Added March 21, 2008
Pacifica goes back on the air
KPFT,
January 21, 1971, part 1
KPFT,
January 21, 1971, part 2
The above items record KPFT's return
to the air after the second of two bombings. I received the
material from a source who asked to remain anonymous.
The Pacifica items listed below were recorded by me. Unfortunately, I didn't record the precise
date for any of my KPFT material, just the month and year.
I have deliberately held my Pacifica
material back for last. To have put it up first would have
given this site political connotations I would want to avoid.
By now, people familiar with the Houston Retro Radio pages
know that listing items does not mean an endorsement of their
political content.
Often I have to explain this site by
stating what it is not. It is not a DJ warehouse. It is not
a place to display glamorous head shot photos of DJ's from
40 years ago. (After all, the main advantage of radio is that
you don't have to look at the DJ.)
It is not a salute to Big Time Drive
Time DJ's. It is not a salute to top 40 formats. It is
not a salute to the right of a single corporation to own 21
stations in a single market.
These things will be covered from time
to time, but I will never be accused of being overly worshipful.
Likewise, this page is not is a salute
to the Old New Left. Anyone who looks carefully at
this web site knows that I am not the type to yell, "POWER
TO THE POLITICALLY CORRECT PEOPLE!" in a crowded theater.
You can search high and low and never find anything politically
correct on any of these pages.
I present these Pacifica recordings
as part of history. As for the merit of the politics, that
is for the listener to decide.
The KPFT
web site
KPFT,
Houston, September, 1970
I kept this recording mainly for the Jean
Shepherd material at the beginning. This was the first
time I had heard him since KTRH had briefly carried his show
five years earlier. This is the same Jean Shepherd who wrote
for Playboy, and he is mentioned prominently in Marshall
McLuhan's groundbreaking book Understanding Media (1964).
Old New Left Veterans will gravitate
more toward the material about draft resisters in Sweden.
This was recorded sometime just before
the second bombing of the KPFT transmitter.
My kingdom for a car!
Studs Terkel interviews Phil Ochs
KPFT,
Houston, May, 1971, Studs Terkel
How I love the highway
Picks me up and takes me where ever I please
I race through the trees bring space to her knees
I am master of all that's flying past me.
Look how far we've come, look how far
A car, a car, my kingdom for a car
Take me to tomorrow
Let me go on racing with the wind in my hair
There's smoke in the air but I do not care
If you want me, you will have to pass me
Look how far we've come, look how far.
A car, a car, my kingdom for a car
Come to me baby,
We will leave this town, it was not made for a man
We'll find a new land, but the traffic is jammed
— Phil Ochs, "My Kingdom
for a Car," 1970
In this broadcast, Studs Terkel interviews Phil Ochs.
Ochs (pronounced "oaks") was a popular folk singer
whose songs often expounded opinions well to the left.
A while back, a friend reminded me
of the first time I heard Ochs. We were visiting the KFMK
studio atop the Medical Towers Building. This was in its earliest
days as an album rock station.
The DJ was playing the Phil Ochs song,
"Outside of a Small Circle of Friends." He suddenly
turned up the monitor when it got to the part about "smoking
marijuana is more fun than drinking beer." I was amazed
that something like that was in a song going out over the
air.
Of course, the song is not a promotion
of drugs. It is a criticism of the apathy that drugs tend
to induce.
The song was from Pleasures
of the Harbor, one of Ochs least political albums. The
year was 1967, and art rock was all the rage. It seemed that
every well known musician had to have an equivalent to Sergeant
Pepper, and "Pleasures" was Ochs' response.
I continued to follow Ochs development
up to the time of this Terkel broadcast. His most recent album
was his Greatest
Hits, a record with no actual hits.
The cover shows Ochs dressed to mimic
Elvis Presley on stage. The music draws its style from country
and early rock and roll. There is more emphasis on nostalgia
than on "progressive" politics.
Many of Ochs' New
Left comrades were less than than thrilled with his apparent
homage to middle America. Ochs explains his rationale in this
broadcast.
In the five years after this interview,
Ochs went into a personal and artistic decline. Phil Ochs
took his own life in 1976.
The
Phil Ochs lyrics page
This collection is on another web site, and it seems to have
all of the lyrics Ochs ever wrote. Whatever you think of his
politics, you will find something of interest.
Bonus Material:
Phil
Ochs at the Club of Our Own, Houston
Until now, this recording had never
been heard by anyone but me. In February, 1971, Phil Ochs
performed in Houston. According to the announcement at the
beginning, the show was to benefit Space City News,
then the local alternative newspaper.
Located in The Village off Kirby, the
nightclub was apparently converted from a theater. I made
this casual cassette recording by dangling a microphone over
the rail of the balcony.
My memory of the details may be faulty.
Please let me know if you are sure of the date or the location
of this event. I also need the name of the speaker who introduces
Ochs. I think he was with one of the FM stations.
One thing that made Ochs interesting
was his perverseness. He could say good things about political
adversaries such as Merle Haggard or John Wayne and turn around
and criticize his own proponents on the left.
Notice the provocative lyric changes
in "Love me, I'm a Liberal." He manages to take
shots at dopers, hippies, liberals, radicals, and other kindred
spirits.
Like a lot of 60's icons, Ochs has
gradually been mainstreamed. He even has a page on the Country
Music Television site. He did do country music of a type,
but I don't think his songs were ever in heavy rotation on
KIKK radio in Pasadena, Texas.
At times, it seems as if the 60's radicals
have merged with corporate America. A while back, I was startled
to hear business guru Jeffrey J. Fox quote favorably from
the Ochs song, "The Flower Lady." Fox is the author
of numerous climb to the top books, including How To Become
the CEO..
I always found Ochs clever and insightful
and entertaining, but frequently not a reflection of my own
opinions — not back in the day and definitely not now.
For example, I would not endorse the
business practices of "The Highwayman." The highwayman
was a man who robbed from the rich and gave to himself.
But seriously, folks, "The Highwayman"
is not a real Ochs lyric. It draws its words from the famous
poem by Alfred
Noyes. Another song in this performance is "The Bells,"
based on a poem by Edgar
Allan Poe. The rest of the performance appears to be original
Ochs material.
Note: Please don't start writing to
ask if I have original recordings of this or that musician.
This is the only one I kept, and I have no desire to become
a collector of other people's recordings of musicians.
The
All Music Guide biography of Phil Ochs.
CONTEMPT!
KPFT,
Houston, May, 1971, Studs Terkel
Studs Terkel interviews Harry
Kalven, Jr, regarding his book Contempt.
The book focuses on the contempt citations in the Chicago
Seven Trials.
The defendants were accused creating
a riot during the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago.
If you weren't around back then, bear in mind that one Hoffman
is the judge and another Hoffman is one of the defendants.
Studs
Terkel hosted one of the longest running talk programs
in history, and KPFT carried it daily during this period.
The theme music on Stud's Place is "Bells" by The
Pentangle. You only hear it at the end of the two Terkel
broadcasts because I started each recording after the program
had already begun.
Almost incongruously, Terkel was followed
by a reading of The Lord of the Ring by J.
R. R. Tolkien. Although Tolkien's fiction was then in
vogue with hippies and the New Left, many of his political
ideas would not meet modern standards for political correctness.
Ray Hill: 160 Years? It could have
been life!
KPFT,
Houston, 1980 or 1981, Ray Hill
Ray Hill hosts the "Manager's
Report" program. He manages to keep boring accounting
data at a minimum and Wagner at a maximum.
I have slightly edited the recording.
You hear some words bleeped where a caller gives out the purported
real name of a controversial guest.
Based on the mention of the Reagan
election victory, this material had to have been recorded
in late 1980 or early 1981.
I was without a stereo tuner for a
while, so this was recorded off of the FM band of a short-wave
receiver. I found this item preserved in quarter track mono.
It appears to be the last aircheck I ever recorded and kept.
Following Ray Hill, there is music,
including a some Reggae Against Racism and a rant against
the British National Front. I'm sure the DJ chose some of
the music in response to the guests on Ray Hill's show.
By the way, Ray Hill went on to very
lively career, and he continues to boost the programing at
Pacifica. A 2008 posting on the KPFT web site states:
Ray Hill, the Host of the Prison
Show, was sentenced to 160 years in Texas prison. While
in prison he became a jailhouse lawyer and reformed his
sentence to just eight years.
Mr. Hill won four Federal suits
against the City of Houston, including a landmark First
Amendment U.S. Supreme Court Case: Houston v. Hill 107 S.
Ct 2502.
In 2005, he was awarded the Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Texas ACLU.
Perhaps Hill achieved his greatest
visibility on KPFT back in the late 70's. As I recall, the
program was on Friday afternoons, and it was hailed as "all
day, all gay." Even at that early date, special pleading
had changed the connotation of the word "gay."
"They Bombed in Houston"
KAUM,
Houston, January 17, 1971
This is not a KPFT recording, but it
is related to the history of the station.
The above link is also listed among
the KAUM material. It is repeated here because the program
deals heavily with the two Pacifica bombings.
Houston Retro Radio is hosted as part
of VASTHEAD.COM.
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