Philosophy of The World by The Shaggs (Third World Recordings, 1969)

If you've never heard of this album, you might not be ready for it.


You may have grown up in the 1960s and thought you heard everything the 1960s had to offer. But if you haven't heard this album, you still haven't heard it all.

The Shaggs were Dorothy "Dot" Wiggin, Helen Wiggin and Betty Wiggin (and later, Rachel Wiggin), four sisters from Fremont, New Hampshire. They were formed as a group not under their own initiative, but by their dad, Austin Wiggin Jr.. His mother predicted Austin would marry a strawberry blonde woman and they would have daughters who would become a world famous music group.

The first two predictions came true. Austin married a strawberry blonde woman, Annie. And they had daughters. So Austin Wiggin Jr. set about making the third come true. He bought his daughters a drum kit and two guitars. And that was it. No formal lessons in playing or singing. They were on their own musically.

As a result, The Shaggs evolved, um, differently....

The Shaggs played live around the Fremont area. But the audiences weren't exactly thrilled by what they heard and often threw things at the band. It didn't matter. Austin Wiggin was going to make his girls stars. So he took the next step; Recording an album.

Austin Wiggin pulled out most of his savings to finance the album. They went to Boston and recorded Philosophy of The World on the independent Third World Recordings label. They pressed 1,000 copies of Philosophy of The World.

And 900 of them promptly disappeared. As with the head of Third World Recordings. Most of the remaining 100 copies went to radio stations, some of which escaped into the wild (as radio promo copies of albums often did.) Only one single was released, "My Pal Foot-Foot"(Foot-Foot was the name of Dot Wiggin's cat.)

To this day, no one knows what happened to those 900 missing album copies (or Foot-Foot.)

Or (as some wonder) if they were even printed.

 

Philosophy of The World has been called one of the worst records of all time. But Frank Zappa and Kurt Cobain called Philosophy of The World one of their favorite albums of all time. But who would even unleash such an album? Beat timing? Song structure? Performing on key? Big production? Artistic lyrics? FAH! Overrated.

But the reality was the Wiggin girls only went with what they honestly knew, which wasn't much. But they made the best of it to appease their father (although one could imagine the conflicts that must have went on between the girls and their dad at times were as bad as their music.) And the fact they weren't pretentious or egotistical lyrically (the song topics were about pets, sports cars, Halloween and random musings) made them just as inspiring. They became the godmothers of DIY punk and outsider music.

It's been said The Velvet Underground and Nico had 30,000 initial copies pressed and everyone who bought a copy started a band. The Shaggs pressed 1,000 copies of Philosophy of The World, lost 900 of them and still had the same effect. But Philosophy of The World, by all odds should never have survived.

The few copies that escaped quickly became collector's items initially not for their value, but for their weirdness. And their rarity has made the original LPs extremely valuable.

The Shaggs stayed together as an act until 1975. They did make an unreleased second album and on this one, there was studio help at last Their act had become famous once again when Boston rock station WBCN began playing tracks from Philosophy of The World as a joke, the album began getting renewed interest. Comedy radio host Dr. Demento also played tracks from Philosophy of The World on his syndicated radio show, which further interested/shocked listeners. When the jazz group NRBQ discovered them, they talked the Shaggs into re-releasing Philosophy of The World in 1980.

It was released on CD in 1999 on RCA Records. 

"Stop The Cavalry" The Cory Band w/ The Gwalia Singers (1981)

Most of you have probably never heard this UK single before and technically, it's not even a Christmas song, but an anti-war song.

Yet if you live in the Seattle area, you definitely know it. It gets regular airplay on Seattle's Warm 106.9 radio during their annual holiday music format. For decades, it was a holiday season radio hit in the Puget Sound. An earworm that never seems to leave your brain once you hear it. It reached #3 on the British pop charts in December 1981. But there was never an American release of the song at that time. Either it wasn't considered or no American record label was interested in licensing the track for the U.S., thinking it wouldn't sell to American record buyers.

So how did this song get to be such a huge hit in Seattle and pretty much nowhere else outside of the UK?

Well first, we're weird here in Seattle. That said, there's a fascinating back story (here) to how this record was nearly lost forever and how it was finally saved.

The original label the record was on, Stiff Records, was a British independent specializing in "pub rock", new wave and punk (Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Madness, Lene Lovich, Tracey Ullmann and Ian Dury & The Blockheads were among Stiff's best known artists.) It became one of the most influential independent labels in the world in the early 1980s, ushering in the punk and new wave genres to the UK and the world.


This song however was clearly none of the above genres.

It was originally recorded by Jona Lewie (another Stiff artist), but it was The Cory Band's cover of the song that became the Seattle hit.

The Cory Band is a Welsh brass band and one of the longest continuous running bands in the world. They were founded in 1884 (The Rolling Stones have nothing on these guys) and are recognized as one of the world's most innovative and popular brass ensembles. 

However somewhere along the way from the song's initial release, Stiff had erased and reused the original studio master tape of The Cory Band's version of this song (being a low-budget independent record label, that is not uncommon.) So when a Seattle record producer heard the track and contacted Stiff in 1997 to license an American re-release of this extremely rare single because of overwhelming demand from Seattle area radio listeners, Stiff looked in their vaults. Then told the producer the awful news.

A makeshift workaround had to be arranged with a vinyl copy of the song. Luckily, there were a few mint copies remaining from the original pressing. The producer made a decent transfer suitable for the re-release and sold 13,000 copies of the reissue locally.

It still remains one of the perennial holiday favourites in Seattle. Enjoy.  

Chipmunk Punk (Excelsior/Pickwick, 1980)

In the late 1970s, it seemed like The Chipmunks franchise was all but dead.

Ross Bagdasarian Sr., the Chipmunks creator had passed away in 1972 and aside from various licensed holiday repackagings for budget labels such as Mistletoe/Springboard, there was no new Chipmunks music in that cold, lonely decade.

Liberty Records had folded into United Artists in 1968 and UA wasn't as fond of these rodents as Liberty.

The '70s were a real low point for the Chipmunks. And to add insult to sad loss, a religious producer/musician named Floyd Robinson created something called Charlie The Hamster. A smug, born-again knockoff that served no other purpose other than to remind us of how much we really missed the actual Chipmunks.

 Charlie The Hamster Sings The Ten Commandments (Singcord, 1977) is a headache inducing Christian market knockoff of the Chipmunks franchise. Somehow, Robinson and his hamster forgot about Commandment #8.....   

But by 1980, the Chipmunks really needed a makeover and it was up to Ross Bagdasarian Jr. to carry the Chipmunks torch into the '80s. So he created Chipmunk Punk. And yes, even Yours Truly owned a copy.

Chipmunk Punk wasn't actual punk rock music per se. If you came here looking for some hysterical Chipmunk versions of The Sex Pistols, Anti-Nowhere League, The Ramones or The Dead Boys, you better move on.

But you did get Chipmunk covers of rock songs from The Knack (three songs were Knack covers!), Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Blondie, The Cars, Billy Joel, Linda Ronstadt and Queen. Sanitized of course (The Knack's "Good Girls Don't" was cleaned up - this is a kids record after all.)

The album was a surprising success and went Gold (the first Chipmunks album to do so.) The album was inspired by a DJ from Los Angeles rock station KMET-FM who played Blondie's "Call Me" at twice normal speed and jokingly called it "the new Chipmunks record".

Chipmunk Punk reintroduced the Chipmunks to a new generation and led to several follow up albums and a new Saturday morning cartoon series in the '80s and they're still active today.

North Korean Pop Culture

Morning rush hour traffic snarls in downtown Pyongyang......

First, before I go into this, I need to say I'm not a sympathizer of the North Korean regime and I'm aware of the atrocities and miserable human rights record of it. It's no joke.

But the contradiction between the North Korean 'official' line of "Paradise On Earth" and reality are embarrassingly visual just by viewing and listening to North Korea's own media and raise far more uncomfortable questions than the regime can explain or live down. So you don't ask questions. Who asks questions in North Korea?
 
That said, what I'm showcasing here is the regime manufactured pop culture of this strange country. It's one that is strangely fascinating to me because it is so far off the grid from the rest of the world, it's one that needs an illustration. There is nothing anywhere else in the world like it. (Even Cuba has loopholes.)

In most ways, North Korea is The Land That Pop Culture Forgot. Because in North Korea, the regime dictates what you have for fun, recreation, music, food and style. It must conform to "revolutionary" principles (or at least not be a threat to them.)


That kinda stifles things a bit in the pop culture development department.

First, it's hard to get a real look inside the country. You can't just arrive, check into your hotel and freely stroll around Pyongyang, meeting and talking with people, taking pictures and visiting the locals without a minder (a government official designated to guide you around to specific places and people only) Tourists are forbidden to stray beyond their hotel without one.

This isn't London, Sydney or Tokyo.

Americans in particular are viewed with suspicion in North Korea. It's been that way since the 1950s when America backed South Korea in the Korean War. A war that never actually ended (a truce was signed but never a formal peace treaty.) But there are always skirmishes along the De-Militarized Zone - a funny name for one of the most heavily armed places on earth, with a million soldiers on either side, waiting for the other side to blink. (And as long as there is a DMZ, the war is still on.)

Americans still aid the South Koreans, but in nowhere near the numbers of the Korean War itself. And a few American soldiers even went turncoat and defected to North Korea.

The funny thing about James Dresnok is while he looks like he's got it made, he sure drinks a lot. Note also all the full unopened bottles on the table. Most of us would stick that in the fridge already....

And they still like taking American POWs (as Merrill Newman, Laura Ling, Kenneth Bae and Euna Lee can tell you.)

So that kinda wipes it off most people's travel plans.

The only factor it does have going for it is outside curiosity. Because many people want to peek over the bamboo curtain and see what it looks like. Not that there's much to see.

So let's look at what's there:

Music

There is no rock music in North Korea. Or ever has been. There's been buzzing talk all over the record collector forums of The Beatles having official North Korean albums. But that's just amateur vinyl collectors trying to psyche the novices with South Korean Beatles albums and there's no actual evidence of any official North Korean Beatles releases.

Nice try.

Or ANY Western pop music. Ever. No blues, country, jazz, punk, rap or thrash metal either. Not for North Koreans.

Even in the Kim family's better moods.

North Korean music is the only music in the world in North Korea. You do not get to play the music the Dear Leader does not approve. Any other music, especially from capitalist countries, is punishable by (assume the worst.)

The only pop music in North Korea is a hybrid electronic Easy Listening / Classical / Soft Adult Contemporary kind of propaganda delivered via acts such as The North Korean Army Band, The Moranbong Band, The Pyongyang Gold Stars and The Ponchonbo Electric Ensemble and simply everybody's favourite, Unknown.

These aren't exactly The Greatest Hits of All Time in the rest of the world.

(But that doesn't mean Western pop doesn't sneak in in some strange and subtle way. Take The Pyongyang Gold Stars accordion reworking of a-ha's 1980's classic "The Sun Always Shines On TV")


Going through the North Korean YouTube channels, here are the current hits. Not in any particular order. There are no pop charts in North Korea and only a more dedicated music eccentric than I outside of North Korea would know WHEN they were actually released to the public there. If ever. Or WHO they actually are.

It's been said members of the North Korean bands change line-ups worse than Styx, Kiss, Van Halen or even Jefferson Starship. And not exactly by petty egos, drug abuse, solo ambitions or infighting either....

So here's The Latest Hits in North Korea:

"The Leader's Bright Smile" The North Korean Army Band
"Socialism, We Love You" Unknown
"If Mother Party Wishes" The Moranbong Band
"We'll Become Regiment No. 7 of Today!" Unknown
"Let's Study!" The Moranbong Band

This isn't exactly Casey Kasem's Top 40.

Pyongyang 105.2 FM - This is the local FM radio station of Pyongyang. It broadcasts only in the evenings and plays a daily mix of anthems, arduous marches and easy listening pop. All of which praise the regime or are nationalistic in some way.


No "Hit or History" new song battles, no wacky morning zoos, no Top 40 countdowns, no love songs and dedications hours (unless they're for the Dear Leader. Your boyfriend can go boil an egg for all they care.)

Concerts: Did I mention there is no thrash metal in North Korea? Good. Your codpiece is invalid anyway in North Korea. No mosh pits, no festival seating, no Bic lighter waving power ballads, no shouts of "PLAY FREE BIRD!", no high decibel volume levels or risque stage antics. You can take your most conservative grandma to a North Korean concert with confidence.

Some people take a video cam to a concert, others take their hashpipes. Dear Leader takes his big oak office desk. When was the last concert you did that? Slayer?


The Moranbong Band (North Korea's answer to....I guess the closest thing this side of Pyongyang to these girls would be Celtic Woman) is currently the most popular band in North Korea. Because the Dear Leader says so.

Shopping

Shopping is a tricky subject in North Korea. Because there isn't any.

Actually, there is - in  Pyongyang. But what's there is mostly for display. There is always new construction going on in Pyongyang and what comes up are usually big gorgeous department stores with everything.

Except customers.


But this isn't the real North Korean shopping experience.

This is.

TV


First, there is only one TV channel in North Korea. And only in Pyongyang.

It broadcasts 6-8 hours a day. Usually in the evening hours There is no weekday television, filled with gossipy entertainment talk shows, soap operas, infomercials and trailer trash. People are either working or going to school.

The only other daytime broadcast option is a state controlled radio channel that wafts in through most Pyongyang apartment kitchens with programming mostly for housewives.

These radios are built-in and tuned to the main state radio channel. It is only capable of receiving that station. No others. In fact, there's a seal on the back that if broken could send you to the prison camps because it would indicate you were trying to listen to foreign broadcasts. And while you can turn down the volume, you can never turn them off. 

The TV broadcast day begins at around 4:30pm and features a test card with a soundtrack of instrumental easy listening music similar to the kind you hear on Pyongyang 105.2 FM.

The hottest prime time TV programs in North Korea stars the Dear Leader as he goes around inspecting all sorts of new construction, making comments and gestures as if to say "You know I hate that shade of blue, don't you?"

Often, he is flanked by several army members and an entourage that writes down his comments on little notepads.

 You can watch it live online here: http://112.170.78.145:50000/chosun. Note that program start times are very erratic. That's because there are no commercials on North Korean TV. The only break up between programs are the music videos (again, only of nationalist music. No titillating girls shaking their butts all over the hoods of sports cars.) 

Food

North Korea is one of those places that would even make a dedicated foodie like me nervous.

Purple beer?

But in a country that starves the majority of it's citizens (except for Dear Leader of course), they take what they can get.

Even the names of the factories that make North Korean food are gross...

It's "crabonated"!

But the first indicator you may have strayed too far (if you missed the Beijing airport, the Air Koryo terminal and the Ilyushin IL-62 you are boarding) are the infamous Air Koryo in-flight hamburgers. 

Computers & Internet

First, there's two platforms of internet access.


For you, the tourist with your tablets and smartphones, there's 3G mobile service thats limited to the special tourist hotel you'll be staying at (P.S. Watch what you tell your Facebook friends and Aunt Sadie in Peoria. It's monitored.) You have to have a special SIM card to call out or receive incoming calls/texts.

For you, the North Korean in Pyongyang, a special intranet that connects only to a government server with only regime approved (and created) sites. There is no home internet service (so much for "Paradise on Earth".) All access to this North Korean-only network is for university students and higher-ups and only at The Great Study Hall and certain universities. The two networks do not connect at all.

Newspapers will be alive and well in North Korea long after the civilized world has abandoned them.

The main computer operating system is North Korea's own Red Star OS. Which is based on Linux and functions similar to Windows XP. It is only in Korean and accesses the North Korean intranet only. There are download links to a pirated copy and if you dare with an old computer, you can install it. But you won't be able to access the North Korean intranet, as it is completely off the grid from the main internet.

These are screenshots from an older version. The newest version which came out earlier this year resembles Mac OS X.    

 

There is now a little tablet computer for North Koreans, based on Android called Samjiyon. It comes with a North Korean version of Angry Birds. It doesn't have any internet or even North Korean intranet access.

 

Style & Fashion

Note the pictures of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on the walls. They are mandatory in every apartment, every house, every building and every office and in every public room in North Korea and are to be treated with the same reverence a religious person would give their most cherished symbols. If not more so... 

You know those big books of modern hairstyles you see in most beauty salons? In North Korea, they have those too. Each one carefully selected by the regime (lest your hair become a subversive agent in itself.)

There's even a TV show in North Korea called (and I'm not making this up) Let's Trim Our Hair In Accordance With The Socialist Lifestyle

No slacker shags. No dreadlocks, no poofy curls, no punk mohawks. You can't dye your hair or go totally bald. Or deviate and create your own look in any way. What you see is what you get. 

But more recently, it's been said all male university students must now have the same Operation game haircut as the Dear Leader.

I must say that's not a look that works for every guy. Not even Dear Leader. But who's going to tell him "Dear Leader, your hair looks like a mustache glued to the top of an egg"? Who?

You can't get tattoos in North Korea. No string bikinis for the ladies. No badass leather jackets. No t-shirts, no jeans, no sneakers.

The military look seems all the rage. When a third of the population is conscripted to some military service, that's to be expected.

When all is said and done, you're probably thinking "These people will never change. They will live forever in this existential hellhole of make believe on one end and brutal repression, starvation and very bad taste on the other." 

That's not entirely true...

Outside pop culture is sneaking in (as it always does.) On black market thumb drives and DVDs filled with South Korean TV shows, movies and other material. However, DVDs are becoming a less favoured option and here is why. Electricity is scarce in North Korea and blackouts are frequent. But most especially, some of the blackouts are planned. So police can conduct door by door searches for any contraband and should you wind up with a naughty illegal DVD stuck in your DVD player because you can't open the thing (not an easy thing to do in the dark with cops banging at the door), you and your entire family are doomed. Thumb drives are easier to hide and most modern Chinese made DVD players have thumb drive players built in. Little wind-up shortwave radios are also coming in. 

You see, any totalitarian regime begins to collapse when it suppresses pop culture. It's simple human nature to have fun and colour in our lives. To not only see and dream about the outside world, but to travel beyond our own borders. Be they geographic or in our own minds

Rock 'n roll itself caused more rust to the Iron Curtain than any of Reagan's tough talk in the 1980s through smuggled records and tapes in the '60s and '70s.

A magazine ad from 1980.

By the 1980s, Gorbachev himself knew the totalitarianism of his predecessors was impossible to maintain. The people of the former Soviet Union were demanding change. He had no other choice but to begin glasnost (or "openness".) Which led to fall of the Eastern Bloc nations, the Berlin Wall to where we are today. China itself, once one of the most hardline of totalitarian states, now has freewheeling pop culture.

Will North Korea change?

It will. But not overnight. Change doesn't work that way. You just have to keep chipping away until the wall finally collapses.

But it will collapse. History doesn't lie.

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

"Institutionalized" Suicidal Tendencies (1983)

"Rebel Rebel" Shaun Cassidy (1980)

Shaun Cassidy's music career had already been on the skids when this album came out. But this is the only album I know of that actually appeared in the $1.98 clearance racks on the day of it's release.

Wasp was supposed to be Shaun Cassidy's remarketing as a New Wave act. And to add to those alt-y credentials, the album was produced by Todd Rundgren and Rundgren's backing band Utopia also backed Cassidy on this album.

The warning sign was the first single, "Rebel Rebel" - a cover of the David Bowie classic was released to radio. I remember hearing this song and laughing because it was so hilariously BAD. Halfway during the song, the DJ broke in and said "Uh, look. I'm sorry but this is bad. The phones are off the hook here and I'm more accustomed to my listeners saying 'play it again' than 'get that off the blanking air'!"

Not even Todd Rundgren could save this.

So a week later on my shopping trip to the record store, I picked up some albums and 45s and to round off my night, I looked for something in the "budget bin" and there it was. This album. Around 20 copies of it.

So I bought one. And if you thought this was crazy, wait until you hear the title track. And the cover of "Once Bitten Twice Shy" made me appreciate Great White's ghastly version 8 years later. I can't remember what happened to my copy of this album, but I think I finally used it as a make-do frisbee on the beach.

I knew Shaun was aiming for something here on this album, but whatever it was, he went too far above and completely beyond it. I was actually craving "Da-Do-Ron-Ron" or "Hey Deanie" before it was over.

   

"Meiecundimees üks Korsakov läks eile Lätti" Winny Puhh (2013)

Now that's what the fox said......

KRAB 107.7 FM

Many years ago, there was a radio station in Seattle, Washington called KRAB.

Was KRAB pop? Absolutely not. Was it culture? More than you could shake a tub of yogurt at.

KRAB was founded in 1962 by Lorenzo Milam who is considered a pioneer in the community radio movement. KRAB's format has been described as "Eclectic", "free-form" or as I called it, "Whatever". But little did anyone know that KRAB and it's programming model would serve as the launch pad of hundreds of community public radio stations across America.

It was licensed to The Jack Straw Memorial Foundation. Who was Jack Straw?

Here's the answer:

"The name Jack Straw has several appeals for us. Naturally, we delight in the obscurity of it. It refers to a trouble-making peasant type who, in 1381, led a riot against the Flemish inhabitants of London for nothing less mundane than economic reasons, but better, is associated in Chaucer with the absolute confusion and demi-philosophical statements of Chanticleer and Dame Pertelote under attack of the ‘povre wydwe, somdeel stape in age.’ Figure that one out.

Jack Straw bodes well for KRAB, with outside help we may be able to escape the inordinate confusion of our farmyard studios. We are sometimes revolted by our poverty and dream – as we have said – of glistening studios with miracle equipment and a transmitter lost somewhere in the clouds of faultless transmission and wild improbable plans. We will refuse, of course, adamantly, to give up the confusion of our quasi-philosophical stance– that it the nature of KRAB and Dame Pertelote."

~The Radio Papers: From KRAB to KCHU by Lorenzo Milam

Excerpt of Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

So hydous was the noyse, a benedicitee!
Certes, he Jakke Straw and his meynee
Ne made nevere shoutes half so shrille
Whan that they wolden any Flemyng kille,
As thilke day was madde upon the fox.
Of bras they broghten bemes, and of box,
Of horn, of boon, in whiche they blewe and powped,
And therwithal they skriked and they howped,
It semed as they hevene sholde falle.

 Modern English Translation

So terrible was the noise, ah ben'cite!
Certainly old Jack Straw and his army
Never raised shouting half so loud and shrill
When they were chasing Flemings for to kill,
As on that day was raised upon the fox.
They brought forth trumpets made of brass, of box,
Of horn, of bone, wherein they blew and pooped,
And therewithal they screamed and shrieked and whooped;
It seemed as if the heaven itself should fall!

(from http://www.jackstraw.org/main/about/jack.shtml)

No comment.

Milam's plan for KRAB was influenced by the BBC and classic American radio. Which didn't have specific formats, but a wide range of programming each day.

KRAB wasn't your typical radio station, with a directed format and narrowly researched playlist. KRAB was the antithesis of all that. For example, while pop music and jingly commercials were the norm on the most listened to radio stations on a typical day in the '60s and '70s. KRAB would broadcast an intellectual roundtable, indigenous music from Africa, a reading from a 14th century book, gramophone records from the 1920s. And so forth.

KRAB was staffed by volunteers and encouraged an eclectic direction. To find what isn't mainstream. Milam's vision wasn't to compete with existing stations, but to offer something that you couldn't find on them. Their studio and transmitter were originally located in a converted donut shop in the Roosevelt area of Seattle.

Image from krab.fm

And KRAB had a lot to offer. Before world music and LGBT themed radio programs became a staple of community public radio, KRAB innovated them. Public radio back then (as a majority of FM radio stations in general) were mostly classical music. KRAB also had classical music, but from far more obscure composers. No Beethoven here. You were more likely to hear Renaissance Fair music (LONG before Renaissance Fairs became trendy.) KRAB also played blues music (at a time and place where the blues were virtually unheard of.) There was obscure folk, avant garde experimental music as well as BBC News (directly off a shortwave radio!), commentary, speeches and roundtable discussions from a wide range of opinions. Today, you'd have to be out of your mind to put a flaming Communist and a John Birch uber right-winger on the same station, to say nothing of the same room. KRAB did. (And how the whole damn station didn't blow up is one for the history books.)

Before the internet, it was almost impossible to find such a huge variety of alternative programming in most cities. That's what made KRAB such a gem. The Jack Straw Memorial Foundation also founded other stations with similar programming KBOO 90.7 FM Portland, OR, KNON Dallas, TX, KPOO San Fransisco, CA and others.

They had no ratings, no advertisers (being a non-commercially licensed station, they couldn't have any advertising whatsoever on the air.) And outside local media and intellectual circles, almost nobody knew where they were. They were located at 107.7 MHz on the farthest reach of the Seattle FM dial.

It's dial position was a boon and a curse. Back then, the most popular Seattle FM stations were located further down the dial (mostly between 92-103 FM. And farther up were a religious and lower power stations in the Seattle suburbs and stations farther off in the hinterlands, such as Bellingham.) So unless the listener was really looking for something off the beaten path, there was no accidental stumbling upon KRAB. But being out of the way of everyone else was KRAB's stock and trade anyway.

It was a pretty highbrow station.

Perhaps too highbrow?

Whereas most stations look for mass appeal, Or specialized in one particular genre of music. KRAB's listener was the one who didn't fit in anywhere. There was no format you could call it (even "eclectic" and "free-form" seemed inaccurate.) If it sounded even remotely popular or even had a niche commercial appeal, it was not heard on KRAB.

But while KRAB was criticized by the local mainstream media and some Seattle radio listeners as a useless waste of bandwith, KRAB proudly let it's freak flag fly. They weren't there to impress them.

Initially, KRAB avoided rock music, figuring you could hear that already on the underground FM rock stations of the late '60s and early '70s. But it quietly snuck itself in in the wee hours. Again, this wasn't the pop stuff you heard. KRAB also introduced Seattle to reggae, punk and even a new type of music called "rap" - all in the '70s.

Here's a sample of their punk rock show Life Elsewhere with Norman Batley from January 1982

KRAB trudged along, eeking by on government grants and donations from their few listeners. But in the early '80s the Reagan administration made devastating cutbacks in government funding for non-commercial radio. And with the loss of this, KRAB began to seriously struggle for it's life. However it was more than they could handle.

But KRAB had an ace up it's sleeve. They had one thing that was extremely valuable and that was it's frequency. The FM radio dial is divided in two sections. The frequencies from 88.1 to 91.9 are reserved in the US for non-commercial radio and those from 92.1 to 107.9 are available for commercial broadcasters. With 107.7 being in that commercial zone it could be sold to a commercial broadcaster, which would pay enough to give KRAB a new lease on life on a different frequency.

In 1984, KRAB sold the license to it's 107.7 frequency to Sunbelt Broadcasting for a little over $3,000,000.  This money was used as seed money for starting a new radio station and a recording and production studio. They first tried to enter a time share agreement with Seattle's KNHC-FM, which balked at the proposal, considering it akin to a hostile takeover. They later found a frequency in nearby Everett, WA.

But after some years off the air, something else had to be sacrificed. Radio station call letters cannot be held as intellectual property if there's no radio station to use them. There was a time limit and that ended by 1986. The KRAB call letters were taken by a Bakersfield, CA rock station which still uses them today.

So the new station in Everett became KSER 90.7 FM. They are preparing to launch a second radio station, KXIR 89.9 FM.

And things are run slightly less haphazardly than it was at KRAB (Image from krab.fm)

The Jack Straw Memorial Foundation operated KSER for a few years during the '90s before turning the station over to The KSER Foundation. They are Jack Straw Productions today and a major producer of independent media.

And what happened to KRAB's original 107.7 FM frequency?

After nearly a year off the air, 107.7 returned in 1985 as a light pop station called KMGI "Magic 108". After 6 years of floundering ratings in this format, the format was changed to alternative rock KNDD "107.7 The End" and instantly became a smashing success.

Audio of the KMGI to KNDD format change

The timing couldn't have been better. Nirvana was just a few weeks from releasing their Nevermind album, launching the Seattle grunge rock sound that changed rock music in a way not seen since the British Invasion of the '60s and for the next few years, Seattle was the de facto rock n' roll capitol of America. And KNDD was at it's epicenter and influencing countless other radio stations.  They're still on the air and still a major player in the alternative rock format, though not as epic as they were at their beginning. And even Norman Batley (as Norman B.) made a return to his old frequency (as afternoon host on The End) for a few years in the early '90s.

Seattle Radio History - 107.7FM (KNDD -The End) from Twisted Scholar on Vimeo.
However these days, a station like KRAB would be highly welcome today with many radio listeners. Because, let's face it, most people can only stand the same twenty squeaky, AutoTuned pop songs of today ad nauseum for only so long.

If you want a closer look at KRAB and the history and sounds of this strange little radio station, check out http://www.krab.fm/. It's a goldmine and do read the program guides. They tell a LOT.