KYA-AM – San Francisco – March 31, 1969 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
1969 was a year rife with deception – you know – you were there. People from everywhere were moving into your town in droves. They heard stories, they read newspapers – they saw those reports on TV – strangers would yell out their car windows if you knew where “the Haight was”. It felt like half of L.A. was going to Berkeley and most of Kansas was standing outside City Lights bookstore. It was 1969 but you weren’t feeling it. Even the Pot your friends had felt like mostly Oregano. Tour buses were lurching past The Fillmore with loudspeakers barking “and on your left . . .” – Golden Gate Park was maxed out with people shivering and shaking because it wasn’t Santa Monica and it wasn’t 80 degrees out. And people were drinking a LOT more Spañada than before – you could tell; there were empty bottles everywhere.
Yep – you lived here. Your life went on. It wasn’t one big weekend – you got up in the morning – you went to school. You had friends, you had your learners permit. But everything felt just a little weird. It wasn’t the Summer Of Love; not for a long time – not since you were in 10th grade. Maybe it was the War. All the guys in your class were nervous – a few of them weren’t. You really wondered about them. You were all heading to the Draft Board soon. There were a lot more demonstrations than even a year ago – maybe because Nixon was President.
But you still had right-here-right-now and everything was okay – and you liked FM radio more than AM, but your car didn’t have an FM radio – not until you could afford one. Still, you had tunes – and maybe they weren’t tunes you were particularly into – it was still notes and notes were what held you together.
Not matter how weird it got or how strange it seemed – you still had music, and it was on your side. And that helped.
Here’s a two hour sampling of KYA-AM, San Francisco from March 31, 1969
editors note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Great show!