Guide to FM Stations in Los Angeles Broadcast Area

As a companion to my previous post on AM radio in the Los Angeles broadcast area, here's my guide to FM radio in the Los Angeles market.  This list isn't exhaustive (I've excluded several Christian, Spanish, and Black stations, as I have no personal interest in them) but what's here should offer sufficient variety for the average listener:

 

88.1—KKJZ (“K-jazz” or “smooth jazz”) www.jazzandblues.org

89.3—KPCC, a National Public Radio station in Pasadena (at Pasadena College?) www.scpr.org is the Web site. Patt Morrison works there.  Southern California Public Radio, 474 S. Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105, (626) 583-5100

89.9--KCRW, a National Public Radio Station at Santa Monica College, www.kcrw.com is their Web site.  Their address:  1900 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405.  Phone:  (310) 450-5183.

 

90.7—KPFK, a National Public Radio station, Pacifica Radio

3729 Cahuenga Blvd. West - N. Hollywood, CA 91604
Main phone: (818) 985-2711 - Fax: (818) 763-7526 - Studio phone: (818) 985-5735

91.5—KUSC (classical) a member of National Public Radio and a service of USC.  Go to www.kusc.org for more info.

93.1—It’s “Jack,” although its call letters are the austere KCBS, run by the same guy that runs KROQ but with a broader playlist and less DJ talk.  93.3 used to be Arrow but Arrow is now Jack.

93.5—KDAY (“The Beat”), sounds and looks like rap and hip-hop

94.7—KTWV (“The Wave”), jazz and R&B format. Web site is http://947thewave.cbslocal.com/ and the phones are 1-800-520-WAVE (studio) and (323) 937-WAVE (business)

95.1—KFRG, (“K-FROG”), the Inland Empire’s country station (based in Colton) but picks up in the LA area.  Web address:  http://kfrog.cbslocal.com/

95.5—KLOS, “Classic Rock That Really Rocks,” www.955klos.com  is the Web site, and phone numbers are (310)840-9400 (business) and 1-800-955-KLOS (on-air).

97.1—KAMP (“K-AMP,” formerly KLSX) Carson Daly is this station’s top-billed on-air personality but the format often leans more to rap and hiphop than a mainstream contemporary pop sound. Web address:  http://amp.cbslocal.com/

98.7—KYSR (“K-STAR”), “Rockaholic” alternative rock.  http://www.987fm.com/main.html

99.5—KKLA, “The Spirit of Los Angeles,” a religious/Christian station.

99.9—KOLA, rock station in the Inland Empire (Redlands/Riverside/San Bernardino area) but picks up in Los Angeles.  “All Classics, All the Time,” is its slogan.  Phone:  (909) 793-3554.

Web site:  www.kolafm.com

100.3—KSWD (“The Sound”), “Album Rock, True Variety” is the slogan and  www.thesoundla.com is the Web address.  They have a no-repeat Tuesday.  Phone is (323) 634-1800.

101.1—KRTH, oldies format.  Web site:  http://kearth101.cbslocal.com/

102.3—KJLH, urban contemporary format.  Contact:  kjlhradio.com and (310) 330-2200.  Owned by Stevie Wonder, and the call letters stand for “Kindness, Joy, Love, and Happiness.”

102.7—KIIS, “L.A.'s #1 Hit Music Station featuring CHR/pop radio live,” the Web site is www.kissfm.com and Ryan Seacrest is the top-billed on-air personality.

103.5—KOST, “So Cal’s Favorite Soft Rock” has www.kost1035.com as its Web site.

104.3—KBIG (“My FM”) and www.1043myfm.com is the Web site.  Format is “hot, modern” and “nineties ‘til now.” 

105.1—KKGO (“Go Country”) country format.  Web:  www.gocountry105.com

105.9—KPWR (“K-POWER” or “Power 105”) “where hip hop lives.”

106.7—KROQ, “World Famous” alternate rock.  Web site:  kroq.com

AM STATIONS IN LOS ANGELES COVERAGE AREA

When my MySpace blogs vanished into cyberspace, I was particularly sorry to lose my guides to Los Angeles radio stations.  I can't find anything like them online so I keep them for every time I need or want to re-program my car radio.  Since others may also find such information helpful, I'm posting my guide to AM stations below.  My guide to FM stations will come later:

570—KLAC, sports talk, mostly Fox Sports.  Dodgers, football, and Petros Papadakis.  Phone may be 1-866-967-2970 (local) or 1-877-99-ON-FOX (national). 

Web site:  www.am570radio.com or phone (818) 559-2252 for business.

640—KFI, mostly right-wing nutcase talk so I prefer to avoid it.

710--KSPN, ESPN Radio in Los Angeles (although other sports stations often have ESPN programming, too).  Sometimes has baseball or football not available on other stations.  Web site:  http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/radio/index

790—KABC, mostly right-wing nutcase talk but sometimes has sports programming.  Web site:  www.kabc.com

830—KLAA, sports talk and Angels, owned by Arte Moreno.  Web site:  www.am830klaa.com

On-air phone:  1-877-883-0830.

980—KFWB, “News Talk,” and kfwbam.com is the Web site.  Used to be “all news,” now the news is only between 5-9 and 4-7 weekdays.

1070—KNX, and its slogan is “all news, all the time.”  http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/station/knx-1070/

1110—KDSN (“Radio Disney”) if you like Disney’s stable of music artists.

1150—KTLK, was Air America in the Bush II era, now Stephanie Miller in the morning and Randi Rhodes in the afternoon are the only true left-wing talk show hosts (hostesses) left.  David Cruz does a local-news-and-commentary talk show in the afternoon, and sometimes you can find Johnny Wendell in a morning or weekend slot.  Web site:  www.ktlkam1150.com

Phones:  (818) 566-6476 (programming) and (818) 559-2252 (main).

Music Review: Jane Siberry (1988)

My review of Jane Siberry's The Waking album from 1988, never before published:

IS SHE NEW AGE, NEW FOLK, OR A FRUSTRATED OPERA STAR?  
Silberry's Major Label Debut Leaves us Wondering

Jane Siberry:  The Waking  (Reprise 1988)

Canadian singer Jane Siberry is sometimes called a New Age vocalist, which may be a contradiction since most New Age music is instrumental.  Her major label debut, The Waking, demonstrates just how contradictory her musical style can be.  She's also been compared to Suzanne Vega, but the only resemblance we can hear is how both favor a poetic way with lyrics.  Vega's New Folk style conjures up New York street beats, while Siberry is more formal, applying a scholarly intellectual artistic approach to music, with grandly modern results.

At times Siberry is moody and folksy--like Vega or Janis Ian.  At other times she's as brassy as Barbra Streisand, and both styles are sung in a little-girl-lost voice.  The resulting album sends off so many mixed messages it never settles on a single theme, or even group of themes. One minute we're reaching grand operatic musical pinnacles (such as "The Bird in the Gravel," a sort of Wagnerian mini-opera), the next we're hearing just another little-girl-lost lament (the title track). 

In summary the grand arrangements simply don't fit Siberry's voice or lyrics.  She obviously has keen intellect and ambition.  She writes poetic lyrics well.  Unfortunately it's going to take another album for her to present these raw musical abilities as a viable mainstream pop concept.   

**********

Note:  Jane Siberry's Web site is www.janesiberry.com and she also has her own Wikipedia entry.  

Review: Adam Ant at the Greek Theater, Oct. 18, 1985

To borrow a phrase from an Adam Ant song ("Cut off his head, his legs come looking for you" from "Antmusic") there are times when Adam Ant is perfectly capable of cutting off his own head--he doesn't need any unsympathetic press to do it for him.  Last year's Strip tour was a sad shallow caricature that hit bottom when he threw wet socks to the adoring hordes.  (Never mind how the socks got wet in the first place.)

This time his Friday night set at the Greek Theater made up any previous embarrassments and allowed him to shake the teenybopper-trash label he's unfairly acquired.  Sorry to disappoint you guys but the audience wasn't simply a horde of screaming underage females.  There was a fair share of screaming males and adult women, so I think it's time to cut the "Tom Jones for teenyboppers" putdown.  Sure he gets presents of kisses and ladies' undies, takes off his shirt, and says things like, "Wanna play with my guitar?" but if you have a problem with that, you don't know rock.  It's time to admit Adam Ant is at least as notable a figure of eighties rock as--Madonna.

Sure like many of the best, Adam's only rules are no rules, and that can cause artistic differences.  "Strip" remains cutesy innuendo and little else, although "Playboy" from the same album got a much needed revamping and rocking-up.  But how about the variations of rhythm in "Stand and Deliver," or the British humor laced through lyrics like "Desperate but not Serious" and "Goody Two Shoes," or the dynamic latest hit, "Vive Le Rock," that if peformed by any other artist would have the rock media crowing about what a classic anthem it is?

Adam seems to be re-embracing his identity as a rocker (he seemed to be wandering into some kind of techno-disco for a while) and he's trimmed his back-up to a basic rock trio.  All are musicians who've been with him several years:  Bogdan "Count" Wiczling, on a drum kit specifically designed to replicate the sound of two drummers, Chris "DeNiro" Constantinou on bass guitar, and Marco Francesco Andrea Pirroni (formerly known as just Marco, he's been a Keith Richards to Adam Ant's Mick Jagger since the seventies) is offically back on guitar.  All can work up a sweaty beat that's danceable but rocks hard!  Pirroni (who really needs to establish his own career as one of rock's better guitarists) has at times been stoic onstage but tonight he was trading licks and laughs with Ant, who himself can play a few rockabilly licks now and then.

True Ant fans ("Antpeople") are not fooled by a cynical media suggestion that their idol's current leather image is a desperate grab for credibility.  He had a wild noble leather look even before MTV did.  And wild and noble Adam Ant was this evening, bouncing off the proscenium wall (literally) and pacing ninety minutes so briskly they seemed like nine.  By the time he hung from the stage rigging for his finale, "You're so Physical," as always, he had us exhausted but begging for more.  Isn't that what rock's all about?  Vive Le Rock, indeed!

 



   

Rick Springfield: Rock of Life

Vintage Album Review:  Rick Springfield, Rock of Life (1988)

On Rock of Life, Rick Springfield is caught in the midstream of his constantly evolving musical style and career.  If we may make superstar comparisons, he seems to be moving out of Springsteen's guitar-rock shadow and into a more sophisticated mainstream level of appeal--more along the lines of Phil Collins or Elton John, but with guitar instead of piano.  However, stretching into this new transition brings pain, and the result is a good fan-satisfying album, but not anything A-list.  Springfield's career, in fact, could be seen as having been a constant search to reach that A-list of rock stars but never quite shaking the soap-star teen-idol label.  Here he falls just a bit short of pulling off that career transition--as he has before.  The music here is too obviously the result of hard work.  It tries too hard to be more than it is.  Springfield approaches the lyrics and vocals dramatically, like the actor he is.  However, the arrangements are overdone and the themes drag on too long.  Each individual track is decent, but Springfield must demand more than decent if he wants to move to a new and more serious career phase.  He's obviously learning some lessons with the songs on this album, so let's hope he applies them next time.

Springfield on the Web:  rickspringfield.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Springfield
This album has its own Wikipedia entry:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Life

Interview: Adam Ant 1985

Vive Le Ant: 1985 Adam Ant Interview  

In 1985 an editor at Pulse! (remember that Tower Records magazine?) told me to send him about 400 words, two or three paragraphs, on Adam Ant’s new record.  I was pitching an interview, maybe he thought I was pitching a record review.  He may have thought, too, that I’d never get an interview and he’d never hear from me again.  I talked to Adam for an hour at the Epic office (he liked talking to me so much, he interrupted my interview for another and then returned to mine) but I somehow edited what he said to fit the assignment.  The resulting article was dutifully turned in but never published.  Neither did any publication ever ask me to interview any star other than Adam Ant.  (I interviewed him three times over a few years.)  Our first conversation finally sees publication for the first time in any format below:

Perhaps Vive Le Rock, Adam Ant’s brand-new Epic release, will get people listening and not just looking. Although the business side of music tends to categorize him as just another pretty face, many normal adult women appreciate his unique mix of musical influences and British-Gypsy looks, while men often appreciate his unique mix of musical influences and heroic-glam attitude. Vive Le Rock (“Long Live Rock” in French) is rock for anyone—and I ask him about it while pondering while his eyes are sky-blue, not the washed-out tone that tends to occur in his photos.

“It’s quite action-packed and it’s quite aggressive,” he says with his quietly super British ‘tude. Then he adds, cheekily, “It’s a kick-ass record.”

He continues, “I wanted to do something that had a band feel, a bit nitty-gritty and songs that could be produced live very easily with a very small line-up, four guys.” (Those four guys are Adam, Marco Pirroni on guitar, Chris “De Niro” Constantinou on bass guitar, and Bogdan “Count” Wiczling on drums.)

Also along on Vive is Tony Viscounti, who produced some of David Bowie’s and T. Rex’s most acclaimed works. About Viscounti, Adam says, “He’s a great guitar producer… [I] wanted a guitar sound. Everybody’s messin’ around with synthesizers!”

To what he wants to accomplish with this album, his sixth, he gives an answer he’s given about previous products, reflecting a singularity of purpose, “You’re going to create something that’s going to captivate people’s attention—the way Kings of the Wild Frontier [his first American album and first British best-seller] did.” Then he adds, “The idea is that you can still have hunger, you can still want to produce work that’s hard-edged and still has some kind of style.”

What was the first record to capture his attention? “Magical Mystery Tour—the first one I actually went out and bought with my own money. It was an EP with a wonderful jacket and I didn’t understand any of it.” That was about 1968 when he was about 13. However, he’s not that big a Beatle fan. “Bein’ in England in the sixties, everybody, whether they admit it or not, bought those records,” he explains.

He admits his appreciation for singers that rockers often snicker about. He remembers how his mother played records by Perry Como, “hours of Nat King Cole,” and Frank Sinatra, while his stepfather was a country music nut. Some rock besides the Beatles infiltrated his childhood, of course. His mother took in a teenage boarder and “she’d bring Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley in.”

Currently the Ant flat in London is aurally decorated with almost every style of music, as he names, “Beltan Fire… Hank Williams, Brian Ferry’s new album… Mozart… Miles Davis…Frank Sinatra.” Explaining such an uncommon variety, he tells me, “Years later, it’s all sifting through. And when I’m asked what my favorite records are, I [h]ave to put them down…[They’re] the first records and therefore a part of a very…pure approach to music. Just what you hear before you’ve developed opinions about things. Because being a musician—asking a musician about other people’s records is like asking a prizefighter about the guy they’re gonna fight next week.”

Samoan Flag Day Celebration, Random Lengths, 7/12-25/13

Random Lengths ran my preview of the upcoming Samoan Flag Day celebration, Aug. 3-10, one of Carson's biggest annual events.  Besides the online version (link below), a print version ran in the July 12-25, 2013 issue. 

There's a small typo here--the "She" in the 14th paragraph should be "He" since the quote came from Chief Faletogo.  However, both he and Ms. Pouesi did emphasize their organizations provide services to all, not just members of the Samoan-American community:

http://www.randomlengthsnews.com/samoans-come-together-for-flag-day/