renamed with a different format within six months of the war.

 

[gearhead]

WWCT-105.7-Peoria
AOR in the '70s, early '80.

 

[pioneernut]

If there is anybody from the Chicago area that can help me with this I'd appreciate it; in the early 70's there was a station that called its program "Triad Radio". I don't remember the station's call letters. The program played all kinds of way out stuff, Kraftwork, early Pink Floyd, Amon Duul, for example. They mixed it in with more recognizable stuff. Have not heard a program anything like it since.

I found this link http://pages.ripco.net/~saxmania/triad.html and was able to figure out that the station was once WXFM 105.9. Apparently, a forunner to WCKG 105.9. Kinda ashame WCKG is all talk these days, the best was the infomercials on Saturdays a few years back. All for management to make more money.
- Mike

 

[Sandy G]

"Gitchoo a B'yeer...Gitchoo a chair..Set back 'n' lissen to the Midnite Rambler on WQUT..." Oh, yeah..Remember burning a LOT of gasoline on the backroads & goin' thru more than a few Schlitz Tall Boys back in the mid-'70s in NE Tennessee listening to THIS guy...<grin>

 

[CarlV]

There was James Gabbert's KPEN in the early mid 60's, Stereo on the radio!
Then there was KMPX, Cream on the radio , until the great radio strike. KSAN following the move of everybody. :guitar: KPFA in the 70's too.
All downhill after that. :sigh:


Carl

 

[rickon66]

St. Louis Missouri had/has KSHE 94.7 REAL ROCK RADIO since about 1966 or 67 IIRC.

 

[nitrous]

WOR-FM, NYC's first "underground music station"

In the spring or summer of 1967, WOR-FM in New York City started broadcasting what was virtually a commercial free underground rock/ folk sound. There were little or no commercials, because no one was buying advertising time on FM at that time (most listeners were still listening to AM.)
WOR-FM was the predecessor to what became the rock radio powerhouse WNEW-FM, as many of the DJs started on WOR, then went to WNEW when WOR changed format after less than a year of free form rock/folk (Rosco, Allison Steele the Nightbird, Zacherley, etc.) It was great to hear Moby Grape, QuickSilver Messenger Service, Steve Miller Band, Moody Blues and the like album cuts, and even uninterrpted album sides when they were new, current & happening!

 

[Negotiableterms]

Carl-

I can't thank you enough for the KPEN link!!

I grew up in San Leandro, and my audio addiction started when my father bought a Fisher tube console with a brand new stereo multiplex box wired in off of the tuner. He bought it because he'd heard James Gabbert announcing "Excursions in Stereo" on KPEN, and just had to hear what the excitement was all about.

Thanks again Carl, you brought back a flood of old memories!

 

[CUlater]

WSLQ ('Q99', 99.1MHz) in Roanoke VA was my station in the early thru late 70s. After I moved to Florence SC in 1977, I was thrilled to find out that with a decent (first a Marantz 2240, then Technics ST-9030) tuner and a 6-element yagi I could still pick it up in quiet stereo - having a 50,000 Watt transmitter on top of Poor Mountain really helped to push that signal out 250 miles, I guess. Great memories...

 

[Jukin Jay]

Don't touch that dial!...

It's got KOME on it!

Great SF Bay area station in the 1970s - 80s.

 

[Njord Noatun]

91X (a.k.a XTRA-FM), San Diego, from 1983 to ca. 1990. Format was similar to KROQ in L.A.: "Alternative Rock", or "Rock of the '80's." 91X was one of the top rated Alternative radio stations in the U.S. in this period. We listened to it non-stop and my favorite DJ was Mike Halloran.

Rgds,

 

[CarlV]

It's got KOME on it!

Great SF Bay area station in the 1970s - 80s.

Them and KSJO weren't bad either in the 70's.


Carl

 

[doctorbongo]

KFML - Denver.
They were freeform when I was a young teenager.
They did that MST3K, where you'd turn down your TV sound and they'd
substitute insane and inane voiceovers, 35 years ago.
(but I doubt they dreamed up the concept, either.)

Also, KBCO, when they were national station of the year four or five times in a decade. They ran into trouble when they became financially attractive to the soulless conglomerates, and when they started running into trouble with their core audience aging, and an inability to focus on what to play for whom.

 

[Mr. Snoid]

"Gitchoo a B'yeer...Gitchoo a chair..Set back 'n' lissen to the Midnite Rambler on WQUT..." Oh, yeah..Remember burning a LOT of gasoline on the backroads & goin' thru more than a few Schlitz Tall Boys back in the mid-'70s in NE Tennessee listening to THIS guy...<grin>

Amen to that theme Sandy...when we aligned our tuners just right and the weather cooperated QUT was the place to be.

Early 70's in Charlotte before the commercial kraze of R&R there was WRNA (at least I think that was the call sign...oh the fog)...later became WROQ

WFDD in Wake Forest for the late night obscure album fests.

Damn I miss good FM...specially college (read edge) stations

...a