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Jim Ladd to Host Talk Show Sat Nov 5 4p-7p

The Jim Ladd appearance on KFI on Saturday 11/5 featured the following guests (by phone):

John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
Jackson Browne
Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)
Slash (Guns N' Roses)
George Thorogood (George Thorogood and The Destroyers)
Billy Bob Thornton
Elliot Mintz (publicist)
Chris Carter ("Breakfast With The Beatles" host on KLOS)
David Crosby (The Byrds; Crosby, Stills and Nash; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Crosby/Nash)
John Densmore (The Doors)
Bob Buchmann (former PD/DJ at KLOS L.A.; WAXQ New York; WBAB Babylon, Long Island, NY)

The show opened and closed with the opening minute or so of the 2002 Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers song "The Last DJ".

Jim mentioned during the show (when prompted by a caller) that he would be open to working at 100.3 The Sound (KSWD).
Jim "thinks it's a fine station", etc.

Podcast available for playback/download at this link:
http://www.kfiam640.com/cc-common/p...cted_podcast=Walter110511_1320545217_7408.mp3

From the L.A. Times Calendar Section dated Saturday 11/5/11, an interview with Jim Ladd -
link here: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-jim-ladd-20111105,0,2632982.story
 
pjc1961 said:
The Jim Ladd appearance on KFI on Saturday 11/5 featured the following guests (by phone):

John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
Jackson Browne
Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)
Slash (Guns N' Roses)
George Thorogood (George Thorogood and The Destroyers)
Billy Bob Thornton
Elliot Mintz (publicist)
Chris Carter ("Breakfast With The Beatles" host on KLOS)
David Crosby (The Byrds; Crosby, Stills and Nash; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Crosby/Nash)
John Densmore (The Doors)
Bob Buchmann (former PD/DJ at KLOS L.A.; WAXQ New York; WBAB Babylon, Long Island, NY)

The show opened and closed with the opening minute or so of the 2002 Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers song "The Last DJ".

Jim mentioned during the show (when prompted by a caller) that he would be open to working at 100.3 The Sound (KSWD).
Jim "thinks it's a fine station", etc.

Podcast available for playback/download at this link:
http://www.kfiam640.com/cc-common/p...cted_podcast=Walter110511_1320545217_7408.mp3

From the L.A. Times Calendar Section dated Saturday 11/5/11, an interview with Jim Ladd -
link here: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-jim-ladd-20111105,0,2632982.story
Click to expand...

I listened for about 20 minutes this afternoon, particularly the part with George Thorogood and the few callers that called after that, and if the rest of the show was like the part that I heard, then it was quite particularly bad radio. George was telling Jim he not only represents a great DJ who gets it, but is at the center of the whole movement, just transferring it from the streets to the radio man, you know "like that Buffalo Springfield song" (obviously referring to "For What it's Worth". Didn't I just note the other day how Jim is stuck in 1968? Perfect example provided by George, although this particular track was popular in 1967. What's a year among friends?)

Then came the callers. Suffice it to say, not the most clearheaded bunch ever to grace the KFI airwaves. In particular, the lady suggesting he work for the Sound was clearly stoned and she must have thought she was the very first person to think that Ladd might want to consider the Sound. What a great idea! Of course Jim thinks that "the Sound is a GREAT station and he would just LOVE to work with Rita again. Thanks for the suggestion darlin'".

Aging rock stars telling Jim how great he is for three hours along with stoned listeners telling him the same thing and Jim basking in the glory of the whole thing was probably not the best idea in retrospect. But now that Jim has had a chance to say goodbye, let's hope he does some of that introspection I hoped for the other day and produces an updated more relevant show. Unfortunately, based on what I heard, that doesn't seem very likely.
 
emailfailed said:
I don't know if anybody heard, but Roger Waters dropped the "S-bomb" on the air while talking to Ladd.
Click to expand...

That piece of radio gold occurred at the 52:18 mark on the podcast (linked a couple of posts above). The entire answer to Jim Ladd's question about "The Wall" concert themes/topics starts at the 51:19 mark. I heard it unedited on the webstream during the live broadcast (to be expected since most stations don't edit their streams since they're not overseen by the FCC); I wasn't sure how it was handled "on-air". Roger did restrain himself from using the "F-word" a couple of times.

Roger mentioned that the 2012 version of "The Wall" tour will make a stop at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on Saturday, May 19, 2012.
 
However you may feel about Jim Ladd KFI knows a good thing when they see it and they knew giving Ladd a forum to say goodbye along with a few other words along with rock stars calling in was going to make good radio.

Over the years KFI has had some notable guest hosts over the years, including Jerry Springer.
 
It's Ronald Reagan's fault that Jim Ladd is no longer on the air!

The amazing thing was he didn't blame George W. Bush.

I listened live on Saturday via my cell phone (my wife and I were in a jewelry store at the time) .. I heard Jim's opening monologue in the 4:00 hour.

After he was lamenting the end of the good ol' days and "magic and madness inside those stations", he got on his soapbox and then stated:

"those days are over. They came to a screetching halt in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan deregulated radio; a move that did more to slice and dice the First Amendment to the Constitution than any other act in history. It undercut our freedom of expression. It broke the back of those who lived to bring music to the airwaves and 30 years later it resulted in me being fired for doing what FM radio was born to do. With the stroke of a pen deregulation stripped away the power of thousands of independent broadcasters across the country. It took away the ability to compete from the 99% of the people who owned the stations and gave it to the 1% who had the money to buy them out. Sound familiar? Giant multi-national corporations don't just ship jobs overseas and embezzle your retirement funds. They have stolen your freedom of choice, hijacked the public airwaves, and turned a nation of smart and knowledgable radio listeners into a herd of fast-food media consumers who are forced to eat whatever they dish out. It's your freedom of choice that I've been fighting for all these years. And I'm not the only one who has had to pay the price. My wife Helene must now face our uncertain future as well. But lemme tell you ... she is as adamant as I am that standing on principle is more important than simply getting a paycheck to do something you know is wrong. And I thank my darlin' Helene for that. ................ "

Hyperbole and revisionist history?

Maybe David E. and others can elaborate on how much of a role President Reagan had in what Ladd attributes to him. I know that The Fairness Doctrine was eliminated by Reagan but that didn't affect music on the radio, did it? ::) Seems to me that during Reagan's last year in office, Jim Ladd worked for a rock station that swam against the tide of mediocrity in music radio. Seems to me that Ladd worked for a station owned by a giant multi-national company that also owned at one time a local pro baseball team and has a 60+ year history in SoCal. On that station Ladd was given as much freedom as can be expected in radio's environment over the last 13 years or so. Seems to me that in 1996 the U.S. Congress passed a bill that contributed greatly to the state of radio today and with a stroke of a pen, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Frankly as I listened to this first segment of Saturday's show I had to stifle a laugh or two. And I didn't listen to very much of the rest of the show after hearing George Thorogood's call in. Listening to the rest of the show would have been two plus hours of my life that I would never get back.

Your thoughts??
 
Somebody with a better grasp on the history of broadcast de-regulation can chime in - but MY memory is that the big changes started with the relaxation of the ownership limits (number of stations that a corporation can own in any single market), and that was signed into law by Bill Clinton.

It's worth noting that Ladd got his start on KLOS in the early 70s, when the playlist was very tight, and he and the other jocks had to basically just "shut up and play the music." I guess he got all this "freedom" later at KMET.
 
Re: It's Ronald Reagan's fault that Jim Ladd is no longer on the air!

SuperRadioFan said:
Hyperbole and revisionist history?
Click to expand...

That would be my view. What Reagan did was open the floodgates for many more radio stations. It took the monopoly out of the hands of some major players and made owning a radio station far less valuable and far less profitable. He also removed lots of requirements from those stations, in terms of staff, engineering, and license renewal. The purpose was to cut the FCC budget.

This idea that a DJ had "freedom of expression" on the radio is selective memory, or perhaps he lived a charmed life. Unless you worked for a Pacifica or similar non-commercial station, the airwaves belonged to your employer.

Regarding Clinton and the 96 Act, the vote in Congress was so overwhelming that if he used the veto, it would have been overridden. He had no choice. But it didn't change a thing. There are still thousands of independent broadcasters in this country, and very few allow the freedoms Ladd thinks existed. He's welcome to work for one of those romantic independent broadcasters, but I promise he'll take a huge pay cut.
 
I left LA before Ladd moved to KMET and supposedly gained all this freedom. But even in the few brief years of real "free-form" album rock radio (68-72), rants by DJs were extremely infrequent. Some big event like the Kent State shootings might have caused an FM jock like B. Mitchell Reed or The Obscene Steven Clean to make some kind of political statement on occasion. But you could listen for weeks and never hear anything about radical politics. Those guys knew they were there to play music, so they generally kept the conversations short, and only about the music.

Also, it's doubtful that any corporate radio owner of the time like MetroMedia (KMET) would have put up with rants by DJs that were anything more than very rare,
 
Re: It's Ronald Reagan's fault that Jim Ladd is no longer on the air!

SuperRadioFan said:
The amazing thing was he didn't blame George W. Bush.

I listened live on Saturday via my cell phone (my wife and I were in a jewelry store at the time) .. I heard Jim's opening monologue in the 4:00 hour.

After he was lamenting the end of the good ol' days and "magic and madness inside those stations", he got on his soapbox and then stated:

"those days are over. They came to a screetching halt in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan deregulated radio; a move that did more to slice and dice the First Amendment to the Constitution than any other act in history. It undercut our freedom of expression. It broke the back of those who lived to bring music to the airwaves and 30 years later it resulted in me being fired for doing what FM radio was born to do. With the stroke of a pen deregulation stripped away the power of thousands of independent broadcasters across the country. It took away the ability to compete from the 99% of the people who owned the stations and gave it to the 1% who had the money to buy them out. Sound familiar? Giant multi-national corporations don't just ship jobs overseas and embezzle your retirement funds. They have stolen your freedom of choice, hijacked the public airwaves, and turned a nation of smart and knowledgable radio listeners into a herd of fast-food media consumers who are forced to eat whatever they dish out. It's your freedom of choice that I've been fighting for all these years. And I'm not the only one who has had to pay the price. My wife Helene must now face our uncertain future as well. But lemme tell you ... she is as adamant as I am that standing on principle is more important than simply getting a paycheck to do something you know is wrong. And I thank my darlin' Helene for that. ................ "

Hyperbole and revisionist history?

Maybe David E. and others can elaborate on how much of a role President Reagan had in what Ladd attributes to him. I know that The Fairness Doctrine was eliminated by Reagan but that didn't affect music on the radio, did it? ::) Seems to me that during Reagan's last year in office, Jim Ladd worked for a rock station that swam against the tide of mediocrity in music radio. Seems to me that Ladd worked for a station owned by a giant multi-national company that also owned at one time a local pro baseball team and has a 60+ year history in SoCal. On that station Ladd was given as much freedom as can be expected in radio's environment over the last 13 years or so. Seems to me that in 1996 the U.S. Congress passed a bill that contributed greatly to the state of radio today and with a stroke of a pen, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Frankly as I listened to this first segment of Saturday's show I had to stifle a laugh or two. And I didn't listen to very much of the rest of the show after hearing George Thorogood's call in. Listening to the rest of the show would have been two plus hours of my life that I would never get back.

Your thoughts??
Click to expand...

"You know NIXON took all our freedoms by getting us into Vietnam
REAGAN took all our freedoms with dereguation and tax relief
BUSH took all our freedoms by invading Iraq (He used to be head of the CIA you know! What is he hiding?!)
GEORGE W. (the most evil of them all) took our freedoms by going to war in Iraq just like his father and just by existing
and Obama took all our freedoms by selling his soul to Wall Street..."

Oh wait, I goofed... something not right there...don't help me, I'll get it...
 
ChannelFlipper said:
SuperRadioFan said:
The amazing thing was he didn't blame George W. Bush.

I listened live on Saturday via my cell phone (my wife and I were in a jewelry store at the time) .. I heard Jim's opening monologue in the 4:00 hour.

After he was lamenting the end of the good ol' days and "magic and madness inside those stations", he got on his soapbox and then stated:

"those days are over. They came to a screetching halt in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan deregulated radio; a move that did more to slice and dice the First Amendment to the Constitution than any other act in history. It undercut our freedom of expression. It broke the back of those who lived to bring music to the airwaves and 30 years later it resulted in me being fired for doing what FM radio was born to do. With the stroke of a pen deregulation stripped away the power of thousands of independent broadcasters across the country. It took away the ability to compete from the 99% of the people who owned the stations and gave it to the 1% who had the money to buy them out. Sound familiar? Giant multi-national corporations don't just ship jobs overseas and embezzle your retirement funds. They have stolen your freedom of choice, hijacked the public airwaves, and turned a nation of smart and knowledgable radio listeners into a herd of fast-food media consumers who are forced to eat whatever they dish out. It's your freedom of choice that I've been fighting for all these years. And I'm not the only one who has had to pay the price. My wife Helene must now face our uncertain future as well. But lemme tell you ... she is as adamant as I am that standing on principle is more important than simply getting a paycheck to do something you know is wrong. And I thank my darlin' Helene for that. ................ "

Hyperbole and revisionist history?

Maybe David E. and others can elaborate on how much of a role President Reagan had in what Ladd attributes to him. I know that The Fairness Doctrine was eliminated by Reagan but that didn't affect music on the radio, did it? ::) Seems to me that during Reagan's last year in office, Jim Ladd worked for a rock station that swam against the tide of mediocrity in music radio. Seems to me that Ladd worked for a station owned by a giant multi-national company that also owned at one time a local pro baseball team and has a 60+ year history in SoCal. On that station Ladd was given as much freedom as can be expected in radio's environment over the last 13 years or so. Seems to me that in 1996 the U.S. Congress passed a bill that contributed greatly to the state of radio today and with a stroke of a pen, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Frankly as I listened to this first segment of Saturday's show I had to stifle a laugh or two. And I didn't listen to very much of the rest of the show after hearing George Thorogood's call in. Listening to the rest of the show would have been two plus hours of my life that I would never get back.

Your thoughts??
Click to expand...

"You know NIXON took all our freedoms by getting us into Vietnam
REAGAN took all our freedoms with deregulation and tax relief
BUSH took all our freedoms by invading Iraq (He used to be head of the CIA you know! What is he hiding?!)
GEORGE W. (the most evil of them all) took our freedoms by going to war in Iraq just like his father and just by existing
and Obama took all our freedoms by selling his soul to Wall Street..."

Oh wait, I goofed... something not right there...don't help me, I'll get it...
Click to expand...

Uh, Nixon didn't get us into Vietnam, he actually got us out of there. I hate admitting that because I wasn't a Nixon fan in the least, but credit where it's do.
The first Gulf war was somewhat legit to stop the invasion of Kuwait, and Bush #1 imho did it right. His son, well that's another matter. Reagan and much as
I hate to admit it to a small degree Carter started the deregulation. Clinton pretty much finished it for radio transforming an industry already racing toward change
because of technology. Combine deregulation with greed and technology and you have what radio is today, a real cesspool that only supports the top management
who like the robber barons of old continue to screw the little guy.

Okay, no more politics...
 
calguy said:
ChannelFlipper said:
SuperRadioFan said:
The amazing thing was he didn't blame George W. Bush.

I listened live on Saturday via my cell phone (my wife and I were in a jewelry store at the time) .. I heard Jim's opening monologue in the 4:00 hour.

After he was lamenting the end of the good ol' days and "magic and madness inside those stations", he got on his soapbox and then stated:

"those days are over. They came to a screetching halt in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan deregulated radio; a move that did more to slice and dice the First Amendment to the Constitution than any other act in history. It undercut our freedom of expression. It broke the back of those who lived to bring music to the airwaves and 30 years later it resulted in me being fired for doing what FM radio was born to do. With the stroke of a pen deregulation stripped away the power of thousands of independent broadcasters across the country. It took away the ability to compete from the 99% of the people who owned the stations and gave it to the 1% who had the money to buy them out. Sound familiar? Giant multi-national corporations don't just ship jobs overseas and embezzle your retirement funds. They have stolen your freedom of choice, hijacked the public airwaves, and turned a nation of smart and knowledgable radio listeners into a herd of fast-food media consumers who are forced to eat whatever they dish out. It's your freedom of choice that I've been fighting for all these years. And I'm not the only one who has had to pay the price. My wife Helene must now face our uncertain future as well. But lemme tell you ... she is as adamant as I am that standing on principle is more important than simply getting a paycheck to do something you know is wrong. And I thank my darlin' Helene for that. ................ "

Hyperbole and revisionist history?

Maybe David E. and others can elaborate on how much of a role President Reagan had in what Ladd attributes to him. I know that The Fairness Doctrine was eliminated by Reagan but that didn't affect music on the radio, did it? ::) Seems to me that during Reagan's last year in office, Jim Ladd worked for a rock station that swam against the tide of mediocrity in music radio. Seems to me that Ladd worked for a station owned by a giant multi-national company that also owned at one time a local pro baseball team and has a 60+ year history in SoCal. On that station Ladd was given as much freedom as can be expected in radio's environment over the last 13 years or so. Seems to me that in 1996 the U.S. Congress passed a bill that contributed greatly to the state of radio today and with a stroke of a pen, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Frankly as I listened to this first segment of Saturday's show I had to stifle a laugh or two. And I didn't listen to very much of the rest of the show after hearing George Thorogood's call in. Listening to the rest of the show would have been two plus hours of my life that I would never get back.

Your thoughts??
Click to expand...

"You know NIXON took all our freedoms by getting us into Vietnam
REAGAN took all our freedoms with deregulation and tax relief
BUSH took all our freedoms by invading Iraq (He used to be head of the CIA you know! What is he hiding?!)
GEORGE W. (the most evil of them all) took our freedoms by going to war in Iraq just like his father and just by existing
and Obama took all our freedoms by selling his soul to Wall Street..."

Oh wait, I goofed... something not right there...don't help me, I'll get it...
Click to expand...

Uh, Nixon didn't get us into Vietnam, he actually got us out of there. I hate admitting that because I wasn't a Nixon fan in the least, but credit where it's do.
The first Gulf war was somewhat legit to stop the invasion of Kuwait, and Bush #1 imho did it right. His son, well that's another matter. Reagan and much as
I hate to admit it to a small degree Carter started the deregulation. Clinton pretty much finished it for radio transforming an industry already racing toward change
because of technology. Combine deregulation with greed and technology and you have what radio is today, a real cesspool that only supports the top management
who like the robber barons of old continue to screw the little guy.

Okay, no more politics...
Click to expand...

You do realize of course that part of the joke is that they were nearly all errors. That is what happens when the real world is boiled down to a bumper sticker and reflects the shallowness of the rant to which Super referred.
 
Interesting to read some of these comments. From what I can tell, the folks who don't care for Jim's rants, simply don't agree with him. Flipper is amusing when he speaks of the "real world being boiled down to a bumper sticker," something the right-wing media does to great effectiveness; "Obamacare," "Shared sacrifice," "Class warfare," etc...

I haven't really listened to Jim's show in years, but those KMET years were golden and Ladd's show was one of the main inspirations for me getting into radio. And if my "selective memory" serves me right, he had a pretty free hand in crafting his show. Rants, awesome mixes of the songs of the day and even the all girl harmonica band all made for very entertaining and spot on radio for the late 70s.

Jim lost me in the 80s however when, musically, his show failed to change with the times. KROQ was the new kid in town, with an even wilder presentation than KMET and playing exciting new music from MY generation, with a heaping helping of exciting local bands. I can remember the exact turning point for me. Jim had on Ted Nugent and the two of them were poo-pooing the latest crop of rock-n-rollers, the Sex Pistols in particular. (This from the guy who gave us "Wango Tango!") "The Lonesome LA Cowboy's" failure to acknowledge the vibrancy of the emerging LA music scene (even with Ray Manzarek producing and performing on the first X albums) relegated him to dinosaur status in my book. By the time the Mighty Met disintegrated into porpoise noises, it was indeed finished.

But those heady days back in the late 70's, KMET and Jim Ladd in particular, ruled the roost and you cannot take that away from him. As for today? Jim could create a hybrid talk/music show. The rules have changed and who says you have to be one or the other? Could be a good fit on a station like KTLK or give Tom Leykis a ring and come up with something new and innovative for his New Normal network. Or just roll a big fatty and put his feet up and enjoy the view. No matter what he decides to do, he has earned his rightful place in the company of legendary LA DJs. Best of luck to you Jim Ladd!
 
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