http://youtu.be/OPmtftURkn8
—–Original Message—–
Subject: KOJM Revisited
Thought you might find this interesting. Last night heavy rains and storms caused a three hour power outage that stretched from Havre to Malta to Chester to Fort Benton. We broke out the flashlights and I managed to get an old walkman radio to work in an attempt to get some news on the storms and the power situation. Note if you will that I have not listened to the infamous KOJM in many years (maybe six or eight 3 or 4 minute samples in the last 20 years). But the big 610 AM was on the air, so I endured it for the sake of the news of the somewhat concerning situation.
I wanted to share two teaser-promo station IDs that I heard (those little five second sound bites). The first was "KEEPING IT BETWEEN THE LINES. THE ROCK. KOJM". Okay, that’s strange enough – I have no idea what the hell that means, but apparently KOJM now calls itself "THE ROCK". But then a bit later came this promo: "WE’VE ALREADY BLOWN YOUR NOSE, NOW WE’LL BLOW YOUR MIND. THE ROCK. KOJM". My hand to God this is true. I cannot even comment on this one – words escape me. Confusion reigns.
– Jay Schuschke
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Hi Jay:
JK and I did listen a fair amount to KOJM during our visit to Havre in June 2008, as well as to Montana State University-Northern‘s then recently-revived KNMC, which was at the time largely broadcasting the 3000-4000 very well-selected songs on Rick Linie‘s iPod, at least during evening and late night hours!
And it WAS bizarre both how little and how much the AM radio landscape had changed in Havre, MT o’er the decades. I practically expected to hear "Tradio", Earl Nightingale and Paul Harvey thoughout the day, as though it were still late-1975 and I was in 7th grade! As well as Ronald Reagan’s manic five-minute noontime radio addresses and ex-Senator Conrad Burns’ supremely tedious agricultural reports!
My memory is that they don’t play quite the same density of somnambulant MOR balladry they once specialized in [Roger Whittaker’s "Durham Town" will go to the grave with me, as will Maria Muldaur’s "Midnight at the Oasis", two ca. 1974-and-beyond KOJM perennials!], and that some form of very lite "modern" rock and/or "classic" rock mostly prevailed, amidst a near-endless stream of unusually stilted, Hi-Line based advertisements! [Did we encounter any hip-hop? Hmmm….I think not!]
Perhaps JK would recall other aspects of the "time warp" vibe the station gave off.
Anyhow, Jay, thanks for sharing this latest local radio dementia! Perhaps they’d go for a revival of your splendid "Insult the Listener" features at this point! Or even daily addresses from "Councilman Schuschke"!
– Tom Kipp
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James Taylor’s "Handyman" was the only respite somewhere in the vague universe of "rock" to the incessant idiocies of "Afternoon Delight" and Captain & Tennille as I swept the stairs of that old hospital that became an apartment building in the summer of 1976 (or was it ’77?) under the direction of that Jehovah’s Witness janitor Bucky who used to clean the Weber Bosch Kuhr offices, wondering who one had to blow around here (presumably not Bucky) to get a damn desk job in this world. It’s a question that continues to haunt 35 years later. Havre is home, always home, but it could be hell.
– JK Manlove
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Ah, good ol‘ Bucky Rasmussen [of Rasmussen Janitorial, I believe]. Spent many a late-afternoon ca. 1979-81 idly chatting with him at Weber, Bosch, et al., back before I knew how to graciously exit conversations with adults determined to gab! [Note: JK and I non-consecutively held the same prime after-school job, "messenger/law librarian" for Havre’s largest law firm, which at nine attorneys nearly doubled its nearest competitor!]
And John is hardly exaggerating about the airless, anti-Rock bias that the old KOJM could exhibit. That the JT-era James Taylor [released: June 1977] could be a RESPITE, not a plague, is proof-positive of just how cut off we were from the blandishments of even the most rudimentary "Album Oriented Rock" station formatting! What we’d have given to be within earshot of Cleveland’s WMMS in those days [which I already knew about by then, as it won the national poll in Rolling Stone every year!]
A couple such FM outlets existed 110 miles away in Great Falls, just out of FM’s limited range, and even their infamous Top 40 outlet [KEIN 1310 AM: "Thirteen KEEN!"] was unlistenably distorted at that distance most of the time. I used to tune in GF radio from about Fort Benton, 70 miles toward GF, and was absolutely blown away ca. 1978-79 that one could actually hear The Stones, The Who, Zeppelin and the like ON THE RADIO! Deep album cuts, even! It all seemed so very…subversive! LOL
I was one of the last teenagers in America to hear "Stairway to Heaven" during the actual Seventies, and had no choice but to buy Led Zeppelin IV in order to do so, in May 1978! Of course once our benefactor, Kipp family friend and esteemed Northern Montana College English Professor, Bill Lisenby, gave us free and total access to the airwaves via his fledgling 10-watt FM station, KNOG 90.1 FM, ca. summer 1980, suddenly all bets were off.
So Havre went from, at best, James Taylor and Donna Summer, to The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Yardbirds, Hendrix, Sly Stone, The Stones & Stooges, The Velvets, Captain Beefheart, PiL, Gang of Four, Joy Division, et al. in one fell swoop, at least during a few precious hours per week!
And 10 watts really WAS enough juice to cover Havre pretty reliably, in a radio market of 10,000 inhabitants with just two audible stations on the dial, the Adult Contempo KOJM 610 AM, and its sister station, KPQX, at 100.1 FM, if memory serves, which played late-Seventies Country! LOL
Imagine, if you can, both AM and FM playlists so grim that Kenny Rogers’ 1980 wimp-revenge trifle "Coward of the County" was something one looked forward to!!!
Anyhow, this is the musical ferment from which and whence JK, Jay, my sister, Todd=Howard, many additional friends and I emerged, and perhaps our subsequent fierce embrace of everything from Postpunk to Dub Reggae, from P.Funk to Industrial Noise can be better contextualized by knowing The Source Environment, as it were!
– Tom Kipp
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I finally got around to checking out CHAB out of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. You
can pick it up right on 800 AM (even on auto scan radios). While it has that
distant crackly, static-filled sound of radio waves traveling across the dry,
hot prairies and wheat fields on the northwest edge of the great plains, it
comes in well enough to enjoy just like the old days. It brought back a flood
of memories of those North Montana summers from 1981 thru about 1988 – back
home from college and then back visiting from Idaho.
Somewhere around 1989 it changed its format to all country: an era came to an
end, but I suppose it was inevitable. The new format today is “The Greatest
Hits of All Time”. It’s relatively the same as hundreds of other stations in
North America, both AM and FM. But when I tuned in yesterday, I hit the top
of the six-in-a-row format they use. I decided to sit in the back yard (as
per days of old) in the 96 degree sunshine with my usual huge glass of iced
tea and listen to the six-set. It was interesting – quite a selection ranging
from sort of fun and interesting to pretty bad. You be the judge:
Supertramp, “Take the Long Way Home”
The Marcels, “Blue Moon”
The Stampeders, (the Canadian band, missed the title, but was not their hit
“Sweet City Woman”)
Chicago, “Saturday in the Park”
Todd Rundgren, “Bang the Drum All Day”
The Band, “Up on Cripple Creek”
Great stuff? Maybe not exactly. Supertramp and Chicago blow with the
greatest intensity and would fit nicely on KOJM (as I am sure they do). The
rest I can best describe as “fun”. This format shows infinitely more
potential than KOJM or its sad counterparts KRYK-FM and the country-wasteland,
KPQX-FM, could ever muster in anyone’s wildest dreams.
The engine ignition interference prevents me from listening to CHAB in the car
(unless I am parked with the engine off), and I can’t seem to get the station
indoors. Nevertheless, this experiment has been a great throwback to those
old days and the memory of the great respite provided by CHAB from the remote
isolate of Havre life.
Any memories come to mind for you? Would be great to hear one or two!
– Jay Schuschke
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I particularly enjoyed hearing Peter Gabriel’s "Games Without Frontiers", David Bowie’s "Ashes to Ashes" and Steve Winwood’s "While You See a Chance" as they enjoyed their brief runs in the Top 40. None was exactly a world-beater, but all were a most welcome respite from KOJM Sludge!
After that I simply don’t have any specific memories o’ Moose Jaw AM….though perhaps LAR, Todd, Pam or JK do or will!
Anyone?
Thanks Jay,
Tom
http://youtu.be/Q3tHYb4_bAg
