Maximum Rock 'N' Roll Radio

Maximum Rock 'N' Roll, whether you consider it a 'zine, fanzine or a magazine is a cultural tour-de-force of punk rock. What many readers do not know is that the publication has strong roots in radio. (Maximum Rock 'N' Roll shall heretofore be referred to as MRR for the sake of space.)  The infamous magazine MRR was founded in 1982, but the now obscure MRR radio program, began in 1977. It's host was Tim Yohannan, also known as Tim Yo. More here.  It's worth noting that Tim was kind of a dick. Even Wikipedia which is typically loath to use personal adjectives, describes him as "notoriously difficult" and "divisive" with the same understated subtext one might use to describe Ginger Baker. But colorful and abrasive personalities are not unusual in either publishing or in broadcasting.

Maximum Rock 'N' Roll aired on 94.1 KPFA,  on Sundays at Midnight, moving to Tuesdays 8:00 - 10:00 PM in June of 1979. In 1977 it was one of only a few punk rock radio radio programs in America, if not the world. The use of the word "punk" to describe the musical genre only began in the early 1970s. The earliest contextually musical use of the word I am aware of is from Lester Bangs. , In the December 1970 issue of Creem, Lester Bangs, ironically referred to Iggy Pop as "that Stooge punk". Writer Dave Marsh, also of Creem used it similarly in 1971. Alan Vega of the band Suicide, credits Bang's usage with inspiring his duo to bill its gigs as a "punk mass." From there it permeated pop culture. In this context it makes a lot of sense that early flyers refer to Urban Blues, Soul, Surf or Rockabilly as much as rocknroll. [SOURCE] The punk rock of the era is now often categorized as protopunk. The MRR website today describes the program:

“Maximum Rock & Roll” started in 1977 as a punk rock radio show—one of the first and best of all time. “Tim and the gang” played the latest punk and hardcore sounds from across the world, the U.S., and from their home in the bristling San Francisco Bay Area punk scene. “The gang” included personalities like Jeff Bale, Ruth Schwartz, and Jello Biafra. Punk antiheroes regularly visited as guest DJs, and the roster of touring bands interviewed on the show reads like the track list on a classic old comp. The show was notable for the immediacy of the music, a dedication to international coverage (rare at the time), and for explicitly interjecting progressive politics into the dialogue of punk. The show became hugely successful in the underground, and eventually was broadcast from stations across the U.S. and abroad."

There are surviving tapes from as early as 1980 posted online. But on one tape from a show aired in January 1987, Tim plays a segment from an MRR tape recorded in 1978. It's also worth noting that as part of fundraising drive, KPFA sponsored themed programming days. On March 7, 1981 the theme was "Punk Day" this was more or less MRR day.

1978 ad from Search & Destroy Magazine

But Tim Yo didn't host the Maximum Rock 'N' Roll radio show alone. There were three regular faces in on that show. Among them, Ruth Schwartz is notable for having her own radio program, she was a DJ at KALX then started hosting Harmful Emissions at 90.3 KUSF in 1980. In a 2012 interview, she describes meeting Tim.

"I had never met Tim Yohannan. I knew of him, but I don’t think I had met him until he walked into the KUSF studio one night to meet me. He walked in and said, “Do you want to be on our radio program?” ...That’s how I met him."

At the MRR radio program Ruth handled board ops and edited 1/4 tape with an Xacto knife for broadcast, duplication and distribution. Yes, Ruth is how MRR got distributed around the world. (She went on to found Mordam distribution.)  The original MRR program was cancelled in 1990 despite the fact that Ruth was manually syndicating to 20-30 stations. According to Alan O'Coconner, author of Punk Record Labels and the Struggle for Autonomy, (2008) Pacifica was trying to reach more upscale listener-supporters.

It may have been a coincidence, but when Tim died in 1998, at the urging of Tim Munson, MRR magazine themed the next issue (June issue 181) as their Pirate Radio issue. They did interviews and articles about pirate stations like 91.3 Radio Mutiny (WPPR), 90.9 Rebel Radio, 94.7 Radio Free Gainesville, 99.7 Black Liberation Radio, Radio Free Berkeley, Beat Radio, Radio Cairo, 104.7 WZVU, 88.9 KAW, Free Radio Memphis, 105.5 WDOA, Radio Free Alston, Micro Kind Radio, 107.9 KCMG, 97.7 WSKR, Lutz Community Radio, 88.7 Steal This Radio and many others.

MRR relaunched the program around 2002 in a podcast like format. It remains a fine purveyor of punk rock, but is no longer affiliated with KPFA.

KUSF IS DEAD, LONG LIVE KUSF

WE INTERRUPT THIS INSTALLMENT OF STUPID DJ TRICKS TO BRING YOU AN IMPORTANT NEWS BULLETIN

KUSF is dead. At 10:02 AM today KUSF went off air suddenly mid-song. The news started to trickle out from the bay area a few hours later. There had been no preamble, no hints or rumors. The fact is that the University of San Francisco sold 90.3  to the University of Southern California. USC intends to use the 90.3 frequency as a part of their Classical Public Radio Network (CPRN) currently heard on 91.5 KUSC Los Angeles.

In much the same way that WCRB Boston, KING Seattle, and WQXR in New York all made the move from private to public, the change has come to San Francisco. This is a relaunch of the failed Classical Public Radio Network.  In this version Entercom is transferring moving the 102.1 KDFC programming to a simulcast on 90.3 KUSF San Francisco and 89.9 KNDL in Santa Rosa. KDFC is rumored to be flipping to Classic Rock. The move comes with a $3.75 million dollar price tag.

This all came as a surprise to me because I remember that only two years ago, on June 30th 2008 CPRN shut down its broadcast operations with KUSC and Denver Public Radio going their separate ways. KUSC and Colorado Public Radio began developing CPRN in 1998. But even at the outset it looked weak. Lacking it's own backers, the CPB had to lay out a $850,00 grant before the launch. Then after ten lean yearslater, it closed up shop. It made sense at the time, Classical is not a growth format. Ten years ago we watched the commercial classical panel shrink: WNCN New York, WNIB Chicago, KKHI San Francisco, WFLN Philadelphia, KVOD Denver, WQRS Detroit, WTMI Miami, KFSD San Diego and many others dropped the format.. More here. There are presently only about 20 commercial classical stations in the whole country and that number is still dropping.

At the time CPRN aired on about 60 stations and six HD Radio sub channels. CPRN laid off it's staff of 15. Left in the lurch, those stations had to generate their own programming or take one of the two existing classical satillite feeds: Classical 24, from American Public Media or Chicago’s WFMT Radio Network. CPRN never had more than about a quarter the affiliates of Classical 24. That same year an NPR study found the total number of news programming hours was growing while classical hours shrank or stagnated on public radio stations. Classical was in full retreat.  More here. The CPRN 2008 epitaph is here.

To get right to the point of it, statistically nobody listens to classical music. The roll out of PPM to the top markets only spelled out what we already knew.  According to the New York Times the top 12 radio metros (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles Etc) showed almost an 11% drop in the listenership of classical programming just in the roll out of PPM. That's a lot of AQH. In other words, this is a mistake and it's one that they've made before.

Longest Running Metal Radio Show

Recently on the CBI list there was a discussion about long running metal radio programs. There are many claimants to long running shows, locally, nationally and internationally. Heavy Metal music as we know it is older than you might think. Judas Priest, for example was formed in 1969. But the modern usage of "metal" in the musicological sense date back to 1968. I consulted with metal aficionado, and music industry guru Eric "Doormouse" Peltier to confirm and correct my assertions.

First a little etymology. We can thank our favorite heroin addict William S. Burroughs for the origin of the term. He used the words "heavy metal" in two books.  Published in 1962, The Soft Machine has a character known as "Uranium Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid". In 1964 he revisits the term in Nova Express with Insect People of Minraud with "metal music." Inspired by these books in 1967, the band Hapshash and the Coloured Coat  put out the album Human Host and the Heavy Metal Kids.

In this etymology "heavy" means profound and/or potent, a 1960s slang use of the word. In 1968 both Steppenwolf and Iron Butterfly prophetically used the word heavy in that context. The first confirmed use of 'metal' as an adjective to describe music appears in a review by Barry Gifford in an issue of Rolling Stone published in 1968.

"Nobody who's been listening to Mike Bloomfield—either talking or playing—in the last few years could have expected this. This is the new soul music, the synthesis of white blues and heavy metal rock."

It described the band Electric Flag. But the popular use of the term in the 1970s by writer Lester Bangs in Creem Magazine to describe Sir Lord Baltimore and groups was it's genesis in the contemporary sense. This leads me to believe that no radio show can claim to have begun before the mid 1970s and truly have any metal music to air. So it is no surprise that few programs can be authoritatively dated to even the early 1980s. What follows is an incomplete list of the earliest and longest running known metal programs in radio.

WERS "Nasty Habits " started in about 1980. The program released a Live CD in 2002 on their 21st anniversary. Reports indicate the program was canceled in early 2004. Matty O'Dette put together the comp. Charlie Andrews was host from 1988 to 1989. I think the first host was Travis Squier. I don't know who closed it out.


WVUA "The Metal Zone" debuted in 1981. It was hosted by Dave the Metal Guy for 27 years. It was canceled in 2008 by a 19-year-old freshman. Ouch.

KUSF "Radio Rampage" first aired in 1982. It's claims to continuing uninterrupted are somewhat disputed but it's still on air today. It's on 2-8AM Sunday morning in San Francisco.

WREK "Wreckage" has been on since 1984 in one form or another. The show airs every Friday evening at Midnight. More here.

WSUP "Heavy Metal Meltdown" began in 1983. it's run through a number of slots and hosts over the last 27 years but it's still going today.

WEOS "Metallic Onslaught" has been on since 1984 but airs irregularly. The old host was Joe Wyatt, I dont knwo who's there today. More here.WNYU "Hellhole" first aired in 1984. Hosts over the years included Jen Meola, Jackie Vendetti, and Eric Peletier. It seems to have ended around 2004 after more than a 10-year run. Jackie Vendetti reports that new host Dylan has kept the program alive today 16 years later.

WHJY "The Metal Zone" debuted in 1986. It was hosted by For 17 years by Mike Gonsalves Previous to that he had a metal show on college station WXIN. I know that's not exactly the same show but it's the same format in the same city and worth noting. He died in 2003.

KFAI "Root Of All Evil" started in 1985 (or maybe 1987) and continued even after the original host Earl Root died May 24, 2008 of cancer. More here.

WITR "Sudden Death Overtime" in Rochester had a long running show canceled in Dec 2009. It's start date is uncertain but current host Ron confirms that it's been running in one form or another since the early 90s.

CIDR "Powercord" Founded in 1985, Powerchord is Vancouver’s longest running metal show, and a probable candidate for the longest running metal radio show in Canada. The two-hour program airs every Saturday from 1:00 to 3:00 PM.

WOXY "Massive Metal For The Masses" Pre-1984? This program ran on Sunday nights from 7:00 PM to 1:00 AM. It was hosted by Mr. K. It ran through at least 1986 but assumed to be much longer. I could use more concrete details here.

WNEW "Metalshop" A program in New York city hosted by Charlie Kendall. It began in January of 1984 and ran for 11 years. It was syndicated to other stations and only died when the station flipped to AAA in 1995. More here.

Others:
KJHK in Lawrence KS, has had a metal program at least for 10 years named "Malicious Intent". WTSR "chainsaw symphony" has run over a decade. KLSU has had a program for approximately 20 years but it seems to have taken a few breaks. WCLH used to run "Metal Monday's that went on for years sometimes with full days dedicated to the genre.Razor ray was on WRBC in Lewiston, Maine for over 10 years but seems to be gone now. KPOO had a brutal metal program in the 1980s.. no corroboration on that yet. But I know that's not everyone. WVFS, WVBR, WKNH, WRHU, and WRAS, all had long running metal programs. There were surely metal programs before 1980. As is often the case... we're one aircheck away from victory. Feel free to contribute if you know more.

SFO

I drove up I-880 to Oakland. I noticed that on 87.9 was an FM station and as I navigated the sloping curves of the interstate I realize that there wasn't one, but two. One had to be 97.9 KSFH, a high school station in Mountain View. KSFH was initially licensed on 90.5 but in 1982 moved to 88.1 FM. They moved to 87.9 MHz in 1999. There are only two FM station in America licensed for 87.9 (KSFH and K200AA)so the other must be a pirate. The bay is loaded with more pirate radio than any other part of the world. But Google let me to Pirate Cat Radio a recent winner of a $10,000 FCC fine. Pirate cat was running some wild Ethiopian Jazz, KSFH some trite Active Rock.

I continued north, and visited Berkley to hit Amoeba Music. The neighborhood being what it is, warranted stops at several bookstores, (where I got a copy of Screwjack) and also Rasputin Music. Some parking terrorist saw fit to give me a ticket even though I had minutes on the meter so I fled Berkley feeling unwelcome. I'll take my tourist dollars elsewhere if the commies don't want it.

Why hit only one Amoeba when there is one on each side of the bridge? I crossed the bay bridge and four dollars later I was in San Francisco. Once you pass Presidio and roll downhill, reception changes drastically.
With the heights between me and the bay, San Jose simply vanishes. The band is just KALX, KPOO, KUSF and KQED. I stopped at Ocean beach for a bit and found a sand dollar, then headed back down skyline drive onto Route 1 stopping only once for tacos. KCSM started coming in again before I got to Pacifica. I headed east on Route 92 heading back to 280, to San Jose airport and as I got into that valley KFJC came in again and the first song I heard was "Teenage Enema Nurse." I wasn't ever able to hear KLSI but that might be for the best.