Interlude was one of the many "Music for Colonels" shows. Soft symphonic music for the dinner hour, or evening, or overnight. Through most of the history of the network, we played this music.
Friday, July 28, 2017
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Chris Noel - 1969
Thank you Chris Noel for sharing the memories. A few years ago Chris called and asked if I'd like to be able to share these shows. She had saved most of them. That was an easy question. She had finished doing the show before I enlisted but at the station at the 2d Infantry division had saved hundreds of these. I thought they were perfect radio. Then and now.
Let's remember 1969 with A Date With Chris.
Friday, July 21, 2017
The Green Slime - 1969
Today (July 18, 2017) I saw the movie The Green Slime (1969) again on cable channel Turner Classic Movies (TCM). It aired at 12:45 p.m. EDT. The thing about The Green Slime was that the monsters were not "green" and were not "slimey". Their alien blood however, was "green".
To my knowledge, this is the only Tokyo-made movie that featured the FEN Production Director, Leonard "Bud" Widom (FEN 1964-1969), in fourth billing, along with dozens of FEN enlisted personnel and wives as "extras". I recognized SSGT Larry Rogers, now called Frank Rogers, in a "party" scene.
The movie was actually filmed in 1968 from studios that were located on the road, as you drove from the "back gate" of Grant Heights FHA to Momote Village.
Some FEN announcers may have been given "bit" parts where they spoke a few words. All the performers were "round-eye"; there were no Japanese actors visible. They all had "appropriate" haircuts for 1968, and senior enlisted personnel (E-7 to E-9) stood out. There were many 20-something females featured from somewhere, but not FEN who had only dependents available.
The Green Slime was featured on TCM with a group of "horror" movies that were considered "camp" or Grade B. The Green Slime was also the premiere movie of the parody-series Mystery Science Theater 3000. That was the series where the host and two robot-puppets were super-imposed on theater seating in opaque and added snarky commentary as the movie was super-imposed behind them.
I was at FEN in 1969 when the movie premiered on the Japanese AAFMPS circuit, to much hoopla and fanfare, in October 1969, at North Camp Drake and Grant Heights Theaters.
Don Browne "LT", FEN Tokyo 1969-1971
Thursday, July 20, 2017
AFKN video production 1977
AFKN video production 1977. So that's how it was done 40 years ago... and kinescopes...
Thanks Linda! High tech is us.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Jingle Jangle...
Grab a bunch of TPs, the currents and some jingles! You're late for The Morning show!!!
Saturday, July 15, 2017
LaRita Shelby 1994
There is a party going on, with LaRita Shelby. She shared several programs with us and I'm thankful.
If you haven't heard "Date With a Song" you really should. Light, jazzy but not muzaky. Information at http://www.laritashelby.com
Golden Days Of Radio - 1968
In 1968 Frank Bresee started doing the Golden Days of Radio. Frank had been a radio star in the 1940s and brought back the memories. The show was most often a potpourri of the best of radio. Radio dramas and comedy were on AFRTS for many many years. We still had multiple places with no television station.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Roland Bynum 1980
Sunday, July 9, 2017
AFN Nightside - Craig Miller
Nightside was a little bit of everything. Craig Miller was a part of it. Definitely good radio.
Thursday, July 6, 2017
If Freedom Failed - 1953
The Voice Of Information with "If Freedom Failed" 1953 government-produced radio series dramatizing the impact of a Communist take-over of the United Statestoday starring Mary Anderson. Mary had quite a career 31 films including Gone with the Wind (1939), Lifeboat (1944) and The Song of Bernadette (1943). Later she did a bunch of television.
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Chris Noel 1968
Something fun for the collection is an original wirephoto from the Baltimore Sun of Chris Noel
Top Pops
The TP (or "Top Pops") were a weekly series of disks with the hits of the week. It ran from 1962-75. After 1975 we received similar disks but as regular library records, making it harder to use. Remember grabbing a handful and rocking up a storm?
Monday, July 3, 2017
Not allowed in your country
Roger Carroll's Best Sounds in Town is up and streaming, out of beta. Yay! Apparently if you're not in the United States you have to use an internet proxy. Same thing I use too listen AFN here. It's worth paying for, but there's a free one. I did a story about this a while back.
Sunday, July 2, 2017
WACR Radio Blackhorse, Vietnam 1970
During Vietnam, several commands had their own command information radio stations, providing a fast way to communicate with the troops and of course an ego stroke for the commander. "Radio Blackhorse" (11th Armored Cav) was in Quon Loi.
Don Browne shared the following:
Due to the "Status of Forces" agreement, the RVN agency that controlled radio broadcasting, ostensibly the QC, had no control over any U.S. agency broadcasting.
This included AFRS and its successor AFVN, any U.S. PIO "independent" radio stations, the VOA, and the CIA "black" stations in RVN.
WACR was considered one of about ten PIO "independent" radio stations. They received hand-me-down broadcast equipment from AFVN, received free "DJ copies" of 45 RPM and 12-Inch LP's, and purchased "jingles" from state-side producers.
WACR purchased jingles from a company that was inferior to Pepper-Tanner.
This was unfortunate.
At the time in question (late sixties), a private person could purchase any Gwinsound jingle for twenty-five dollars. Many jingle collectors in my jingle-collecting community actually did this. The quality of Gwinsound was excellent; it was equal to top-selling CRC but not as good as PAMS. But PAMS was too expensive for "private collectors".
The equipment featured in the photo of WACR was mostly provided by AFVN. This included a McMartin six-fader tube-based audio console, an RCA twin-mounted cartridge player, and an old ATC P-150 cartridge player (mounted on the audio console).
The WACR transmitter used at the time was a ten-watt exciter on 107.9 MHz.
Later a low power AM transmitter on 1550 kHz would be added.
WACR was close enough to the AFVN FM transmitter at #9 Hong Thap Tu and its 100,000 watts to receive a clean off-air feed of News-On-The-Hour (NOH).
The 7 p.m. NOH featured "Larry Rogers", who I worked with at FEN in 1969 prior to his assignment at AFVN. Based on the "Black Panther Courtroom Rally in New Haven, CT" story which occurred on Friday May 1, 1970, the newscast was 7 p.m. Saturday May 2, 1970 (7 a.m. Saturday morning May 2, 1970 New Haven time).
Gary W. Gears was still the production voice featured on AFVN news in 1970, although he had ETS'd a few months earlier.