KAAY Coments

Thanks Paul for the comments:

Hello A.J.,

The song "Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)" was a hit when I was nine years old in the fall of 1974. This was the first time I've actually seen the lyrics. That song was busy, lol, although I believe the guy who did the Federal Express spots could have easily tackled it....

Political season. As a traffic/billing manager, I learned to hate political spots. I know you did some GM and PD work, so I can assume you messed with this stuff directly as well. For the record, I vote Democratic (although I'm very bothered by the lack of spine my party displays lately). In the billing end however, I didn't care about one's political stripes. What I cared about was if the politician paid (our policy was 100% cash up front), and more importantly, did he/she have their tape ready to air. I cannot tell you how many times some politician would spend a boatload of money for an ad campaign that started immediately, only to not have tape. We could not (and would not) return any money to these people (typically they had no billing address anyway). In other words, some of these people didn't spend their money wisely, and several were not yet in office. That year, I developed an additional criteria for someone to elect. That was, if a candidate couldn't spend their money wisely in a simple radio ad campaign, I knew they wouldn't spend money wisely as an elected official, and I did not vote for them. About 50% of the candidates, regardless of party, pulled this kind of nonsense.

Last Friday, Melba Beals spoke at Principia College in Elsah, IL. Beals was part of the "Little Rock Nine," during the desegregation of Central High School 50 years ago. KAAY signed on five years after this. Do you think KAAY played a role in the breaking down of racial barriers in the 1960's and 1970's? It may be a lot to ask of you, but I just wondered how you felt. St. Louis was (and is) a racially divided city.

Did KAAY ever play in basketball tournaments in the northwestern part of the state? I would suspect it was a difficult drive to get there if you did. I have never been to Little Rock. My visits have been in the northeast (Pocahontas), north central (Mountain View), and U.S. 71 north from Texarkana to the Missouri line. Mostly my visits were in Fayetteville/Springdale. My experience with the area, and the media there lead me to think that northwest Arkansas could almost be an enclave unto itself. Until 1999, there wasn't a safe four-lane road to get there from the capital (and 71 doesn't count), and the media itself wasn't connected to the rest of the state (outside of AETN). The cable system there had more television stations from Springfield, Joplin and Tulsa than Ft. Smith, and no Little Rock stations. The newspapers were better, however. But it seemed as if Fayetteville residents didn't pay attention to regions outside of Washington or Benton Counties, and residents in places as close as Harrison didn't follow what happened in Fayetteville. What are your thoughts?

As far as the Razorback games, I remember practically EVERY radio station in NW Arkansas carried the sportscasts, at least in the 1980's. That suprised me--I guess there weren't any market exclusive agreements back then. It also appeared that each station was able to sell the event on their own as well. In my area, Missouri and Illinois games are carried on one or two stations in the market, even back then.

As far as September 11 goes, I haven't forgotten. I don't think anyone alive and awake would ever forget that, regardless of their political stripes. I also despise that damn "Have You Forgotten" record that was released afterword. I was doing data entry work at Harrah's Casino that week. It was my last week of working there. I was stuck in traffic that morning, for no real reason. I called the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT), just to find out why the road was unnecesarily jammed. There wasn't any real reason for it. The woman said "it could be worse, I just heard that two planes flew into the World Trade Center." I thought she was joking. Nope. As I made the rounds, all the monitors switched to CNN, showing what happened. Twenty minutes later, the Pentagon was hit, and I watched that. From that point on, there wasn't a whole lot of work to get done. Three hours later, a large number of people show up. Passengers from flights to Las Vegas diverted to Lambert Airport as all the planes were grounded. These passengers had no place to stay and were looking for hotel rooms.

As the afternoon progressed, there was talk about price gouging and long lines at area gas stations. When I left work, I sat in a long line, but thankfully the price at the station was unchanged.

There were hardly any patrons at the casino that week. That Friday, my town hosted their annual Italian Fest. It was my last day of working at Harrah's, and I decided to take a long and more scenic drive home. There are marinas along the Mississippi river, and there are several scenic routes that take you to them, exiting from Missouri 94 from St. Charles to West Alton, MO. After the drive, I went to the Italian Fest. It was probably the first time anyone went out and did anything besides watch television that week.

If there was anything I remember the most, it was how quiet everything was. It was like that for months. It was as if everything slowed down. For me it was like that until March of 2002. I've never seen anything like it.

What makes me sad about events like September 11 is the realization that our country will spend decades of lives, resources and treasure into a war that will not end. I had hoped that the Cold War's end would have opened up new opportunities to do something different with said lives, resources and treasure. Now I don't think that's likely. I also don't care for the marketing of fear these days, and the concept of "The New Normal." Bullshit. The Germans and Japanese occupied land and were truly a threat to the world, as were the Soviets later. The people responsible for September 11 aren't remotely as smart or brilliant as that, and probably could be disrupted and de-fanged if the will was there, and in a much shorter time than decades.

There are three songs that remind me of that time, and none have anything to do with September 11. One is the annoyng Sugar Ray song "When It's Over." I think it was the official song of the L.A. Lakers, who won the NBA title that year. I hate the phoned-in voice of the lead singer, and everything about it reminds me of how frivolous that summer was, with Gary Condit, the shark attacks, etc. The second song is "H.O.V.A." by Jay-Z. That was one of the first songs I heard as I turned on my radio and drove home from work on the 11'th. I have no idea what the song is about, but I can safely assume it involves some kind of illegal activity. The third song is "Run" from George Strait. It was a hit in the late fall/early winter of that year. I've been a George Strait fan for years, and I think that may be one of the best songs he's ever done. At his best, Strait can brilliantly paint a picture of the characters he's singing about (another example is "I Can Still Make Cheyenne"). I'm partial to musicians who write their own material, but its amazing how people like Strait, Aretha Franklin, and Frank Sinatra can make songs written by others their own.

By the way, I was one of the voters in favor of the unscoped airchecks. It would be great to hear the different eras of this station. The sound quality of the aircheck you posted from 2/2/1972 was excellent. That recording was part of my drive to the Clayton (MO) Art Fair on the 8'th of September.

I also get my music mostly from the internet now. Terrestrial radio holds little or no interest to me. To me, its as relevant as the railroad. As an former employee of the radio business, I cannot tell you how much it pains me to say that. But you know, radio left me, I didn't leave it. These days, I listen to old radio station airchecks, my CD's and .mp3's. I also record streams from the web and commute to work (and listen to them at work). My favorite stations are not from this country. One is BBC Radio 2, a great station matched with personalities and music. Another is a dedicated internet stream of J-Wave (JOAV) in Tokyo, Japan. J-Wave is a mix of American hits, Jazz, and Japanese pop. Another is Radio Union in Lima, Peru. Union plays different styles of Peruvian music, including Chicha and Huayno. Huaynos sound a lot like Bluegrass to me.

According to the Broadcasting Yearbook from 1968 (a local University has several old issues of the yearbook), KAAY was trying to obtain an FM signal. Were you aware of this? If so, do you know what happened to it? I know in 1982, KAAY was simulcasting an FM signal (whoever was on 94.1 MHz at the time) overnight.

This e-mail went on longer than expected. I hope things are going well in your part of the world.

Best Wishes

Paul Harner