Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / "The Jive 95: An Oral History of America’s Greatest Underground Rock Radio Station, KSAN San Francisco"/Hank Rosenfeld [Episode 147]

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"The Jive 95: An Oral History of America’s Greatest Underground Rock Radio Station, KSAN San Francisco"/Hank Rosenfeld [Episode 147] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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We're totally bumped rock and roll. I think I'll leave you. You're reading
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little hands. It's time to rock and roll, rollout. We are totally
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booked. Welcome to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those about to read
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and rock online at booked on rock dot com. Exclusive videos, blogs,
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links to all of the social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
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and TikTok. Find every back episode of Booked on Rock there, along
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with links to your favorite listening platforms. Hank Rosenfeld is this episode's guest.
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His brain new book is titled The Jive ninety five and Oral History of America's
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Greatest Underground Rock Radio Station KSA N San Francisco. It's an oral history of
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KSA N and San Francisco, America's first hippie underground FM station. Rock gotts,
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political stars in literary celebrities including Jerry Garcia, Ken Kesey, sly Stone,
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and John Lennon. We're all interviewed by founder Tom Donahue and his cohorts,
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whose listeners tuned in and turned on to bands like Jefferson Airplane, The
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Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Quicksilver, Messenger, Service Country, Joe and
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the Fish Tuna, the Beatles, and Santana. Hank was there during those
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final years, writing, producing and announcing. He's here to talk about the
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station known as JIBE ninety five and how it went from a liberating voice to
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a corporate cliche. Along the way, you're gonna hear audio from KSA N,
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including clips of interviews with Jerry Garcia and John Lennon, protest announcements,
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and station IDs like this one. This is KSA N and San Francisco Sleazy
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Radio's up. Yaw mind I'll bring in. Hey, Hey, welcome to
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the podcast. It's great to me. I don't know if you heard about
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this, but there's a new book out about the drive I heard, So
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where are you joining us from? Where are you right now? I'm in
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Santa Monica, California, But I'm about to go up to San Francisco.
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Take the old one on one up there, because the book comes out on
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August fifteenth, and then we're having a party on the nineteenth. It's at
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the beat Museum in the North Beach. So let's talk about your background.
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Where are you from and how radio became such a huge part of your life
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growing up. I grew up in Detroit, as you can see, I'm
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a Booster, I'm a build there in the Detroit Red Wings. Jersey Man,
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I'm way nutt And as a kid, I guess as a senior in
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high school, I went and got a project an internship at w JR,
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the Great Voice of the Great Lake seven sixty clear channel. It was a
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great am station I listened to as a kid. They had the Tiger Games
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and you know, all of my heroes were there. JP McCarthy and Lions
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and Tigers and Red Wings and Piston's broadcast. Anyway, So eighteen I had
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an internship there, and then I went to college and was on at Wesleyan,
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Connecticut w e s U eighty eight point one. Yeah, this is
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in Connecticut. So you that's the reason that you came to Connecticut is to
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go to college at Wesleyan. Yeah, my whole family went to the University
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of Michigan. But I wanted to try something different and you know, get
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out to the East Coast, which was great because Middletown, Connecticut's halfway between
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Boston and New York. Yes, Hartford in New England, and I could
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pick up great radio there too. I remember what was the one from New
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Haven with the Stoneman ELR. Stoneman on PLR Stoneman ninety nine rock to w
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PLR Stoneman. Yep. I've worked there for a little while and he had
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already been gone by then. He was a legend there. Okay, so
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you're in Middletown and then at some point you joined WCCC. No. No,
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I was on E SU. My buddy Steve Capin was on Triple C
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for a while, so okay, back in the seventies. But I meant
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I didn't meet him until San Francisco. Well after graduation. I wanted to
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get as far away from the East Coast as possible, so I went to
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San Francisco and drove a cab and I moved to San Francisco in seventy seven
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looking for the Beats. You know. I'd read Carouac and red Ginsburg,
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read all that stuff from college, and I was looking for the Beats.
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Unfortunately I was about twenty years too late. You know, they were there
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in the late fifties, early sixties. So I took a job driving cab
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and then one night Gregory Corso, one of the great Beat poets, fell
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into my cab on nineteen seventy eight. He wrote a lot of great poems.
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He said, be a star Scower. You know. He was an
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ecstatic beat poet, you know, drinking the Okay with down Ginsburg and Gary
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Snyder and all those guys. So I was like, Okay, I found
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him. I found the Beats, so I can quit driving cab. And
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the whole time I was driving cab, I was listening to Case and this
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little station ninety four point nine. They called themselves the Jibe ninety five.
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And I was driving around in the cabin. This is the greatest listening.
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This is the greatest station I've ever heard. I got a word there,
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and so I kept bugging him and bugging him. You know, back then
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you just pulled the cab over and get on the phone there and call in.
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And I kept bugging the news guys there, Dave McQueen and Larry Benski,
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Scoop Nisker, who just passed away, one of the greatest newscasters.
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He's famous for saying on Case and and remember, if you don't like the
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news, go out and make some of your own. He's probably one of
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the most famous guys there. And they finally said come in, and I
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got five dollars an hour as a news intern, you know, pulling rough,
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ripping in reading, and eventually were writing more than news and then eventually
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producing the morning show there with Stephen Capin during the last days of Case Sin.
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You know, hey, you said five dollars an hour and that's in
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what the late seventies. Yeah, okay, I was making five dollars an
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hour in nineteen ninety six at WCCC doing weekends five and I washed my first
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paycheck, so I had to ask them to recut me a check. I
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washed it in the washing machine, had it in the pocket of my jeans.
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I think maybe my mother still has that up on the above the machine
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check your pockets before because I told her, and you know, I was
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like, oh my god, I was freaking out because I was so nervous.
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I had to ask them to recut a check afterro So you are now
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making so you get the job at Case and right. Is that what they
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is what they call the case and in Case San Francisco, the jib ninety
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five because they were at ninety four point nine. It was kind of an
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in house joke and it took off. This is a station that started in
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nineteen sixty seven. As you know if we're reading the book, as the
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first underground hippie run rock and roll station. So when I got there,
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it was kind of in the end because by nineteen eighty, I've only been
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there years. Reagan came in and they the corporation that ran the station,
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Metro Media. We called the Metro meaningless on the air. They came in
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and just clamped down. Shout out, shout out to the cafesh and all
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the co kids got fired and they went country Western. And that's we're going
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to lead up to as we go through the questions here that I have for
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you. But let's start with the man known as Big Daddy Tom Donahue.
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Chapter four. The book gets into Tom's background and his start in radio and
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people that our fans of radio really should know who this guy is because he's
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so important. Can you give us a brief backstory on Tom, where he
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was from and his background in radio. He's in He's in the Rock and
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Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, one of the few DJs. Both his
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parents were journalists. Is a real name is Coleman coma n and his dad
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was His parents were in DC and he started working a little stations in West
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Virginia and Pennsylvania, and finally he got a big rocker in Philadelphia and he
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became the top DJ in Philly top forty sixties. And then he got a
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run out of town and he ran to San Francisco, where one of his
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buddies was and he started working there Top forty dju, big daddy, four
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hundred pounds of solid sounds at KFI is out there named KYA, I'm sorry
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KYA KFI is Los Angeles. Kyo was the number one Top forty and he
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was the force. He was an unbelievable force. He started his own uh
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a company, that a label. He had a label called Autumn Records and
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produced records and his engineer was sly Stone. It was like an eighteen year
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old, nineteen year old kid hired and they put out records and he was
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digging every way too. He was a big guy physically, but a big
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voice, big gold radio voice. It is. It's just that classic FM
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rock radio voice that just your envy you wish you could you could have.
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I mean, he just he had it. But he also what he had,
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he had the force. He saw something happening while he's in San Francisco
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and there's a place called the Red Dog Saloon, which you cover in your
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book. This is a very important place. What in where was the Red
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Dog Saloon and can you explain why this location plays an important role in the
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San Francisco scene. The Red Dog Saloon was in Virginia City, Nevada,
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up in the Sierra Nevada's in California crossing into Nevada there in the mountains,
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and it started as a silver mining town. In fact, Mark Twain worked
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on the newspaper there, the Territorial Enterprise, I believe it was. So
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that was in like eighteen sixties. So cut to nineteen sixties, nineteen sixty
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five, some hippies are hiding out out there beats actually, and on LSD
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one night they're playing risk and they said, let's pix up that old saloon
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downtown, the Red Dog, and they turned it into a place for all
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their friends to come and hear music and trip and one of the first bands
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they got to play there with the Charlatans. I think they're in this book.
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You remember this book, Golden It's like golden Nuggets, all these great
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old Oh that's cool. Count five Psychotic Reaction This is a great book I
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recommended of all the San Francisco early bands, and one of them was the
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what's the title that book? It's called Love is a Song We Sing San
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Francisco Nuggets nineteen sixty five to nineteen seventy. Okay, really it's covering bands
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like Quicksilver Messenger Service. All these bands used to go to the Red Ducks
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and then and play Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Big Brother in the Holding Company,
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the Charlatans, And it comes with four discs in it of song by
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like we five, Country Joe, the Warlocks, the Bow Rumbles, the
11:03
Warlocks, by the way, which future would be become Grateful Dead? Is
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that what we're talking about? Yeah? In fact, I was in San
11:13
Francisco where they just did their last concert, the Dead and Company. Oh
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yeah, there tour in San Francisco. Was up there a couple of weekends
11:20
ago, and I saw Country Joe and the Fish without Country Joe, just
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a Fish, Barry Melton five Bucks in North Beach, and they had a
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guitar player from Big Brother and a guy from Quicksilver that was there. It's
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amazing that the San Francisco sound goes on and on and it's still this place,
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you know, to hear Jefferson Airplane. Yeah, yeah, those great
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bands. What's the connection there with Tom Donohoe and that particular saloon, Because
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there is a connection there, it leads to what would become KMPX all that
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stuff. Yes, the Charlotte Tins and the people that produced the their bands
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up there came down to San Francisco in sixty six when the pranksters and Ken
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Kesey and the hate Ashbury it was just starting. In fact, Scoop Niskers
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and others say that the real summer of love was sixty six because that's when
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everything coalesced in there. The hippies starting to see each other. LSD was
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hitting everywhere, the hate neighborhoods would be. It was it's kind of low
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middle class black neighborhood and students from SF State we're moving in there, and
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hipsters we're like, we're getting communes and Victorians around. Their family dog was
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getting there. So all these people brought their ideas and dreams, and a
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couple of from Virginia City they basically got run out of town there and they
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came down to San Francisco and a couple of them became part of the KMPX,
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which was Tom Downey Hugh's invention in nineteen sixty seven, which was a
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kind of which became case In. And then a year later these other FM
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underground stations began in the East Coast, Boston, New York, Detroit,
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all those but they were case and was the one that started and spread at
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Steeds nationwide and became what became alternative rock format. And it's interesting just tracing
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all of this back because I knew of Tom Donihue, I knew of of
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KSA N, but I didn't know that it really starts with KMPX in San
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Francisco as Tony Mingos and Wednesday night prayer meetings the Tom Donahue at KMBS one
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of seven on your fmw we're playing records until midnight. By the way,
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was Tom Downhue did he ever go to that Red Dog Saloon? I mean,
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he wasn't there himself, was he? That's a good I don't think
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he was. I don't don't. But but what happens is he meets up
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with these this group from the Red Dog Saloon. They all convene and they
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get together and then all of a sudden he's got his staff of disc jockeys.
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A lot of them were from the Red Dog Saloon, correct, Yeah,
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Mylon Melvin and Chan Laughlin and all these cats. Some of them were
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drug dealers, some of them were just hippies. You know, you knew
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everybody the hippies were. There wasn't that big a population in sixty four sixty
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five yet Mark Prankster's Ken Kizi and all that acid acid tests around town,
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and the community kind of got together. And I remember Tom used to come
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on and say, Hello, I'm Tom Donnie Hu and I'm here to play
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phonograph records. And this is Tom Donna Hue and I'm here to play phonograph
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records. Old school man love it. Yeah, yeah, but it's interesting,
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it's very organic how this all happens. Chapter seven leads off with a
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quote from Tom Donna Hue, and it comes from his nineteen sixty seven piece
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which is published in the second issue of Rolling Stone, and he writes,
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Top forty radio is dead and it's rotting. Corpse is stinking up the airwaves.
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So his answer to that was San Francisco, it's k MPX. It's
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considered to be America's first alternative free form radio station. And there's a picture
14:58
of in the book. How does it go from a small FM station known
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for foreign language programming to becoming the go to station for sixties counter culture.
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It happened when he was working at Top forty down to Hill. An amazing
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guy. He put on the last Beatles concert in America, San Francisco's Candlestick
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Park in sixty six. And he used to sit around with his friends and
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play record albums. He lived up in Telegraph Hill. Friends would come over
15:28
and they play records for each other, kind of what we all did?
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You know, here's an album. You got to hear this, you could
15:33
hear this. And one night somebody brought up the doors and it was the
15:37
you know, father, I want to kill you, a mother, I
15:39
want you and the end. He said, what, yeah, this neighborhoo,
15:45
there's named Vaco abe Keshi in from Detroit, and they said, we
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gotta get this other. How come on, I hear you this on the
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radio. So Tom said, you know, let's have a let's start a
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radio station albums that we enjoy listening, playing for each other. And he
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found this one radio station in KMPX that was kind of really hurting, and
16:03
they just played foreign language hour by hour. You know, there'll be the
16:07
Chinese hour in the Ukrainian hour where all these different foreign Christian shows and things
16:11
like that. And he bargained with the guy to give him four hour slot,
16:15
six to ten, and that's when you put on the rock and roll
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and they eventually it became twenty four seven and you had all these people pouring
16:25
into San Francisco at that time, that whole generation Baby boomers now, and
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they tuned in. It became the community station. On a commercial station,
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it was their community station. They came down, they decorated the studios,
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they would hang around in the lobby. You know, it's an outpost that's
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just not around today. It's kind of like the website where kids go,
16:48
like the Craigslist. That's what it was. People got all their information from
16:52
this one hub on their radio. Where to get a ride, where to
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go to rally's, where to get an apartment, to find your lost dog.
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You know. You know, I always said I was born too late
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because when I jumped onto the FM radio train, it was well, I
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started listening in the late eighties and I thought it was so cool and then
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in the mid nineties I started working the business, and I would hear things
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and read things about what it was like in the very beginning, and I
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just thought, man, I wish I was around during that time because it
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was an art form and every DJ sounded drastically different. There was no que
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card, there was nothing that they had to There was no playlist, there
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was no grand design, no commercial prospects. It was just it wasn't our
17:40
form. Because also the it's interesting, we should know to the government there
17:44
was something that happened to where FM radio. It's crazy to think about it,
17:48
but it was considered just something like a throwaway. It wasn't anything that
17:52
was important. But what happens with the government. They said to these these
17:55
owners of these stations, you have to put something different on your FM.
18:00
There was a decree that you had to have FM, and so that started
18:03
creating a f and stereo came in the same time. So music sounded better
18:07
than it did on AM. So they played these LPs. Case said,
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they played the whole side of an LP because the listeners were taping it,
18:15
so they haven't you could hear the whole side, and also it sounded better.
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Mostly was classical. You had these educational stations down at the left end
18:26
of the dial, and so there wasn't rock. This just completely changed it.
18:30
There actually was a dj ardy at Camp X who was on from midnight
18:36
to six and they let him do whatever he want, and he was actually
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Larry Miller. Came from Detroit to San Francisco. You know a lot of
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these guys had bands. He had a band in Detroit called the Southbound Free
18:47
Away. Anyway, he came there and played whatever the hell he want and
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they called him the first freak because he stayed there when Donny Hue came in,
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was bringing all his friends in from the neighborhood, his friends who were
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sitting around playing records with each other. Those were first hires, people like
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Howard Hessman. You know, I want to get to that, Yeah,
19:04
you can to DJ And Larry Miller was I think the farthest out, the
19:10
first free keep play whatever he wanted, said whatever he wanted. I mean,
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you could swear on that station. When they had the sex Pistols on
19:17
in the late seventies, interviewed them before the last sex Pistols concert also broadcast
19:22
on the air. There can you imagine those guys were swearing right and left
19:26
on the airway. I don't know how they got away with it, but
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I'm like you, I wanted to say that. Eric, I'm like you.
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I got there in the late seventies. I had missed it. Yeah,
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when I got there, I was like, what's this all about?
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I hear this great thing. We're the coolest. We still felt like the
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mythology had already had already developed and it was strong at that point. Yeah,
19:42
you must have been just to be in that building. It must have
19:45
been so cool because you were talking with the people that were there during that
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time. It was the late the last hey Day, and you know that
19:55
the corporation and Reagan came in. But I always want to know about the
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early parts. Sure, and that's how I got into this book. Was
20:02
interviewing some of those original freaks and heads. And there were straits too,
20:06
and I interviewing them, and I'll tell you how the book got developed.
20:10
Tell me about that too, because I'm really interested, because I'm assuming it
20:14
comes out of just your natural fascination with the station and its history. But
20:18
yeah, when did this idea come about? Well, they had a reunion
20:22
in twenty fourteen, Case and John ninety five reunion twenty fourteen. It was
20:29
at this club called Yoshi's in San Francisco. For those just listening in audio,
20:33
you're showing me a big poster promo poster, and it's definitely got that
20:37
late sixties psychedelia look to it. Yeah. So at that gathering twenty fourteen,
20:44
a couple of old Case sand Guy starters filming and all that footage is
20:48
eventually going to become a documentary. But there was also one guy in the
20:52
audience, dent Jeff House, and he started taking notes and from twenty fourteen
20:56
on he interviewed a lot of Case and characters and wrote a narrative about a
21:00
five hundred page narrative. Jeff House. He was a scholar, an academic
21:07
writer from San Jose. He died and his sister sent me all the tapes
21:11
and then I took on the project and wanted it to make an all history,
21:15
so continued interviewing some of those great cats, and that's how it turns
21:19
into the book. That's how it became this book. Tell me about Howard
21:23
Hassman. Because Howard Hassman was among the DJs at KMPX. Don Sturdy was
21:30
his on air name, but he goes on to become famous for playing doctor
21:34
Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati, one of my top five favorite television shows
21:41
of all time. In fact, when COVID hit and I was home,
21:45
I went through that box set and watched each and every episode in succession because
21:48
I wanted to do it for the longest time I had the box set,
21:52
I just didn't have time, and it was so great to go back and
21:55
watch each episode from start to finish. And he was hands down my favorite
22:00
character on that show. He had a DJ background, so that's why it
22:07
was just you get that feeling that he was legit. You felt like he
22:10
was a real disst jockey. Now his character was inspired by Tom Donohue.
22:15
Plus he threw in a few other DJs that he kind of put all together
22:18
for that character. Bob Dale and Bob McClay. Those are the other two.
22:22
He sadly just recently passed away. But did you get to speak to
22:26
him for the book or was this from the tapes that you received? They
22:29
were from the tapes I received, and for this documentary called Something in the
22:33
Air, which a new doc about Case sand which they're still shopping around the
22:37
film festivals. But they've been working on that since twenty fourteen. And well,
22:42
he was in the committee, the great improv satirical group in San Francisco,
22:48
like the Second City or LA's Groundings. This was this was the place
22:52
in the mid sixties to hear your political satire at night and what was going
22:56
on in the sixties. And he was a friend. He was in and
23:00
Telegraph Hill of Tom Donihue and Rachel Donahue and they said should Rachel, we
23:04
should mention her too. That was Tom's wife. Yeah, she was originally
23:08
just a little kid. Rachel Hamilton came up to San Francisco met Tom.
23:12
I think she was stripping at that time where she was dancing. She was
23:15
doing. She was at a North Beach club and they met. But Howard
23:21
always consider himself a beat nick. He was a beat more than a hippie
23:25
because he came out of that fifties thing. But he just had the greatest
23:29
time. He played whatever he wanted and it was a real wild assortment.
23:33
In fact, I have some of the records. Actually, I don't know
23:36
if your audio people can hear this and seious, but he would play stuff
23:38
like country Joe The Great album That's had that song section forty three on that,
23:44
you know, that song of the first great psychedelic songs. But he
23:48
played a lot of Satchmode too. He loved blues, love jazz, and
23:51
of course she had the the airplane stuff which was very popular in case Sam
23:56
showing showing these by the way, all on vinyl. I love it.
24:00
Yeah, yeah, Eric Crome and then do you get do you have John
24:03
Coltrane there because he got into trouble. He said, Tom never Tom would
24:07
never tell anybody to do anything. But there was one incident where he's playing
24:10
a little too much John Coltrane. Yeah. Yeah, he called him up
24:12
and said you're playing too much Coltrane and he said, He's like, you
24:15
don't be playing him all night. You could do that, but you could
24:21
also play stuff like Eric. This is a Senator Everett Dirkson who did a
24:26
version of wild Thing but which is originally by the Trucks. Yeah, they
24:30
played anything they wanted. Let's face it, do it. Is there any
24:33
audio out there of we call him er Jacks Howard has been on the air
24:37
because I've been dying to just hear what he sounded like. It's gotta be
24:41
he's out there somewhere. His family members must have something. I talked to
24:45
his wife, Katy Learner, and she said it was really there was just
24:52
the best time. They would go with Tom and Rachel the concerts and snort,
24:57
Emil Knight Trade and trip and there was an earthquake and she and Joan
25:03
Bayez had to help people over the chairs and just yeah, in the book,
25:08
but that's right, read him in the book. Yeah, did take
25:12
this out. I wanted to ask you, did KRP inspire you to go
25:15
into dj? Oh? It was definitely. It was definitely what led to
25:19
me wanted to become a rock DJ. My dad was a disc jockey,
25:22
so I got into the level radio through him just watching him work as a
25:26
kid, but then listening to rock radio and seeing w KRP. Absolutely it
25:33
was part of the mix. And when I got into radio, my dad
25:37
and I used to talk about how that show was so close to the real
25:41
thing, and lo and behold, we find out that the producers and the
25:45
writers were people that did work in the radio business in Atlanta, So there
25:48
was so when I started working in radio, there was all these crazy characters
25:52
that you'd come across and it was like, that's exactly what KRP was.
25:55
You just get those those dudes that would be you know, always third shift.
25:59
There's always one guy all these characters. I think Johnny Fever had some
26:03
episodes that he took directly from stuff that had happened. Sure, like you
26:07
said, he he modeled him after some great case in DJs that he knew.
26:11
Now here's a mind blow though, Carl Gottlieb. And I'm a huge
26:15
Jaws fan, so when I see Carl Gottlieb, I'm like, is this
26:19
the same Carl Gottlieb that was a screenwriter for Jaws? And yes, it
26:25
is Carl Gottlieb from Jaws. He was a DJ at KMPX. There's a
26:30
staff photo, by the way, in your book. People have to get
26:33
the book to see it from nineteen sixty seven k MPX. You see Howard
26:37
Hessman, you see Carl Gottlieben there. And Carl talked about his approach on
26:45
air. His quotes are in the book. He opened with the Beatles good
26:48
morning at noon, since that's when most of the station's listeners were waking up,
26:53
and he talked about all the different artists that he played and many that
26:56
nobody knew about Bob McClay. It was the first DJ to play Jimmie Hendricks.
27:03
How did that happen? Well, he got he had an English an
27:07
album from England that a friend of has sent over, and Hendricks was coming
27:11
through in sixty seven. I think when he did the Monterey Pop Festival in
27:18
sixty seven. Then he played the Panhandle in San Francisco and the records that
27:23
blew up, you know, after Bob McClay was playing it. Gottlieb was
27:27
an old hippie another another hip young hippie in San Francisco. At the same
27:32
time. He also worked with Hessman in the Committee, the Satirical Troupe.
27:36
I think it was Gottlieb who told Hessman about this radio station. The book
27:40
Done Rock Podcasts will be back after this, Okay, that's by Blind Willie
27:47
Johnson. Lord, I just can't keep from crying. Our guest tonight,
27:49
Jerry Garcian Philish from The Grateful Dead Ray Charles is next thing. The schedule
27:53
is this earlier, late late, very recently was a last last single and
27:57
last single? Yeah, the latest. Do you think the stuff he's cut
28:02
with ABC has been as good as some of the things you cut with Anka
28:04
he was in It was in a much heavier blues bag I think earlier than
28:08
Yeah. I like, oh, it's like the seven piece stuff and with
28:11
the ray lets and all like it was real life stand But his big band
28:15
is one of the tightest going. Yeah, there's some good big bands I
28:18
like to sound. The Bobby Bland group gets too. Yeah, there's a
28:22
there's just a lot more funky. I think Ray Charleston. Yeah, James
28:26
Brown Accink acton. He has the best big band, the tightest. They're
28:30
real, snappy, super discipline. Oh yeah, do you use two drummers
28:34
smoke on stage during rehearsal ten bucks? Late rehearsal twenty five bucks? James
28:40
keeps him in mind that he does. Have you thought about that? Jack
28:45
keeping the voys in line? Let's die rate, Charles, I didn't need
28:49
no doctor. Hank Rosenfeld, the author of The Jive ninety five and Oral
28:55
History of America's Greatest underground rock radio station KSA and San Francisco and It's throughout
29:00
August fifteenth. Now, one thing I didn't know until reading your book that
29:03
Tom wasn't the first to create free form radio. Who was the one that
29:08
made it a success. But in New York DJ had been doing it prior
29:11
to that. And this is a name I know very well, Pete for
29:14
natal I tell w any w eventually, but I think he did it earlier
29:19
at another station. He had a show, but nobody done twenty four seven
29:23
until Donnie who came along and turned cam p X into that, and he
29:27
stuck around for a while in New York radio. I remember they stories.
29:32
I worked at radio in New York a w x R, K K Rock.
29:34
Yeah, Howard Stern was in the morning and I produced Steve Capin in
29:38
the afternoon, called it the Afternoon Episode. It was a character named Coyote.
29:42
It could go off at any moment. But when we went in there,
29:47
we said, okay, Howard will take everything below the waist and we'll
29:49
try to take everything from the neck up. Yeah, well, what about
29:55
There's another station in San fran called KPFA. That was another one that was
29:59
free for him. Was that property. It's still there. It's a Pacific
30:03
custation. It's in Berkeley. I'm gonna do an interview up there. Chris
30:07
Welch is still there. She's eighty. She was at Case and Bonnie Simmons
30:11
still does a show on KPFA on Thursday night, free form great stuff.
30:15
She was a program director at Case and lives up there. A lot of
30:21
these stul jive ninety five or still live up there in the Bay Area,
30:23
and I hope when I do some reading events they'll drop in and talk to
30:27
about their lives. Oh yeah, they can give you some stories. So
30:30
KSCN happens because of a commercial takeover of KMPX. Correct, it's the owner
30:37
of the station, Leon Crosby, got greedy. He saw they were number
30:42
one. He said, Okay, we're gonna straighten things out here. Now.
30:45
I'm gonna bring in my people with their suits and you're gonna cut your
30:48
hair. All this stuff, you know, you hear about that happened in
30:52
the sixties and they went on strike. It was the first hippie strike and
30:56
they want a little more money, all the DJs, and they unified and
30:59
Tom Downe quit and so they all walked out. In the meantime, Downa
31:03
Hue had started another station for Leon Crosby in La was a sister station to
31:07
CAMPX called k p p C and became popular in La. Firesign Theater were
31:15
on but you're really cool people. Harry Shear and his comedy troupe, they
31:19
went on strike at the same time, so they Leon Crosby went out and
31:23
hired a bunch of scab DJ's it's a it's a great story, the first
31:27
hippie strike. And there's a picture in the book of that too. From
31:32
six Washington posted a couple of great articles about it. Mark Fisher, I
31:37
think is the journalist at the Post who wrote it up. And they walked
31:41
down the street, they negotiated. Tom went around the country looking for a
31:45
new station Chicago, head to ABC Networks there and he was like now and
31:51
then he came back and Bob McClay found this ks AN which was k what
31:56
was it KSFR at that time, and then other it was just a middle
32:00
of the road classical station. They had one hippie like free form alternative underground
32:07
radio at midnight, and they just walked down the street and took over case
32:12
In and all the everybody went over there, most of the people, and
32:16
one guy stayed there, Stephen Ponock. He was the one ks fire guy
32:22
and stayed at DJ there and then they were case and for the next twelve
32:24
year sixteen eight to eighty. What was it the controversial pepsi ad that played
32:30
on KMPX. Well, they didn't want you know, this was the there's
32:34
a there's a movie called FM whether the DJ's uh, you know, fight
32:38
about an army ad. They didn't want to play an army add Well,
32:42
this was kind of the genesis of that. The staff didn't want to play
32:45
a pepsi ad. It was two commercial the case and folks made up their
32:49
own commercials. They wrote, they produced, and they were goofy. They
32:52
were crazy and hippie like you know, Stone references and everything else, and
33:00
came in a big money pepsi was big money and it became this shoote caused
33:07
celett But they were sitting around one day one of the DJs, Vako made
33:13
Keshi in I picture him in the book, but here he is also that's
33:16
aide Keshian with Dusty Dusty Street one of the great first female could be DJ's.
33:24
She went on to work with the Rocket Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
33:29
I believe she's still on Serious XM. I think she still does a show
33:31
there. Yeah, it says Meg Griffin Roorkes within New York at camera,
33:37
Vacco said you know, I drink pepsi, and a couple of the other
33:40
said, yeah, I drink pepsi too, So why be hypocritical about it?
33:45
And it was kind of part of the shift becoming more corporate the way
33:50
a lot of things did in the seventies. The Battle Nixon came in the
33:53
seventy two of the pushed back against the counterculture, the revolution that was created
33:58
in the sixties by the cover culture. In so many fields, the pushback
34:01
started in the seventies, that kind of stuff. And you know, these
34:07
these commercial products. They knew they could sell the hippies, you know,
34:10
so they put a lot of commercials on Casean and eventually, as you know,
34:15
the station in Country Western the nineteen eighty and we were all blown out
34:19
of there nineteen eighty just after Reagan was elected. Weirdly enough, Yeah,
34:24
like I said, Tom brought the DJ's with him from KMPX to KSA,
34:29
and one guy almost didn't make it, Edward Bare he had he had his
34:34
battles with Tom. I think that was that. Yeah, he was a
34:37
big city cat from New York down. A lot of New York radio came
34:42
out to San Francisco, came in and said I'm the best guy you ever
34:45
saw. You know, you should hire me, And Donnie had said,
34:49
yeah, give me a tape. He went in and made a tape at
34:51
midnight and just he was he became Edward bare His name was hersh Or,
34:59
originally in York and he worked at in the village at the Cafe Figurero and
35:05
did midnights. He was the classic. His girlfriend was a flower child,
35:09
and he was just created this character, the Bear. He said, I
35:14
come down from the mountains to explore these people in the city and have a
35:17
good side and the bad side. You know, don't get it on my
35:20
bad side. But Edward Barrow was a great I loved his music. He
35:24
played a great mix. And Donny you didn't bring him to case in,
35:30
but all the other staff said you gotta bring you, gotta bring it Bear,
35:34
and it was personality clash. Yeah, most definitely, that's what Bear
35:38
said, the New York person back San Francisco thing. Yeah, yeah,
35:44
they also engineers, you know they people didn't do their own engineering. Then
35:50
they're always white guys who are the engineers. They've been in radio forever.
35:53
So you couldn't engineer your own show. In fact, you couldn't spend your
35:57
own records. So Donnie, who hired women for that, got rid of
36:02
these suits and he hired what he called his chick engineers, chick engineers yet
36:07
fairly progressive for sixty seven. I thought of that reading the book, I
36:12
thought about that. Man. It was really cool, really cool that he
36:14
did that. Yeah, some of them didn't get to go to case and
36:16
because they weren't needed anymore. When they get you could do your own show,
36:21
you could do your own engineering. So some of them didn't didn't get
36:23
over there either, And Bear was invectually brought over, But I don't know
36:25
if all the chicks were brought over. Dusty Street started as a chick engineer
36:30
and found her voice there as a DJ and became now, like you said,
36:35
she's not serious XM and she's Hall of Fame. Now let's go back
36:38
to the Beatles performance, the final American appearance, which was at Candlestick Park
36:45
August twenty nine, nineteen sixty six. Rachel Donnie, who said the Beatles
36:49
did not want to do the show, but the only reason they did was
36:52
because of Tom. He put in a clause in the contract. Was there
36:57
a ten thousand dollars clause or something that they didn't play. They have to
37:00
pay him that. And you know it was at the very end of the
37:04
Beatles because after that tour sixty six tour, my sisters actually saw them at
37:10
the Olympia Hockey Arena in Detroit at that time. But on that tour sixty
37:15
five sixty six, when they got on the plane after that concert the Beatles,
37:20
that George Harrison was like, that's it. I don't want a tour
37:23
done with this, and they all pretty much decided that and they never played
37:27
again live until that Top of the Apple concert on the rooftop of Apple,
37:31
which you see in that recent documentary, that great documentary about the Beatles or
37:36
eight hour documentary. Yeah, interesting that Tom had he played a role in
37:39
getting them to perform at that San Francisco show. And also their coverage.
37:44
KSA n's coverage of the Altamont concert is covered in your book. They covered
37:47
it from the moment it began right through to the aftermath, and you include
37:52
excerpts from the broadcast on that Sunday morning, December eighth, the day after
37:57
some chilling accounts from people who were there called in. One was talking about
38:00
people getting kicked people getting walked on, a girl being dragged across the stage
38:06
by her hair. I mean, is there any standout quote from that chapter
38:12
for you? Well, when the Hell's Angel, the head of the Hell's
38:16
Angels called in Sonny Barger and you got the other side of it. We
38:22
moved them people to save that bike. And then after that they started trying
38:27
to destroy our bikes and we're not going to stand for it. And then
38:30
Nat made it personal, right it really did? You know, that's not
38:32
a nice thing to do. Like we tried, Like the talking about that
38:37
Mick Jagger had the people sit down, Well, you know what, you
38:39
grabble Mick Jagger and asked him who told him to tell the people to sit
38:45
down? That's what I told him to tell the people to sit down.
38:47
And if anybody was there in the front rows can remember me walking over and
38:52
telling them, you know what, if you tell these people to sit down
38:54
and be cool, the people in the back and see a little bit and
38:58
this show get on and we can get it going. And he's done it.
39:00
You know, we've all heard the Hell's Angels. They ruined it.
39:04
Sure they got hired to do security for five hundred dollars of beer by the
39:07
Rolling Stones. So they were completely slashed, and they brought their bikes in
39:13
and somebody touched their bikes and then that went off and somebody was killed.
39:15
But you had Woodstock in August of sixty nine and that was just went off,
39:22
as we know as a cultural landmark of what it became. So San
39:25
Francisco said, let's do another one, and the Rolling Stones were going to
39:29
play free in Golden Gate Park. No, nobody's going to have a free
39:34
concert in Golden Gate Park with the Rolling Stones. They tried a couple other
39:37
places and this Altamont Speedway only became available at the last minute and turned into
39:43
a disaster, the opposite of Woodstock, and a couple of the case and
39:46
DJs had been to Woodstock, so they got in the air the next day
39:51
and open up the phone lines for hours and talked about what we're wrong at
39:53
Altamont. I had to do with bad acid that went through everybody, terrible,
39:59
the vibe and the Rolling Stones. There's a lot of blame to go
40:02
around. And I talked to David Smith, who started to hate Ashbury Free
40:06
Clinic at that time. There's a lot of kids down the streets. They
40:09
had nowhere to go, and they'd go to this free clinic and he said
40:14
it there was it was known there was bad ascid there and it just created
40:17
it horrible altimont what some people say. It was the end of the sixties.
40:23
Yeah, absolutely, that and Charles Manson, that and the Manson murders,
40:29
Sharon Tate, that whole thing. That was it. There's a chapter
40:31
devoted to Tom Donne, who was interview with John Lennon too from nineteen seventy
40:35
four. John and Yoko visited Tom and Rachel's home for the interview. Rachel
40:39
said Yoko was the most hated wife in America, but they got along great.
40:45
She added that she could hear John and Yoko doing their screen therapy from
40:47
where they were staying. They were down the street and they could hear it
40:52
through their window. John gave a lengthy interview to Tom, which speaks to
40:55
how respected he was. Would you say that was at the high point of
41:00
Tom Donahue's career in terms of interviews. Well, you look at how long
41:02
they'd known each other. They really connected in sixty five when Lennon was like
41:07
a sixty six when they came and you know, Tom was the hippies guy
41:10
had ever seen Big Tom Donahue took him under his arm and helped him with
41:15
that final concert, and they stayed friends all those years. And so there
41:19
he came in seventy four for that interview. And there's another great piece interview
41:25
with John Lennon in the book with Scoop discard the last news show, Guy,
41:30
if you don't like the news going, and make some of your own.
41:32
Scoop who got that name when he was covering the Chicago eight trial sixty
41:38
eight Chicago, he called Johnny Yoko in their hotel room when they were doing
41:44
their bed in there for Hair for Love and they were in the hotel room
41:50
bed in Montreal, and Scoop called them and that was on the air.
41:52
It's really funny interview. But Lennon and and and Tom went a long way
42:00
back and really dug each other, and you can tell on the air.
42:04
In fact, there's a link. I have QR codes in the book that
42:07
link you to certain audio and one of those is the Lennon Donahue nineteen seventy
42:10
four interview. Lann had just finished his album on Walls and Bridges, so
42:15
he came on to play it let's just start through the new album with side
42:20
one cut one. That's where they always put the song they liked the most.
42:23
Then or do you well, what do you do? How do you
42:25
forget? It depends, you know a time started off with except for when
42:30
I didn't imagine I put sort of I suppose that was the album really easy.
42:35
Time put something that brings you in but not too much, but just
42:38
sort of medium. And that's what this is. It's called going Down on
42:44
Love. And then Bob McClay was on the air when news of Tom's death
42:46
came April twenty eighth, nineteen seventy five. And he was only forty six
42:51
years old when he died suddenly of a heart attack. And I always get
42:53
the image whenever I there's pictures of Tom Donahue in the book, I always
43:00
think of orson wells like that, you know in later years, like the
43:02
big again, big voice, just at big presence. When he walked in
43:07
the room, he snorted coke, He did ascid, he had huge appetites.
43:10
He used to hold courted and Ricos and North Beach are famous night spot.
43:15
And everybody's sitting around him there, you know, Tom smothers and David
43:20
Steinberg and guys like that. He was the man hippist, hippy, the
43:24
hippiest hipster. In fact, you talked about the end of the sixties being
43:29
at sixty nine. People talk about when was the end of casan and when
43:32
don Que died, a lot of people said that was it. Well,
43:36
that was one of my questions. What effect did his death have on KSA
43:38
and and radio in general from that point on in your opinion, because he
43:43
was he was planning on getting KMPX back and all the jocks were going to
43:49
go with him. He was very much still in the radio game. I
43:52
mean, it was a huge blow and he didn't like where the station was
43:54
going, and he could still get away with whatever he wanted, but he
44:00
was thing to getting out at that time. And there's a chapter about how
44:04
he died, and it's a rashaman. You know, everybody thinks they knew,
44:07
and it's something else. He was playing backgammon, he was snorting with
44:12
some high rollers or you know, who knows exactly, but they're all the
44:15
opinions are there was at the end of case. And I'm kind of thinking
44:20
it wasn't that era because the music got a little in more middle of the
44:24
road in the seventies, but then by the end of the seventies, cases
44:29
punk punk music came along New Way, Elvis Costello, this whole British thing
44:32
to clash sex, pistols and case and went for it, you know.
44:37
So you know, firstly, of course I loved when I was there,
44:40
but some people say it ended when KMPX went off the air in sixty eight.
44:45
Some people said that's it. They got two commercials. When I worked
44:49
at at the end of the eighties in New York to the xrk K Rock,
44:53
it was like the dark side of where Case end ended up. You
44:58
know. Forward FM playlist totally restricted. You know. Once we played Louie
45:06
had a new album out at that time, New York. It's a great
45:08
comeback album, not come back with New York album. And we had him
45:12
on as a guest and we said what should we play and he said,
45:14
played Bussload of Faith. We played it. It wasn't on the playlist,
45:17
so we were suspended. It was so restricted by that point, and it's
45:22
kind of that's where it came, you know, from seventy nine eighty to
45:25
eighty nine ninety, you know, that's in radio today. You know,
45:30
everybody's got a radio everybody's got a radio show now, though, don't they.
45:34
Well, that's the thing he would love podcasting. I think he would
45:37
appreciate that because it really is going back to what he created in the beginning,
45:40
which was free form, say what you want, do what you want.
45:45
The thing that was different was it was part of a movement. It's
45:46
part of the countercultural revolution, which is the anti war movement. You know,
45:52
gave movement, Black movement, Chicano movement, feminist movement, and case
45:57
and gave voice to all those type of They had shows on all topics.
46:06
One year is a long time. Fifteen years is a very long time.
46:13
What are you going to be doing for the next fifteen years? I know
46:16
of at least three gis who will be spending that time in prison for the
46:21
crime of mutiny. What does mutiny mean to you? However wide ranging the
46:27
definitions of mutiny are. I'm sure a few of you would consider singing a
46:30
mutinous act, certainly not one deserving a punishment of fifteen years. At hard
46:37
Labor. This Saturday, March fifteenth, at one thirty pm, there will
46:42
be a peaceful public assembly at the Marina Green with music provided by a variety
46:46
of concerned performers at the foot of lyon Saturday one thirty. Arlo Guthrie's going
46:55
to be there, are you? Then the book gets into the end of
47:01
that great era of radio at KSA N and you've alluded to it throughout the
47:07
interview, which it was the late seventies. What led to the demise?
47:10
And was there a time or was there a moment when you were there that
47:14
you thought, yeah, this is it, it's it's going down. Or
47:17
was it overnight because a lot of times that happens in radio, it's overnight,
47:20
Hey we're country. I had that when I was working in Hartford.
47:23
It was just overnight, Hey, we're gonna be different, change of format.
47:25
So did you sense something was coming? You always knew something was wrong
47:31
because of Metromedia, which had become this big radio conglomerate in New York,
47:37
and they had LA and Philly w MMRR, and they had in Cleveland h
47:43
and w n E W New York and the and the LA station was k
47:50
m ET from Metromedia. Yeah, and they came up from there. K
47:52
Sam was playing all that punk was the first one to play the new wave
47:58
punk and la people were like, no, we played commercial. There's some
48:02
really well produced albums out there. Fleetwood Mac was big. Then you play
48:07
these albums Tom Petty, the Eagles more likely, and this stuff was really
48:12
well produced. In case San had a problem. There was a real conflict
48:14
there between the DJs that loved to play the new wave and then the DJs
48:20
wrote like still into the psychedelia, you know, all that music, and
48:24
so you had these two coming together, and the metro media looked at the
48:30
ratings and there was a new station in town came El Camel. They were
48:35
playing the straight ahead rock and roll and they and the punks. There's nothing
48:39
big enough audience for that, right the shock of the new people were not
48:45
into that. There was a very intense period. It's kind of like psychedelic
48:47
rock and reached as far as I could right into this orchestral with the classical
48:53
classic rock, huge boom, you know, triple or droop hoole albums,
48:58
and then punk daughter back down to like three chords and the truth. You
49:00
know, it was like back to the basics. So it had gone through
49:04
all this thing couldn't go any farther. There's a book called Twilight of the
49:07
Gods about where that music went heavy metal and all that stuff. Amazingly that's
49:14
still around now. But yeah, it was similar with Nirvana in the early
49:16
nineties, very similar that movement. Yes, the hair metal was getting way
49:22
way, way way out of control and it just pulled it all back.
49:24
Yeah, but you also must have had those moments where you see it familiar
49:28
unfamiliar faces walking around the building like this they sent these people up from La
49:34
Yeah. Yeah, you're like, who is this dude? And why is
49:37
he looking in the studio with this that look on his face, like you
49:40
could tell he doesn't approve of what's going on here? Kind of a lockdown.
49:45
It started when they locked they locked the record library and brought in their
49:49
own what was to be played in bins. They put little bins. It's
49:54
a colored coating, yes, And when you couldn't get into the lot,
49:59
the lot record library anymore. There's a DJ, Norm Winer, who talks
50:04
about him seeing at the end right there he was on the air while he
50:06
saw the guy's hammering and putting in this lock. Well, when I was
50:09
on with Capin near the end. Steve Capin was actually the last DJ in
50:14
the air November of eighty. He would send me over to get special records,
50:17
and he used to have me climb over the plexiglass into the library to
50:21
get the records. He wanted to play shit, so he was like,
50:23
you know, he's going over the war. That's awesome, clash or whatever
50:30
he wanted to play. You know, Fire Sign Theater Lenny Bruce albums which
50:35
I liberated after I got fired. They kept a lot out of the albums
50:37
in the basement and I liberated them. Well, I was gonna ask you,
50:42
did you get to leave on your own or did you get fired?
50:44
And you just answered that, How what was that moment, Mike? How
50:46
did they give you the news? These guys, you know, they came
50:51
in from la and they made a clean sweep. Dave Moorehead was his name.
50:53
We called him l nuclear Warhead. This is the anti nukes movement at
50:59
that time. And then next said and the news director Joanne Rose's wag was
51:07
she was on her honeymoon and called in to find out that she'd been fired.
51:14
And I was part of her news staff, so I was fired with
51:17
her, and they fired her while she was on her honeymoon with her husband,
51:21
Fred Green, who was another great case s and guy. They're still
51:23
married and worked at a bunch of other stations as a news director. And
51:28
she's got a book out talks about her radio history, and he's got a
51:32
golf podcast and she's doing a podcast. So they're all both still in the
51:36
broadcasting. But I had one of our fellow newsmen g n US was what
51:42
they called the news department. Chris Stanley was a mentor mine. He went
51:45
up to this more head guy tried to punch him in the face, you
51:49
know. Yeah. He put up on acid for a couple of days before
51:52
they did that. Another gout, tom O'Hare, it was another one.
51:57
They took acid together and came in one time with Joanna Joyn Roseway was about
52:00
to go on the air of the newscast. Tom owhare just set it on
52:04
fire and it all just scrumpled in her hands. She had a good scope
52:07
and talking through which the deep which the newscasters did all out there. Anyway,
52:09
they more talk the news. That's another important part of the station was
52:15
this radical news department that was in the streets in Berkeley covering the riots when
52:21
Dan White shot Mary Masconi and Harvey Milk and seventy eight and just incredible.
52:30
These were my mentor, Scoop and Skirt, Larry Bensky, Larry Dave McQueen,
52:36
Larry Lee, who wrote a book about Jack Carrouac. So those kind
52:38
of the connection of the Beats to the hippies. In fact, the first
52:42
day I was hired was Larry Lee was having a book party for his oral
52:45
biography of Case, and I don't forget it. Going to it, I
52:49
was like, you know, kids today say I found my people, and
52:52
these are like, oh my god, this is my people. These are
52:54
the ones They're gonna get me. And so we did a lot of wild
52:58
creative stuff and walking home that after the book party, I remember walking up
53:02
Marcus Street and there are a lot of bums and homeless people at that time
53:07
seventy eight, which was ever thus and I looked at those people. I
53:09
thought, yeah, I'm gonna change the world at Caselam, but I'm not
53:14
going to be able to help these people. And I kind of realize the
53:15
n and yang of it. You know, the greatest of dreams, be
53:19
creative, put it all out there, be political counterculture, but boy,
53:24
how are you gonna get justice? It's gonna take a lot time man the
53:29
Jive ninety five and Oral History of America's greatest underground rock radio station k s
53:34
a N San Francisco. So it's out August fifteen through Backbeat Books. And
53:37
let's talk about the website. Let's get that out there, Jive ninety five
53:42
dot com. What can people find dot com? You can find out a
53:45
lot of information, stuff that that couldn't make the book that got cut from
53:49
all these people I interviewed, great stories there. I'm gonna put those on
53:52
the website. And as you said, there's all this audio on the website.
53:57
Some of it's in the book, but you can pretty much find out
54:00
everything case in there at the jibninety five dot com. Also, my website
54:04
Hank Rosenvelt dot com tells you about how we're promoting the book places in the
54:07
Bay Area and eventually I hope across the country to come see readings and events.
54:13
Yes, so it's all on your website and jiveninety five dot com.
54:16
And thanks for letting me play these clips throughout. People have been hearing these
54:21
clips throughout this interview. So much to pick from. I just picked a
54:23
few here and there. There's a lot more on the website JIB ninety five
54:27
dot com. And where can people find you outside of your website, any
54:30
social media sites that you want to plug. I've done a lot of stories
54:35
on NPR, so you can go to NPR dot org and put my name
54:38
in on my website. There's a lot of audio from radio stories. I've
54:42
run journalism stories. I've been a freelance writer and a ghostwriter for years and
54:46
done a lot of other books like that. And I just want to mention
54:51
that Beat Museum book launching. If you're in San Francisco, coming down to
54:55
the Beat Museum August nineteenth, and we're gonna have ice cream, ache Tokay
55:00
wine which the Beats drank, and try to put a joint under every seat
55:06
kind of thing. I was thinking of gummies, but it's the wrong era.
55:09
It's for medical reasons. Yeah, brownies. The servances go way beyond
55:14
it. Always they were doing marijuana adds in nineteen sixty said they were for
55:19
the legalization, and Wavy Gravy would get on and way Frank Zapple would get
55:24
on and say one of the great PSAs, don't do speed. This is
55:28
Frank Zapp for the Mother's invention. Don't do speed because he'll turn you into
55:32
your parents. By the way, he could have been a great disc jockey.
55:37
He did. Some of the clips are on that website of him doing
55:39
reads for the station. He had such a unique voice, a speaking voice
55:44
that he could have. You know. He came out with Tom and we
55:46
really scooled him. Tom. They were playing oldies together because the jet Zappers
55:52
love of those old forty five so he was just telling Tom like, ah,
55:55
Tom, that's not what it was. Well, hello, oh,
55:59
this is Frank Zappa and you're listening to the hippos of all radio stations simply
56:06
because of its location KSA m FM. Is that right? KSA n FM
56:13
in the city that God created, San Francisco, California. How cool you
56:19
are. I'm so glad that we were able to do this, Hank.
56:22
This is we We actually have been chatting leading up to this interview for quite
56:28
a while because this book was announced a while back and I was so excited.
56:31
I actually saw it before you reached out to me. I said,
56:36
Hank, I already know about this book because as a radio guy, and
56:39
we got a picture of you in the book there at you right, that's
56:43
Scoop Nisker. Oh, okay, that's the great Western scoopnistory. He just
56:46
died like three days ago. Oh. He was a boo Jew. He
56:52
started the Boo Jew movement up there. Well, he led weekends in it,
56:55
which was kind of his mantro was home Shalom. So you had the
57:00
Buddhism and the Jewish. The Swami from Miami was one of his creations,
57:07
played by a friend of his, Darryl Henriques, who actually I'm working with
57:12
him on his memoir now. It's a very funny case and character. Scoop
57:17
Scoop Man just three days ago, go out and make some of your own.
57:22
Yeah, he was living in an elder ashram in Oakland. Best have
57:25
senior home. But that's why a book like this is more important than ever
57:30
because a lot of the people involved, we're losing them, and like we
57:35
mentioned, Howard Hessman has since passed. Yeah, it's it's it's an era.
57:40
It's an era that we'll never get back again. You know. It's
57:45
just things have changed too much with technology now where the importance of radio.
57:50
A lot of people that are younger just don't understand radio was part of your
57:53
everyday life. It's part of that, and it's also part of that counterculture
57:57
that I don't think he's taught in high schools, and I think it's important
58:00
because it was about community and change and turning on kids to new ideas and
58:07
of course the great music always. Yeah, thank thanks so much man.
58:10
This was awesome, Eric, It was really fun and I want to talk
58:14
to you more about Triple C and Southern Khan and all that stuff. Won't
58:19
get up the area. That's it. It's in the books.