Old Studios

[G Thompson]

Larry Filkins, Lou Lovette, The Red Barron, Status Quo, Sonny Night, and David Nixon

Geez, yes, all of those names bring back memories!  There was also Mistress...  Lisa?  Somebody.  All I remember is somebody sampling one of her breaks and creating a techno track for EOI (Edge Of Insantity) that looped her saying:


 and I was MOONED by one of the female students / jocks through the studio window.

...I never did figure it out: was that an insult or a compliment?   

The guy that ate your face was TOM VAN HOOSE, I think.

Remember "The Outlaw?"

One of the EOI PD's (David Nixon) kept a coffin in his office. A REAL one! I think he took the "Lord Of Darkness" thing too seriously. Too much Depeche Mode.

Mistress Lisa looked NOTHING  like she sounded.

If I had been mooned by a female as a college guy,  at the time I probably would have considered it an invitational preview of a dinner date in our near future. Quick, get her number.

Did I say that?

[stan]

Speaking of old studios, the most "unique" studio I ever got to visit was KTFX, when it was located out on east Admiral.  Later on, they moved to The Falls shopping center, but those studios never had quite the 'character' of the old Admiral studios.  Some of you may remember them, and not so fondly.

[kudzooter]

Stan, when I said how nice it was "at poolside at the Tradewinds," that was no shuck.  Remember when KAKC played 24/7 the 7-min LP cut of "Light My Fire?"  Many's the time on a Saturday afternoon I'd hit that, get to the pool with time to hoover a
Coors, splash around awhile, and be back upstairs with still enough time to dry off and get back into "real" clothes before it was time for another "more music...KAKC" jingle and the next song. 
I got to Tulsa in time to get at least one tour of KVOO's Philtower studios, before they moved to that Brookside palace.   As far as truly cool radio digs, KRMG had a set-up you couldn't believe, in the back end of the Akdar Shrine Building at 4th and Denver... Front side was the Cimarron Ballroom.   And KTUL (later, KELi) ID'd as "Boulder on the park, in Tulsa" -- never saw those studios, but just the way they said it, sounded like a radio-studio geek's wet-dream come true.
Scoot.

[stacker]

How about the old KMOD studio in University Club Tower?  When the station went back on the air in '73 all the music was pre-recorded in San Antonio and played back from a pair of Ampex machines.  There was one turntable, as I recall, but the RF from the KMOD and KRAV transmitters (which were in the next room) was so bad that only loud cuts could be played.  Since the space was designed for apartments, the  station was one of the few in town with a bathtub and shower.  One of the jocks (who shall remain nameless) used the tub to do his laundry.

[NightAire]

Tom VanHoose...  oh, my, GOD yes that was him!  Wasn't it something like "the ole outlaw?," which he sounded nothing like?

If I got too close to the mic after his shift I always felt like I'd French-kissed a spit cup.

EOI sounded crazy, and I alternately wish I had been a part of that, and am relieved I missed it.  When I was at "Commercial-Free 91.3," I was working with another student named Dave...  what-the-heck-was-his-last-name? to create some continuity across our...  um...  DIVERSE...  formats.  We were basically doing top-40 and attracting between half a dozen and a dozen listeners.   

I just had another flashback to a guy whose name (really!) was Sam Quinton.  Not surprisingly, his show was something like The Sam Quinton Prison, and one of the things he used to do that I LOVED was pit artists against each other.  He'd play an hour of alternating between Frank Sinatra and The Ramones, or David Bowie and Sammy Davis Jr, or the like.  Now THAT was fun radio!  I almost got whiplash a couple of times, but it's not radio if somebody doesn't get hurt.

Another fascinating character was a guy who worked Sunday evenings.  He used to play Laurie Anderson's United States Live from start to finish, and THAT always made for an interesting drive.

...what the HECK was Dave's last name...  he had a couple of aliases, no idea what his real name was...

Memories...

[charlestace]

Ah, the old studios.

The studios on Admiral which served KKUL (later KTFX) poorly were converted from what we thought was an old farmhouse.  There was an entrance foyer, an office, a production studio (with consumer-level equipment), a control room, and the transmitter.

The sales department and receptionist were located a few feet to the north . . . in a trailer.

To get to the station from Admiral involved a dirt road and a one-lane plank bridge over a creek.

The studios were filthy.  But no one stumbled across the studios by accident (the inverse of the situation which prevailed for KELi at the Fairgrounds).

At the other end of the spectrum: the palatial KRAV studios at the Mansion House.  I've still never seen anything like it.

[OKCRadioGuy]

I don't think anyone has seen an owner like Kravis either.  He's a was one of a kind, and so was his station.

.. "KRAV stands for Kravis... and I know that."