Right in the shadow of 9/11, patriotism is at a 50 year high and Johnny Hayes starts out with comments about flags and buying American in two breaks in a row. One could hardly blame him, most of us felt the same way. And perhaps, thats the best part of this short scope of K-Earth 101.
I, your webmaster, personally don’t like this particular aircheck. K-Earth sounds contrived. The slogan, “K-Earth 101, Always with at least Twelve in a Row” is spoken so often my ears bleed. And yes, I’ll get yelled at for this, because working radio myself (in the Country format), the consultants pushed and pushed and pushed the 12-in-a-row theme ad nauseum because they always said that listeners would stay with the station that played the most music. But there’s no place for the jock’s creativity here, and while I say that, I also don’t know what shift this is. Overnight, perhaps? If so, maybe this was voicetracked and if not, then AMEN to CBS/Infinity for keeping things live!
Johnny Hayes has a great set of pipes, and I’m sure somewhere else where he was permitted to cut loose probably is an excellent personality. But he seems hemmed into the K-Earth 101 format, which with its soundtrack of the 1960s format sure sounds worn out (but perhaps it wasn’t in 2001).
To be sure, the two greatest things about this aircheck are Charlie Van Dyke’s voice imaging a legendary radio station, and Johnny Hayes’ patriotism. Because considering the angst toward anything patriotic today, this is surely a breath of fresh air from a time when we were all bonded together.
Johnny Hayes worked at KRLA for years before K-EARTH.
Hayes also did much of the production work and IDs at KRLA in Pasadena-Los Angeles. Casey Kasem also worked for many years on KRLA.
If I recall correctly, Johnny’s shift was early afternoon. He followed Brian Beirne. Think the shift was 1 to 4pm.