KABC-FM – “Brother” John Rydgren – August 1, 1969 –
Ever since you got your fake i.d. your life has changed. By day you show up at school, 16 and trying your level-best to be an A student. But at night you’re a 19 year old Freshman at UCLA, majoring in Psychology. You’re leading a double life, at least it says so on your Student i.d..
You can’t help it. There’s too much going on in the world. You don’t have curfew to worry about – your life doesn’t have to stop at 10:00 anymore. There’s the Sunset Strip and you can’t miss a minute of that. Most nights it starts at The Whiskey and then you head over to Gazzarri’s. You check out the action and see where your friends are before you hitch over to It’s Boss. Depending on who’s playing where, you stagger out of The Kaleidoscope and eventually you make your way down to Canter’s where everybody hangs out. And on a night when not much is happening (which is rare), you get home and fall into bed around 3. And then your mom blasts you out of bed at 6 while giving you that “you’re gonna ruin your life” look on her face.
Some nights there’s too much going on and you get home just as the sun creeps up. You’re home long enough to brush your teeth, wash your face, change your clothes and stagger out to the bus stop and head off to First Period Homeroom to do it all over again. You figure you will get plenty of sleep when you’re dead. But in the meantime . . . .
And as a reminder that 1969 was indeed a busy year, here is one of the new kids on the radio block – formerly KABC-AM/FM, now split off and entering the “underground FM” world. A little creaky at the start, mostly automated with the first weekend being strictly Beatles and Stones cuts alternating with “Brother John” Rydgren providing the words between tracks. It would eventually become KLOS and off to another whole chapter of L.A. Pop Culture history.
But in 1969 it was still getting its feet wet.
