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Whatever could go
wrong...did! Premise: To
re-enact the famous "WKRP" Turkey Drop, dropping turkeys out
of a helicopter to waiting listeners below... but these
would be paper turkeys. Each would have an envelope
containing a prize. The prizes
could be anything from $1000, $500, concert tickets, etc.
Show up, get a turkey fluttering down and claim your
prize. Results:
Make listeners happy, get press, get ratings. Simple
right? Location:
Dirt lot next to a car dealership. At the
expense of $4000, KOME flew the guy who played Les Nessman
[Richard Sanders] on "WKRP" into San Jose. We put
him up at a hotel and the next morning he would be our guest
on the air. He had a
terrible cold and sounded NOTHING like he did on the TV
show. Many callers were asking if we were pulling a prank
since it didn't sound like him. But by
11am, more than a thousand people had already arrived to
sign up for the chance to win. Over the next hour the crowd
grew and grew. Blazy &
Bob host the arrivals and are told to make constant P.A.
announcements on the provided flatbed truck that "you must
stay behind the line" and most importantly, "the helicopter
CAN NOT hover over if anyone runs onto the field! It is an
FAA regulation. If you run out before it is gone, it can no
longer drop the turkeys." That "line"
by the way was a mere piece of string, wrapped around thin
wooden sticks, that ran the length of the dirt field that
was adjoined to the soon to become unlucky car
dealership. Announcements
are made again... More than
1500 hundred people had KOME to win. Announcements
are made again...we are also told to mention "walk, don't
run to the prize envelopes" High Noon
arrives. For November, the day is sunny and warm. Winds are
low. All feel very confident. Stephen Page is now live on
the air and throws it to B &B, along with a guy who
sounds nothing like Les Nessman. The
helicopter is on its way. The anticipatory crowd cheers.
Great radio. (The paper
turkeys are in large garbage bags for someone to dump from
the helicopter. We were told that it would take a while and
to remind people "not to run out...") The
helicopter is now directly overhead. You can hear it on the
radio. Upon the
fluttering of the first paper turkey, the crowd rushes. The
tight security string was no match for at least 750 who said
"Screw the rules, I want me that money!" People are
running, bumping, pushing, shoving, tripping, and trampling
to get an envelope. Bob yells in his mic, "No! Get Back!" We
are live on the air, not just on the P.A. The
helicopter speeds away and out of site. Blazy is speechless.
Back at KOME, Stephen Page can only imagine the
chaos. The dirt
field is now a dust storm of people running off to claim
their prize, people getting back to their feet, dogs barking
(there are guys who always have to bring their dogs), and a
few parents picking up their small children. What about
the people who did not rush the field? Some of them are now
congregated around the flatbed yelling things like "They
weren't supposed to go!" and "Fuck KOME! This is
bullshit." Trying to
eliminate the obscenities from getting on the air, I was
trying to talk as quickly as possible so listeners can not
hear the melee. We try to
calm the crowd by saying that there are many more prizes
when the helicopter returns, please be patient. And return
it did... This time,
the crowd did stay back before running, but for some reason
this time, the turkeys began to flutter over the fence of
the new car dealership. The fence
was no deterrent for most who quickly scaled the fence and
had their work boots land squarely on the hoods of the brand
new 1991 Toyota trucks! Many were
still complaining that it was "unfair", and one said "my
four year old almost got trampled." "Les
Nessman" had great lines that afternoon. During the first
debacle he exclaimed a call-back to Hindenberg history, "Oh
the humanity!" He also had
the closing comment that I will never forget. He said,
"Never did I think I would see something more horrific than
the actual episode itself." Back at the
station, GM Jim Hardy is fielding phone calls from irate
listeners and a pissed off sponsor. PD Ron Nenni asked if we
wanted to do it again next year... I saved the
cassette for years. Played it for many in the radio
business. Good times... mark
williams said the first words on the new kome "ok, kids..
here's a brand new radio station for you." then started
"beginnings" by chicago. a tape was run, but i have not
heard of it since. i did the first live real show a week
later. ron cuttler wanted nothing but music and ids for a
week. i was at the bazaar bazaar... i won the dj contest...
(thanks to paramount imports). that really got some people
pissed off. oh well... what about
the "funky fox" theater? there was a think purple haze in
that place all the time! great films and even concerts. the
alameda place was haunted. i know. paula source (sang in
truckin')(and was my "old lady") wrote a song called "radio
man" based on stories that j william weed and i told her.
she and gary T loved to do old dances together! we had some
great dinners at the Branham House, where j william, myself,
paula, tom ballentine (sometimes) marilyn cerrello who
worked at campi music, j.k. the dj and others
lived. Bob
McClaine (salesman), what a
funny
guy. He was the perfect Fred Willard* type on WKRP. He had
a pompadour
and a pinky ring and wore shiny silk suits. He and I got
on great.
A bunch of radio cliche's were operative at KOME. Phil
Charles
made a
good Johnny Fever. Sadly, at the time we had no DJ's of a
darker
hue. We
didn't even have any Asians. The FCC would have frowned on
our mix.
KSJO had Dana Jang....though we were never sure if he was
REALLY
Asian.
We thought he was faking it. It was really weird being
married
to
Bonnie who was becoming 'important' at KSAN and the long
commute from
Mill
Valley. Another
memory I have is stopping cold outside a nightspot at the
old Pruneyard
Shopping Center... and
yelling
at Wolf .... "God! This is my LIFE! Wolf fell down in the
parking
lot
laughing at me. I
went on
in and MC'd some really shitty show with somebody playing
and we
gave
away some pencils or something. God!! My life,
indeed. * Herb
Tarlek, perhaps? I do
remember one good story: Santana (of course, Carlos) was at
the station for an interview. I'm guesstimating around
1975-76. On one of
the end tables in the KOME lobby, we had a set of figurines
that were a whole orchestra of black cats (kitty cats). They
were all playing different instruments (i.e. guitar, drums,
bass, sax, fiddle, etc.). They were each about 6 inches
tall. They happened to catch Santana's eye and he got so
excited saying how much his wife would love them. Well,
don't get me busted, but when no one could catch me, I
packed them up and sent them to Carlos Santana, C/O of Bill
Graham's office. Within a couple of weeks, I received a
personal, hand written letter from Carlos himself thanking
me on behalf of his wife. It was so very cool. One problem,
I left it at Ed Romig's house, so if you happen to talk to
him, please give him my e-mail or physical address. I would
so love to have that letter. And... There was
an interview with Journey. We all gathered together in the
lobby to pose for a pic with them and Steve Perry grabbed my
ass. Rock Stars! Not very newsworthy! I am
currently living in the Twin Cities (Minnesota) enjoying a
successful career in Real Estate and a 15 year marriage that
has been blessed with 2 beautiful daughters ages 13 &
11. Please say
hello to my old friends!
It was
(1990-something, I was working at KFRC at the time) and I
was en route to Los Angeles to see family and friends.
Somehow, I thought it would be fun to take 101 instead of
I-5...nobody told me it would turn a long drive into a "l o
n g - a n d - t e d i o u s" drive. Anyhow, KOME was the
last station I listened to as I left the Bay area. Some 13
hours later, feeling a major burn, I saw the sign: "L.A.
City Limits." There, pasted to that sign, was the little
black & yellow. I laughed and felt just a little closer
to home. Bob Simmons Story
#1 There was
this time that Tim Buckley visited the station when it was
on the Alameda. I was doing mornings at the time and Bob,
who was on from 10a - noon was set to interview Tim who's
new album, "Greetings From L.A." had just been released. For
those that were there you'll remember that at KOME's Alameda
location the studio was in what was probably the master
bedroom of this (at one time) grand old house and right next
to the control board was this big old transmitter monitor
that looked kind of like the obelisk from the movie 2001. It
was green and VERY, VERY dusty. I'm talking dust balls in
this thing the size of a baby's fist. Any way Bob was right
in the middle of his interview with Tim Buckley when the
chief engineer at the time, John Higdon, walks into the
studio and decides to clean (or do something to) the
monitor. This process involved him blowing quite forcefully
into the back of the obelisk which in turn had the effect of
causing all those dust bunnies and a huge amount of dust
that had been living there to be blown out of the other
side...and right on top of Tim Buckley. Now I don't remember
the exact exchange that took place but I do remember that
time seemed to stand still as the dust was coating Mr.
Buckley who stopped in mid-sentence answering a question
that Bob had just asked to look around wondering why it had
just started to snow...indoors. Bob, who had this look of
extreme horror on his face as everything was settling on his
guest...live, on the air...was first to react, yelling out
John's name in kind of a sickened and pained way. By this
time Tim had realized what had happened and was in the
process of getting out of his seat mumbling something about
his foot and John's ass making some sort of cosmic
connection. Higdon, oblivious to what was taking place on
the other side of the monitor, finished his dusting, turned
around and walked out as if nothing had happened. This had
the effect of causing both Bob and Tim to stop in
mid-action, look at each other, sit down and finish the
interview. Tim was dusty and Bob was probably wishing he was
working in San Francisco. John
Higdon's
Reply to Story Above The whole
reason I was there (and I was NEVER oblivious) was because
some air-person couldn't figure out how to work something. I
tried to explain it on the phone, but whoever it was refused
to work with me on the phone and demanded that I come down
to the station (on a Sunday, as I recall) and hold his hand.
--John
(I-still-get-called-on-Sundays) Higdon Bob Simmons Story
#2 One
morning, taking a listener request, I played John Lennon's
"Working Class Hero"...the unedited version. Having never
listened to it (my bad) how was I to know a Beatle actually
said "fuck" in a song. Twice. Of course Bob heard it as he
was driving in. I don't think his feet actually touched the
ground as he ran from his car to the control room. And I
will admit, that to this day, I have never seen that shade
of red in anybody else's face. It was an impressive display
surpassed only by the veins that seemed to pop
uncontrollably from around his neck. Yes, impressive
indeed. free form
radio...what's not to love 1. My
favorite concerns the time when "Joe Kelly" was doing his
evening shift and (allegedly) selling cocaine out of the
back door of the station while he was on the air, between
album cuts. Apparently one of Joe's deals went bad, and the
San Jose police followed his customer back to the station --
or perhaps one of Joe's customers told the SJ police about
Joe's extra curricular activities. So there
was Joe, playing album cuts with the SJ police banging on
the door downstairs demanding entry while he's doing his air
shift, and Joe tells them over the intercom that he can't
let them in because he doesn't have the keys to the door.
That's while he's scrambling to get rid of all the white
powder that seemed to cover his mustache and most of his
control counsel, and sweating and praying profusely that
they would go awayl... which they eventually
did. Note from
Jona: Shortly afterward, I arrived at the station to
do my shift--with a paranoid, nervous Joke-Elly wondering if
anyone were still outside when I came in! 2. Second
favorite story was when the Rolling Stones were going to
play at Candlestick Park. Mikel thought it would be great if
we could somehow eavesdrop on the Stones as they were making
their way into the stadium. He knew that their entourage
used walkie talkies, but every walkie-talkie using that
specific frequency had been rented by Bill Graham
Presents. Undeterred,
I called a Los Angeles walkie-talkie company and found a
pair that operated on the same frequency as the Stones. So
once I had the walkie-talkies flown up from LA, Mikel gets
on the phone to Danny over at BGP and tells him that KOME is
going to broadcast all the "chatter" of the Stones and their
entourage as they enter Candlestick. Danny tells
Mikel that if he doesn't surrender the walkie-talkies, he
will barr the entire KOME staff from entering
Candlestick. The day of
the show comes, we load up the KOME van with all the DJs and
employees AND the walkie-talkies, and as we pull up at the
gate, Mikel hands the walkie-talkies over to the BGP crew,
keeping them in suspense until the bitter end.
Note from
Jona: Some of Graham's people would easily inspire
this kind of treatment. I was there--and I have the T-shirt
to prove it! 3.
The KOME rock quarry promotion came about when Mikel asked
me to come up with something "new and different" to promote
KOME. I had recently learned that there was an operational
rock quarry in, of all places, Cupertino. So I proposed to
Mikel that if I could negotiate the approval of the owners,
that we do a TV video shoot with all the DJ's quarrying
"hard rock" to put it on the radio. As luck
would have it, the quarry owners and managers agreed to do
it, I rented the video equipment, Mikel directed all the
DJs, and a very Klassic Kommercial was born. A corrolary
to the above--when we all returned to the station, Van Halen
was visiting KOME. This was during their tour for their
first album, and they had still not become the mega stars
that they later would be. So since I still had the video
equipment, I suggested to David Lee Roth that we shoot a
little KOME Spot on the spur(t) of the moment. He agreed, we
did it in one take, and the rest, as they say, was
history. Bob Simmons
A story
about life at KOME on the Alameda. Picture
this. Afternoon...a beautiful sunny one ...say its Tuesday.
I have gotten off my shift at 2:00PM (I did 10:00 AM to
2:00PM) Wolf Ricketts has just gone on the air. I am
standing in the parking lot behind the rundown old home that
serves as our studios and offices. Funky but charming it
was. Sean Donahue drives up in his almost new Citroen DS-21.
(It was one of those kind of roach shaped French sedans that
were fast and had the famous 'adjustable hydraulic'
suspension. (More about that in a minute.) I was mightily
impressed by this fine car. Sean had just turned 20, I think
I was 30 or so. Tom Donahue
had just given this car to Sean as his 20th birthday
present. What a ride! Unique. Fast. Comfy. The ultimate hip
beatnik mobile. I was
standing next to my mundane Datsun when Sean pulls in. My
first reaction? "Hey man, let me drive it around the block."
(Sean, not wishing to turn down his first real boss, says
sure.) I got in
and putted up and down the Alameda checking out the radio,
listening to Wolf playing the hits o' the day. I noticed
that the car had a peculiar brake. It wasn't really a brake
pedal. It was like this rubber squeeze bulb that you stepped
on and the hydraulic oils went to the brakes and 'voila'
power brakes that were tied into the steering and the
suspension. They seemed to work fine. I also noticed that
there was this little handle that you could adjust that
would raise and lower the car much like the devices that are
used nowdays to good effect by low riders and their
immediate pump-em-up or lower- em-down "Rides". "Mah Ride is
Mah Pride, man!" I was
turning back into the driveway of the parking lot in order
to return the car to Sean...but I thought I would do one
little thing.... I decided to 'lower' the car so that I was
much more impressive coming back into the lot. So I hit the
little lever and the car went down to within 2 inches of the
ground and looked mighty stylish indeed. I turned to pull
into the south side of the building so Wolf could see me
through the studio window driving Sean's car. I kind of
'goosed it' at the last minute so I could cram on the brakes
and spray a little gravel for added effect. Skid to a halt
and all that. I zoomed in
and stomped on the little black rubber brake button. I
stomped and I stomped and.... nothing happened. The car kept
on rolling at rather a good clip. It was too late. BAM! I
jumped the bumper high concrete wall that surrounded the
basement steps. The car further careened into the stucco
wall of the air studio and crunched a hole in the wall of
the studio. The look of shock and horror on my face I am
told was something to behold. Not to mention the dismay and
anger of Sean at my stupidity and/or bad
luck. Wolf
happened to be on an air break at the time so the whole
episode was audible on the air to the listeners. Wolf kept
saying, "Folks! Did you hear that bang? You are not going to
belive what just happened. And he proceeded to give a play
by play of how his boss just rammed a hole in the wall with
another DJ's car. "I don't think he's even been drinkin or
smokin folks." He just kept laughing. The repair cost for
the car was impressive...especially on my meager
salary. Sean and I
remained friends, but I don't know how. The liabilty paid
for the wall repairs. Nothing could pay for my embarassment.
Calm Before the Storm: Bob Lilley, Jeff Blazy, and
a guy who indeed DOES look like Les Nessman....
please note fallen stick and string (far right) and
news camera shooting behind us
