This is an experiment

I'm trying to see if I can post audio on my blog so I'm throwing something on as a test. Several people have asked what I sounded like in my insane disc jockey days. So here is an aircheck of me (Beaver Cleaver) on KTNQ (TEN Q) Los Angeles from 1977. Now you know why I went into TV writing.

Click To Play

Comments

[Paul Duca]

And that's the word of the Beaver...amen.

[Anonymous]

Maybe not "Boss Radio" but stil, pretty damn good! Lots of "energy" (I worked there when it was KGBS, also Boss Radio).

[tb]

Yeah, 39.95! I can only remember back to 59.99! I swear!

[Frank Abe]

Ken, thanks, great stuff. Like listening to you calling a Mariners game on KIRO Radio on speed! Makes me wonder, did you write out your patter and one-liners a few seconds before you the record ended, or was it really that spontaneous?

[Anonymous]

Super job! The audio plays fine.Folks, this is an Art Form. Saying meaningful, funny things over a few bars of a song (no retakes) is more than difficult. Beaver did a sparkling job wherever he hung his headphones (San Diego, San Francisco, Detroit, Pacoima..)His humor is like a blowtorch, compared to the lukewarm efforts of the no-talent time-and-temp jocks who gave us ample reason to dislike dj's "talking over the song."Rock 'n roll radio had a sharp talent for awhile, but TV gets him now.

[Anonymous]

Was your voice sped up a bit? More than a bit, perhaps?Or is that just how beavers talk?(the duo Brewer and Shipley called their publishing company "Talking Beaver Music." Which is how the peep shows on Santa Monica Blvd. -- females in those days -- would advertise that you could chat with a nude woman, on the other side of the glass. But I digress...)

[Dave]

Nice job of "hitting the post" as they say in the biz.

[l.a. guy]

Just think... if John Lennon and you had stayed Radio DJ's generations of people would have been deprived of some the most brilliant creativity the world has ever known... and whatever it is Lennon ended up doing.

[Wayne from Maine]

Ken,I know that you poke fun at yourself about being a DJ from time to time, but I hope in some way you are proud of it. I know at the time what with the likes of Real Don Steele, Robert W. Morgan, and such you may have felt insignificant. Hell, who wouldn't! But you were, and judging by your stint on KRTH, still are one of the greats. I heard you do a fill in at WXLO New York in 1978 and knew I was listening to something great. Also your airchecks are just as sought after and R.D.S. and R.W.M. airchecks today.

[jbryant]

Awesome demonstration of what may be a lost art. Only one criticism: your Dylan impression sounds more like some animated sidekick, like Chumley from "Tennessee Tuxedo" or Ding-a-ling from "Hokey Wolf." Great fun.

[Scott C.]

I was always amazed by DJs' ability to talk right up until a nanosecond before the vocal started. How? Did you use a stopwatch? A Naval Observatory-grade atomic clock? Count the grooves on the platter? Or was it just a function of hearing the same 40 songs over and over and over and over...Speaking of which...Licorice Pizza. Wow. The existence of stores that sold vinyl records and blacklight posters was actually sitting in the desktop recycle bin of my brain, waiting to get permanently deleted from memory until I heard that.

[Dave Roberts]

Ken, you nailed it...if you hit the post/vocal with a complete (relevant and/or pithy) thought, it all becomes a seamless "on-air production". But alas, I think they've stopped teaching that in radio school (and whatever happened to "direction" from a program director...oh yeah, he/she's "on the computer").Oh, and the audio is great and you sound great!(Dave Roberts - Remember KMEN?)