KAMP 1430 AM - El Centro, CA: 1977

KAMP was the first commercial radio station I worked at. Steve Kessler was the Program Director and midday on-air personality. Gene Raymond, who's dad owned the station, was doing afternoons, and morning entertainment was provided by Greg Gardner and his alter ego Festus. I'd drive in 90 miles from Riverside on Saturdays to do the Saturday afternoon shift. Then I'd turn off the station when my shift was done. Since I had no money at the time, I'd sleep in my sleeping bag on the KAMP studio floor and wake up Sunday mornings, turn the station back on at 6 A.M. and broadcast until Noon. Then I'd make the drive back to Riverside and go to my Radio & TV Broadcasting classes at Fullerton City College Monday thru Thursday. All I can say about these airchecks is that they are of a very nervous eighteen year-old kid with six months of broadcasting under his belt; but, the second one was apparently good enough to get me hired at KDES.

KAMP Aircheck 1
KAMP Aircheck 2

I worked at KDES, Palm Springs during the years of 1977 and 1978 under Program Director Ty Stevens back when KDES was owned by Turtleaue Broadcasting. KDES was an Adult Contempory station at that time on the AM side and Beautiful music on the FM side. When Ty Stevens hired Amy Hiatt to replace Tom Pinto and placed her ahead of me into the 7 P.M. to Midnight slot I felt passed-over and began plotting my exit. I knew I wanted to work in a top 10 market and at an FM rock station, so for two weeks straight I brought in rock albums from home and began rocking the Palm Springs desert from Midnight to 4 A.M. and would then return to the regular format for the remainder of the show. You see I knew that my boss lived in Palm Desert (30 miles south of Palm Springs) and could not receive a signal from the station at his house once the antennae power was reduced to adhere to FCC reulations for night time operations. What I later found out was that Ty had a recorder in his office and periodically would record an aircheck of my show. I still remember vividly that faithful Wednesday morning when Ty asked me to see him in his office after he had completed his morning shift at 10 A.M. I entered into Ty's office and sat down in a chair facing Ty from across his desk. Ty then reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a cassette tape which he flung across the desk at me as he stated "I airchecked your show Monday night and I don't recognize any of the songs you were playing as being on our playlist." Needless to say I was fired, but my revenge was sweet. I strolled next store to the Record Alley, one of KDES's biggest advertisers and informed the owner, Jim Jameson whom I had befriended while working at KDES, that I had been fired and Jim bless his heart promptly cancelled all of his advertising with KDES. As I was getting ready to leave the KDES parking lot Ty Stevens stormed out the back door red-faced and livid demanding to know what I had said to Jim. That was a great feeling of power and my revenge felt so very sweet. It was from the airchecks that I had recorded during those two weeks that I got my next job at the FM rock station in San Antonio, TX - Z100FM.

KDES Classic Weekend
KDES Aircheck July 1978

This picture was taken while I was working at Z100 FM in San Antonio, Texas. Radio station Z100, "The Home of the Buzzard", was an FM Rock station. I worked there during the years of 1979 and 1980 under Program Director John Lodge who had recently come from "The Loop" in Chicago, IL. "The Loop", aka WLUP, featured Steve Dahl amognst it's luminaries of the time. Steve Dahl you might remember blew up a bunch of disco albums during a Whitesox's game at Chicago's Cominsky Park during the anti-disc era of the early 80's. I was fortunate to have interviewed Steve while working at Z100. What sticks out in my mind most about that interview was Steve's claim that he had arrived at our studios in San Antonio by driving his "mobil abortion clinic" So I told him his hands were a mess and that he should have cleaned up first.

While working at KBLF in Red Bluff, California I did a remote broadcast for an entire week from one of the local department stores on Main St. In this photo you can see the setup that engineer Bob Orchard had configured for us in the store's corner display window. As it turned out our remote booth had a great view of the car and pedestrian activity along Main St. and it is where I first eyed a very beautiful blonde young lady whom I was lucky enough to be able to spend some very enjoyable time with while I was in Red Bluff during the years of 1980 and 1981.  

KBLF Aircheck