KMET Returns - for a day

By Richard Wagoner


It was Valentine's Day 1987 when the legendary Southern California album rocker KMET (now KTWV, 94.7 FM) left the airwaves to make room for The Wave.

Now, more than two decades later, KMET is coming back.

On July 10, 100.3 The Sound will re-create KMET for one day, using as many original Mighty Met personalities as possible.

On the A-list of potential participants right now are Jeff Gonzer (recently added to the Sound's staff for weekends and fill-ins), Ace Young, Pat "Paraquat" Kelley, David Perry and the master programmer herself, the woman who led KMET into and through its glory days, Sam Bellamy.

Actual recordings are being used to help set the tone for the day. Some of these airchecks will be played on the air, while others will help re-create the musical sets as they were played during the approximate years of 1976 to 1984, considered by most to be the best years of the station.

Unfortunately, not everyone associated with the station during that period will be able to attend. Jim Ladd, Denise Westwood, Cynthia Fox and Terry Gladstone, for example, all work for rival KLOS, and I sincerely doubt KLOS will let them off to promote another station ... even if it is a salute.

That being said, July 10 should be a fun day of radio for fans of the once mighty station. Might be a good day to take off work.

Maybe, just maybe, we can get Dr. Demento to do a shift.

http://www.dailynews.com/...i_12621687
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KSWD (The Sound)/Los Angeles Brings Back KMET

KMET-FM, the legendary renegade FM station that captivated a generation of Rock fans, will return to Los Angeles' airwaves for one day on Friday, July 10. The original air personalities, jingles, rock stars, and groupies (now in their 40s) all will be there, on a day that host KSWD-FM (100.3 The Sound)/Los Angeles is calling, "Finally a KMET Friday."

KMET was the unofficial mouthpiece and meeting place for the youth counterculture movement of the '70s and '80s. The station's ratings were enormous, its concerts and events were mobbed, and other media outlets scrambled to book air personalities as guests. KMET's studios were a second home for artists like Mick Fleetwood, Jackson Browne, Ted Nugent and Bruce Springsteen.

"Finally a KMET Friday" will begin on 100.3 The Sound much like their weekday routine began for more than a decade, with top-rated morning host Jeff Gonzer and newsman Ace Young reuniting.

Joining them as the day unfolds will be Paraquat Kelley, Jack Snyder, David Perry, Rick Scarry, L.A.'s first female PD Sam Bellamy, van driver Raul and fast-talking Sales Manager Bob Griffith.

The day will conclude with legendary KMET oddball Dr. Demento presenting his greatest hits at 7pm.

Other youth icons of the '70s and '80s are expected to visit the studios to reminisce. (06-24-09)

http://news.radio-online...._id=n19401

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Like many FM stations at the time, KMET featured an automated format in June 1968 (with female voices and middle of the road music) . The origin of KMET’s freeform rock music format came about due to events at a rival radio station. In 1967, popular Top 40 disc jockey Tom Donahue and his wife Raechel brought the FM underground rock sound to KMPX in San Francisco, and soon, along with legendary L.A. Top 40 personality B. Mitchel Reed, to its co-owned station, KPPC-FM, in Pasadena.

Both stations quickly became popular with their innovative formats, and brought the owners more success than they ever encountered before. But it was to be short lived. After conflicts with the stations’ owners, the Donahues, Reed and the rest of the KPPC and KMPX staff left both stations and went on strike. As prospects for resolving the strike looked hopeless (with the owners hiring scab employees to continue the rock programming), Tom Donahue looked elsewhere, and eventually convinced Metromedia to install KPPC’s format at KMET. They did likewise at KMET’s sister station, KSAN-FM in San Francisco. Many of the personalities at both stations eventually wound up at Metromedia.



...Scan of original KMET bumper sticker.

As it was customary for the station to display their logo upside down on their billboard advertising, the bumper stickers were intentionally displayed upside down by the station's fans as well.KMET's jingle was "A Little Bit of Heaven, Ninety-Four Point Seven - KMET - Tweedle-Dee" was performed live on the Jeff Gonzer show by The Smith Sisters (Sandy and Teresa), with Melissa Levesque and Beth Underwood. The Smith Sisters rewrote the lyrics to a song by local songwriter and friend, Michael Shuler, called "Tweedle-Deedle Lover." The live recording was used for years, but was rerecorded in the seventies with session singers. It has been incorrectly linked to Shadoe Stevens instead of The Jeff "The Gonzer" Show, on which it was first performed in 1971. It was Stevens who created the stations' tongue-in-cheek attitude, and upside down billboards. Artist Neon Park did ads for KMET as well the famous billboards.

At the time, the studios of KMET and its local AM counterpart, country-western KLAC, were located across the street from the famous La Brea Tar Pits on Wilshire Blvd. In Summer 1976, both stations moved to the then-Metromedia complex where KTTV Channel 11 was located).

KMET stood in direct contrast to other music stations of the era. Rather than the tight, high-energy Top 40 sound of popular AM stations such as KHJ, KMET and other progressive rock stations played more eclectic artists with much longer songs and more socially-conscious lyrics.

The disc jockeys talked much less, and in a more personal, relaxed manner. They were also not afraid to voice their opinions on controversial topics, such as politics, the Vietnam War and civil rights, and most importantly, they chose the music that they played on the air. There was no playlist. Evident of this approach is longtime KMET late night host Jim Ladd (currently at onetime rival KLOS-FM), whose laid-back philosophical ruminations usually led into a song, from artists such as Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, The Doors or Led Zeppelin - that underscored his point.

KMET often mixed counterculture comedy skits by Firesign Theatre and The Credibility Gap with the music. The The Credibility Gap broadcast satirical skits during the Pasadena Rose Bowl Parade in the 1970's.[1] Another KMET staple at the time was Dr. Demento, whose show began on KPPC-FM. The "Dr. Demento Show" moved to KMET-FM in 1972 and soon became the most listened-to Sunday evening radio program in Los Angeles. Following Dr. Demento on Sunday nights, Mike Harrison hosted a phone-in talk show called Harrison's Mike.

The adventurous KMET was a member of a fraternity of widely respected progressive rock stations that emerged across the country in the late 1960s and early 1970s, along with KSAN, WNEW in New York, WBCN in Boston, WMMS in Cleveland, KQRS-FM in Minneapolis, and others.

The 1978 movie “FM” was reportedly loosely based on KMET. Much of the history of the salad days of KMET is documented in Jim Ladd's book Radio Waves, where the station is referred to as Radio KAOS and many of the DJs are given pseudonyms.

The progressive format thrived on KMET throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, at one time becoming one of the most successful FM stations in the country. But changing trends in music, culture and society, and the advent of strict formatting in radio eventually turned KMET into a relic of the past. The staff and management of KMET were unsure how to continue in the wake of these occurrences. Soon, the station was besieged by staff turnover, radio consultants, corporate meddling, tight playlists and an increasingly impersonal approach typical of the more mainstream album oriented rock format.

The station’s owners finally gave up, and KMET signed off on February 14, 1987 with The Beatles singing "and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make" from "The End". KMET was immediately replaced with new age KTWV "The Wave," much to the consternation of its fans, many of whom called it "the Valentine's Day Massacre". Today, like many other new age music stations, "The Wave" has evolved into a smooth jazz format and is presently owned by CBS Radio. The KMET call letters have been since reassigned to an AM smooth jazz station in Banning, California.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KMET_(FM)
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tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

These tunes brought back some memories...



...Little Feat - Time Loves A Hero




...Traffic - Light Up Or Leave Me Alone




...Elvis Costello - Pump It Up





...ZZ Top - Waitin' For The Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago




Dr. Demento just came on...



...Barnes & Barnes - Fish Heads



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431