KLSU alumni.net

I didn't know where else to post this, so I'm putting it in here.

Most of you probably already know that sometime in the early 1990's, KLSU changed its format to a more commercial-sounding format. They completely eliminated the off-the-wall stuff and started playing what I call "top 40 alternative", like Nirvana, Inspiral Carpets, REM, etc. Forget trying to segue Chameleons UK with Aorta and Dif Juz... it was one or two pop songs, then a "commercial" (underwriting)... then another song... the DJs even started to sound like commercial station DJs...

Not long after this happened, Jenni and I were doing shows at WTUL down here in New Orleans (which has NOT changed its format, not even once since the 1970's when I started listening to it). One of the other DJs had been at KLSU when this happened and he thought they THREW AWAY most of the fabulous collection we worked to hard to accumulate at KLSU... Gone were those super-rare Ed Ka-Spel records, gone were the limited pressings of import items we had been getting from Kadair's/Paradise/Deadly Records, gone was everything worth a damn. And it seemed that all this was done with a vengeance by the new station manager (who shall remain nameless... I will abide by the board rules here because I'd like to drill the guy a new one).

At least that's what he thought happened. Does anyone know what happened to those records and CDs? Thousands of fantastic items, gone. I'm just hoping that at least some of them found their way into collectors' hands...

Were any old-timers around when this format change took place?

Barry

She asked me about it, and that's why I think I mentioned it in my post. I'm 99% sure I have a couple vinyl releases, maybe an EP and an LP, but I can't get to my records right now. They are in the spare bedroom, along with about 100 cubic feet of my other stuff...

Incidentally, I think it was YOU who showed us the little easter egg at the end of the Dukes of Stratosphere LP... the very copy that I see above didn't make it. You know, the "You can *** yourself with your atom bomb" thing at the end of the record. Interesting that you mention that, since you were the one who showed it to us. That little blurb made it to the CD but it's not the same since you can't play CDs backwards...

Anyway, glad to know that some / most of the records made their way into collectors' hands. One of the Ed Ka-Spel records that we had at the station was one of about 100 copies in existence; somehow we had gotten an advance copy (via Jeff Suhy or John McNally) from one of our Houston trips, and then I found out later that the supply of records were in a shed of one of Ka-Spel's friends in London... the records were destroyed the winter of their release (1987?) and the re-issue had to be mastered from one of the GOOD copies they saved.

Things like this, stories like this - if those people knew what we (not me personally, but the station as a collective) had to go through to get those records...

-barry

well he was a &^%* then I am sure is one now.

a real shame to hear about the collection at teh station, wish I had it....

fuckin shame...

spawn

I wish you had it too, Scott. I was really hoping that some of the veterans had grabbed up some of the better items. I AM glad to know that someone (the Lil Lighthouse guy) who appreciates it was able to benefit...

Actually, the person I was referring to above was the guy who was the station manager (i.e. a student) in the early 1990's who "mandated" this format change. Shortly after that he was a Dj at the first commercial "alternative" (cough) station we had here in New Orleans, I think it was called "105 FM The Zephyr" or something like that. I wasn't around KLSU at the time so I can't tell you first-hand... but this format change seemed to go through pretty easily.

Of course John Fisher/McMullen and those guys helped make it happen. I remember they told Jenni she couldn't be Chief Announcer any more because she was on "Double Secret Probation", or some crap like that. It really WAS a conspiracy!

Y'all remember when they attempted a format change in late 1987? I think it was when "Mike and Mike" (Gautreaux and North) tried to get us to change the format, I remember one of them suggested we play thing like Little River Band... LOL... (and we all did LOL too!) It was the same night the '87 yearbook photo was taken.

I haven't thought about that in a long time.

-barry

As per board rules, I'm not going to blast the guy - just stating the facts in an objective manner.

The person Barry refers to is Darren Gauthier. He went on to jock at The Zephyr in NOLA. A fellow DJ over there told me that he was a decent jock, but didn't know a lot about music. He was more concerned with the business of radio and Arbitron matters. He later went on to be Program Director at KKND (The End) 106.7, but isn't anymore since Citadel Broadcasting took over.

I did find his blog at http://www.DarrenGauthier.com. He's seems to be glorifying Ronald Reagan and blasting democrats and Michael Moore lately. (I didn't read too much.)

I think it's pretty obvious why he didn't think that the rare records and old mission of KLSU weren't important.

-Jenni

Saw his blog once before during web searches for klsu... pretty myopic veiwpoints if you ask me, not exactly what I would consider KLSU management material, more like a puppet on a string. IMHO..

Blast away, usually I say not, but the views that were held during his tenure....

well all I can say ... it is not the action that is important, but the spirit in which the action was preformed.... ahhh grasshopper moment.

spawn

Exactly, Scott - exactly.

...and...

Exactly, Alan - exactly.

Hi. When I saw that picture which somebody posted from 1985 with that big dense wall of records my jaw dropped. Somewhere in late 90's a bunch of records were thrown in a dumpster by the radio station. I guess they ran out of place in the studio. As far as I know, that was the darkest period of "top 40 alt radio" format when nobody was even interested in keeping any of that stuff. A guy took all those records (and those were probably just a small fraction on what KLSU actually had) and took it home. In 2001 this guy graduated and asked me if I want some of these records as he was relocating and didn't want to keep all of them. So, I got about 500 titles. The stuff that was in that collection is mostly late 80's stuff, a little bit from early 80s and just a few copies of 70's records. I gave a fraction of those records to a guy who used to do an 80s show and the rest I use in my show. Since I'll be leaving KLSU soon as well, I'm working on transfering the coolest of these records to mp3 and passing them over to a guy who does the 80's show. There are some pretty good records here, some of them real hiden jewels, but none of the biggies are there - no Easter, no Replacements. However there are a several cool Easter's productions, some SST and Twin Tone stuff (but none of the biggies). There are no records from the labels that rocketman mentioned.

I also have to say that format of the station really DID get better since dark age of the nineties. There are several DJs with cool personalities and music directors are adding a lot of indie music. On Thursday nights we have a pretty good 80s show, Satruday is full of great shows - that day is the only true free-form day. In fact every work day there are specialty show where kids are really enthusiastic about their stuff. Sunday is not so good, at least I'm not a fan of International show and other ethnic shows, also two religious shows are totally out of place. I wish there was more talk shows, was there any talk shows in the past? Daily rotation is a sad story - djs play whatever computer spits out, but maybe that's not too bad as some of them just don't know too much about music anyway, so it's better when they're forced to play what music directors pass as good. There is still a lot of room to improve of course... The format will most likely never go back to full free form, as from what I understand, they want to make this station a training ground for people who'd go and work in non-college media. So, untill Clear Channel (etc) dissappears from the face of the Earth, no change for KLSU either. I just hope it won't change for worse.



Actualy, varispeed cd players that we have now can play things backwards.

Oh, and if any of you use soulseek, look me up and i'll be glad to share some of the mp3s with you.

Ah, the old Christian show prevails? We had one, too - Morning Star. I think it was the only caveat that Dr. d'Hemecourt asked for. He and the show's hosts (Ken and Karen) may have been the only ones who ever listened to it. I used to pride myself on hearing all of the DJs, but ya know, I never heard a second of that show. Come to think of it, I think I only met K&K once! (I don't think that they approved of the rest of us.) LOL




We didn't have any talk shows, except for the news. I liked that about the station. In fact, we were taught to only talk for our announcements or if we truly had something interesting to say about the music or artists... no yapping about our silly lives. The philosophy was that people listened to college radio for the music, not the chit chat. I wish WTUL had that philosophy. (My daily chant to the radio nowadays - "Shut the f*ck up and play some music!")



Yeah, I don't know why he wrote that. I've been able to play cds backwards at work for the last 15 years. He's seen me do that.

-Jenni

Oh yeah, fundamentalists are still there, only now there are two shows and both time in prime evening spots, so the show is not called Morning Star, one is Soul Glow and other is I don't know what.

About the talk shows... when I said I wish there was more talk shows, of course I didn't mean yapping about our silly lives... I was talked about this with my German friend Nils (who hosts Funkpreacher Show http://www.funkpreached.net/) and he and I both agreed that students in Europe would jump on the chance to have a non-stop radio on their own and they'd make sure to launch a lot of scandals about local politics, university, and all other topics directly into the air through various talk shows. Perhaps keeping political awareness of the student body would prevent such an easy transition of KLSU from a cool, progressive free form radio station to an empty headed top 40 imitation (like in the dark ages of the 90s).

Ahhh, someone who works there now... got a couple questions for you, Zabic! Glad to see you're on the board, and I have to agree with something you posted - the station DOES sound much better than it did ten years ago. MUCH better. Still not as eclectic and off the wall as when most of us (on this board) worked there, but it is refreshing to see (hear) that KLSU will occasionally pull off something that makes me smile. I don't get to listen to it very often (can't quite pick it up out in Metairie, except *occasionally* at night) but I have been pretty happy with what I hear.

Oh, my questions. Last time I was up in Baton Rouge in the morning - it may have been for a work-related class or something - I tuned in KLSU and caught a JAZZ show. Back in the 1980's, we did have a couple jazz DJs, both of whom I really liked: Zia the Cat ("It's spelled J-A-double-Z and it goes like this:") and Dr. Jazz (Marc Cohn - I think that was his name!). I remember having a great long discussion with Dr. Jazz about Jaco Pastorius on the day of his death, and how we were both devastated to learn of his murder... and Zia, well - Zia just exuded coolness.

Also, during the progressive shows, we had a TWO JAZZ CUT requirement that we had to somehow sneak into our progressive programming. I didn't care for the requirement, and I don't think most of us did, because it often would break the flow of a good show. I was a stickler for the rules and always followed them (Jenni would have kicked my ass if I didn't!) but always hated that one.

Okay, sorry - here is what I was wondering, zabic: are either Dr. Jazz or Zia still around? Also, what are your jazz requirements now (for the regular shows)? Does Saturated Neighborhood still come on? That used to be Jenni's show.

Ahhh, and to think - it's only been 15 years since we were there. (ACK!!!)

-barry

Zia the cat was there when I was there (1976-1980).

I followed a jazz guy on my saturday show (it wasn't zia but i can't remember his name). It was cool becaus i called my show "Rock and Roll Radio" and the first song was always the Ramones "Do You Remember Rock and Roll Radio" which would always come out of some jazz tune. At least I thought it was cool.

I would always play a jazz track in my last segment--usually something by Roland Kirk-just to break things up. Of course Robillard came on after me and was way ecclectic too.

_________________
roar like a tiger!

Zia still does the jazz show on Sundays. No jazz requirements whatsoever. Satudated Neighborhood is still on, every Wednesday from 9 to 11.

Also, Do You Remember R'n'r Radio finally made it back to the regular playlist last year. For a long time we didn't have ANY Ramones songs in the computer, which I found horrible.

As a KLSU alumni, now, and ex-Soulglow host, I take offense at my co-host, myself, or my old show being refered to as "fundamentalist."
A. This word is usually applied to the religious right (I am a liberal and my co-host is a moderate), and B. I'm not so sure that a show featuring rock music by Christians and a host that makes dick jokes qualifies as fundamentalist.
Most of the music we played could not be heard anywhere else, and is just as critically lauded as anything else out there. As to fitting in with the station, our listeners (and judging by average phone call amounts, probably more than three people) seemed to enjoy it, and I think hitting a balance between playing previously unheard music, and people actually enjoying it is pretty laudible, as well. I don't have anything against any of you or your shows, previous, or current, but please don't just throw off something that I proudly put three years of my life into as "fundamentalist" trite that everyone hates, and no one listens to, when we were pretty much anything but that (and hopefully, in my abscence, still anything but that).
Now, if you'll excuse me, I am going to go stand in the quad, throw Bibles at people, and tell them they are all going to hell, with the rest of my miserable kind.
Wow, I feel really good, right now. I hope you understand.
Nicholas