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You can probably thank me for that. It was probably my fault.
KROQ AM Burbank, Ca was a brand new Top 40 radio station in 1972.
The station was co-founded by DJ Sam Riddle who was a well known personality in Los Angeles due to his tenure at Boss Radio KHJ (Top 40).
I personally hated the 'Boss' moniker, but no matter.
KROQ launched with Zero promotion. No billboards. No print ads. Nobody knew of their existence on the dial. I found them one night when I was bored, by turning the dial all the way to the right, past the Mariachi stations, but before hitting the deep groove soul and funk station, the one with the slogan, "Hit Breakers" that the arty local taggers used to convert to "Shit Breakers" on the station's billboards.
But KROQ AM had no billboards.
The station planned their success strictly by word-of-mouth with many phone contests, All of this was strictly on-air promotion. But you had to find it on your own.
On a side note, I was Terrified of talking on-air. My impediment was Thick. When I would try to say something like "Forty-Four", it always came out as "Forny-Four". And "Wheaties" came out of my mouth as "Wienies".
So yeah. I wasn't feeling too cool on the air as a contestant, and my nervousness added to the fire
But I found it. I lived 10 miles away from the station. And I hit the jackpot Big Time. In the course of 30 days, I won
~Albums~
Seventh Sojourn-Moody Blues
No Secrets-Carly Simon
Hummingbird-Seals and Crofts
Living in the Past-Jethro Tull
Catch Bull at Four-Cat Stevens
Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player-Elton John
~Singles~
Summer Song-Chad and Jeremy
Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show-Neil Diamond-The Shitty studio version single. But the version that they played on-air was the superior live version from the "Hot August Night" album which was not released as a single. Go figure...
Rocking Down the Highway-Doobie Bros.
Three of those albums were won in three consecutive hours on the same show. The DJ was Dick Lyons. I won everything that he had to give.
This guy:
http://classicdjradioscrapbook.blogspot.com/2008/10/kgbss-dick-lyons.html
In hindsight, doesn't that dude look like Jerry Houser? I think I went to school with him...
At that time, I went by my middle name, "Lynn". And this was because with my speech impediment, others made much fun of people and things at my expense. People like "Arnold Stang" and "Arnold Ziffle" who was the pig on the t.v. show, "Green Acres". So the name "Arnold" was not cool, and I used "Lynn" as the contest winner.
Dick was getting P.Oed. at me, He never let on. He would graciously announce my name as the winner. It was a simple phone-in/first come contest. But he was in fact P.O'ed at me.
When I won the final album prize at the end of his show, he announced, "And Congratulations to our Winner, "Linda McMunn". This was after announcing my true name a couple of times before.
I told my Brother about it. I was upset. The contest rules did not at that time disallow multiple wins. Else I wouldn't have gone there. Brother got on the phone and bitched Dick out for the insult.
And I reasoned that, if they have a problem with multiple winnings, then they should change their rules instead of pissing on their one and only listener.
So I quit playing those phone games. But a month or so later, they had a "Recognize the Voice" contest. I correctly recognized Yoko Ono in a generic sound byte. This time, the prize was an eight-track AM/FM Stereo receiver.
I had no problems with the DJ.
But the receiver did not arrive. Weeks went past. The station was in the dumps, still with no outward promotion. A month or more later, I was on the phone to the station's general office with no receiver in sight. They couldn't tell me anything.
Two months later, I called, or my Brother called, and we were told to pick it up at some distant location away from the station. Good!
Shortly thereafter, contest rules limiting entries were adopted as a standard. Does it matter?
KROQ AM died like a dog and was converted to the sister station of world-famous punk and new wave KROQ FM in the late 70's when the parent FM station was launched.
KROQ AM Burbank, Ca was a brand new Top 40 radio station in 1972.
The station was co-founded by DJ Sam Riddle who was a well known personality in Los Angeles due to his tenure at Boss Radio KHJ (Top 40).
I personally hated the 'Boss' moniker, but no matter.
KROQ launched with Zero promotion. No billboards. No print ads. Nobody knew of their existence on the dial. I found them one night when I was bored, by turning the dial all the way to the right, past the Mariachi stations, but before hitting the deep groove soul and funk station, the one with the slogan, "Hit Breakers" that the arty local taggers used to convert to "Shit Breakers" on the station's billboards.
But KROQ AM had no billboards.
The station planned their success strictly by word-of-mouth with many phone contests, All of this was strictly on-air promotion. But you had to find it on your own.
On a side note, I was Terrified of talking on-air. My impediment was Thick. When I would try to say something like "Forty-Four", it always came out as "Forny-Four". And "Wheaties" came out of my mouth as "Wienies".
So yeah. I wasn't feeling too cool on the air as a contestant, and my nervousness added to the fire
But I found it. I lived 10 miles away from the station. And I hit the jackpot Big Time. In the course of 30 days, I won
~Albums~
Seventh Sojourn-Moody Blues
No Secrets-Carly Simon
Hummingbird-Seals and Crofts
Living in the Past-Jethro Tull
Catch Bull at Four-Cat Stevens
Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player-Elton John
~Singles~
Summer Song-Chad and Jeremy
Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show-Neil Diamond-The Shitty studio version single. But the version that they played on-air was the superior live version from the "Hot August Night" album which was not released as a single. Go figure...
Rocking Down the Highway-Doobie Bros.
Three of those albums were won in three consecutive hours on the same show. The DJ was Dick Lyons. I won everything that he had to give.
This guy:
http://classicdjradioscrapbook.blogspot.com/2008/10/kgbss-dick-lyons.html
In hindsight, doesn't that dude look like Jerry Houser? I think I went to school with him...
At that time, I went by my middle name, "Lynn". And this was because with my speech impediment, others made much fun of people and things at my expense. People like "Arnold Stang" and "Arnold Ziffle" who was the pig on the t.v. show, "Green Acres". So the name "Arnold" was not cool, and I used "Lynn" as the contest winner.
Dick was getting P.Oed. at me, He never let on. He would graciously announce my name as the winner. It was a simple phone-in/first come contest. But he was in fact P.O'ed at me.
When I won the final album prize at the end of his show, he announced, "And Congratulations to our Winner, "Linda McMunn". This was after announcing my true name a couple of times before.
I told my Brother about it. I was upset. The contest rules did not at that time disallow multiple wins. Else I wouldn't have gone there. Brother got on the phone and bitched Dick out for the insult.
And I reasoned that, if they have a problem with multiple winnings, then they should change their rules instead of pissing on their one and only listener.
So I quit playing those phone games. But a month or so later, they had a "Recognize the Voice" contest. I correctly recognized Yoko Ono in a generic sound byte. This time, the prize was an eight-track AM/FM Stereo receiver.
I had no problems with the DJ.
But the receiver did not arrive. Weeks went past. The station was in the dumps, still with no outward promotion. A month or more later, I was on the phone to the station's general office with no receiver in sight. They couldn't tell me anything.
Two months later, I called, or my Brother called, and we were told to pick it up at some distant location away from the station. Good!
Shortly thereafter, contest rules limiting entries were adopted as a standard. Does it matter?
KROQ AM died like a dog and was converted to the sister station of world-famous punk and new wave KROQ FM in the late 70's when the parent FM station was launched.
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