LA RADIO SUCKS!!!!!
FM Rock Radio in LA is dead. The format died long before its last DJ did.
Listening to Los Angeles commercial FM Rock Radio is like dying of thirst in an ocean. Its a cultural wasteland of broken hearts and shattered dreams, due to corporate greed and music streams. It’s illustrative of our pre-apocalyptic tribalism forcing us into ever-increasing clans with ever-dwindling diversity.
Diversity of taste is all but gone: like mistaking an adequate Hyundai for an aspirational Mercedes, we mistake musical production for musical artistry. Copy and paste versus trial and error. Gen Z has playlists because Gen X created mix-tapes. We value independence instead of inculcation. Revolution over repetition.
Jim Ladd was the canary in the coal mine, and the song he was playing was the loss of our musical freedom. Now we’ve lost it, and I’ll explain why below.
In the meantime, let’s welcome over a dozen new readers just this year alone. Your support keeps this freedom light burning, please help out financially if you are able. Otherwise, a share, like, or comment goes far in advancing the cause. Let’s get to it.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post eulogizing, IMO, the greatest DJ ever. Or at the very least, the greatest DJ I’ve ever listened to. Jim Ladd is a rock n roll legend and probably the only DJ on a Rock Mt. Rushmore. I remember begging my grandparents to stay up late to listen to his show.
Plugging Uncle Leo’s 1970’s headphones into my grandparents ten-foot-long stereo console, dialing in 94.7 - The Mighty Met - and hearing Jim Ladd’s superfluous baritone “Lord Have Mercy!” slammed the door on the real world and kicked open the door into a musical, lyrical, and psychological wonderland. It was time to toke up and tune out.
In this post, I’m encouraging my readers to share any thoughts they have of Jim Ladd, your local radio market, or your favorite DJ from your listening life. My editor/researcher/sister/music guru starts us out with a touching tribute.
I haven’t listened to commercial Rock radio in Los Angeles since the late 80’s when I left KROQ to go to college in SD after spending 3 years there as an Intern (and the occasional appearance as Dr Krissi on Loveline with Swedish Egle and The Poorman). Know what station I listened to on my way home from “work?” Well, truth be told it was Jim Ladd’s show on KMET (later he went to KLOS). Late nights, especially Sunday nights, were my favorite with him. I loved it when he went deep down holes (way before YouTube) on Zeppelin. And when he went deep, the listener was rewarded with rare live recordings or an import and a crazy story. He was my guide to the best rock and roll on the planet, and best of all, he was a local, broadcasting from the epicenter of it all, a place that gave birth to the Sunset Strip, Southern California. For me, Jim Ladd was (is) LA Rock and Roll. I’m grateful I was alive and rocking during his broadcast years. Rock in Peace, Jim. I hope you broke on thru to the other side.
Kris Enigl
1/28/23
What the HELL is wrong with LA Radio?
“The problem in the first place was Ronald Reagan, okay? His administration deregulated the broadcast industry. It used to be you could own seven TV and seven radio stations in the country. And if you bought a station, you had to own it for three years. That meant that you had to be in to broadcasting, you had to make it work, you had to be part of the community. Now [a radio station] is like a piece of junk bonds. Fewer people own more radio stations. And there’s less variety because those people who own those stations go to the same cadre of programmers to program the various types of stations that they own… ”
Jim Ladd—lanky, lean, clad in Levis and a stylish vest, grey-haired and with drooped, squinting eyes—is explaining to me why radio sucks.
From a great piece in LA Weekly by Jay Babcock
This post, interestingly, was published on my 36th birthday - 8/14/2000. Weird cool.
You Tube is great for tributes and flashbacks. Here a two-fer fer you.
He calls the White House live on-air to lodge a formal protest against the government for spraying Paraquat on Mexican weed in the fields. Way before his time. He rails on KLOS for ripping off “Rock-tober”. Wow, that just made my heart feel good.
He openly mocks KLOS radio-suits in a pre-trumpian (he hated trump, ik) fashion that is fricking hilarious. Then, one cut later, he is thanking those same suits for welcoming him back. Talk about rolling with the punches, right?
His on air presence the day Lennon dies is a moment not unlike any other “where were you” in American, even world, history. Postponing his Doors interview, his voice cracking with love and respect, his words even now causing chills up my spine. He expressed what we all thought, in our heart of hearts. He truly did give a voice to listeners, like me, that felt alienated by the mainstream main street.
TRIBUTE TO JIM LADD LORD HAVE MERCY
What we are sadly missing, not because of our lack of desire for it, but for the stacking and racking of our purchasing power, is cultural cohesiveness. I argue that Jim Ladd, and other powerful DJs, were some of the last tribal leaders that held together vast swaths of the public over myriad socio-economic and demographic differences.
Jim Ladd’s fans were all colors and stripes and sexes and concerns. He drew us together in all of the ways that today’s pop-culture heroes repel us from each other. He used love to bind us as one whereas today, it’s hate holding tribes together.
When he appeared on-stage at a concert, he usually received the greatest ovation of the night from the crowd. He connected to us, and connected us to each other, at levels longed for lately. He told us to light one up and pass it to the stranger next to you. And now your friends, I heard him say at more than one appearance.
He actively and positively spoke about love, and loving one another, and loving those you disagree with. He brought you on board by inviting you, not by insulting others. He encouraged his readers to reach out to those in need, materially and spiritually. His words wove together the threads of a creative community, where the music-maker talked to the music-lover via the music-player.
He was old-school in a new-age, but never rode the wave that crashed into KMET. He escaped its riptide and crested on a new wave of subscription-streaming. The music on the records he played may have changed over the decades he spun them, but his format, Power to the People, never altered. And neither did he. But the forces controlling radio did.
What happened to Radio?
CHR happened. Contracting Hit Radio. Centralized Corporate Control - the arch-enemy of Gen X. Check out the latest radio rankings in the #2 market in the country - Los Angeles. Scroll down, way down, further down, second from the bottom to find KLOS. How pathetic. Jim Ladd is rolling like a joint in his grave.
We Won’t Rock You
The sad, unwarranted decline of rock music on FM radio.
Alarm bells have been clanging. Back in 2011, Slate Magazine rang that bell, to their credit. But rock purists have been pounding the drum of inconsequentiality since way back. Mother Jones, in 1976, ran a piece titled Rise and Fall of FM Rock Historical Essay that basically described the death throes it found FM Rock in. And the article ran with this photo accompanying it and identifying the topless chick as “unidentified naked woman”. Fuck yeah, right? Rock n Roll baby.
FM Rock Radio was a mutinous baby from birth, born to commit patricide of it’s boring AM parents - formulaic music programming and polished network announcers. This new breed - of DJ and Music - is hilariously and victoriously described thusly
Some progressive FM station owners were slower than others to fathom the popularity of "free form." At the Boston FM, WBCN, for instance, co-owner Ray Riepen was angered when fledgling DJ John Brodey played Blind Faith's "Do What You Like." In the middle of the song Riepen called Brodey on the studio hot line. "Hey, hotdog!" he boomed. "Nobody wants to listen to a drum solo on a Sunday afternoon!" Brodey was cowed, but the disc jockey who followed him, Charles Laquidara, was incensed. Laquidara, who was tripping on mescaline at the time, retold the incident over the air in dramatic detail, then put on one of his favorite records, the long version of Ginger Baker's drum solo "Toad." He followed the cut with other drum songs: Aynsley Dunbar's "Mutiny" and some selections from Buddy Rich. WBCN listeners were ecstatic and jammed the switchboard for hours afterward with congratulatory messages. Free-form programming stayed.
"Radical community stations are supported by advertisers with money. If you get in bed with the devil, you better be prepared to fuck."
Of course, brutal corporate realities reared immediately, and the father of FM Rock Radio, Tom Donahue knew that devil, and knew how he fucked. Rock Radio was dead. The Corporate Devil fucked it to death.
The FCC’s website has an informative History of Commercial Radio commemorating the 100 year anniversary in 2020. Cool little factoid here
In terms of success in today’s market, KKGO and its Country format are in the Top 15, unlike Classic Rock KLOS at #48. KRTH and its Classic Hits format are #2, just behind #1 KOST, which increased its market share due to Holiday Music formatting in this rating period, but consistently keeps the top spot via its Hot Adult Contemporary programming.
The first seven stations are owned by two companies, iHeartMedia and Audacy. Spanish Hits KLVE and Regional Mexican KLAX and KRCD score Top Ten rankings, as does KFI Talk Radio and CHR playing KIIS, Hot AC KBIG and Adult Hits KCBS.
KLOS is so week it beats only KPWR and its over-saturated Hip Hop format. I guess the suits would say where’s KMET? But then, that’s a straw-man they killed long ago.
"too many people were getting carried away with freedom."
So where does that leave us? Subscription models and making us pay for what was once free. The terms of engagement have changed. Instead of listening to our favorite local DJs play their favorite music and talk about their favorite things for free, we’re now force-fed a bland diet of non-offensiveness nothingness, broken up only by inane happy-chatter or demo-rich brain-killing commercials.
George Carlin opened a battle line on the legal front, arguing for more freedom on the radio airwaves. The Seven Words is a Comedian’s Declaration of Independence, and the freedom fighters followed legend-in-the-making Ladd to musical liberty on FM Rock Radio.
In a classic said-it-out-loud moment, ABC called for the repression of freedom - that we, the listening and consuming public were “carried away with freedom.” What the fuck. Carried away with freedom - like please stop all this freedom. I can’t stand so much freedom. This freedom must end, said no one ever.
After abandoning its syrupy love-song format in 1970, ABC experimented with a free-form approach but jettisoned it when the network found that "too many people were getting carried away with freedom."
I’ve interviewed several musicians, Grammy winners among them, that literally laugh, chortle, guffaw, and then get pissed off and use profanities when I ask them about Spotify. You can read about those over here.
Think about that. Bands tour relentlessly, and hawking merch is their number one source of income. They go from the stage to the register. They jam in joints for less than a few hundred fans 250 nights a year. And 5000 downloads GROSSES at most $50. I’m begging for a thousand! And be honest here, how many downloads on your playlists you paid for? Yeah, that’s gross.
And what of KTWV the waaa-aa-aa-ve? Solid #6 spinning an Urban playlist. Do I listen to it? Yeah. Is it FM Rock Radio? No. I don’t listen to FM Rock Radio anymore. It’s dead.
Ric
Really takes me back .