anyone else remember that great old B'ham radio station K-99?

[Syrinx]

WARNING: CONVOLUTED, RAMBLING POST

I'm currently reading a book about the history of the porn-film industry. It's a fascinating book full of many sordid characters, mobsters, murders, suicides, and jaw-dropping depravity, but not without sympathetic characters. The single most interesting thing I've taken from the book so far is that the infamous porn star Traci Lords may've infiltrated the porn world at the behest of the Meese Commission!!!

Anyway, that's not what I'm posting about. :)

I was searching online about what other people had to say about the book, and I came across an interview with the authors.

They mentioned a guy named Dave Friedman. I've now discovered his rather interesting http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0293354/">filmography as a producer, director and writer.

McNEIL: We traveled everywhere. Went to Anniston, Alabama. Jen drank Dave Friedman under the table, which was a sight to see, because Dave Friedman could drink … they started drinking martinis, and I don’t drink, and, I’m sorry to say, I needed someone to drink with people, to get them loosened up. And they went martini for martini.

OSBORNE: And it’s such a great story, and the way that he tells the stories. He’s articulate, boisterous. And he’s such a gentleman. If you walk through his house, it’s like a museum, y’know? Each thing is an artifact. He’s got this garage out back with all the posters from all the movies, and he has these wonderful stories. And it’s just this memory … it’s amazing. Amazing. He was just fantastic.

McNEIL: He was such a carney guy, too. What I loved about the early porn guys was … also, when you’re doing an oral history, you really need good slang. And these carney guys had the best slang going, man. They were just great.

The guy sounds interesting. I think he's close to eighty now. Might be worth a trip up to Anniston to meet him.

So I got interested in this Dave Friedman guy, so I googled. I found an article
in Black & White (alternative rag in Birmingham) that mentions his name.

There aren’t many landmarks in the history of Birmingham porn, but I’ve covered some decent ground. There was the old Pussycat Theater in Roebuck, which probably had a direct connection to Alabama porn entrepreneur Dave Friedman. Ron Jeremy was happy that I’d seen him in Olympic Fever there in 1979. He likes to think of himself as part of the final wave of porn stars who played the big screen.

People also get a kick out of hearing about the X-rated drive-in near Bessemer. There are even folks in Birmingham who don’t know that the city had its very own franchise of the notorious Plato’s Retreat swingers club. From what I’ve heard, the guy who owned the Plato’s name had no idea, either.

Was there really a Plato's Retreat in Birmingham? I find that hard to grok. I don't read Black & White much, since I don't live in Birmingham. And is this "Screening Room" really a wannabe public gay orgy? I guess I don't get out much. ;)

I remembered seeing ads for the Pussycat Theater in Birmingham newspapers long ago, but the place closed (or was closed down) before I was old enough to visit. Shame that it is.

What does this have to do with K-99 you ask? Well not much really.

It's just that I wanted to find out more about the old Pussycat Theater, so I went to Birmingham Rewound, a nostalgia site. I didn't think I would find much about the subject (and I didn't), but after googling in vain, I thought it was worth a shot.

But Birmingham Rewound did have a really cool feature on K-99. When I was a kid, for a brief few years, that was the coolest radio station on the planet.

The station was so "cool" that High Times magazine advertised on it. Take a listen.

Though K-99 was totally automated, we didn't know it at the time.

K-99 was an album-oriented rock station, something that just doesn't exist anymore, at least around here. They didn't just play the hits, they played the good songs too.

Well, August of 1982 rolled around, and some company bought K-99, and announced that they were going to switch the station to a country format. That didn't set too well with the station's fans, and a concert was hurriedly organized to help save the station, or to sadly say goodbye to it.

The concert was on a Saturday in Birmingham's Caldwell Park. Me and my girlfriend, and my best friend traveled up to the Ham. We had a little trouble finding Caldwell, but we did get there in plenty of time for a fine afternoon. Before heading to the park, we found a head shop downtown and picked up a pack of strawberry flavored rolling papers in which to wrap our, um, tobacco. My friend noticed a small bottle in the shop that was labeled "Rush." I guess he was intrigued by that name because he was a big fan of the band Rush. He introduced me to that band. And my screen-name "Syrinx" is taken from one of their more famous "epics." My friend is dead (not drug-related), and I miss him everyday.

The bottle of Rush was priced at eight dollars, and my friend only had five. After a little pleading the black lady store owner let my Anglo-Saxon buddy have it for a fiver. That dude could talk anyone into anything. LOL.

After stopping in a downtown alley to smoke a bright-red cigarette, we found the concert that was all about local, and maybe regional, bands. I remember that The Producers were the headliners.

Now this was in 1982, with Reaganism on the ascendance, but in that park that day it seemed like the funeral of the sixties. A bittersweet funeral. A kind of cross of Woodstock and Altamont on a minor scale. I guess the sixties arrived late to Alabama, so a late departure was welcome, if a departure was indeed mandatory.

There were dogs and frisbees a plenty. And undulating couples under blankets in the 90 degree heat. (I guess even hippies in Alabama have some modesty. Still, they were doing it in a public park!!!) The smell of marijuana and optimism and hope were in the air. Hell, by then, even George Wallace was speaking contritely of racial reconciliation. Hope and good times were in the air, even though our favorite station was going off the air because of some ignorant corporation. We didn't yet realize that we were seeing the end of local media.

Today most of the radio stations are owned my Clear Channel and Cox and all those "conservative" butthole corporations. And the local papers are owned by the frigging New York Times, or worse.

Yes, it was a nice, but sad, day. I think we overestimated how nice it really was. It foreshadowed very bad things to come.

But at least it was fun, and it gave us a little taste of sixties-style idealistic hedonism. I think I even got some that night, but it was under the covers in a dark bedroom, as yet undisturbed by the soon-to-be ubiquitous glow of an internet-connected CRT display.

I'm sorry for such a weird post. I hope you don't mind.

;)

So do you remember K-99?

[Syrinx]

1. to make this post even stranger...

I just noticed that in the radio ad that I linked to above, they mention that the "current" issue of High Times featured an interview with Legs McNeil, who is one of the authors of the book I was reading about porn. That's freaky dude!

:crazy:

[southpaw]

2. I vaguely remember K-99

I'm 40 years old, and I didn't really get into radio until about 1980 or so... prior to that, I mostly listened to my KISS records. I eventually took a quantum leap forward from KISS on vinyl to RUSH on cassette.

I do recall some of the older guys I marched in the drum line with having K-99 stickers (just like the graphic you posted above) on their car windows... but that is about the extent of my exposure to what sounds like a decent radio station... automated or not.

I live in north east Alabama, near Anniston. My default station was Q-104, which, at the time, was based in nearby Gadsden. They played mostly top 40.

Sounds like a station with a devoted audience.

[Syrinx]

4. automated, but automated very well :)

Few at the time even knew K-99 was automated. And the way the format was set up (did you ever notice the jocks never talked over the intros or endings of songs? Yup, that was intentional!), being pre-recorded took nothing away from the presentation! You see, FM rock stations of the '70s didn't have a whole lot of personality. And that was the nature of the beast; the music took center stage. Besides, FM positioned itself as an alternative to the loud, in-your-face jocks and constant patter and chatter of AM top-40

Listening to 99.5 today makes me long for what used to be there (kinda like punching up AM 610, but that's another feature!). To those reading this who are too young to remember, who post on radio-related message boards about how terrible Birmingham radio is (I've read many of these rants), I can't help but want to holler back at my monitor, "IT DIDN'T USE'TA BE THIS WAY!" 30 years ago, Birmingham had one of the hottest and most exciting radio landscapes in the country. And K-99 was right out front of it.

By the way, does the town name of Vernon, or maybe Verner, mean anything to you? I'm thinking you may be someone I know. But probably not. :)

[southpaw]

6. No, sorry.

I grew up in a small town called Piedmont... near Anniston and Gadsden.

[Syrinx]

7. Come to think of it, I think I asked you that before.

Sorry, but some of the details you have provided seem eerily to describe someone that I know, but haven't seen in years. Note to self: southpaw is not Michael. :)

[misanthrope]

3. WOW!!!!...

...Thank you very much!!! That brought back a ton of memories and lightened an old heart for a while.

I remember in high school we used to get a pair of KICKS 106 bumper stickers and fashion one that said "KICKS SUX" from them.

K99 was a great station.

And that website, Birmingham Rewound, is great for those of us who grew up in the Magic City at the height of the All-American City period. It brought back memories of things like Christmas shopping in the downtown Pizitz (which was like the mid-century, multi-story department stores you see portrayed in movies like "A Christmas Story" and "Miracle On 34th Street") and being a batboy for the Birmingham A's at Rickwood Field.

Thanks a lot!!

[Syrinx]

5. thanks for the thanks!

I consider it a successful day if I can bring one iota of happiness to someone.

I didn't grow up in Birmingham, but I did in the Birmingham media market. It's fun to go onto Birmingham Rewound and read about, and look at pictures of, old media personalities that I vaguely remember but can't quite picture in my mind.

Best wishes.