KAZZ-FM odds and ends
Exactly that: here's some oddball stuff from former KAZZ DJ Rim Kelley's
personal collection of station memorabilia.
KAZZ station manager Bill Josey Sr. wrote notes to the staff frequently
enough that he had special "From the Desk of" sheets printed.
His notes were always handwritten. The subject matter of Bill's notes
ranged from expressing appreciation for a job well done (for example,
on a live remote broadcast) to suggestions for adding new music to the
station's playlist to simple notifications or instructions. The note shown
to the left alerted afternoon DJ Rim Kelley to a call from International
Artists Records president Leland Rogers, whose label released the 13th
Floor Elevators singles and albums. Unfortunately, Rim no longer remembers
the purpose of Leland's call.
| |
 |
Even before becoming KAZZ's program director in 1967,
Rim printed up his own note paper, too. He
generally used these notes to draft promos
for his weekday afternoon and Saturday morning
top 40 program and handed them over to other
KAZZ DJs to record for him. The example (right)
is for the British Top 20 showcase that Rim
began running on his program in 1965. In keeping
with the British music theme, KAZZ also
subscribed to a one-hour weekly syndicated
program from the U.K., Pop Line, which Rim featured on his Wednesday
afternoon programs for several months. Pop Line featured canned
interviews with top U.K. recording artists; to make it appear that the
local DJ was interviewing the artist, the local DJ was provided with a
script of questions to read in synchronization with the audio tape of
the artist's answers
 |
|
KAZZ subscribed to the New Musical Express,
England's equivalent to Billboard magazine. Rim ordered the top-selling
British 45s to play on his program from a
London mail order store. In most instances, British rock artists' new
singles and albums were released first in the U.K. and didn't make it
to the U.S. until months later, so Rim was able to get a jump on his competition
at KNOW radio. Often, multiple versions of the same song were recorded
during the same U.K. sessions and, by mistake (as in the case of the Animals' We've
Gotta Get Out of This Place, for which the wrong version -- an alternate
take with a faster tempo -- was accidentally
shipped to the Animals' U.S. record label, MGM) or design (as with the
Beatles singles and albums), the U.K. versions and U.S. versions were
sometimes different.
| |
 |
Because KAZZ-FM's engineering staff was parttime and
the Federal Communications Commission required
various transmitter parameters -- input power, output power, for example
-- to be logged every half hour, each DJ had to hold at least a Radio
Telephone Third Class Operator Permit. The Permit also recorded data about
the holder's service record. Here's the back of Rim's Permit, showing
the stations for which he worked, first in Galveston and then in Austin.
During the break in service between the closing of KAZZ in January 1968
and Rim's stint at his former competitor, KNOW AM, beginning in March
1968, Rim worked exclusively on Sonobeat projects with Bill Josey Sr.
 |
|
During summer 2008, we caught up with Kirk Wilson, KAZZ-FM's
mellifluous DJ during 1966 and '67. Kirk followed
Rim Kelley's afternoon rock program with the
Folkways program, but Kirk also anchored KAZZ's
Saturday morning rock program during 1967.
Kirk's easy-going style, sense of pacing,
and deep knowledge of folk and jazz music
made him a popular DJ with hip University
of Texas students and faculty. Kirk also was
the voice of most promos that ran on Rim's
rock program and voiced commercials for local
businesses that ran across KAZZ's broadcast
day. He also was the in-studio host of most
of KAZZ's live remote broadcasts and had the
distinction of quickly cutting off a particularly,
shall we say, colorful outburst by Janis
Joplin -- in which she used several of George
Carlin's 7 dirty words -- between songs on
an infamous KAZZ live broadcast from The 11th
Door folk club in downtown Austin.
Today, Kirk is president and creative director
of Austin's Bazzirk business-to-business
marketing agencies, which he founded in 1988.
Maybe recording all those commercials for
KAZZ-FM back in the '60s influenced him to
make a full-time career of advertising.
Next: KAZZ-FM jingles and air checks
|
