KMPC – Geoff Edwards – Roger Carroll – June 14, 1968 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
I’ll just leave this right here and you can think about it:Become a Patron!
Much as many Pop Culture mavens would have you believe the entire world grew their hair long the second The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan, or that everything turned Day-Glo when 1967 rolled around or that the market for Scotch dropped precipitously in favor of clouds of Marijuana or that there was a run on LSD the precise moment Timothy Leary encouraged everyone to Turn on, Tune In and Drop out – ‘fraid not.
And even though the prevailing rumor among youth culture was not to trust anyone over 30, there were a lot of people still on the planet approaching, hitting and sailing past 30 almost every second of the day.
Richard Nixon referred to you as the Silent Majority; that vast number of people who remembered life before their first TV set, who were in High School when Elvis first appeared on Ed Sullivan, who came of age during the Army-McCarthy hearings. Who were part of The New Frontier and were as much a fan of The Kingston Trio as you were Nelson Riddle. You don’t do the Swim, Frug, or Mashed Potatoes – but you did do The Twist once or twice.
May 1968: L.A. is still your town. There’s still Restaurant Row and Gallery Row on La Cienega. You don’t spend nights on Sunset Strip too much anymore – it’s overrun with kids. But you still make it to Scandia – have a key at the Playboy Club and can still get sloshed at Dino’s Lodge. The kids are there; you just don’t notice them. Well, you do – but you can’t quite figure them out – and they can’t figure you out. You don’t really listen to the same music. Your appreciation of The Beatles goes about as far as Michelle – but Jimi Hendrix drives you up the wall.
And as much as the kids have Top-40 and are slowly gravitating to FM – with “underground” stations popping up, replacing the ones you used to listen to, there’s still KMPC; Station Of The Stars – an oasis for your version of Groovy.
And most likely in May of 1968, with things heating up and streets filling with protests, you could slide into the world of Geoff Edwards and Roger Carroll and feel right at home, away from a world going just a little off its axis.
So to give you an idea of what that particular world was sounding like – here is a little over 90 minutes worth of Geoff Edwards (filling in for Dick Whitinghill) and Roger Carroll (“the host who loves you the most”) from May 14, 1968.
Yes, there were two separate and distinct worlds spinning alongside each other in the 60s. And you could be turning 30 and not tell anyone. That has worked very well ever since.
Gordon,
As always a fantastic find—one minor note—Johnny Magnus (who followed Roger Carroll in late evenings on KMPC) was “The Host Who Loves You Most”.
That’s right – Johnny Magnus! I have to dig one of his shows up and run it one of these days.
Thanks as always!
G.
This would have been my last day of third grade in Canoga Park and my radio was on KFI. But I became a KMPC listener not long after this, and this brings back so much of what filled my ears in the 60s and 70s. What a memory flogger! Thanks!