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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Walpurges Night - The Other Halloween
Category: Parties and Nightlife

The night of April 30 is the year's other night of witches, spells and magic

There's a penetrating chill in the wind. The bright moon rises behind the shivering, nearly naked trees. A profound sense of foreboding permeates the darkness.

This is the night, after all, when witches ride their broomsticks through the sky, and the natural world is forced to confront the powers of the supernatural.

No, it isn't October 31 and this is not Halloween. It's April 30 and it's Walpurgis Night.
Like Halloween, Walpurgis has its roots in ancient pagan customs, superstitions and festivals.

At this time of year, the Vikings participated in a ritual that they hoped would hasten the arrival of Spring weather and ensure fertility for their crops and livestock. They would light huge bonfires in hopes of scaring away evil spirits.

But the name "Walpurgis" comes from a very different source. In the 8th Century, a woman named Valborg (other iterations of the name include Walpurgis, Wealdburg and Valderburger) founded the Catholic convent of Heidenheim in Wurtemburg, Germany. She
herself later became a nun and was known for speaking out against witchcraft and sorcery.

She was canonized a saint on May 1, 779. Since the celebration of her sainthood and the old Viking festival occurred around the same time, over the years the festivals
and traditions intermingled until the hybrid pagan-Catholic celebration became known as Valborgsmässoafton or Walpurgisnacht – Walpurgis Night.

The Other Halloween

Although not widely known in the US, this May-Eve night shares many of the traditions of Halloween and is, in fact, directly opposite Halloween on the calendar. According to the ancient legends, this night was the last chance for witches and their nefarious cohorts to stir up trouble before Spring reawakened the land.

They were said to congregate on Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz Mountains – a tradition that comes from Goethe's Faust. In the story, the demon Mephistopheles brings Faust to Brocken to consort with the coven of witches:

The witches t'ward the Brocken strain
When the stubble yellow, green the grain.
The rabble rushes - as 'tis meet -
To Sir Urian's lordly seat.
O'er stick and stone we come, by jinks!
The witches f..., the he-goat s...
...
The broomstick carries, so does the stock;
The pitchfork carries, so does the buck;
Who cannot rise on them tonight,
Remains for aye a luckless wight.

Famous Birthdays for April 30th

Willie Nelson
Long John - KMUD Taurus sun, Virgo rising, Pisces moon
Jill Clayburgh
Eve Arden
Cloris Leachman
Burt Young

April 30th in History

1789: George Washington becomes the first US President
1798: US department of Navy established
1803: Louisiana sold to the United States by France

Long John is a high tech hillbilly, and lives in the mountains of MendoLand, in the State Of Jefferson

12:06 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Saturday, March 29, 2008

--- Tubby Tunes basic INFO: 30 Years In Your Ears ---
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Welcome to

TUBBY TUNES

Radio Show

I first went on the air in 1977, on KALX, a small Class D station at UC Berkeley

My whole life had been pointing in that direction for quite a long time, with a deep interest in music, radio, TV, films, concert staging, and electronic gadgets...

I live in Mendocino County , a wonderful part of Northern California in an area that is identified with several regions: we’re part of the Wine Country, Redwood Empire, and the infamous Emerald Triangle.

The astrology books often mention "entertainment" as what careers many Taurus are involved in, and I guess I’m no exception...

For me, it started a long time ago , around 1956 or so, when I was 5 years old and I discovered radio...

Rock and roll radio specifically: KEWB and KYA. I was hooked on it. I used to play the radio (it was a large floor console radio in those days) real loud when Bill Haley, Elvis, Everly Bros, Coasters, or Johnny Otis came on. Later, my first transister radio was somehow also tuned to these same rock stations.

I fell in love with radio, and was thrilled when a cousin gave me her 45 rpm record collection around 1960, and it wasn’t long before I was spinning tunes at some of the school dances...

I started to hang out at some of the radio stations in the SF Bay Area at an early age; watching, learning, and absorbing styles & techniques

By the early 1970’s I was building up a sizable Country, Rock, & Boogie component to my record collection. I worked on and off in radio, TV, News, wineries, and high-tech electronics, in the years since. Often my job has been to train other radio DJ’s and TV Master Control operators. I’m still involved with television and video...

The San Francisco area has alway been very rich in many ways in terms of culture, weather, music, quality if life, but most outstanding is the quality of our radio and TV, and as the (now) 4th largest media market in the US we’ve established a very strong regional identity (that is quite different compared to Southern California).

In 2007 I celebrated 30 years of on the air broadcasting, and I’m still doing it...!

What is TUBBY TUNES ???

It’s the music & humor of the late KFAT and the late KVRE radio stations rolled together & updated with new stuff...

These were two legendary stations in Northern California...

Tubby Tunes is what would be on the air on these stations if they existed today, but, they don’t. The KFAT bumper sticker has been seen from Maine to Miami (the KPIG sticker can be seen on the ’fridge in the older syndicated "Grace Under Fire" TV episodes). The KVRE bumper sticker is so rare I’ve not seen one in years..!

This type of radio has been called Outlaw Country, Progressive Country, and Freeform Country, but, it’s not just country...

Included is Country, Blues, Rock, Western, Comedy, Rockabilly, Swing, Folk, and Zydeco. The blend is very unique, funny, sometimes called outrageous (not politically correct), and you could never tell from moment to moment what is going to be played. This is freeform radio at it’s best. Large amounts of humor is essential...

Most of the original "Outlaw DJ’s" are no longer on the air, some have died, and some have gone on to other things in their lives; you don’t do this kind of radio to get rich , but, for the sheer fun of doing what the straight hit/pop/top-40 stations only dream they can do. Some of the original "Outlaw DJ’s" moved to the Sierra foothills, also to Nevada, and also up where I live. The stations died, but, the audience never went away...

What is an "Outlaw DJ"..?

Someone who plays a bunch of "Hells Angel & biker music"..? No...We were outlaw because we rebeled against the existing radio establishment (a practice incubated at KMPX ) to develop a truely freeform type of radio style with a symbiotic relationship with the listeners...each radio show was a "blank canvas" on which to paint a musical journey with no restrictions, no playlists, no consultants, no satellites...

Non Commercial radio stations are now just about the only outlets (with one or two exceptions) for such music, and it’s rather thin even at that, in terms of how many hours per week you can hear it, (the aforementioned radio stations above were all 24 hours a day except KVRE-AM). If a typical non commercial station has any type of folk/rock/country/boogie show, it’s usually only for a few hours each week...

KPIG (Freedom, California, near Santa Cruz) is the only commercial station that is able to do anything close to KFAT / KVRE {but lately it’s playlist is just not the same}. Some of the KPIG staff came from the late KFAT, Gilroy, California, ("Garlic Capitol of the World" ), and some had also worked at KHIP, which was the second incarnation of KFAT (KPIG is the 3rd incarnation of KFAT).

So, that’s the history and lineage of what led up to Tubby Tunes...

The TUBBY TUNES name itself is solomn homage to both KFAT & Warner Bros cartoons...

KFAT (& KVRE) may be long dead, but the concept lives on...!

I was part of the original crew of KZYX - Philo, California

These days I’m on KMUD on Monday Afternoons 1:oo PM to 3:oo PM

(Alternating with Weird Harolds "Fat Mud")

WWW.KMUD.ORG

What Was

KFAT & KVRE ???

These stations had to get their mojo & inspiration from somewhere, and it largely came from KSAN and KOKE...

But we need to back up a bit...in the 1960’s San Francisco Bay Area there was a progressive population that was not fullfilled by Top 40 rock stations KYA & KEWB (and later KFRC)...

Sometime around 1966 KMPX came to life with the help of Tom Donahue, {who ironically was the main man behind Top 40 radio in Philidelphia}, and a bunch of DJ’s gathered to become the stewards of America’s FIRST "underground psychedelic" FM radio station...

And it was so sweet, for about 2 years.. but at some point owner Leon Crosby discovered that the DJ’s were a bunch of barefooted long haired hippies, and tensions arose, and eventually there was a STRIKE by the DJ’s at KMPX {very loosely depicted in the 1978 movie "FM"} and for 3 days there was an infamous party in front of the radio station at 50 Green St, with live music by all the (soon to be) well known SF area bands ...

As it was, the owner moved the KMPX studios to the Fisherman’s Wharf area with a crew of scab DJ’s (some of whom would later have somewhat notable careers in radio)...

KSAN was born out of the ashes of KMPX, with Tom Donaue once again at the helm

KSAN in San Francisco was hot during the Rock years 1968 to 1978 (it’s now a different format) when it was at 94.9 FM, & was known as the "Jive 95" and as the national music scene was focused on theSan Francisco area, KSAN became a legendary radio station... Some great info can be found at www.jive95.com

Meanwhile, in Texas, there was KOKE fm in Austin, and it was a free form station with Joe Gracey at the helm.... I’ve heard various versions of to what degree there was any help from KOKE in the founding of KFAT... Jeremy Lansman (one of the KFAT founders) doesn’t mention KOKE to any great extent, so it’s contribution my have been inspirational only (which is OK)

The energy and inspiration of KSAN & KOKE came together in Gilroy, California as KFAT...

KFAT (and to a lessor extent KVRE) was legendary ... KFAT could be heard throughout most of the SF Bay Area and got the fame, while KVRE could only be heard in the central portion of Sonoma County, (which is both part of the North Bay Area and also part of the "Wine Country"). A new type of "Outlaw DJ" emerged from this blend of country, rock, and humor on the radio dial... besides the music they played in common, they each had local music that the other station didn’t, which added to the unique flavor of each station

Jeremy Lansman, Laura Ellen Hopper, and Larry Yurdin are those the most to blame for KFAT...and some great info on KFAT can be found at the webby site www.kfat.com There were live music shows called "Fat Fry’s", which featured many artists that would later become quite well known, and then there were the legends, such as Cmdr Cody, Chuck Wagon & The Wheels, John Hartford, and so many more...

Also, someday Gilbert Klein’s book FAT CHANCE will be published about KFAT...he’s been writing it for quite some time...he was the public affairs talk show host and was involved from the early days of KFAT

KVRE was an AM & FM combo in Santa Rosa,CA, doing the same thing as KFAT, but with it’s own laid back Sonoma County nuances...it was on 2 foot stilts in the Santa Rosa Plains, with chickens that lived under the studios, including a rooster that was named "Rowdy Rooster", until he discovered sexual maturity and saw the hens in a whole different light...then he was called "Ready Rooster", and it was not usual to hear the rooster crowing like crazy in the background during the DJ’s breaks, especially if it was a hot day with the windows open. I can’t swaer to it, but I suspect DJ Jack Ellis was slipping whiskey into the chickens water...

Like a tale of two ships passing in the night, there were no direct ties between KFAT & KVRE, yet they were so similar...both doing the same thing independantly, both started at about the same time, and both died about the same time...

Around January 3rd, 1983, KFAT died after being sold, and was renamed KWSS (The WUSS Of The West), and later KHIP Hollister rose from the fat ashes, but it didn’t have much power. It eventually died and later KPIG was born in the Watsonville "suburb" of Freedom, Ca...KPIG is still on the air, but it’s playlist is looking fairly weak...

KPIG has repeaters in SLO (KPYG), KPIG-AM in Piedmont (next to Oakland), and a repeater in the Chico area (it used to be KZAP)...

KVRE was sold, and it was just not nearly as good as it also died, and some of the DJ’s played music at a downtown Santa Rose bistro called Studio KAFE, and later KRVE...and the radio scene in Santa Rosa became an imitation of its former self...there is a commercial station KRSH that very badly attempts to fill the need of the KVRE audience (that never went away), but there might be a ray of hope yet: former KFAT & KPIG DJ Dallas Dobro is doing weekend shows in Santa Rosa (as of 2008) on KRSH...