Drake Davis Composite

What do we do with an aircheck that doesn’t fit anywhere else? Just post with very little comment. Actually, our newest Contributor, Drake McDonald Davis was kind enough to write the liner notes for this very short but high quality recording of some of his air work – and you can judge for yourself just how talented this gentleman really is!

Drake writes:

I had grown fond of hanging-out as a gopher at both 1240 KROY and competitor 1470 KNDE in the mid to late ‘70s. My mentor, legendary voice talent Toby Browning, had landed a gig at Rock Kandie 147 as a fifteen year-old after having had been the brains behind our high school station where all of this started for me [he was an absolute genius going on to perform transmitter maintenance at age nineteen for KNDE and has been the longtime voice of CBS Los Angeles/KCAL TV and VO talent for too many Fortune 500s to list!]

Anyhow, my first gig [1979] was at 1470 when it reverted back to KXOA. Consequently, I did help put-a-fork in Sacramento’s AM Music Radio demise! Note the over-compression, picking-up switches being thrown, and my heavy breathing to get what I thought was “That Big City Sound.”

…having just turned nineteen, I did have some pretty good pipes.
Finding an old TEAC Reel-to-Reel six or so years ago, I was surprised to hear the quality had been pretty well retained; thanks to what was described at the time to be an in-the-control room $800.00 AM tuner that we monitored the broadcast on through our cans; I always marveled at AMs potential to sound almost as good as frequency modulation and the missed opportunity AM Stereo later became.

Following this is a weekend gig at KWOD 106 over the summer of 1989 punctuated by the man who hired me [and had been the Music Director present in the hiring interview under PD Art Schroder at KXOA,] Jeff Hunter’s leaving the station for a gig in San Jose shortly after being hired. Once again, my high flying career as a maintenance man [no, really] saw me leave in disgust; however, I captured some good audio while there and some hot jingles. Lastly, we end with a Legal ID at the lamest station in the fourteenth biggest market at the time from 1990: KOSI really, “Co-zie?”
…haaatteed it!