Keener Podcast - 11/27/04

On this week's Keener Podcast, remembering Terry Melcher, Atlantis discovered, Bob Berry interviews the Rationals' Scott Morgan, Bill Garcia from the air check archive, and Erik Smith reads the news at the start of his Detroit broadcasting career.

Little Steven's Essay

IMing with a friend this morning, we got to talking about podcasting, broadcasting, satellite radio and on line music services. She said that radio will always be the nexus of her musical adventures because she needs a guide to sift through the chaff. That subject is worth a post on it's own, but we got around to who her guide was.. and it was Little Steven. Little Steven's Underground Garage is carried on a bunch of stations (WCSX is it's Detroit home), and XM has dedicated a channel to his direction. He does an excellent job of connecting then to now, his playlists are an eclectic mix of everything from seminal 60s to today's worthy foot soldiers and his garage essays show a scholar's appreciation of the genre. I always find something new (old) to add to my personal library when I listen to his program. It's another reminder of how the magic that was happening at WKNR in the 60s still influences the state of the art.

Happy Birthday Bob Green

Join us in wishing a happy birthday to Keener’s Bob Green. Bob’s artistry and personality were two of the key ingredients of WKNR’s success at the beginning and at the end of its nine year run. His story actually starts with WKMH, where he was among the voices calling for a move to the Storz/McLendon excitement that was happening in Dallas and Miami. In fact, Bob was drawn to Florida to work for Storz right before Mrs. Knorr took the Keener plunge. But he was quickly back in the saddle and contributed his production wizardry to WKNR’s glory years. As CKLW exerted its iron grip on Detroit’s radio consciousness, Bob was called back to town to help launch the Motor City Music brand on Keener and he continued to contribute his exceptional production talents to the business for the next 30 years. If it were not for Bob’s meticulous attention to detail (he would say he’s a pack rat) much of the Keener legacy would have vanished in to the cobwebbed recesses of our memories. Instead, Bob provided a firm foundation for keener13.com and continues to share his electronic treasures, his memories and his wisdom with us from the friendly confines of Bob Green Productions in Houston, Texas. From all of us who’s lives were molded by the WKNR magic, thank you, Bob! And many happy returns of the day!

From Keenerland - 11/27/04

Rolling Stone has released their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Many will be the subject of debate, but it's interesting to note that the majority of great rock records still come from the Keener years.

Tom Sanders alerted us to the news that Canadian radio legend Tom Rivers, who worked briefly at Keener in 1969 as Tom Neal, passed away after a battle with cancer.

iPodder 1.14 for Windows is out with a few bug fixes. The Keener Podcast just crossed the 1,500 download mark. Not bad for our little niche. Thanks to everyone who listens.

Clear Channel's Mark Mays responded to David Letterman's comments that the company had "..essentially wiped out individuality of the radio station and played havoc with the record industry.." Mays said that the Rolling Stone article on which Dave based his comments was laden with factual errors.

Cheers to the Michigan High School Athletic Association and the Michigan Association of Broadcasters Foundation for launching a radio network to broadcast Girls and Boys Basketball Finals and other sports in 2004-05. The newtwork will also foster educational programming with a chance for aspiring high school sports broadcasters to get airtime.

Keener Podcast - 11/20/04

On this week's Keener podcast, a study of how radio reported the Kennedy Assassination. We begin with a rare logger tape from KLIF in Dallas. Keener fan and Kennedy scholar Jim Feliciano connected us with this one-of-a-kind historical record which can be heard in it's entirety on the ReelRadio.com website. Rex Jones, Gary DeLaune, Joe Long and Gordon McLendon (yep, that Gordon McLendon - one of the fathers of Top 40 radio) described the rapidly unfolding events. Then we fast-forward one year later to the WKNR documentary about that day, produced by Bob Green and Philip Nye for WKNR News. It is said that television news came of age on that day, 41 years ago. But for many, radio was still a trusted source of timely, if not always accurate information.

Radio Oasis in the Dessert

Ted Tucker is a radio guy with a passion for "fixer uppers". Since breaking into the business in at KWFM in the 70s, Tucker has built or acquired, improved and sold a portfolio of stations in mostly smaller markets. But perhaps the most interesting of his projects is KCDX. It runs commercial free with an eclectic mix of music that will appeal to the Keener generation and those with a disdain for the homogenization often associated with corporate radio. You can listen to KCDX on the web and read his story on Jim Heddle's blog.

Terry Knight's Last Days

Recently we pointed you to a link about former Pack leader and Grand Funk manager Terry Knight's death. Now some details in this two parter from the Flint Journal. (Part 1 and Part 2). One of the stranger twists in Knight's long story is his association with the Beatles. Listen to the 11/13 Keener Podcast for details.

Capitol releases their Beatle Box

On November 16, Capitol records will throw their hat into the Beatle Box ring with the release of the first four Capitol Beatles albums on CD. The Capitol Albums Vol 1 contains Meet The Beatles!, The Beatles' Second Album, Something New and Beatles '65. As Beatle purists know, Capitol reconfigured the British versions of the first Beatle albums, offering fewer tracks and preserving content to build additional LP releases. Most of us on this side of the pond didn't realize what was going on until the Parlophone EMI sets started to come out on CD several years back. Whether or not there was a method to Capitol's madness is discussed by Bruce Spizer in his piece for the whatgoeson.com website titled New Beatles Capitol box set misunderstood by critics. It's a good article although the author's Capitol bias is pretty clear. He thinks the record company was thinking about customer satisfaction, rather than raw profits. The New York Times points out some really cool features of the set, like both mono and stereo mixes from the Capitol masters, which were punched a bit for American airplay. And I had forgotten that there is an extra verse on the American version of "I'll Cry Instead." Another intersting link regards an interview with David E. Dexter, the guy who "produced" the culled Capitol LPs, talking about how the Beatles came to Capitol.

Lessons from history

In the days when radio journalism was in it's infancy, the wire services refused to allow broadcasters to use their content. Radio was unwanted competition for newspapers and radio journalists were considered second class pseudo-professionals. That all changed as CBS, Mutual and NBC built their news departments, and in time, broadcasting became the primary source for news for the majority of Americans. Are there parallels in the blogosphere? Trained journalists belittle them. Their predictions don't always come true. But like them or not, Bloggers are impacting the way we disseminate and evaluate the news. Online Journalism Review's Staci Kramer is freshly returned from bloggercon and she ponders "the nature of journalists and bloggers -- and the myth that they are mutually exclusive." Scott Rosenberg, a journalist at Salon.com who is also a blogger put together some notes for the bloggercon journalism session. He quotes The Electronic frontier Foundation's Cory Doctorow, who told a Microsoft gathering, "New media don't succeed because they're like the old media, only better: they succeed because they're worse than the old media at the stuff the old media is good at, and better at the stuff the old media are bad at." Think back to the battle between radio news and the print giants. Is history repeating itself? While some professionals heap vitriol on bloggers, others celebrate them. Perhaps Doc Searls puts it best: "What we need isn't competition between blogs and mainstream news outlets, but a working symbiosis between the two.."

John Sinclair: Live From Amsterdam

In the wake of the murder of controversial filmaker Theo Van Gogh by muslim extreamists, many Dutch are leaving Holland. It's more than a little Ironic that 60s marajuana icon John Sinclair has left the United States to take up residence in Amsterdam. He has taken a microphone with him. Sinclair will broadcast The John Sinclair Show live, via the web, from various cannabis coffee houses on Monday nights, beginning November 22. His press release says that the program will "feature Sinclair’s signature mixture of music, poetry, interviews, cultural news, political commentary and “live” on-air performances by local and visiting artists." The shows will be archived for future download. Sounds like a podcast to me. Here's a preview of the program.

Keener Podcast - 11/13/04

In this weeks edition of the Keener13.com Podcast, iPodder version 1.1 is released, the lost Beatles video, Gary Stevens on the air and Keener on XM Radio. Plus, our interview with Andru Reeve, author of Turn Me On Dead Man - The Beatles and the Paul-Is-Dead Hoax. He talks about the tale's Michigan roots, including the late Terry Knight's strange connection. We hear music from this week's mystery band, a Detroit garage group that was sometimes compared to the Kingsmen. And a WKNR one hit wonder from the Detroit band Silverhawk. Plug our RSS File into your iPodder and never miss a show. It's the fastest 15MB on the web.

By the way, in case you missed it, last week's mystery band was: The Shy Guys. If you missed our feature, this is a link to last week's podcast. And here's the full picture of the band courtesy of Richard Reincke:

Updated Weblog Look

After six months of blogging, we've redesigned the look of the Keener Weblog. There is a wide array of template art at blogger.com and with a tweak here and there, we found one that comes pretty close to the Keener feel. The archives are enabled, too.

From Keenerland - November 7

Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, who underwent bypass surgery on September 10, will rejoin the Mike Love Beach Boy tour in time for a series of November U.K. dates.

You remember her as Catwoman from the Batman television series which ran on WXYZ Channel 7, but Julie Newmar's newest role is "defendant" in a lawsuit filed by her neighbor, Jim Belushi. According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit says Newmar ripped up a fence and some landscaping at Belushi's posh Brentwood home and makes defamatory statements about Belushi to neighbors and friends.

This week in 1964, Johnny Rivers was atop the WKNR Music Guide with "Mountain of Love". The rest of the chart shows Keener's wide ranging playlist, which included music from The Supremes, Elvis, Manfred Mann, The Beach Boys and Matt Monro.

If you're in the business of selling radio think about this: A 30 second morning drive commercial on Keener cost $50.00 in 1964.

Andru Reeve's Turn Me On, Dead Man: A Tour De Force

On October 12, 1969, WKNR-FM's Russ Gibb opened the phone lines for his usual Sunday afternoon "rap" with listeners. When Eastern Michigan University Student Tom Zarski called with questions about the supposed death Paul McCartney, so began a tale that would immortalize both Uncle Russ and WKNR-FM in the annals of Beatle history.

Several authors have attempted to cover the mountain of material connected with the story, but Andu Reeve's newly updated and expanded book "Turn Me On Dead Man The Beatles and the Paul-Is-Dead hoax" rises above the others. It's 331 pages are packed with the kind of research you would expect from Ann Sperber, Stephen Ambrose or Aljean Harmetz.

The genesis of this most famous Beatle urban legend began well before the October night when WKNR-FM launched it into the nation's consciousness and Andru weaves the web so effectively that you won't be able to put the book down. In addition to dissecting every lead, the author spent thousands of dollars to secure rare photographs and memorabilia connected with the event, all of which are on display in the pages of his book. He lists 140 clues discovered over 35 years, including every Beatle lyric that conspiracy fans say prove that the Paul McCartney we know today is an imposter.

The Michigan connection is fully covered, including Larry Monroe's on-air revelations in Ann Arbor that preceded the WKNR-FM broadcast, MSU professor Oscar Tosi, who analyzed before-and-after audio tapes of the singer's voice, and the late Terry Knight's cryptic Capitol Records single, Saint Paul. There are extensive interviews with Gibb, Fred Labour, who's album parody in the Michigan Daily was taken for fact, and with Tom Zarski, the EMU student who called Uncle Russ that October Sunday, only to vanish into obscurity until Andru discovered him alive and well and living in the Southeast.

Turn Me On Dead Man The Beatles and the Paul-Is-Dead hoax is an important addition to the Beatle cannon. At just $16.00 from www.authorhouse.com, it's a must-have addition to every Keenerfan's library. We hope it gets the international exposure it deserves.

The Keener Podcast - 11/7/04

In this weeks edition of the Keener13.com Podcast, Dick Purtan is inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame and we share a tape of his first night on the air in Detroit. We remember Terry Knight with two "Pack" hits. The Mystery Garage Band's identity is revealed as we play a Keener custom version of their hit. And you can hear one of the rarest of the rare WKNR airchecks wherein F. Lee Bailey tries to get to the bottom of the Paul McCartney Death Rumors. We read your email and throw in a classic Keener commercial, too. Download the Keener13.com Podcast to your computer, iPod or PDA and take the WKNR memories with you.

Notes from KeenerLand - November 4

Notes from KeenerLand:

Walter Cronkite turns 88. For children of the 60s, he's still the "most trusted man in America." You can hear his audio essays from time to time on NPR.

Many of us are breaking out our 45s of "Mister You're a Better Man Than I" today as we read of Terry Knight's murder. The colorful former Flint DJ scored with "The Pack" before a second career as Grand Funk's Manager.

Terry Young did a good job recreating the essence of the WKNR sound last Friday on XM's 60s on 6. XM Satellite Radio features classic station profiles on occasional Fridays, but does a poor job of promoting it on their site.

Who did the best analysis of the 2004 election? Rather blathered, Blitzer only takes a breath in the middle of a sentence, Brokaw and Jennings hung in there admirably all night. But I still like Jon Stewart's equal opportunity skewering. His interpretations of the Kerry concession and the Bush outreach were classic.

Update your Podcast links this weekend with the latest Keener13.com podcast. Features include DP's first WKNR aircheck, Russ Gibb on the Paul is Dead story, favorite Keener commercials and more. The show will be posted sometime Saturday.

Dick Purtan's Hall of Fame Induction

Former WKNR morning ace Dick Purtan will be inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame this weekend in Chicago.

Dick became WKNR's biggest star and remained a Detroit radio legend for the next three decades.

He found his first job at WOLF in Syracuse, New York, the same station where Dick Clark began his career. Purtan was the "Buckaroo Sandman", playing country music by request Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights from 8:30 - 10:00 PM.

By 1965, he had been at Cincinnati's WSAI for three years. The station was in a free fall when Purtan learned that Gary Stevens was leaving the afternoon shift at Keener. Purtan interviewed with program director Frank Maruca and was offered the slot. But after hearing from the other Keener jocks about how great Gary was, Dick had a fit of insecurity and demurred. Maruca then offered the 7-10PM shift to Purtan, but within a few days changed his mind, hiring Scott Regen who was burning up the Kansas City Market at WHB. Purtan ended up on the 10PM-1AM shift, replacing Bill Philips.

Three months after joining WKNR, Purtan moved to the morning shift. The rest is history. With creative collaborator Tom Ryan, Purtan rose to the top of the Top-40 morning drive ratings. With the exception of a brief stint at Baltimore's WBAL, he's been on the air in Detroit ever since, most recently with WOMC.

His induction this weekend is well deserved and long overdue.