The Music Pages
Music comin through on the electric radio has been a real memory stamp in
my life. Listening to
grandma's kitchen radio tuned to
KMBY (click for a flashback!) in the
early 60s was the first influence. I listened to
KMBY (click again for another one) from then - the Beach
Boys, Beatles, all kinds of pop, to the psychedelic Monterey Pop Festival
era - Mamas & The Papas, Hendrix, The Who to the hippie country-rock -
Commander Cody, CSNY, Byrds and Creedence Clearwater, to all the way to
about 1975, when disco/soul was all that was played.
After that there was my KLRB heavy on Zep and electronic euro-rock, and the
National Lampoon radio hour.
When I started hanging out with a few older friends in an auto shop in
Pacific Grove I first heard KFAT and was
hooked on the hippie country I had remembered and the southern rock. Add the
off the wall comedy and I was permanently planted in the FAT entertainment
style. I bought records at Do Re Mi and Logos. I went to any local event
that had FAT artists performing - Sidesaddle, Norton Buffalo, Jill Croston,
Larry Hosford, Mary McCaslin, etc, etc. I took the Fat one everywhere I
could until it's demise.
When KFAT went Wuss I was saying that I'll never listen to music again. But I couldn't do that. I searched for a source to put my ears to.
I
drifted
to plain old C&W from KTOM or KWST, with a supplement of about 25 tapes that I had
made of KFAT in the final weeks of it's existence (you can listen to them
and more over at www.kfat.com ).
I knew what I would do - I will build my own collection of FAT music and make my own music mixes. I listened to the tapes and set out to buy up all the records I could identify off those tapes.
The KFAT song/artist/title list is my log of those. Started in a steno notebook, I used it to keep track of what I had & wanted when buying records at garage sales, used record stores and mail order. I found a real use for my first computer - a PC XT clone - it was used catalog all the songs, artists and record catalog numbers in a PFS First Choice database.
Click for a .pdf of the
Fat Records Buyers' Guide
Then I got on line. Now, this was 1994 not much of an Internet them. But I found FATheads out there on Prodigy and we kept a KFAT topic up on the country music message boards, playing trivia and tapping each other for more information. On a 2400 dialup we could hardly exchange songs - but we did trade titles and lyrics that would resuscitate memories of what we used to listen to and wanted to hear again.
There was a short piece of time in which KHIP out of Hollister had the
FAT crew in charge, but it did not last, I think the signal from that
station was not strong enough to break through the fog. I bought a digital
car stereo to attempt to lock in on the weak 93.5 from earthquake prone Hollister.
Then KOCN came along. KOCN was a little daytime FM station with a good signal that covered the Monterey area. They were one of those stations that followed whatever fad came along. Formerly an FM rock station they switched to C&W when the Urban Cowboy fad came out. On weekend evenings KOCN would broadcast Oakland A's baseball. At the end of one season, when I was accustomed spinning the dial to over to KWST (another C&W station, this one on the frequency of the former rocker KLRB) I thought I had a flashback, for I heard a mellow FM lady DJ begin a new thing, the Fat Back weekend show with Laura Ellen Hopper!! It was great! Three hours a night, two nights a week of FAT. Soon KOCN realized it had struck an audience. The expanded the Fat Back program to the whole station, I was in heaven again. But like many good things, money and maybe greed sets in. I think the owner of KOCN used the format's popularity to increase the value of the station and sold it to new owners, who switched to a format that was the definitive of "dentist office music", boring soft rock. That was a scary time - I had been teased by two radio stations only to be stood up in the end.
By then the record collection had grown to about 4000 LPs. I made my own mix tapes for tunes in the car and the radio was only for listening to talk radio - A little Bill Wattenberg in the evenings and Ronn Owens on KGO in the days.
Finally out of the airwaves of a failed classical station came a tune - Chuck
Berry singing Roll Over Beethoven - KPIG
was born. Many FAT DJs re-appeared. The greatest blend of music once again
filled the airwaves.
Ahh, but there are lessons to be learned, for the PIG did suffer the HEAT
for a short period. With little notice and none of the long farewells that
KFAT gave, the PIG signal spewed out pop music delivered over satellite,
with no live DJs and nothing worth listening to. After that failed, the PIG
came back with a little less country, but seemingly solvent and stable. The DJs
would make comments to the owners on the air when they spun a Beach Boys
song. The signal is spreading. There was a short lived translator station to
Carmel Valley repeating KPIG. Today there once can also hear swine on KPYG
in Cambria.
All this music collecting and radio taping has resulted in a fine collection of data. It is listed here as one of the true wonders of the Internet, sharing of information. Blow out some of the cobwebs and revisit your younger days. Take off to Amazon.com or some used record brokers and get that tune like you heard it before. Here for all to use as help in finding who sang what is my list of songs & artists - my favorite tunes. Note that none of these songs exist on this web site in any form. I can tell by the access logs that someone pokes around looking for them - could be just a desperate fan or the RIAA. They are just not there. So quit trying, and please don't ask ok? Barovelli.com is not a music swapping site.
KFAT and Related News Clippings (.pdf)
Tubby Tunes TV - End Of KFAT - News from 1983 and an appearance from Willy.
SF Chronicle June 18, 1978 - The Radio Station Fatheads Enjoy
SF Chronicle some day in 1983 - FAT Chance - A Record Spinoff For The Wheels
San Jose Mercury some day in January 1983 - KFAT Crew Gets Suit-And-Tie Boss
San Jose Mercury January 3, 1983 - KFAT's Next Move Is Now Up In The Air
SF Chronicle January 9, 1983 - KFAT's Twisted Trail Is At An End
San Jose Mercury January 14, 1983 - Change In The Air
San Jose Mercury January 15, 1983 - Change In Gamy KFAT Format Sealed With A KWSS
Leaflet, Future Fat Format Farmers March 1983
San Jose Mercury May 18, 1983 - The Return Of KFAT?
San Jose Mercury 1983 - Signe Wilkinson Editorial Cartoon
Santa Cruz Sentinel February 26, 1984 - KFAT DJs Appearing on KKUP
Mail Newsletter July 1985 - KHIP Headquake Earthquarters
San Jose Mercury July 13, 1986 - Son Of KFAT
Monterey Herald August 31, 1986 - Is A Top 40 Format In Future For KHIP
Monterey Herald Unknown Date 1987 - 'Oldies' Rock Station Starts At Expense Of Hillbilly Funk
Monterey Herald November 22, 1987 - Area 'Fatheads' To Gain Sustenance
Monterey Herald Unknown Date 1987 - KOCN Music Format Altered
San Jose Mercury April 7, 1988 - KPIG Aims At Bringing Home The Bacon
San Jose Mercury November 11, 1990 - Collection Of KFAT's Records Sold
Monterey Herald February 21, 1991 - Radio Station Changing Format, Cutting Fat
Monterey Herald February 25, 1991 - The Pig Is Dead
San Jose Mercury March, 1991 - Alternative KPIG Buys The Farm
Monterey Herald March 1, 1991 - Off The Record
Monterey Herald March 8, 1991 - Off The Record
Unidentified Source March 10, 1991 - Hard Times Make KPIG Pull The Plug
Monterey Herald October 1991 - Back In Hog Heaven
Monterey Herald October 25, 1991 - Off The Record
USA Today November 1994 - 'Americana' Charts A Musical Melting Pot
Fat Records Buyer's Guide 1983 - Getting good records in the mail
Former KMBY Studios article
Check out how it looks in 2007. Building and hallway is just like I remember from the 70s. All that's missing is Joe Real playing the music
Big Lists Of Songs
The KFAT Catalog - It's one big list, began in a notebook and later on PFS First Choice (the text file that is pasted into the html is the First Choice database report). Search for a song title and get the artist & album it was on. Know if the FAT favorite is on some album selling on eBay that does not list the titles. Some things duplicate since I tossed in the CD collection. I bought my first CD in 1990 - New Grass Revival's "On The Boulevard". This list has not changed in a few years. I have since boxed up most of the records after digitizing them.
The Whole List - Just a text dump from iTunes. About 13,400 songs. My stuff, the kid's stuff and everything in between. For reference mainly.
Playlists
Bluegrass - Bentgrass, Newgrass or Dawg Grass.
California Dreaming - Tunes about my home state.
Chicken Songs - Finest Fowl Music.
Cosmic Hit Weekend - Late 60s pop.
Country Dick Montana - Charge up any situation with these.
Elvis List - The Dysfunctional Elvis set.
No Boys - All girls and girl groups.
Halloween Songs - Seasonal Treat (or trick).
Instrumental List - Shut yo' mouth, there's no vocals.
KAMP List - A fictional radio station in a Big Sur campground.
KFAT List - Two requirements: must be pre 1983, then must be something I have and like.
Best of FAT - Abbreviated KFAT list.
KPIG List - Later day Americana and timeless older stuff that lives on. Thrown in are the short lived KOCN & KHIP eras.
Best of PIG - Abbreviated KPIG list.
KTOM List - Sometimes you might need a little mainstream C&W.
Leisure Suite -
Where the innocence of Summer of Love meets Booty Shaking reality.
Oldies 1 - The Birth of Rock & Roll. Never mind
that Big Daddy was not even born then.
Oldies 2 - My ears opened up to music on this set. Used to be called
"Grandma's Kitchen Radio".
Oldies 3 - Summer of love and bubblegum.
Oldies 4 - The Carter years.
Oldies 5 - The MTV Era.
Outer Space List - Sci Fi Tunes.
Picnic List - Watch for the ants.
Southern Fried Rock - Capricorn Records Was The Best
Summer of Love List - Flower power. Peace, man.
Surf List - Drive down Lighthouse Avenue with this cranked up.
Swing - Old or new. Glen Miller or Asleep At The Wheel, all good.
Truck Driving Detours - My first love of country music was truck driving
songs. These are my favorites. Slightly on the shoulder of the road, often
on a side road to avoid the scales, and never going 55.
Work List - Songs often heard at the beginning of
my conference calls.
Xmas Songs - Happy Holidays, I bet.
How Tos
How to digitize your old LP records or kay-set tapes - People ask "Barovelli, how DO you do it?" It's really not too hard to do. If you've ever made mix tapes you can do the recording. If you ever edited a document with cut & paste, you can edit it.
How to reformat playlists from iTunes to Winamp in less than 100 easy steps. Stripping out the EXTINF lines that cause Winamp (or other music players) to display playlists in Title - Artist format.
How to build your own internet radio station - Take your favorite playlist and a couple of free software programs and be on the 'net or stream to your music players, smartphone, tablet, etc.
The Singing Pig
Back in the 1970s I was a CBer and went to many events - Breaks they called them. At one of these get togethers, performing on stage was "The Singing Pig", CHP Officer Leon Howard. He had a regional hit with this song, and continued to pepper KTOM with public service announcements. Click the label to hear it!
