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old kezx music

R

rmx77

I know this may not fit here but i happen to have a few copies of songs that my parents had recorded back in the 80's from when kezx was still around. The thing is that I am trying to figure out what some of the songs are that I like. Some of the songs I have never been able to find any info for or anything. Most of what i do know is that these were all from older not so well known labels that have either died off or that they changed their name or were merged or bought out. I do wonder how I am able to find out what some of the songs are and or where i can track down the actual albums. I know some of the stuff or lots of the stuff came from a show called Musical starstreams and a show called soundspace. The recordings really weren't in the best quality cause of the reception having a bit of fm static and no dolby ever used to record the songs or radio shows. if anyone might know just let me know
 
Usually stations like KEZX and KSEA (if we're talking about when KEZX was beautiful music format) would be playing from large library reel-to-reels and the "rotation" was simply determined by the order a song would come up as it was mixed with other reels on the automation system. So when those reels were mastered they were usually done by a syndicator who would find the tunes from various libraries (or in some cases would even custom record stuff). VERY SLIGHT chance you could play the cut into a cell phone "Shazam" application that would try to identify the fingerprint of a song and tell you the title, artist.

Or are you talking about when KEZX had moved on to soft vocals...?
 
Musical Starstreams was a two hour weekly syndicated show of new age and space music, hosted by Frank Forest. I aired it in Bethel, Alaska in 1985-86. I vaguely recall a few months ago seeing his name pop up somewhere, now just as "Forest," from perhaps some location in Southern California. Last I knew, he had moved to New Mexico some years ago, but he seems to reinvent himself -- name and location -- every few years. I suspect the show is still being produced, but may be mostly on the internet.

Soundspace, or perhaps Soundscapes is what you're thinking of, was another independently produced music show of new age and "contemporary instrumental" music, before "smooth jazz" became the moniker and limited the genre to a lot of lightweight saxophone melodies. It was out of Santa Barbara, I think. And it might be the source for what shows up as the similarly-named new age music channel on Comcast, and maybe on Sirius-XM. You'll have to do some online digging. But, yeah, probably the labels the songs were on in the 1980s have been subsumed under other names by now, and a lot of that material might also now be out of print, if you can't find it on a used compilation CD somewhere.
 
I may be able to help you.

Tell me about the songs-female, male vocal? Style, tempo, main instruments? Who does each remind you of?

I love playing Name That Tune!
 
There were three main eras of KEZX. B/EZ, "Gourmet Rock" and "98.9 The Northwest Progressive"

B/EZ - What you'd expect. Instrumental covers of pop tunes with an occasional soft vocal

"Gourmet Rock" - This era was named after a TV ad campaign they had in the mid 1980s. Where they would play a snippet of a super soft act (Barry Manilow, Morris Albert), a heavy metal tune (Def Leppard, Twisted Sister) or something from KEZX's usual format (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Rickie Lee Jones or Uncle Bonsai.)

If you picked the last bunch "you should be listening to Gourmet Rock FM 99 KEZX"

The Northwest Progressive - In 1989, KEZX decided to get edgy. Most of the old folkies were dropped and alternative was added (KJET had left the air by this time as well and this might have been an attempt to reach KJET's former audience.)

Everything came crashing down in October 1990 when KEZX suddenly flipped back to B/EZ.....
 
yep, mr bongwater, in the very early 80's, it was deep mellow cuts from csn, bonnie, elton, paul simon, joni, van, j.t., gordon lightfoot and even select john denver, and nitty gritty dirt band tunes, etc mixed in with that elevator light jazz, and local folk and singer songwriters. its positioning statement then was "FM99 KEZX, the radio station with style". somewheres after that 'round 84/5 started up the gourmet rock era. KEZX added some rockers it had black listed prior, and dug way deeper on the playlist with its long time music staples, like dylan, van, joni, bonnie, steely dan, paul simon, and doobie bros etc. this was KEZX programming when it was its best! The station also continued to make a major effort to introduce, and rotate new music from the new artists, and the veterans alike.

i remember calling up the PD, peyton mays and congratulating them on the great programming advancement 'round then. then 'round 89, KEZX dropped the call letters in favor of 98.9FM, northwest progressive. i was sent packing from the 98.9 dial position, due to too much world beat progressive music. i checked back occasionally while i was on the road, to catch up on anything good. but, one day in oct 90, i tuned into EZ99, and heard some strange elevator music, backed up with a kenny rogers AC pop tune. yipes!
 
scott salvatori said:
yep, mr bongwater, in the very early 80's, it was deep mellow cuts from csn, bonnie, elton, paul simon, joni, van, j.t., gordon lightfoot and even select john denver, and nitty gritty dirt band tunes, etc mixed in with that elevator light jazz, and local folk and singer songwriters. its positioning statement then was "FM99 KEZX, the radio station with style". somewheres after that 'round 84/5 started up the gourmet rock era. KEZX added some rockers it had black listed prior, and dug way deeper on the playlist with its long time music staples, like dylan, van, joni, bonnie, steely dan, paul simon, and doobie bros etc. this was KEZX programming when it was its best! The station also continued to make a major effort to introduce, and rotate new music from the new artists, and the veterans alike.

i remember calling up the PD, peyton mays and congratulating them on the great programming advancement 'round then. then 'round 89, KEZX dropped the call letters in favor of 98.9FM, northwest progressive. i was sent packing from the 98.9 dial position, due to too much world beat progressive music. i checked back occasionally while i was on the road, to catch up on anything good. but, one day in oct 90, i tuned into EZ99, and heard some strange elevator music, backed up with a kenny rogers AC pop tune. yipes!
Click to expand...

And Uncle Bonsai was virtually SYNONYMOUS with KEZX.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITeF8CIQ0Fk
 
some of the stuff i heard one song i remember was from an artist michael garison or however its spelled. it was a song i never was able to find of his. it sorta sounded like it was a song that repeated itself and it was about a 9 or so minute song.
 
Goldilocks94941 said:
Musical Starstreams was a two hour weekly syndicated show of new age and space music, hosted by Frank Forest. I aired it in Bethel, Alaska in 1985-86. I vaguely recall a few months ago seeing his name pop up somewhere, now just as "Forest," from perhaps some location in Southern California. Last I knew, he had moved to New Mexico some years ago, but he seems to reinvent himself -- name and location -- every few years. I suspect the show is still being produced, but may be mostly on the internet.

Soundspace, or perhaps Soundscapes is what you're thinking of, was another independently produced music show of new age and "contemporary instrumental" music, before "smooth jazz" became the moniker and limited the genre to a lot of lightweight saxophone melodies. It was out of Santa Barbara, I think. And it might be the source for what shows up as the similarly-named new age music channel on Comcast, and maybe on Sirius-XM. You'll have to do some online digging. But, yeah, probably the labels the songs were on in the 1980s have been subsumed under other names by now, and a lot of that material might also now be out of print, if you can't find it on a used compilation CD somewhere.
Click to expand...

i do remember that some of the stuff or most of the stuff that frank forest ever played was mostly instrumental music and not of any singing. most of the stuff that got recorded by my mom was mostly from musical starstreams and very little from soundspace and other shows. there was a michael garison or however its spelled song that was played and it sounded as if it had a repeating melody or something to that effect. the recordings were from around 1985 to 1987 or so most of them coming from 1986. i was able to find an andrew white song i had been looking for for several years. also came up with richard stoltzman and even georgio moroder and art of noise but not much else i liked that he played that i could find. most of what was ever played was on labels that either didnt last long or got taken over by another major label and got shut down. i did however find a kezx vinyl from bout 1985 or 1986 or so but the vinyl is mostly local artists and nothing of what was played on the radio shows.
 
Bongwater said:
Michael Tomlinson?
Click to expand...

doesnt seem to be him. the song sounded more keyboardish played on a few different ones at the same time. the reason for finding a copy is the only copy i had was broken in 2 parts and part of the song had been missing cause of the tape ending on one side then recorded on the other to finish the song.
 
If you have a tablet or smartphone, you should download the SoundHound app. Just play a ten second snippet of the song through the mic and it identifies the song
 
Bongwater said:
If you have a tablet or smartphone, you should download the SoundHound app. Just play a ten second snippet of the song through the mic and it identifies the song
Click to expand...

SHAZAM is another one that does that (in case you have one or the other already on a phone)
 
some stuff i had tried cant be found cause what it is isnt in print or that it cant figure out what it is. i did try one site where i used a line in to play back one song and it said couldnt find it. the reason it cant find some stuff is where it pulls the info from doesnt have the song or album or that what it thinks is the song isnt the correct song. i do have one song but its not in good shape cause it was pulled from a tape that was a second recording with bleed through and so the copy i put to cd at the time has bleed through on the song but the main part of the song is still good. i could pull the song to see if anyone could id the song
 
i have ended up finding 4 songs i had pulled and recorded to cd from cassette before i recorded over the cassettes and i will find a where to put the songs up so anyone can figure any of them out. they arent in the best quality to start with since they were pulled from radio with light fm static and that they weren't recorded with dolby and they were done with cheap low noise tapes. if anyone would be able to figure out some of this stuff go for it
 
If you go back far enough, the songs were probably Mantovani, Percy Faith & Ray Conniff, played on big old Gates transcription tables from one of the rooms at the Edgewater Hotel. That's where their studios were when the Beatles came to town & the station was making most of its money, playing background music in Safeway stores. (KBBX).
 
Grounded Grid said:
If you go back far enough, the songs were probably Mantovani, Percy Faith & Ray Conniff, played on big old Gates transcription tables from one of the rooms at the Edgewater Hotel. That's where their studios were when the Beatles came to town & the station was making most of its money, playing background music in Safeway stores. (KBBX).
Click to expand...


thats something i never knew but alas the music that was played on the station is long gone or is hard to find i myself wish i could get some broadcast stuff like equipment
 
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