The California Aircheck Collection
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California Aircheck's George Junak discovered Top 40 radio in 1958 when he was home sick from school as a five-year-old and stumbled across KFWB/Los Angeles on the radio. He knew immediately that was what he wanted to do when he grew up. After getting his FCC First Phone license through the broadcasting program at Pasadena City College, he landed his first radio job in 1973 doing weekends at KDES/Palm Springs as Greg Mitchell.At one point in 1975, George was working weekends at both KDES and KFXM/San Bernardino, with a Sunday midnight-3AM shift at KFXM, then 75 miles to KDES for 6AM-3PM (babysitting public service from 6-10 and on-air 10-3PM), then back to KFXM for 7-midnight, all on Sunday.
Through the 70's, George made stops at KSOM/Ontario, KNDE/Sacramento, KERN/Bakersfield (as Greg Michaels) and KMEN/San Bernardino. In 1978 for one month, George was still at KERN as Greg Michaels but also doing a weekend shift 3 hours away at KMEN as Greg Mitchell. George made his last on-air appearance on 91X (XETRA-FM)/San Diego as "Ralph." Before joining radio syndicator Peters Productions/San Diego in 1980 (to work in the music mastering department, and later as the Nat'l CHR PD for Peters), George founded California Aircheck. When Peters Productions was purchased by BPI in Seattle in 1987, California Aircheck became a fulltime operation, and has been ever since. California Aircheck has been serving radio people around the world for many years with both audio and video airchecks of radio personalities. All airchecks in this collection, and thousands more, are available from California Aircheck. The Repository thanks George for sharing! |
[Description by Uncle Ricky]
Wow, that’s a lot of reverb! “Bad Brother” Chuck Leonard (d. August 12, 2004) announces his new airtime – 10PM to 12M, following George Michael on WABC, New York, on September 9, 1974. Check the comments for more on this one, as I have never claimed any WABC expertise. Actually, all I’ve ever done is welcome airchecks from this station. One major question is “Where was Cousin Brucie”?
Exceptional editing – typical of the consistent quality of airchecks from George Junak and California Aircheck. This one is from Classic Issue #C-87.
Dave Hull (The “Hullabalooer”) developed elaborate telephone-talk radio comedy, within a music format. This innovative aircheck of KGBS is from 1973.
After record-setting successes at early Top 40 leader KFWB and WMCA in New York, B. Mitchel Reed returned to KFWB in Los Angeles (by this time, owned by Westinghouse) for “The Wide, Weird World of B.M.R”. In this aircheck from October of 1967, you will hear “The Beamer” perfecting the personna that he took with him into the very beginnings of “underground” FM radio.
According to Don Barrett’s L.A. Radio People, Reed had met Big Daddy Tom Donahue at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and they discovered their mutual frustration with their current stations. Donahue went to KMPX and developed the first underground FM in San Francisco. Reed found backers for KPPC, which became the first in the new album-oriented format in Southern California.
This edit from California Aircheck’s Classic Issue C-14 (December, 1981) features KRLA, beginning in 1963, and ending sometime before 1981. Starting with KRLA’s early Top 40 days (1963), we also hear ‘checks from their AOR period (1972) and their MOR/Personality format before concluding with one of the oldies formats featured between 1976 and 1998.
Featured: “T.Q.” Ted Quillin, Dave “Hullabalooer” Hull, (1964) Dick Biondi (1965 New Year’s Eve Show), Casey Kasem, Bill Slater (for Casey Kasem), Bob Dayton, Johnny Darin, Lee Duncan, Russ O’Hara, Dick Sainte & Shadoe Stevens (1971), B. Mitchel Reed, Don Burns, Johnny Magnus, and Art Laboe (1978).
Los Angeles’ original Beatles station, KRLA, reunited the original airstaff of the mid-60’s the weekend of October 31 – November 1, 1981. The 11-10 Men recreated one of the greatest eras in Top 40 radio history.
Of those featured in this composite taken from California Aircheck Classic Issue C-14 (December, 1981), Dick Moreland, (founder of the Music+ record chain) died of cancer in the summer of 1988; Emperor Bob Hudson died 9/20/97 at the age of 66.
Like the Repository’s first KROQ offering, this one features Charlie Tuna, Sam Riddle, Jay Stevens, Steve Lundy, Jim Wood, Jimmie Rabbit, and Steve Sands. It also includes programmer Johnnie Darin, who provided this aircheck to our friend George Junak of California Aircheck. This opening day “preview” from September of 1972 features several of the custom jingles written by Roger Christian and Ron Lewis.
[TECHNICAL NOTE]: Those with the RealPlayer G2 who can hear the full 10Khz response will enjoy this exhibit most of all; the technical quality is quite good and that adds significantly to its enjoyment. Otherwise, a 5.0 RealPlayer will work, but the response will be limited to 5.5 Khz.