Maximum Louie Louie

This was an event unparalleled in the history of college radio. There are radio stunts that garner a bit of attention for a radio station. This stunt is recorded in no fewer than half a dozen books and innumerable websites. This stunt eventually led to a recurring parade... this stunt outdid all other radio stunts and thus became a historical event unto itself. It was called Maximum Louie Louie.

The setting was an infamous college radio station, 89.7 KFJC in Los Altos, CA, on the campus of Foothills College. It's only a 110 watt station but it blankets downtown San Jose, CA which gives them a reach of about 1 million people. The station was founded in 1959, when Foothills was just a Junior college giving name to the JC following the KF. Originally a 10 watt station on 88.5, the station moved to 89.7 in 1961, before the station ever aired rock n' roll music. They went stereo in 1974 and then increased power to 110 watts in 1980. (Note: some sources put them at 250 watts.)  All this was prelude to the big event.

On August 19, 1983, at 6:00 PM , the station aired 823 different versions of the song Louie Louie consecutively. The event is referred to as Maximum Louie Louie. The idea originated with two student members of KFJC, Jeff "Stretch" Riedle and Phil Dirt aka Frank Luft with encouragement from SM Robert "Doc" Pelzel. How this event came to be, and all of it's unintended consequences are two different stories:

The idea originated with two student members of KFJC, Jeff "Stretch" Riedle and Phil Dirt aka Frank Luft. In an inspired moment back in 1981, Stretch tore through the KFJC library and found 33 versions of Louie Louie and aired them consecutively. It took about 90 minutes. Coincidentally KALX held a completed a listener survey and determined that their all time favorite rock song was Louie Louie. A DJ there, Mel Cheplowitz used the KFJC song list and added 17 more versions and aired a  50-song all Louie Louie power block in December of 1981. Riedle responded with an 88-version special in the Summer of 1982. Cheplowitz raised the stakes and broadcast a "Lou-A-Thon" in December of 1982 that included 100 different versions. (some sources say 200) Local press started to comment on this musical escalation. Cheplowitz said he was done, but Riedle told the San Francisco Examiner " We started this thing, and we intend to end it." It sounded almost like a threat. More here.

The station began soliciting versions of Louie Louie. They planned to broadcast live versions by local bands every two hours. Jack Ely, the original Kingmen's vocalist flew down from Oregon. The original songwriter Richard Berry took a train up from Los Angeles. Riedle would tilt this windmill and kick it's ass. Local press began to guess how many versions KFJC might pull together... 200?  400?. All told it was 63 consecutive hours of programming. Los Altos was never the same again.

So how many versions were really broadcast, and by which artists? Riedle taped the event. But 24 years later, despite the numerous aircheck sheets, some versions remain unidentified even today. [SOURCE] In honor of the event, Rhino Records released RNEP605, a "Best of Louie Louie" compilation. It's only 10 tracks, but that LP made it into the hands of a very special DJ in Philadelphia.

On the East coast, 2,900 miles away a WMMR DJ named John DeBella, regaled his listeners with the true tale of Maximum Louie Louie. Inspired, he decided that Philadelphia needed a Louie Louie Parade. Thousands of people came. On April 1st, 1985 it happened. They did it again in 1986, and 1987 until the City itself started to complain about the costs. But by then it had spread, Louie Louie parades had been held in multiple cities... as of 2017, Peoria, IL has been doing it annually for 30 straight years. So that parade has outlived the LouieFest, held yearly in Tacoma, WA from 2003 to 2012.

But 30 years is a long time. Jack Ely died in 2015, and Richard Berry back in 1997. Stretch Riedle is still with us but has not been terribly healthy of late. But in 2011 the original conspirators gathered at KFJC for “Return of the Invasion of Maximum Louie Louie.” More here. It was significantly shorter, but aired some archival tapes no one had heard since the original broadcast.  In their collective honor, we all now celebrate International Louie Louie Day every year, on April 11th; aka Richard Berry's birthday. It's been held since at least 2003, but I'm pretty sure Stretch is behind that one too.

Send Lawyers, Guns and Money

It was the end of the era when Philly was still a music city. It was a different time. Joni Mitchell and Tom Rush hung out there. The studios of WMMR overlooked Ritenhouse Square for many years from the third floor of the Wellington Building. From 1983 to 1984 Warren Zevon lived in a hotel on Rittenhouse Square, in the heart of the city. But Zevon was born in Chicago, why was he in Philly while disco was king?

Zevon was a born musician. He studied classical music as a child, even studying under Igor Stravinsky briefly. At the age of 16 he quit school and moved to New York to become a working musician. The year was 1963. He recorded his first solo album in 1969, with Kim Fowley acting as producer. In the 1970s he toured with the Everly Brothers as keyboard player after which he briefly moved to Spain. He then relocated to Los Angeles, finding work as a song writer. He married Crystal Brelsford briefly in 1974. They got a divorce in 1979. The marriage produced one son, Jordan and the ballad "Empty-Handed Heart." Afterward he relocated to Philadelphia. Enter Anita Gevinson and the shortest commute to work ever.

At the time Anita was a DJ on rock station, WMMR. She was on air there from 1978 to 1982. (With a short break to spin at KLOS in 1980, and WCOZ in 1979.) In December of 1982 she crossed the street to WYSP for an afternoon slot. Program director Michael Picozi proposed that she start taking live calls. The "Ask Anita" segment was born. Picozi, clearly a patient boss, even later let her take time to tour with Zevon.  He moved into Gevinson's apartment at Rittenhouse Sq.  But when Picozi was unexpectedly fired in 1984, the good times ended.  In May of 1985 a new PM Andy Bloom started, and Gevinson was cut along with several other staffers. The station began syndicating Howard Stern in mornings to replace some of them. The papers called it the "Labor Day Massacre." Gevinson went to WCAU and Zevon went to rehab.

In August Gevinson moved to 1210 WCAU-AM and took on a talk program that ran from 9:00 AM to noon, followed by the hour-long "Ask Anita" segment reminiscent of  her WYSP bit. It wasn't bloodless, she replaced Maxine Schnall and Ron Eisenberg.  More here. But rocker talk wasn't the right demographic for WCAU. The AM band was already going gray. She tried out the west coast again with a spin at KMPC where she stayed from 1988 - 1990, then added a second slot at 101.9 KSCA. She dumped both those gigs to work at 97.1 KLSX in 1997. She remained there until 2009.

Warren Zevon died of inoperable lung cancer on September 7, 2003, shortly after the release of his last album "The Wind." Gevinson published a memoir in 2012, You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio. The book focuses heavily on her time at WYSP and WMMR, and her deceased rocker fiancé Warren Zevon.  More here and here.

Tom & Doug

Tom and Doug may have more listeners on Youtube than they do on the radio but they are in fact carried on three terrestrial radio stations 90.7 WAZU-FM, 107.9 WRFA-LP, and on 89.1 KHOI. Their chatter is so comic, by all rights they should have a wildly popular morning zoo show somewhere. Their songs are even funnier than that. If they didn't already have day jobs this probably wouldn't be hypothetical.

They met in 1985 and in 1986 with Eric Schopf and Dan Meyer they started a band called Norm and the Standard Deviates. They went on to form and play in other bands, do theater, and perform in virtually any capacity wherever either or both of them could find an audience. It was their comic music that first got them attention before their comic antics.

In the summer of 1999, Dee Snider (of Twisted Sister) launched his radio show "Dee Snider Radio" on 104.1 WMRQ-FM. Snider used Tom and Doug's jazz cover the Twisted Sister song "We're Not Gonna Take It" to be his show's theme. He played it daily until his program was cancelled in 2003. He later invited Tom and Doug to perform on his program. They agreed and in December of 1999 appeared live. After being cancelled in 2003 Snider revived his program for another year on 93.3 WMMR in Philadelphia and continued to earn the duo teeny tiny royalty checks.

In 2005 Tom and Doug began to do a semi-regular  podcast on their website. It began with odd-sized segments with mixed hijinks and music. Shows varied in length but were anywhere from 12 to 25 minutes. In 2012 they broke form and adopted a more radio-friendly weekly half-hour show. This change was made with KHOI in mind, and was picked up by other stations.

Delaware Valley Radio Ephemera

This is an odd one. This is some kind of business card for C.H. Davis, Inc a stereo and television store in Ardmore, PA. Inexplicably the store still exists today, just a few blocks away from the junk shop where I bought the book that contained the card; presumably as a book mark. But this is an old card. They were still selling portable radios and phonographs when this card was made.I do notice there are no Am stations listed. That indicates that it's after 1960 —during the ascension of FM.

The call changes can narrow the date of this scrap of paper. Some isn't helpful.  WJBR is still on 99.5 unchanged since 1956. WPEN became WMGK only in 1975. WFIL only became WIOQ in 1971.We know it's older than that.  92.5 FM was WIFI back then and is WXTU now. They changed format from pop to country before 1984. WIP-FM hasn't been on 93.3 since 1965, after which it has been WMMR. On 93.7 these days we have WSTW, it hasn't been WDEL-FM since abotu 1966. (WDEL-AM remains on 1150.) WFLN-FM is now WBEN, it only dropped the heritage FLN calls in 2006. WHAT-FM also changed calls in the late 1960s when it dropped it's jazz format. 98.1 FM is now WOGL as it has been since 1987. Back in the 1960s WCAU-FM  was simulcasting MOR with WCAU-AM.   

WSNJ-FM 98.1 helps narrow the date a bit. That station signed on in 1946 as WSNJ. (FYI: Wikipedia incorrectly dates that to 1961) What happened in 1961 was that WSNJ swapped calls with 107.7 WPBS. they had already been on air for 5 years.  They changed calls to WUSL in 1976. WSNJ remained on 107.7 until about 8 years ago. So, it had to be printed before 1961 the date of that call swap and after 1956 the date WJBR signed on. (Math corrected by Fybush)

WXPN, WHYY and WRTI are about all where they were even if the programming has changed a lot. WHYY has a typoed frequency. But WPWT is more of a mystery. they were a share-time with WKDU on 91.7 from the1950s into the 1980s. I hear they were a crazy psychedelic hippie station. I'd love to hear an aircheck.  I'll have to write a post about them sometime.

Radio Voting Drive

Today voting drives are often tied to the internet, new media. It led to a landslide victory for the dems. Young people, always tapped into new media were disproportionately connected. the same was true in the 1970s. FM radio was new media and so FM radio registered them in droves.FM was particularly active in the contentious election of 1972 Nixon Vs. McGovern. The Democratic ticket was in chaos. Kennedy was supposed to run but accidentally drowning his mistress at Chappaquiddick ended any chance of that. There was a police riot in Chicago where hundreds of young war protesters were beaten by Chicago cops at the DNC. The election was a contest between an incumbent Republican and an anti-war Democrat. It's more complicated than that but all elections are. I highlight that topic because the anti-war vote is a youth vote. That's where FM came in.

FM radio was the new media at the time and it's demographics leaned heavily toward the young. This is the kind of thing that excites pollsters. Young people generally vote liberal, the problem is that they generally don't vote. It's a two step process, you have to register them, then they have to show up. So FM radio stations made a push for the first part.

In Philadelphia WMMR pushed the youth vote all day every day. They ran announcements about voter registration. They even regularly announced the locations of voting drives. Because of Pennsylvania law they were not allowed to register voters themselves, but they could advocate, so they did.

Program Director Jerry Stevens was fully committed to the project. In San Antonio KTSA made a similar effort, sponsoring a free rock concert for the high school registering the most new voters. The winner was Holy Cross High school for registering 3,800 voters.

KPFK in Los Angeles sponsored voting drives even giving away free records to the newly registered. KMET carried voter registration drives live on air. WBSR in Pensacola sponsored registration drives as well. Registering voters in their own lobby they signed up 2,500 new voters in time for the primaries.

In Sacramento KROY painted their radio station red white and blue for the election season. PD Bob Sherwood had the station staff deputized so that they all could register voters personally.

Altogether it was a monumental effort. The results weren't inspiring. Nixon swept the election, McGovern only carrying Massachusetts and Delaware. but two years later, as Nixon was impeached the tide turned and emboldened those same new voters elected Jimmy Carter. Better late than never.