*Contributors
Brian “The Cannon” Bannon, 92.1 WLNG Sag Harbor | July 7, 2017
Date of Recording: 07.07.2017 Station: 92.1 WLNG Sag Harbor, New York, USA Format: Oldies Featured Air Personality: Brian Bannon Contributor: Scott Fybush Airchexx Entry: 1,496 Comments: It’s quite rare when we at Airchexx feature a current aircheck, but this time we made an exception. The occasion for this recording is a visit to the station by broadcaster and radio historian Scott Fybush, and a small entourage of enthusiasts who write about radio. As Fybush recently wrote on social media, “There’s only ONE WLNG”. Indeed, while there are a few remaining radio stations still playing music from the 1950s and early 1960s, there is none other which has maintained the same format, the same on-air presentation and music since it’s sign on in 1965. WLNG is a throwba...
Sample Hour of 1400 WSTC Stamford CT | June 7, 2017
Date of Recording: 06.05.2017 Station: 1400 WSTC Stamford, Connecticut, USA Format: Full Service Oldies/Variety Hits Featured Air Personality: Steve West (Steven Sawyer) Contributor: Steve West Airchexx Entry: 1,495 Comments: Perhaps the very first thing that should be mentioned with regard to this aircheck is the fact that because of the way we performed ‘live’ shows, every element was tracked – albeit five minutes before it aired so that the effect was a 100% live product – but because of this fact, I was able to take this particular Wednesday afternoon show and piece together all the elements which I had as separate tracks in my home studio, then mix it down to the exact end product as it sounded when transmitted. The only difference being that this aircheck is i...
John Lennon sits in as Guest DJ: 93/KHJ Los Angeles | September 27, 1974
Date of Recording: 09.27.1974 Station: 930 KHJ (KRTH/KKHJ) Los Angeles, California, USA Format: Top 40 Featured Air Personality: John Lennon (The Beatles) Contributor: Daniel Coulombe Airchexx Entry: 1,494 Comments: Given the intense popularity of John Lennon, both as a major recording artist and his status as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, this appearance on the might 93 KHJ should be well documented. At the time, this was included in on-air promos of what was known as “Superstar” week at KHJ. And yes, obviously, recordings were made of the event. Yet, all these decades later, there’s not much historical information written online about this one time appearance in Los Angeles. There are a few references on Wikipedia (Curator’s note: Not everything printe...
Charlie Harrigan, 750 KFQD Anchorage | June, 1985
Date of Recording: 06.xx.1985 Station: 750 KFQD Anchorage, Alaska, USA Format: Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) Featured Air Personality: Charlie Harrigan Contributor: Bob Gilmore Comments: Recorded by contributor Bob Gilmore on one of those Sony SRF-80 (I believe) AMAX radios, this is a wideband mono aircheck of the morning show. Charlie Harrigan is filling in for the regular guy (Marcus in the Morning), so we don’t really know what the real morning show sounds like, but Harrigan doesn’t skip a beat. This is a contemporary hit station, but they play the 4 Seasons and what we hear is the Adult type songs you’d typically find on AM. The rest of the day may have been more uptempo. The news guy has a gravely-sounding voice and reminds us of Terrance McKeever, sarcasm and all. KF...
George Michael, MusicRadio 77 WABC New York | February 28, 1977
Date of Recording: 02.28.1977 Station: 770 WABC (WJZ) New York, New York, USA Format: Top 40 Featured Air Talent: George Michael (Career: WRIT/KBTR/WFIL/WABC/WJZ-TV {Orioles}/WABC-TV/WRC-TV/George Michael Sports Machine) Contributor: Bob Gilmore Comments: The Late George Michael is tagged here doing a great show on WABC from 2/28/77. Notables here include much signal fading and white noise on the tape, which suggests this was recorded some distance away from New York City. No matter, Michael is in top form, as was the norm on the George Michael Show – he never misses a talkup or hitting the post! These are the pre-disco days of the 1970s. Sure, a few stiffs are sneaking in, like The Sylvers – Hotline, but this is real Top 40 variety, with a generous dose of Jam jingles, Dan Ing...
Rich Brother Robbin, KCBQ San Diego | June, 1973
Found on a tape we thought we’d already processed was this gem. From the Summer of ’73, here’s wildman Rich Brother Robin apprearing in what sounds like his return to KCBQ (we never knew he left!). Perhaps he’d just been on vacation. No matter, Rich Bro is the poster child for high energy Top 40. Right up there with Jack Armstrong, Bill Lee and other screamers, Rich Brother Robin doesn’t let us down in this nine-plus minutes of scoped AM Top 40 heaven. It really didn’t get much better than KCBQ in ’73. This is more proof.
Tom Lucas, CFUN 1410 Vancouver BC | March 23, 1977
From Bob Gilmore’s personal collection, here’s a great ‘check of Tom Lucas having a great time on MusicRadio C-FUN! The approach sounds like a combination of WCFL with KHJ imaging/jingles, if there could be such an animal. This is high energy at its best, and of course, for you youn’uns out there, this was on AM before it turned into a barren wasteland of senseless psychobabble. Listen to the reverb… it’s cranked to the level of WABC around the same time period. The jingles are from TM (IIRC), and ‘The Luker (pronounced Luke – er) is a screamer. C-FUN is giving away money – if they call out your license plate you’ve only got a few minutes to call the station and claim your prize! The production is well done, the station not over-p...
J.J. Jeffrey/Chuck Knapp and the “Top 300 Best of All Time”, 68 WRKO Boston | October 20, 1967
Our good friend Bob Gilmore returns with another fantastic aircheck of old! It seems kind of odd that WRKO, a new station at this point, having flipped to Top 40 from the former WNAC earlier in the year, would be counting down the Top 300 Best of All Time – I mean, the Rock & Roll era only began 12 years prior… but I digress. J.J. Jeffrey starts out counting down the hits from #232 to #230 before handing the reigns to Chuck Knapp. Chuck continues with songs #229 – #220. The recording ends in the middle of a commercial break with Knapp doing a live read for Surf Music. This is CLASSIC Drake Top 40! Cue the Johnny Mann Singers, and the original WRKO Jingles. All the formatics are in place, and the commercial breaks are filled with businesses that no longer exist, or ar...
J.J. Walker, WHYI Y-100 Ft. Lauderdale/Miami | 1989
Date of Recording: 1989 (Exact Date Unknown) Station: 100.7 WHYI Fort Lauderdale (Miami), Florida, USA Format/Branding at Time of Recording: Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) / Y-100 Featured Air Personality: J.J. Walker (Spyder Harrison) Contributor: Robyn Watts Airchexx Entry: 897 Comments: From the enormous Robyn Watts collection, we present J.J Walker on Y-100! This is included on a tape put out by a then-popular aircheck service called East Coast Airchecks. This is from tape #11. A pretty funny and exciting late-80s CHR, Y-100 had a great lineup in those days. Walker does a feature called “Bed Check”, where callers throw in their comments and Walker just has a good time with it. Not much in the way of formatics or music, what scoped things we’d allow anyway. But one gets ...
Bob Case, Afternoon Drive, KUBE Seattle | July 1992
I’m Al Voss. Here in Ventura County, about 45 miles north of L.A., we get a taste of small market and large. I’ve collected quite a few stations over the years. I got your address from (a) friend, and thought you might enjoy a few efforts. So starts the letter included with the first of (we hope) many more contributions from Al Voss. This came in on CD, recorded, scoped down and burned to disc by the contributor himself. This is a scoped hour with PD Bob Case, then the unnamed PM drive jock on KUBE Seattle. Its from July of 1992.
CHR Sample: 107.9 WXKS-FM Medford/Boston | August 20, 1998
Date of Recording: 08.20.1998 Station: 107.9 WXKS-FM Medford, Massachusetts, USA Format: Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) Station Owner: Jacor/Evergreen/Clear Channel Communications (iHeart Media) Contributor: Anonymous Airchexx Entry: 1,491 Kiss-108 wants to know, what did YOU DO last Summer? Comments: It seems that every decade, the trends in popular music rotate back to rock before rotating around to R&B, Hip Hop or whatever today’s stuff is called. 1998 saw so much current Rock product that even an heritage Rhythmic CHR like Kiss-108 was playing a LOT of Rock based music in rotation. Commercial free Kiss hours (which meant about seven minutes of commercials when the commercial free hour was done), personalities that were still allowed to speak and a heritage format kept Kiss 108...
Hecht Enterprises Presents: The Philadelphia Composite.
Date of Recording: July, 1991 Station(s): WIOQ,WEGX, WYSP Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Featured Air Personalities: Various Contributor: Robyn Watts Source: Hecht Enterprises, Tape #61 Airchexx Entry: 104 What the hell. Here’s another hit. Comments: The first of the Robyn Watts collection that we ever posted gets a facelift. From the very beginnings (we’re talking year number ONE for this website), here’s a three-station donation of Philadelphia classics! 1. 102.1 WIOQ – Affectionally known as Q-102, this goes by so fast we didn’t even catch the girl DJ’s name! Recognize that imaging voice? It sure SOUNDS like a young Scott Shannon… at least so young his voice doesn’t resemble Don Imus’s 95 year old ‘eh sonny… ‘ tone...
