"14K For A Day"

[GeneSavage]

Once again this year on August 17th (Sunday) internet-only radio station BlackLight Radio will become "14K For A Day," playing airchecks from KELI-AM 1430, Tulsa & KELI-FM 92.1 Broken Arrow from August of 1983 to August of 1985.

You'll hear Mel Meyers, Dave Michaels, Duncan Payton (sp?), "Hot" Rod Tucker, Randy Fuller, Brian Kane, Kandi Black, Tim Campbell, Andy Savage, Tom Brown, and a host of others (Bo Chase?) playing "The Music You See On MTV."

If you have any airchecks, or any memories of the station, please forward them to the e-mail address on http://www.blacklightradio.com so they can be shared with everyone. Any and all audio is appreciated!

_________________________________________________

For those unfamiliar with 14K & 92K, these were two hot little top 40 / alternative stations that only lasted for 2 years, but made a major impact in a short period of time on Tulsa county (the only place these "little stations that could," could be heard). The first book out, 14K had a 4.3 playing music from The Human League, Duran Duran, & The Cars. The AM dominated K107 in Tulsa county until the audience was split between the 5KW AM and the 3KW FM (92K).

With sales not sure how to sell a station targeted at their children, and an owner unaware of the spitfire he had in Tulsa, the AM was eventually put on satellite and then both stations sold. It strikes me as ironic that today 1430 is 25KW and 92.1 is 27KW... what could have been, if Mel, Dave and the rest had been playing with that kind of power?

...Oh, yeah: Tulsa's Hot New Z104.5.

BlackLight Radio will go "all 80s" at noon central time Friday, featuring "Back To The 80s" from Canada http://www.backtothe80s.ca/ at 9pm Friday night and 5pm Saturday night, The Anonymous Collection with Anonymous John http://www.anonymousjohn.com/ Friday night at 11 and Saturday night at 7, and BlackLight Radio West, live from San Diego, Saturday night at 9.

At midnight Saturday night, 11am Sunday morning, and again Sunday night at 11, we will play the final hour of 14K & 92K. For those who haven't heard this hour before, they stuffed the entire air staff into the studio (after they had been told they no longer had jobs) and let them go wild.

It is... an amazing hour.

In-between will be airchecks (of varying quality) from many dayparts, different days and years. These airchecks have been meticulously transferred from cassettes stored in a secret vault in an unknown location for the past 25 years (my closet).

Come join the wake fun!

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

14k was one helll of station, and wayyyyyyyy ahead of it's time. It's just a damn shame they didn't try to upgrade the signal instead of thowing in the towel at the ownership level. Mel's other creation, Z104.5 was another original. KELi and KMYZ were truely great radio stations for their times but yet very different from each other in most ways. Mel and Wavvy were some of the very best out there. Occationally when I'm though Tulsa I'll tune over to Star just to hear them again. What talent!

 

[Kent]

14k was one helll of station, and wayyyyyyyy ahead of it's time. It's just a damn shame they didn't try to upgrade the signal instead of thowing in the towel at the ownership level.

The real irony is that they did upgrade the signal roughly a year or two later. KQLL-FM 106.1 is effectively what used to be 92K. KCMA used to be on the more powerful 106.1 signal, and it was swapped to 1430's owners for 92.1 and cash in the mid-80's.

 

[GeneSavage]

...And I'm pretty sure it was the owners who bought 1430 from Signal-Media who killed off the KELI call letters when they fought Arbitron and Arbitron DELISTED them permanently, said they would NEVER list KELI on 1430 again...

92.1 became automated top-40 "KQ92" (KQZZ) and 1430 went talk before Arbitron killed them off. The next owners (with KOOL 106) took it to KQLL-AM at some point and KSKS when it became "Kiss-Country 1430"... I think I still have the flexi disc soundsheet sent out (with Johnny Rivers narrating, maybe?) that said, "LISTEN NOW!!! YOU MAY HAVE WON (i think) $10,000!!!"

...I didn't win.

(Less than 12 hours to "14K For A Day"...)

 

[Kent]

92.1 became automated top-40 "KQ92" (KQZZ) and 1430 went talk before Arbitron killed them off. The next owners (with KOOL 106) took it to KQLL-AM at some point and KSKS when it became "Kiss-Country 1430"... I think I still have the flexi disc soundsheet sent out (with Johnny Rivers narrating, maybe?) that said, "LISTEN NOW!!! YOU MAY HAVE WON (i think) $10,000!!!"

I remember a friend of mine had a t-shirt for Lite 106 and KSKS "Kiss Country 1430." It had sunglasses with the lens on one eye advertising Lite 106 and the other Kiss Country 1430. However, I always remember KSKS as being "All Music, All Memories Kiss 1430," which was an AC station. I'm not sure if the AC came before or after country, but I think it was after. That format was pretty short-lived, too. For a little while afterward, 1430 aired the "Winner's News Network" before becoming a Kool 106 simulcast. I was surprised WNN lasted as long as it did; I heard them running AC over a local break more than once.

I guess they decided it was better to go after KRAV on the FM side than to keep doing top-40 once they got 106.1 away from KCMA. I remember they made a real big-to-do about getting Johnny Rivers from KRAV for mornings on Lite 106. The irony is that they, along with Magic 99, really put a dent in KRAV, and it spent years declining. However, neither was able to finish the job.

 

[billyg]

Listening right now, a lot of good memories. 1983-5 was a fun time for CHR radio, thanks to not only MTV but also all the new digital recording technology and instruments like samplers and drum machines (that we're sick of now).

92-K played a lot of dance mixes, something KAY-107, KJ-103 and KOFM in OKC hardly did.

And for history sake.. Before it became KELi 92-K, 92.1 was airing a satellite AC format called "Sunny 92.1" for a few years with little success. And a few years before that 92.1 was KGOW-FM simulcasting part time country with KTOW 1340 in Sand Springs.

I wish I had more complete tapes of 14-K/92-K then. 92.1 was hard to pick up in Bartlesville because of KQQF 92.1 in Coffeyville KS booming in (which I think is now KKRK and moved to 98.9, maybe because of KTBT's upgrade?). I had to wait until midnight until KQQF thankfully signed off to get a decent signal of 92-K.

 

[GeneSavage]

I have a ton of these tapes, unfortunately most of them are late 84 into 85. I didn't record as heavily as I could have earlier because I didn't realize #1 how important this station would be to me and #2 that they would be leaving the air (the jocks, who I bugged constantly, began to leak the rumor of the stations being sold a few months before it actually happened). Each year I'm transferring a few more tapes, so hopefully there will be airchecks next year you didn't hear this year.

Perhaps this would be a good time to ask: would it "ruin" the aircheck playback if I replaced the "meat" of each song with a clean CD copy of the tune? I have Adobe Audition so it's easy to make a super clean cut to where we won't "skip a beat" it will just suddenly become cleaner; and I know they spend their songs up exactly 2.2% so I'll be able to duplicate the pitch increase and for that matter correct for speed issues in the original recorder. We would seamlessly go back to the source tape for breaks, commercials, promos, etc but the songs would sound significantly better. It would also correct for songs I started taping in mid-verse, songs where the tape ran out on one side, etc.

Good idea? Bad idea? Would you prefer to hear a demo before making a decision?

The website update didn't happen as I planned. I have all three bumper stickers here and also a "memory book" that was handed out to the jocks at the end with newspaper clippings and the like... back then it was all xeroxed but it's still a fun read and a great history of how much this little station did in its short two years. Next year I have plans to have a picture of the old studios as they look now (they've been the home of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol for years), and I'd love to interview some of the jocks and the fans to play snippets from in-between airchecks.

Both Mel & Dave have told me in the past they have boxes "somewhere" of airchecks, demo reels, sweepers, promos, etc, and I've never been able to get my hands on either of their stashes... if you liked what you heard this year and know them, see what you can do to get them hunting again! (To be fair to Dave, he thought he knew where his was and when he went to look it wasn't there... so who knows.)

For those in the Tulsa area '83 to '85, this was our KAKC.

It makes me wonder why somebody doesn't do a yearly tribute like this to KAKC... how many people would contribute airchecks, pictures, memorabilia, and stories to something like THAT, huh?

Where are the audio tributes to Big Country 1170, The Voice Of Oklahoma? KELI battled against KAKC in the 60s & 70s... I bet we could come up with enough stuff to do a "day" for the original KELI, too.

The closest I've found is on Tulsa TV Memories; if you're not familiar with them, I highly recommend you set aside a lunch break to start browsing the site, and then forget about going back to work after lunch... Tulsa radio from the 50s, 60s, & 70s (and before) are covered with GREAT photographs and an occasional sound clip: http://www.tulsatvmemories.com/

R.I.P., 14K / 92K: Wednesday, August 24th, 1983 - Saturday, August 17th, 1985.

See you again next year!!!

 

[Kent]

Listening right now, a lot of good memories. 1983-5 was a fun time for CHR radio, thanks to not only MTV but also all the I wish I had more complete tapes of 14-K/92-K then. 92.1 was hard to pick up in Bartlesville because of KQQF 92.1 in Coffeyville KS booming in (which I think is now KKRK and moved to 98.9, maybe because of KTBT's upgrade?). I had to wait until midnight until KQQF thankfully signed off to get a decent signal of 92-K.

KQQF moved from 92.1 to 98.9 in 1990. I'm not sure what the rationale was, but it may have been because KCMA 92.1 was trying to upgrade. At that time, it was still rare to find anything other than a class A at 92.1, and many of those class A's did everything they could in the late-80's and early-90's to upgrade after the FCC eased up on its policy of having some frequencies reserved for class A's.

 

[rattleyourjewelry]

duncan payton aka beaver cleaver

tom brown aka tom carey
kandi black aka kelley cash (cash and carey on k95.5fm)

anyone know what happed to tim bailey or J. david 104.5 kmyz...way back???

rod seagrum? or the guy that did overnights spencer?

 

[GeneSavage]

A quick bump on this thread to remind those interested that it's that time of year again... we start airchecks & early 80s music at 2am central time tonight / Monday morning, & will continue for 24 full hours.

Many airchecks heard this year haven't been streamed in previous years, including morning man at the end, Andy Savage, some Tom Brown, & Hot Rod Tucker. Also listen in for Randy Fuller hosting the top songs of 1984.

We'll start an aircheck at the top of each hour, then fill the rest of the hour with music 14K & 92K played between 1983 - 1985.

(Sneak preview of NEXT year: a gentleman contacted me off-list about some 14K airchecks HE has... if I contact him again, I'm hoping to have even more new hours of "The Home Of Tulsa's Hottest Hits" next year!)

Enjoy the show! Wish I could take credit, but of course it was Mel, Dave, & all of the K-Crew who made the magic happen. Special thanks to Tim Glass (Tim Carroll) for providing not only airchecks, but also the cassette deck I'm using to digitize the tapes!

"Beam me up, Scotty!"

http://www.blacklightradio.com

 

[billyg]

Sounds great.. thanks for doing this again. I forgot how good a station 14K-92K was.I was attending UCO in Edmond during that time and only could catch them on the weekends when I drove home to Bartlesville.

BTW I wish I could get an Mp3 of Jim Sweeny & The Jumpshots "It Ain't Right" from vinyl. I have it on a old cassette somewhere but with DJ talk over the intro.

 

[GeneSavage]

billyg: It Ain't Right has been a hard one for me to track down, too... Mel was going to get me a copy at one point from a 45 he had, but as you might he imagine he has bigger fish to fry than a fan of a station he ran 25 years ago.

If you start to hear airchecks repeat, check back in around 3 this afternoon; I never prepare like I should, so I'll have to massage some of the airchecks after lunch with the wife today. Even WITH EQ & noise reduction, an awful lot of these cassettes sound like they were run over by an 18-wheeler... that's what happens when a 15 yr old's favorite station goes off the air: he listens to the tapes he made over, & over, & over...

(The music following the airchecks should be different every hour, however, & contains some real lost gems!)

Thanks for listening, & I hope today brings back some happy memories.

 

[G Thompson]

Gene,

Thanks so much for doing this. I'm listening on Winamp. Sounds great. Love the commercials. Those are some of the best parts.

This guy who's on now (2pm hour central) sounds a bit like you with a higher voice. He's got some of your verbal nuances. Did this influence you at all in your style, Gene? What's his name?

Now all we need is a "Kay-107 for a day" and a "Z-104.5" for a day.

I'd love to hear old Carlson and McKenzie, Chuck Stevens, Carly Rush, Elvis Polo, Gene Savage, Mel in the Morning, Wavy Davy Friday Drive at 5...etc.

 

[GeneSavage]

Gary,

If it was on 14K / 92K, chances are it influenced me! I worshiped these guys as GODS. (Looking back, they were good to excellent jocks... but they were also playing ALL the right songs.)

I believe the guy you're hearing is Andy Savage. He took over the show when Bo Chase left (he'd been warned the station was going under, & to NOT turn down any job offers... he was snapped up quickly). Andy knew what he was getting into and did an admirable job of keeping the morning show afloat until the axe fell.

In looking for 14K / 92K tapes, I actually DID find some K-107 & Z104.5 tapes that I ought to figure out a way to post. There's Joe Riddle doing When Radio Was Young on KRMG in the early 80s, plus a FANTASTIC aircheck of The Big 89, WLS from Christmas night 1984... in stereo, from Tulsa! It would be an ear-opener for those who never heard AM stereo.

I have no Carlson & McKenzie that I know of, maybe a little Chuck Stevens though... and found an old aircheck of Carly Rush that will HAVE to be posted! Not sure I've got any Elvis Polo unfortunately. I have a tape or two of myself on K-Hits & tons of me on Z104.5, but for the most part they are scoped, & I was always a good card reader.

...You may have given me an idea, Gary... I may have to every so often crack open my "aircheck vaults" (i.e., "bucket 'o tapes") & spend a day on a different station.

Hm-m-m!!!

 

[billyg]

billyg: It Ain't Right has been a hard one for me to track down, too... Mel was going to get me a copy at one point from a 45 he had, but as you might he imagine he has bigger fish to fry than a fan of a station he ran 25 years ago.

I'm sure he does. I'm surprised Mel and Davy are still working in Tulsa radio (and with such a burned out playlist too). I remember going to Sound Warehouse to look for that 45, and they didnt have it.. walked out with the Bangles first album instead. I need to dig out that old tape case with all my radio cassettes - recorded on cheapo K-Mart and Target cassettes - and look for that song again.

 

[GeneSavage]

Mel & Dave (& likely many others of the other K-Crew) have long since packed away in the bottom of boxes in the back of attics under who-knows-what their 14K/92K memorabilia; I'm the only nut with 24 cassettes on my desk TODAY from that era.

(I've got a black 14K sticker, a black 14K/92K sticker, & a blue 14K/92K sticker, plus the "farewell" booklet they put together for the staff... I need to get THAT one scanned & online for next year!)

"It Ain't Right" was a great one, & a Tulsa original!

I wonder who owns the rights to the original recordings? Did Jim Sweeney & The Jumpshots self-produce, or was there a local "label" that may have gone bankrupt & been sold several times, but technically still owns the rights?

That would be a fun one for somebody like Mix96, KBEZ, or Kool 106 to get re-released on a limited run CD. I wonder if there were enough local hits to make a compilation CD? Even if you had to span 60s, 70s & 80s, it would be a nice collection. Rights would be the biggest issue I'm sure, followed by finding all those forgotten master tapes!

Z104.5 of course has done a good job of tracking the local alternative scene through their "Homegroan" CDs.

I doubt I'm the one to do it, but I love this idea!

 

[billyg]

Mel & Dave (& likely many others of the other K-Crew) have long since packed away in the bottom of boxes in the back of attics under who-knows-what their 14K/92K memorabilia; I'm the only nut with 24 cassettes on my desk TODAY from that era.

(I've got a black 14K sticker, a black 14K/92K sticker, & a blue 14K/92K sticker, plus the "farewell" booklet they put together for the staff... I need to get THAT one scanned & online for next year!)

"It Ain't Right" was a great one, & a Tulsa original!

I wonder who owns the rights to the original recordings? Did Jim Sweeney & The Jumpshots self-produce, or was there a local "label" that may have gone bankrupt & been sold several times, but technically still owns the rights?

I have all those stickers, but I stuck them on cassette boxes (which looking back was a good way to save them - they'd probably would have gotten tossed out over the years). I miss the days when radio stations used to give away tons of bumper stickers, T-shirts, printed surveys in the record stores (KELi Klimbers!) I even remember the 14K shoe laces they gave away. I would love to see the farewell album too.

My guess Jim Sweeney owns the rights to "It Aint Right". I've looked on Ebay and GEMM for a copy of it, but nothing has turned up. Does he still perform in Tulsa?

 

[GeneSavage]

I NEVER got to see the shoelaces... wanted a pair SO BAD!

Jim Sweeney apparently is... leading Karaoke? Yup...

Lennie's Club
3337 E Skelly Dr
Tulsa, OK 74135

http://tulsaontap.com/Place.aspx?p=LenniesClub

"Lennie's Club - Now you have your cake and eat it too. Lennie's Club, located at 3337 E Skelly Dr, is a hybrid of both trendy-club and swank-lounge. Get there early and stay late; it’s the kind of place where you can have an amazing drinks and then stay for the nightlife."

http://www.clubplanet.com/Venues/109116/Tulsa/Lennies-Club

The Jumpshots' website appears to be gone, but the MySpace page is still up:

http://www.myspace.com/thejumpshots
(As far as I know this is the same Jumpshots Jim Sweeney led in the 80s, but I can't guarantee it.)

The Jumpshots will play this Friday night at:

SoCo's Sports Bar & Grill
8161 S Harvard Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74137
Phone: 918-477-7551

http://wimgo.com/events/93189/the-jumpshots

Here's a demo of them covering numerous R&B tracks (and INXS and Smash Mouth?!?):
http://apps.facebook.com/reverbnation_fb/artist/thejumpshots

Sweeney & The Jumpshots no longer together... it ain't right...

(I wonder if the separation has made figuring out the rights to the song more difficult...)

 

[Bryan Pennington]

I NEVER got to see the shoelaces... wanted a pair SO BAD!

I think those were called "krew-laces." White with orange 14K/92K on them if I recall correctly. This sounds weird, but you've got to remember flashy fancy shoe laces were HUGE at that time even for boys.

Anyone remember the air staff was known as the K-Crew?

I think several of us "late 30's" guys took an interest in radio because of 14K/92K. Too bad I never got to work anywhere that cool. (No offense intended to the places I worked or the people I worked with.)

Bryan

 

[GeneSavage]

Bryan,

KREW-laces... I can't believe I had forgotten! I think you're right on the description... for some reason I had them in my head as being yellow, but I'm not sure I ever actually saw a pair.

You bet I remember them being the K-Crew! (or K-Krew, hard to tell over the radio...) It felt pretty weird the first time I hear K95.5FM identify themselves as the K-Crew (although some of the K-Krew ended up at K95... shh-h-h!).

If you called in a request, you called in on the Party Lines, 460-5-14K or 460-5-92K (can't remember the earlier numbers). The extended versions of songs they played Friday and Saturday nights were Party Mixes, & they did 30 minute, 60 minute, 92 minute, and all-night Music Marathons.

They also did cash calls, I think that was what it was called: they'd get license plate numbers of people driving around town with 14K stickers on their bumper. They'd call a tag # on the air; if it was yours, you had 14 minutes & 30 seconds to call and claim your cash: $50 for having the sticker, $100 if it was the only sticker on the car, & $150 if it was obviously OVER another radio station's sticker!

Remember the Kash Kopter? You could NEVER do that today; nobody in the world would insure dropping money from a helicopter to people who have "14K" visible from the street & the air!

There was "Win A Hundred" where everybody was guessing the serial number of a century note and each correct guess got you closer... IF you were listening... You could win with the Money And Music game where you counted how many songs were played since the last sounder, to win cash. There was rock trivia, too, and during Mel's show in the midday there was Sixty Second L.P., a national deal that reviewed a new album in a minute, than played a minute spot.

We had the Top 5 at 5, The Tulsa top 25 Saturday aftenoons, Rick Dees' Weekly Top 40, and even Dan Ingram's Top 40 Satellite Survey. (K-107 had Casey & AT40, but Rick Dees was hip & young... & funny!)

For a radio station that was only on the air for two years, it had a tremendous influence, you're right. I liked K-107, I liked Z104.5 (some of the same guys), I liked KMOD (kinda), but nothing hit me like 14K.

As I recall, Dave Michaels told me he & Mel (and maybe some of the others) used to spend all weekend in local clubs watching people's reaction to the tunes the DJs were spinning. Come Monday morning, the ones that got the crowd going would start getting spins on the radio. They'd check with local record stores and see what was selling, & what was getting played in the stores. Remember Buttons? Sound Warehouse? Starship Records & Tapes (the only one still around)? Mohawk Music came later, I think...

They had no other research that I'm aware of, beyond the national charts, what other "hot-rockin" top-40 stations in other places were doing, & their own intuition. Dave described it as incredibly fun, but terribly exhausting, too! I can only imagine..

It was just the perfectly programmed & executed station, just as MTV was taking hold. They made K-107 seem light, weak, and stuffy... something they had NEVER seemed before, when there was no competition.

Especially in their early days, you'd hear Heaven 17, Missing Persons, Abn Ozn, Re-Flex, Monte Video & The Cassettes, Haircut One Hundred, Trio... so many groups I'd NEVER heard of, and might never have heard were it not for that incredible sound coming out of my radio when it was set to 1430.

Bryan, I'm with you: I've had some pretty cool radio experiences, things I feel lucky to have experienced... but I'd give my left arm to just once get to open the mic & be able to say:

"We're first with Tulsa's hottest hits: 14K, and the new 92K!"

DROOL...