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93 KHJ Radio Aircheck

oldies76

oldies76

A question for Michael Hagerty......

I discovered this aircheck on YouTube today, recently posted. It's from 1974. I know you're quite familiar with Boss Radio and it's history. "Earache My Eye" reached #1 for a week around October 1974. Do you recall this "song" actually receiving airplay or in regular rotation to warrant it's top position in Los Angeles? It came to my mind after hearing this wonderful aircheck and music from the same year which you might like. Cheech & Chong is not on this particular aircheck that I'm aware of, but I thought I'd ask.

 
oldies76 said:
A question for Michael Hagerty......

I discovered this aircheck on YouTube today, recently posted. It's from 1974. I know you're quite familiar with Boss Radio and it's history. "Earache My Eye" reached #1 for a week around October 1974. Do you recall this "song" actually receiving airplay or in regular rotation to warrant it's top position in Los Angeles? It came to my mind after hearing this wonderful aircheck and music from the same year which you might like. Cheech & Chong is not on this particular aircheck that I'm aware of, but I thought I'd ask.

Click to expand...

I don't know anything about KHJ, but it definitely got spins on KMET even well after 1974, especially on the (great) Dr. Demento show on Sunday nights.

"Earache my eye, how would you like a buttache?"
 
CKLW aired it, and even had Cheech and Chong on Gary Burbank's morning show (there is a short clip online somewhere). Peaked at #9 there. I apparently heard it enough to buy the album.
 
The date of the recording was likely the weekend of August 10-11, 1974.
Ad for Knott's Berry Farm promotes Rick Nelson + The Stone Canyon Band appearing that week;
actual dates were Sunday 8/11 thru Saturday 8/17 (see Daily Titan Summer Edition - July 18, 1974).
The Wherehouse record stores had double-discount prices on ABC-Dunhill product thru Wednesday 8/14.
John Denver concert tickets for his run at the Universal Studios Amphitheater 8/26-9/1 at which the
"Evening with John Denver" live album was recorded.
California Grand Prix at Ontario Motor Speedway on Labor Day weekend.
(For historical context, Richard Nixon had resigned from the Presidency effective on Friday 8/9/1974
with Gerald Ford succeeding him.)

8/6/1974 KHJ Survey and 8/13/1974 KHJ Survey

"Earache..." debuted at #29 and moved to #27 by the 2nd survey above. It's not on this aircheck.

J.B. Stone arrived at KHJ from WHBQ Memphis. Post-KHJ he went to KDIA Oakland; KGFJ L.A. 1980-81, PD; KJLH 1982-84, PD/GM then in 1990 became director of Taxi Productions. By 1993, he was head of Stevie Wonder's broadcast group.
Finished up in 1995 at Magic 97 Albany GA. Passed away at age 68 in September 2015.
L.A. Radio People - Where Are They Now? (scroll down near bottom of page)
 
@michael hagerty to the white courtesy phone...

"Earache..." was played on KACY, Oxnard...I was there in 1974.

Last paragraph of this segment of Wikipedia...interesting, and probably more truth in it, and that's the story to tell:

en.wikipedia.org

Earache My Eye - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Last edited:
kwthom said:
@michael hagerty to the white courtesy phone...

"Earache..." was played on KACY, Oxnard...I was there in 1974.

Last paragraph of this segment of Wikipedia...interesting, and probably more truth in it, and that's the story to tell:

en.wikipedia.org

Earache My Eye - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Click to expand...
I suspect if there was any (insert Covid cough here) controversy in this record, it was likely hype generated by the duo or their promotions people. Similar to the hype and (more Covid coughing) controversy around Alice Cooper. Comedy records like this, novelty and break-in records like "Mr. Jaws" by Dickie Goodman have limited shelf lives compared to other hits. There wasn't a lot of reason to ban the record, as the record reached it's peak, and people were just done with it.
 
kwthom said:
@michael hagerty to the white courtesy phone...
Click to expand...
5093F647-32F3-49C9-97AC-62D0294A6CC9.jpeg
How’d I miss this thread?

Anyway, yeah—-Cheech and Chong were an L.A. act, so I’m not surprised it was #1 at KHJ. K-100 played it, too:


We played it at KSLY, San Luis Obispo, too. It was a turntable hit, driven entirely by phones, and most of that from 8-13 year olds. Novelty record. Quick run up the chart, fast burn, rapid fall.

The only part I remember our management having an issue with is when the dad tells the kid to bend over (for a spanking) and the kid says “Why? What are you gonna do, ya pervert?” We just told the GM we couldn’t not play it and it would be gone in six weeks. Pretty sure we dayparted it to afternoons and evenings since school had just started.
 

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In New York WABC never touched that song. The only station I heard it on was WWDJ which changed to a religious format on 4/1/74.
 
radio128 said:
Still WABC didn't play "Elephant" or "Earache."
Click to expand...
WABC played very few novelty records after Rick Sklar got burned by "They're Coming To Take Me Away" in 1965/66. The only one that I know they played was Johnny Cash's "Boy Named Sue", though there could have been a small handful of others. Maybe Chuck Berry's "My Ding-a-Ling" for a short time, but that was probably dayparted to evenings/overnights fairly quickly. I can't recall any of the Dickie Goodman style of novelty records airing there after maybe the early-mid 60's, though they may have been included on the printed surveys that went out to record stores.

More likely novelties aired on WMCA (in the 60's) or WNBC (but only after Imus got there in '71). Or WWDJ, before they found religion. "Soul 16" WWRL might have gone on "Ding-a-Ling", but that would have been a special case.

Okay, returning you all to Boss Angeles.
 
Weiserguy said:
WABC played very few novelty records after Rick Sklar got burned by "They're Coming To Take Me Away" in 1965/66. The only one that I know they played was Johnny Cash's "Boy Named Sue", though there could have been a small handful of others. Maybe Chuck Berry's "My Ding-a-Ling" for a short time, but that was probably dayparted to evenings/overnights fairly quickly. I can't recall any of the Dickie Goodman style of novelty records airing there after maybe the early-mid 60's, though they may have been included on the printed surveys that went out to record stores.

More likely novelties aired on WMCA (in the 60's) or WNBC (but only after Imus got there in '71). Or WWDJ, before they found religion. "Soul 16" WWRL might have gone on "Ding-a-Ling", but that would have been a special case.

Okay, returning you all to Boss Angeles.
Click to expand...

WABC's approach was completely different from KHJ's.

Sklar only played a record if it was selling in New York. That meant letting other stations take the risk on unproven material, letting them play records that would stiff mid-chart or outright.

He'd time it so that WABC would be on the record at its peak of popularity, once mass popularity was ensured.

That's an approach that had never been done in Los Angeles. KFWB got up to sixty currents at one point. And by the time KRLA got its act together and KHJ went Boss, there was a significant upside, at that moment, in Los Angeles, to be first with the new music.

When Paul Drew took over as National PD of RKO, that largely ended, but Drew was never as strict about what constituted a hit as Sklar was. And KHJ's PD when "Earache My Eye" was released was Gerry Peterson (later Gerry Cagle), who was absolutely targeting teens, and was known to add records for----let's just say "less than orthodox" reasons.

(PS: Both WABC and WLS passed on "My Ding-A-Ling")
 
...back to the original post, I'm familiar with the aircheck...not sure that J.B. Stone barking "K-H-J!" every time he opens the mic while playing Donny and Marie at 47 rpm qualifies as "wonderful", but hey...
 
michael hagerty said:
...back to the original post, I'm familiar with the aircheck...not sure that J.B. Stone barking "K-H-J!" every time he opens the mic while playing Donny and Marie at 47 rpm qualifies as "wonderful", but hey...
Click to expand...
My original question to you was, did KHJ actually air that song frequently enough and how did it reach #1 on the 30? In other words, was there sufficient airplay to warrant its peak position on that survey? Was Cheech & Chong on regular rotation on KHJ, like any other song that was popular on the survey that month?
 
oldies76 said:
My original question to you was, did KHJ actually air that song frequently enough and how did it reach #1 on the 30? In other words, was there sufficient airplay to warrant its peak position on that survey? Was Cheech & Chong on regular rotation on KHJ, like any other song that was popular on the survey that month?
Click to expand...
While I can't speak for KHJ's airplay, that song received considerable airplay in St. Louis on Top-40 radio in the fall of 1974, and I would suspect KHJ wasn't much different.

Also, how honest or reliable were these surveys back then anyway? The fate of the world didn't rest on any of these local radio surveys. Also, accurate reporting services like Sound Scan didn't exist until the early 1990s.
 
spiritof67 said:
Also, how honest or reliable were these surveys back then anyway? The fate of the world didn't rest on any of these local radio surveys. Also, accurate reporting services like Sound Scan didn't exist until the early 1990s.
Click to expand...
Remember, Top 40 stations divided their list into several categories, with the top few songs playing a lot more than the lowest ones and "premier" appearances of new songs.

But in total, there might have been 4 or 5 categories for the 40. So there were lots of songs in each one; the #6 song likely played just as often as #14 and so on. So the ranks were not really critical as for, five positions near the top made no difference and 10 to 15 positions were all the same at the bottom.
And sometimes we'd take a really old song off the chart but still play it. Generally, that was to allow a new song by the same artist to appear back when, except for a few artists, we did not chart more than one tune by the same artist at the same time.

Of course, some songs charted higher to make record ducks happy.

Stations reporting to Gavin or Hamilton or FMQB generally got discovered if the lists were not reflective of play.
 
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