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Tulsa TV Memories Guestbook 178 TTM main | What's new on TTM? | GB Archive
 Dan Rather in his final moments as CBS anchor, 3/9/2005
When ABC's Frank Reynolds died - ABC over did his funeral coverage - it looked like he was a head of state.
Here's a link to Chuck Pharis'
collection of vintage TV and Radio gear. To my knowledge - not related
to the Phariss family who lived up by Tulsa International Airport and worked
in both "the oil patch" and corporate TV...
We lived across the street and up a couple from Joe Krieger and family, Joey, Stevie, Janice, Julie, Jody, Jackie... If I am wrong on a name, it's only one.
Children, wild in the streets after dark in the 1960s. Bagworm fights, bats
in the bedroom, and on and on... I know Janice remembers, she was my bud,
so was Jimmy M. Polio didn't stop him. Memories I will have forever...
I didn't conjure up the Gillette handle for KOTV's cutting edge late night
programming. If my memory serves me on this, it was His Eminence and Great
Nurturer of All Things Spiritual, Mazeppa Pompazoidi.
To Bro Chew - didn't you coin the name "Delmo Gillette" for a radio character or KOTV translator engineer? Don't get me started on why new station owners change long-lived + familiar call letters like KGGF, KVOO or WMAQ - when "there ain't no need..."
Oh man - RFD-TV - found this link for
POLKA music from the sponsor
of their "BIG JOE POLKA SHOW"...too bad I am too poor for a dish, Bro
Hillis!
I bowled some of my best games at Rose Bowl. Once, while bowling there, I
was on my way to a 300 game - but I got sort of excited and blew the second
frame.
I worked with him at KELi; his name there was Bill Kelly. He lives now in Olathe, KS. He does a syndicated big band program, "The Bill Miller Show", that's heard in a number of markets. (114 radio stations in 30 states and Canada including 20 Kansas AM and FM stations...webmaster) I think a station in northwest Arkansas carries it. It's also carried on an AM in Wichita. He used to do Jasper on KELi...or rather K-E-L and little i.
Here is a Bill Miller bio. You can hear some of his 2004 shows on MP3 at TheBillMillerShow.com.
Not only did I work there for 6 years (1983 thru 1989), but I bowled there as well, posting several 200 games, some 600 series and one 700 series game(posted a 711 series in the summer of 1986). Also saw events take place there such as Bowling With The Pros, which Jerry Park from KOCO-TV 5 hosted, the forementioned movie UHF, Katey Sagal and Ed O'Neill from Married With Children.
It's like a recurring bad dream to wake up again and read that another part of Tulsa's identity is to be discarded. It makes me feel like Iron Eyes Cody watching that trash bag sail out the window and land at his feet in the old Public Service Announcement.
I listened fairly frequently in my Tulsa days. KGGF was an ABC-E (Entertainment Network) affiliate, as I recall, so they had network news at the bottom of the hour, while KVOO ran NBC at the top. The morning DJ, whose name I can't dredge up (His station breaks were "K-G-G-and-F, Coffeyville"), while no Erling, was pretty good for a little town where the gelts and barrows prices from the Kansas City Stockyards are the most important news of the day. Since I moved out here on the dirt road and had to get the Dish, my new favorite network is RFD-TV, channel 9409 (so high it's almost low), which runs live cattle auctions along with about every state's Cooperative Extension Service television show, live coverage of the FFA meetings with Orion Samuelson (a name out of the past that may mean something to a Chicago boy like Bruchas), and old ShowBiz country music shows like Porter Wagoner and the Wilburn Bros. And a 90-minute Saturday night polka show out of Omaha. (When was the last time you saw a band in leiderhosen with an accordionist singing lead on cable? Other than the History Channel's endless Hitler bios, I mean.)
Say what you like, I find it refreshingly un-focus-grouped, and it'll probably
be bankrupt by Tuesday morning. But if KGGF ever had got a TV license, it
would probably have looked like that.
I mentioned these "tales for the timid" Urbane Legends a couple of years ago, but here they are again, apropos of nothing.
Bad news in the paper today: the Rose Bowl will close in one week.
I never had any contact with Denny, but my association as one of the writers for the (late) COOL & STRANGE MUSIC! MAGAZINE had me singing the praises of his reissued CDs in the review section, which had international distribution. My friend and former publisher, the magazine's founder, Dana Countryman, DID do a Denny interview and always threatened to publish the unexperged version when Denny died (just between you and me, it sounded like Denny was less than pleasant to deal with). I emailed Dana about Denny's death on Friday and the interview is already up on the website: http://www.danacountryman.com/Denny/Denny1.html It is the only interview when Denny admitted that he wasn't involved in every record that bore his name (so, like, did the 101 STRINGS sometimes only use 99?) I first heard Denny's music when a friend of mine read Re/Search's INDUSTRIAL CULTURE HANDBOOK (mentioned in the interview) and found a copy of the classic "Quiet Village" album. Denny made the handbook (which discussed such issues as electronic noise, Alister Crowley's magick writings, body modification, and anti-capitalism) because his birdcalls were an influence on the primordial (or maybe I should say the prototypical) industrial band, Throbbing Gristle. The band's "Greatest Hits" even featured their female member, Cosey, dolled up on the cover to pay homage to Denny's album covers. Once you hear the music, the influence on early Pink Floyd (the MORE soundtrack and UMMAGUMMA)and new wave composers, like Devo leader Mark Motherbaugh's opening music to "Pee-Wee's Playhouse," is obvious.
One of the bands to spin off of Throbbing Gristle, Chris & Cosey (featuring
Cosey and Chris Carter, (who had designed Pink Floyd's ANIMALS cover in an
earlier life) even sampled Denny in a long out of print masterpiece of industrial
music, CORE, and also paid homage in their own S&M-influenced dance album,
EXOTICA.
"You are a fluke of the universe, you have no right to be here, and whether
you know it or not the universe is laughing behind your back." - The National
Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
KKOW 860 in Pittsburg, Ks. tried that conservative talk thing for a couple of years. That seems to be a formula that works better in a big city atmosphere than it does on a heritage rural AM.
KKOW just went back to their roots by switching back to their classic
country/full-service heritage format.
Not to encourage a conflagration on this topic, but here is some interesting demographic data from Talkers Magazine.
Before that, I believe it was Christian (although these were the days of local marketing agreements, or LMA's, so it may have been multi format at that time).
Soapbox time...with all due respect to outgoing FCC commissioner Michael
Powell (Colin's son), one of the worst things to happen to radio was
deregulation. I'm not sure what the intention was other than to make the
airwaves more sanitary. The big corporations bought out the smaller companies.
The vast majority of Tulsa stations are owned by Clear Channel (KIZS 92.1,
KMOD 97.5, KTBT 101.5, KQLL 106.1, KAKC 1300, KTBZ 1430) or Cox (KWEN 95.5,
KRAV 96.5, KRTQ 102.3, KJSR 103.3, KRMG 740). All local flavor in radio has
been lost. Hopefully a change in leadership will help.
Found this good
article about our three very different, but excellent college radio stations,
KRSC, KWGS and KWTU in Urban Tulsa's archive from earlier this year. More
about them here on Tulsa Radio: Yesterday and
today.
Television's "ageitis" caught up with Harry at WFLD last summer, but he
apparently has no plans to go anywhere else. I can't imagine forecasting
Chicago's weather is that interesting--I've experienced a few Chicago winters
myself.
I really appreciate this nostalgic site. Thanks!!
They were on the air for about a year and a half. Then CC changed 101.5 to
Urban. We started the Kross 100.3 about a year after Live folded. But "Live"
and the "Kross" sound NOTHING alike and never did. The Kross is hard rock.
The Kross has been on for about 2 years now.
Mr. Stephens has REALLY spread out! I had no idea he owned those other stations!
Thanks for the info!
In response to Mike's other questions: KXOJ AM ran anything from sattelite Christian talk to southern gospel to brokered soul as KBLK back in the day. They finally settled on Southern Gospel for about 10 years. Then a year or two ago, we flipped 1550 AM to sports talk running WWLS relayed out of OKC. We do a local 3 hour daily segment from 9am to Noon with Big Al Jerkens from channel 2 and Jimbo Elrod (former Chief's pro and OU football star). 100.9 FM is our flagship stick in Tulsa and we're Contemporary Christian. We've got a 5K signal up in B-ville at 101.1, a 5K in Pryor at 94.5, and a translator in Chelsea at 100.7 FM. Those signals give our CCM format a pretty good coverage.
We also own 97.1 KMMY in Muskogee (Country), KBIX 1490 Muskogee (repeating
WWLS sports), and KCXR 100.3 FM Taft (Christian Rock...kind of like 104.5
KMYZ on communion wafers)
(AM)
(FM)
You will find information about several of those frequencies here.
I THINK KXOJ is still owned by the Stephens family (Gary, please correct me if I'm wrong). I know when I was growing up, we used to get mail in our P.O. Box for "Maude Stephens" who had the same Rural Route Box number we had. I'm assuming she was related to the Mr. Stephens who owned the station, since the Rural Route she was on was Frankoma Road.
KXOJ is spreading out, that's for sure! They have like 4 or 5 other stations
around the area that I assume simulcast the programming from their homebase
at CitiPlex. Gary's right. From its humble beginnings, KXOJ has really moved
up in the world!
So who owns KXOJ now and what other stations are sister operations? The webpage doesn't really say. I am glad to see the John 3:16 Mission is still there in Tulsa. They are one of the KXOJ web page sponsors. The old white building which they occupied by the Brady Theatre - wasn't that the World or Tribune's original home?
Speaking of the TSU railroad - when will it ever be a commuter line to downtown?
I see Albuquerque is gearing up for Belen-Albuquerque-Santa Fe commuter rail
service. One of the stars from that Michael J Fox old TV show (not Spin City)
had run a freight and scenic railroad in Santa Fe. I forget - the guy who
played the long-suffering Dad is whom I mean...
There were times (all hours of the day and night) that people would just show up and walk into the studios. There's nothing more frightening than finishing an on air "prayer break" at 3am, looking up through the glass and seeing what looks like a 300 pound deranged trucker staring at you from the production booth. Turns out that he was just the new fill-in trainee for weekends. But man, what a heart-stopper for a wirey 18 year old baby jock. There was another time I heard of in the 1980s that one of their part-timers was covering a shift on the FM. In between segues, he apparently sauntered over to the AM studio (which ran satellite programming) and picked up the mic to amuse himself. He began "speaking in tongues" on the air and invited listeners to call with the interpretation. He offered a CD of "Carman's" latest efforts to the caller with the correct interpretation. As luck would have it, the owner was listening and called in with his own interpretation. He said: "I'll tell ya what it means! It means 'You're Fired!!!'" You know...I think that was the correct interpretation! I moved on from there in '95 and worked for a number of other stations in town including KRAV 96.5, KWEN 95.5, KQSY 101.5 (now KTBT), KCFO 970, KAKC 1300, KQLL 1430 and a few others in Ohio, Missouri and Kansas. Now it's great to be back where I had my first full-time gig. My family and I have come full circle back home to one of the best employers I've ever had. KXOJ has improved quite a bit over the last decade. Instead of a cow patty in Sapulpa, we have some of the best facilities in town on the 55th floor of Citiplex towers, a skilled staff, great ratings, 5 area stations under our ownership, and loads of terrific listeners who are loyal to the bone. Great place to be. And I wouldn't have traded those humble beginnings for anything. It was a blast just for the pure love of radio.
Although...I do miss the late-night pizza and burger deliveries. No one can
get past our security desk at Citiplex to get our evening jock her dinner
these days.
Not to date myself, but I can still remember when KXOJ played songs by Henry
Mancini and The Lettermen...lol
1380 has a pretty decent daytime signal. And the programming is pretty good.
Can't say that I've heard a lot of "It's A Small World After All..." I think
they play mainly bubble gum pop. Kelly Clarkson, Dianna Degarmo, Jump 5,
Ashlee Simpson...etc.
In unrelated news...what's the deal with this "All Disney, All the Time" AM station? AM 1380? All of a sudden I've been seeing billboards around Tulsa about it. I still shudder when I hear "It's a Small World After All". My wife flipped over to 1380 the other day and that song was playing. If any of y'all heard a loud, sucking sound Friday afternoon during "drive time", that was twenty years of therapy getting "power flushed" right down the tubes and every pore in my body slamming shut!
Is that a Clear Channel station or is it one of the few they DON'T own?
We also saw a new picture of Big Bill and Oom-A-Gog. Interns in Tulsa TV/radio over the years were discussed. We heard from Kristi (Conrad) Stewart, once an assistant to KTEW's "Troubleshooter", later Associate News Producer. We learned of the passing of Bob Tayar, former co-owner of the Tulsa and OKC Molly Murphy's. As a young teen, Robert W. Walker (later a KAKC Top 30 jock) met Kelly of "Kelly and Chauncey". A locally-produced TV show, "Biopsy Playhouse", could now be called "Autopsy Playhouse"--it was cancelled from the local WB, though it can still be seen on the internet.
There is much more worth reading in Guestbook
177.
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KGGF hadn't changed much since
my mother worked there around 1939 through the last time I listened a few
years ago.