One of the more intriguing set of tapes that I have acquired over the years. I uploaded some content from these tapes back in 2018. That was made during a trip through Texas. The person who recorded the tapes must have been a big radio enthusiast as evidenced by the content and the writing on the tape boxes.
This upload concentrates on station KAZZ FM from Austin Texas. The station was managed Bill Josey. His son Rim Kelly was a DJ at the station and is featured on the second clip. Father and son were supporters then indie Texas acts such as the 13th Floor Elevators and later Johnny Winter. They had a record label called Sonobeat. The station also featured live concert performances well before that became a thing.
The station started to experiment with a progressive rock show in 1967 as heard on the first clip from June 1967. Features the Mothers of Invention, A Texas act called Leo and the Profits and a track called Tilt-A-Whirl, a segment about Zen, a brief segment of Donovan’s Fat Angel. Plus two versions of Love Has Made a Fool of You, in the great prog tradition. Also a segment featuring tracks that have been banned by other radio stations including Acapulco Gold by the Rainy Daze.
Tilt-A-Whirl has since become a Texas garage classic and was banned by other radio stations due to supposed drug references. There’s a little break with with KNOW top 40 radio playing the Hollies’ Pay You Back with Interest and then back to KAZZ.
This clip was recorded before KMPX in San Francisco became the first 24 hour underground station.
The summer of Love and the Summer of Sgt Pepper. The DJ I believe is Kirk Wilson. Wilson’s presentation here reminds me of early David Pritchard and Reiner Schwartz of CHUM FM.
The second clip features Rim Kelly from May 1967 with a creative top 40 approach where we hear the track Levitation by the 13th Floor Elevators and much more. Lucy in The Sky from Pepper is played and that means they must have had a advance copy as the album was not released in the US until June 67.
The third clip is about 15 minutes of WABC jingles from the 60’s.
The final clip is from a station called KTSA from San Antonio and features a show called Amazon Ace which was produced by the creator of Chickenman, Dick Orkin.
I have much more content from these tapes that I plan to upload in the future.
Click on the images below to enlarge:
Hi, there! I would like to correct several inaccuracies in this piece.
The Joseys did not own KAZZ-FM, although both Bill Sr. and Bill Jr. (Rim Kelley) worked there. The owner was Austin, Texas, restaurateur Monroe Lopez, who also owned the Big 4 Mexican Restaurants. Monroe sold the station to KOKE-AM at the end of 1967, and the entire KAZZ staff was pink-slipped at the beginning of January 1968. KAZZ-FM became KOKE-FM a few months later.
KAZZ-FM was among the first FM stations to play rock music on a regular basis. It integrated “progressive rock” into its rock programs as early as 1965.
The Joseys were not concert promoters. They did own Sonobeat Records, which operated in Austin and Central Texas from 1967 to 1976.
“Tilt-A-Whirl” by Leo and the Prophets was not released on the Sonobeat label but instead on the short-lived Totem label, also based in Austin. Sonobeat recorded Leo and the Prophets but never released anything by the group.
I’m pretty sure these air checks, or certainly some of them, were made by Ralph Michaels, as he provided copies to us for our use on sonobeatrecords.com.
Thanks for featuring this material on Let The Universe Answer.
Thanks for the corrections Bill. I must have misinterpreted or mis-remembered what I had read and have made revisions . I remember hearing some of this content on the Sonobeat site but I don’t think it’s still there. I somehow ended up with the original recordings and tapes. Perhaps they were put up up for sale by Mr Michaels.