Seattle's KJET AM 1600

On Memorial Day 1982, Seattle woke up to a pretty AWESOME new radio station.

At Midnight, May 30, 1982, KZOK-AM, a '70s pop station called "Solid Gold 16" dropped it's tired format and became KJET 1600. They signed on the air for the very first time with "I Love Rock N' Roll" Joan Jett & The Blackhearts.

And yes, this was on the AM radio band. The one your wingnut, Thanksgiving-wrecking uncle gets off on these days.

Actually, the correct frequency of KJET was 1590 kHz on the AM band and not 1600, but this was back in the days when digital tuning radios were brand new, very rare and VERY expensive. So most radio stations at that time identified with the next closest number on the analog dial - preferably one that was actually visible on an analog tuning radio dial, such as 1600 in KJET's case. For example, a station on 106.9 MHz would call it's frequency "FM 107" or a station on 92.5, just  "92", "92 FM", etc

KJET specialized in a format that was defined as "New Wave" then, the precursor to Alternative. On that day (which I remember well, I was listening and became HOOKED on this station) you heard The Police, Missing Persons, The Go-Gos, The Clash, Thompson Twins, Joan Jett, Soft Cell, Roxy Music, Devo, Joe Jackson, Human League, The Motels, Jules & The Polar Bears and many other acts of the time on KJET in 1982.


They added more different and increasingly diverse acts to their format over time and plenty of local rock and even some of the earliest Seattle grunge. KJET also introduced Seattle to R.E.M., Kate Bush, Bauhaus, Camper Van Beethoven, 54-40, The Cocteau Twins, Lloyd Cole, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Nina Hagen, Robyn Hitchcock, Siouxsie & The Banshees and countless other alternative rock acts.

Photo: 10 Things 'Zine

KJET also aired nightly live concerts, album features, hard to find imports and local independent rock programming. KJET was also a frequent sponsor of many live concerts.

Inages: KJET Seattle Facebook

Airplay on KJET was just as important as L.A's  KROQ and KITS in San Fransisco for many alternative bands.

Yet sadly, KJET was treated like the bratty stepchild of FM Classic Rocker KZOK and KZOK's then-owners really never liked it from the beginning. But there was really nothing else they could do with it. No other broadcaster wanted to buy the station then because of 1590's spotty daytime signal and they knew it would cost more money to flip it in the long run than stay the course.

KJET, for all it's warts and underachieving ratings (the typical KJET listener wasn't in the demographic ballpark of Arbitron anyway) did have quite a number of dedicated listeners and it was very influential (members of Soundgarden. Mudhoney and Pearl Jam were listeners.)

Image: Pinterest

It's nighttime signal also could be picked up in Eastern Washington and as far north as Alaska, where there were no local alternative rock stations in those areas until the '90s, KJET was there in the '80s, if only via a ghosty, uneven skywave and only after dark. In those areas, KJET was a virtual lifeline for fans of alternative rock. One guy in Spokane once told me how he couldn't wait for night to come so he could listen to his favourite music on KJET. In the pre-internet era, you took what you could get.

Image: Crosscut

Surprisingly, KJET was also automated much of the time and DJs recorded their voice tracks on one tape and the music on another. Sometimes the automation would get out of synch and you heard jocks back announcing songs that didn't come up until later in the playlist!

Yes, it was AM, yes it was scrappy. But it was ours.

KJET wasn't Seattle's first alternative rock station. That distinction belongs to KZAM-AM 1540 (yes, AM again) out of Bellevue, which was "The Rock Of The '80s...Broadcasting In Modern Mono" and they lasted from 1979 to 1981 when it flipped to Smooth Jazz as KJZZ.

Image: KZAM MySpace page

But KJET was the only source of alternative rock for most of the '80s in spite of very worthy FM competition from KYYX-FM 96.5 from 1982 until 1984.

KJET outlived them. But not for long.

(Bob Powers epitomized the attitude and look of radio station managers in the late 1980s.)

KJET lasted 6 years and was suddenly dropped in preparation for a sale of KZOK/KJET in September 1988 in favor of a '50s-'60s oldies format called KQUL or "Kool Oldies" in the hopes of gaining bigger ratings and more AM friendly older listeners. It's last song was "We're Through Being Cool" Devo.

The oldies format was a disaster and in spite of the outcry of thousands of Seattle rock fans, KJET was officially dead and KJET's corporate owners were not bringing it back.

It was three cold years before a new alternative rock station called The End 107.7 signed on in 1991.

AM 1590 was later Seattle's affiliate of the hair metal Z-Rock radio network (as KZOK-AM again) in early 1990 after realizing almost NOBODY was listening to the oldies format and returned to breaking in many local (but grunge rock/thrash metal) acts in the daytime hours and regained some small ratings (1.6), though nowhere near as much as KJET had at it's peak (3.7).

Image: Radio Sticker of The Day

At night and on weekends they returned to the Z-Rock network until October 1993 when Z-Rock dropped all their AM affiliates to go FM only and KZOK decided to sell their AM station.

It simulcasted it's Classic Rock FM sister station KZOK-FM for a year until it was finally sold to a corporate religious broadcaster in 1994, where 1590 AM languishes today as KLFE, another amplitude modulating mouthpiece of the lunatic fringe (or the station your wingnut, Thanksgiving-wrecking uncle is listening to these days.)

Today, the KJET call letters reside at an FM pop station in Aberdeen, WA that has no connection with the original Seattle AM station.

But KJET still has a huge fanbase on the web, who have created tribute sites to this little imperfect, but EXTREMELY influential AM radio station.

Here are a few links to KJET's tribute sites:

KJET 1600 Black Box (Online tribute station with original KJET promos and sweepers)
KJET's Facebook Page
Crosscut article on KJET
10 Things 'Zine: KJET
KJET on Twitter

Florence Foster Jenkins

Florence Foster Jenkins has been called many things, but "talented diva" wasn't one of them. She's regarded as the worst opera singer in history. And that's actually putting it nicely.

Who was Florence Foster Jenkins? Well, let's just say she wasn't exactly Maria Callas.

Born in 1868 to a wealthy family, she studied music and wanted to take formal opera training in Europe. Perhaps sensing something, her father refused to pay for it. After he died, she used her inheritance for formal singing lessons (I'm sure somebody tried to get this tone-deaf woman on key.) And she started public recitals in 1912.

And at this point, I'll just let you hear for yourself....

Her screeching voice had all the grace and subtlety of a vacuum cleaner. And to boot, she often dressed in angel costumes, complete with fake wings.

She often ignored the laughter from audiences, regarding it as jealousy. And she did have probably the best comeback ever to her critics. "People may say I can't sing," she said, "but no one can ever say I didn't sing."

She held yearly recitals at the Ritz-Carlton in New York to her loyal core of fans (yes, she did have fans.) But they were a select few. Just before she died, she did hold a public recital at Carnegie Hall in 1944. And tickets were sold out weeks in advance. She died a month later at 76.  

Her recording career luckily has only been preserved on a few 78 RPM sides, which have been collected and issued posthumously on RCA in 1962. And covered only one side of the LP.

 

 

More.....

The J&H Productions Tape

The entertainment industry is a rough business. But it's not what you know that matters, but who you know. That little fact is pretty intimidating to upstarts in all areas of the entertainment business.

That being said, let's say you're not trying to be a star, but taking the presumably easier route of concert promotions. Again, it's not what you know, but WHO you know.

This guy....well, I don't know what he was thinking. All I know is he doesn't seem to have ANY experience in concert promotion - certainly not on the stratospheric levels of the stars he's courting. Yet somehow, he's ready to do the job for people like Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and The Oak Ridge Boys.

OK then......

In fact. I don't even know what he is even talking about two minutes into this recording he made for some record labels somewhere in 1981 or early '82 (I'm guessing because that's when all the stars he mentions were at the peak of their careers.) He talks about his "company", J&H Productions...at length....a full 13:30. But offers no specifics of his company. Any credentials? Well, he got a brochure from the Cavalcade of Stars. And apparently, he doesn't understand receiving that brochure was likely the record company's sublime way of letting him know they already HAVE a concert promoter.

And a rejection letter from Quincy Jones. But you have to appreciate his tenacity.

This tape somehow got salvaged from the trash can of some label giant and had been dubbed and sent to other people in the entertainment industry over the years. I first heard it in the early 1990s and it was like the aural equivalent of an out of body experience...WHO was this guy? And WHAT was he thinking? Could he not make a simple cover letter, info packet and business card, instead of a meandering cassette tape of his proposals? This recording had been saved by WFMU and you can hear it at the link below

Well anyway, have a listen to this tape. TRY to keep up with him...and every tangent he goes off of.......

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/DP/2003/09/365-Days-Project-09-15-j-and-h-productions-tape.mp3

And just COUNT how many times he says "Pertaining to...." (MAN! Get a Thesaurus!)

Here's an archived fansite, pertaining to...J&H Productions

http://web.archive.org/web/20051212063752/www.timharrod.com/jhhome.html

Yes, it's even on MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/jnhprod

Created by a fan....even a mini movie on the site!........

It's "The Greatest Show Ever Being Gave". In ALL.........the stadiums.............and............the coliseums. From city to city......