Chris Noel 1966 VIDEO

Never thought I'd see this, here's a couple of minutes of Chris Noel recording A Date With Chris

Chris Noel video

What was radio?

I was writing a letter to Melvin and I thought I'd share:

When I was a kid, I had an old Grundig record player/tuner. In Minneapolis WDGY (Storz), KDWB (Drake) and KSTP were blowtorching at each other. Full service WCCO would pull 50 shares on a regular basis. I’d DX the evening trying for the furthest catch. Just not the same to hear a live stream from the internet and anyhow who really cares if they’re listening to a satellite feed from a station a thousand miles away. I guess some kids must get excited about radio today. I’m not sure why. Generic garbage, or sometimes someone mispronouncing voice tracks from far away.


A well recorded AM aircheck from the 60s sounds better than present day FM. It was part of the romance of radio. It was a friend. They’ve done so much to wreck AM and eventually managed to kill it. I’ve had line airchecks from WABC or WCFL that didn’t sound as good as an aircheck from a tuner. The sound chains were that good.

Radio was a contest. It was a life. It was a love. It was my career. I kicked tail it some markets and was bruised up in others, but it was a fight by people who cared playing by the same rules.

Armed Forces Radio is where I learned a lot of lessons and honed my skills. It would always be special.

The great stations were always a lot better than the sum of their parts, the magic and momentum. Now it’s an ipod with music that isn’t as good as on my ipod.

So what happened to it?

This was never in the library...

We get letters...

There's a lot of people who're interested:  If you saved anything, please let me know.  afrts@live.com


Hi Thom,


Thanks for sending these shows, but what I'd really like to hear would be some of the local shows by us guys who were military jocks. Do you have any air-checks of any of those shows?

I was at AFKN in Korea from 1971-75 and we had some super talented jocks come through there. Great memories! Those are the guys that I personally would really like to hear again. Any chance you can scare-up some old air-checks from any of us enlisted guys?

ALOHA from Tokyo,

-Kamasami Kong (a.k.a. PFC Robert Zix)

TOKYO-FM
InterFM, Tokyo
FM COCOLO, Osaka
KUMU, Honolulu

Kamasami?



You’ve just explained the biggest problem, I’d love to run a lot more tape of us in the field but VERY little tape seems to have survived. In Germany, the civilians saved airchecks but I’m trying to not turn the whole thing over to AFN. Then when the tape does exist, it seems to take upwards of six months to actually get the tapes.

Did you save any AFKN tape? Please say yes. In 1978 I was at Ft Devens and working with JJ Gould. He was a true fan of your work.

Welcome! And trades....

There's a bunch of older things that have been donated and I'm trying to figure how interested you'd be in hearing them.  I plan on posting the occasional Command Performance or Mail Call or such.  The network started in 1943. When I was in Korea and later in Panama I'd go to the record library and listen to the classic material.  Wonderful things, but never really stored in a particular order.  Digging through the library was part of the fun.  Up until the mid 70s apparently there was a mostly complete library in Germany.  Must have been a thing to behold.


If you have some material that could use a new home, please let me know.  If you'd like to trade original material or copies, please let me know.  This material needs to be shared.  Email Thom (612) 356-AFRS

Chickenman

I wish I could share these, but I just located the 1977 series and the Masked Minuteman series (did we run THAT one?), Chickenman cast in 1776... 

AFN in Afganistan is apparently STILL running these.  Great!

Dick Orkin makes the original 1966 ones available over at:

http://www.radio-ranch.com/chickenman.php

Laurie Allen

Welcome to the new year!  Laurie Allen has a look at two and a half decades of great rock and roll!

Laurie Allen 1993

If you're looking for voiceover with style, or you'd like to hear some great demos be sure to visit Laurie's website: http://www.laurieallenvo.com/

AFN Bremerhaven

AFN Bremerhaven was on the air from 1945-93. Here's part of the 1993 closing, as broadcast on AFN Bremerhaven.

AFN Bremerhaven 3-31-93 shuts down

Early AFN part 7

AFN Germany was the only network that actively archived over the years.  It's a great thing that these memories aren't lost to the ether.  Let's go to Frankfurt, in the early 50s...

Early AFN Part 7

What an amazing place to have a gig.

US Army Germany

Welcome visitors from the http://www.usarmygermany.com/ website.  Walter does a great job with it and there's a lot of AFN infomation I haven't seen before.  Take a look!

Happy Birthday AFKN

AFN-K (I still find that hard to say) has put together their 60th anniversary tribute. 

What do you think?

AFN Korea 60th anniversary

See AFRTS disks on PBS-TV

Jon checks in to let us know about something coming up on PBS


I was just checking a satellite feed of an upcoming PBS program, "Michael Feinstein's American Songbook" and spotted a collector with some some serious WWII-era AFRS vinyl transcriptions and V-Discs.

Feinstein discussed the use of the AFRS discs and their procurement, and there was some great performance footage of Lena Horne, Bing Crosby and Judy Garland taken from "Jubilee" and "Command Performance USA."

This is in episode #2 of the series, entitled "The Best Band in the Land."

After doing a QC check of the feed, it was a segment of the show where Michael Feinstein met with former AFRS producer Marty Halperin (Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters).

Halperin was showing him the master tapes he kept over the years in the basement of his home, along with a few AFRS 12" transcription discs (in the familiar manila shuck with "Armed Forces Radio & Television Service" and "Property of U.S. Government" over the center hole.

Michael Feinstein's American Songbook

Best Band in the Land

Wednesday, October 13, 7:00pm (your date and time may vary)

The roles that popular music played during WWII, providing emotional solace and boosting morale, are remembered. Michael Feinstein also discusses the era's big bands, USO shows, V-Discs and war bond rallies; and prepares an original patriotic song.

The AFRTS book

Dave Phillips has written the big book of AFRTS, about all of us and all of the networks.  It promises to really be a great read.  It's finished.  The cover art is done but Dave's having a bit of a time getting a publisher.  If you can help on that one, please let me know.  We NEED this book.

Command Performance 1944

In WWII AFRS edited the commercials from US network programs and made their own programming. Command Performance was the biggest variety show, with the biggest stars from all of the networks and Hollywood. In 1944 Fred Waring (invented the Waring Blender) hosted Command Performance.





Command Performance #146
Direct Download

Now loading faster and random TP-165

I think I'll only have the realtime player on the most recently posted material. When they were on everything the page loaded too slow...

Spring 1966
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels - Jenny Take a Ride
Paul Revere and the Raiders - Just Like Me
Toys - Attack
Gentrys - Spread It On Thick
Miracles - Going To A Go Go
Lou Christy - Lightning Strikes

Backed with 15 "Hollywood Hotline" programs, hosted by Dick Clark.

Sometimes I played the Clark shows with a period oldie, neat effect.

Links

If you look to the left, there is a page of links to mostly related AFRTS websites. They're all pretty interesting. If you have a website, please send the address along.