K/mentertainer June 24, 1967

The Humane Society coming to San Bernardino. Their bit hit? Tip Toe Through The Tulips

Frankie Valli-Can't Take My Eyes Off You #1

New York Mining Disaster-Bee Gees Their 1st US hit debuting. Also A Thousand Shadows-The Seeds, sounds like Pushing Too Hard Part 2

I like the Hollies a lot, and they have a new one Pay You Back With Interest-Interesting, but not one of my favorites.

KFXM Tiger Mag June 23, 1967

Monkees concert pictures.
In Bits & Pieces a mention of the British Monkes single Forget That Girl/Alternate Title. I remember hearing about this quite a bit.

Article about Beatles Our World being carried on KVCR

Knocking Light My Fire out of #1 Can't Take My Eyes Off You-Frankie Valli

Nice little tune by Tommy James-I Like The Way Wouldn't do much on the local or national charts.

Happy-Blades of Grass K/MEN will also start out playing this song, will change to playing the version by The Sunshine Company. And it will be that way on each of their charts as long as they were playing the song.

FLAHBACKS --- 1 YEAR AGO Great top 5!

K/mentertainer June 17, 1967

Monkees still big, and Flower Power making its way into the Inland Empire.

K/men poster. Open up the middle of the uncut K/mentertainer and you've got youself a poster. Too big for the scanner, so I had to use my camera.

#1 Light My Fire-Doors Unlike a lot of songs in the top ten a few weeks ago, most of the top ten still get played on oldies radio, except for #6 Dead End Street-Lou Rawls amd #9 The Flower Children-Marcia Strassman

KFXM Tiger Mag June 16, 1967

As in 2007 it's Graduation Time in 1967! Dick Lyons with Davie Allan & The Arrows

Enlarge the next picture and read the story of the Beatles next movie in the Bits & Pieces section. Sounds interesting, but it never happened.

#1 Light My Fire-Doors

Highest Debut #25 White Rabbit-Jefferson Airplane

The Who have an interesting new one Pictures of Lilly

KFXM Records

What do these two 45 rpm records have to do with KFXM? I'll take the first 5 bloggers for their guesses. Sorry, no KFXM prize packages.

Greenburg, Glickstein, Charles, David , Smith & Jones by The Cryan' Shames
Three Little Fishes by Willie B. B. Bellman

K/mentertainer June 9, 1967

K/MEN's Sgt Pepper's review, picture 2 and 3 below. K/men does a review of The Beatles Sgt Pepper's. Continuation of article one picture below:

#1 Light My Fire-Doors

I like C'mon Marianne by the Four Seasons

KFXM Tiger Mag June 9, 1967

Aeticle about the Riverside Youth Canter. I know nothing about it. Can anyone enlighten me?

Picture of date with Davy Jones winner, Diane Digiola with Al Anthony, Charlie Walters, Dick Lyons and Danny Dare


BEATLES SPEAK OUT article by Gary Marshall
Talking about Sgt Pepper's and the "Our World" TV Special.

Last paragraph is about the Beatles not braking up. Just have o waint a couple more years.

#1 Light My Fire-Doors Highest debut #25 Can't Take My Eyes Off You-Frankie Valli

Up Up and Away-Fifth Dimension making it's debut as a personal pick. Even K/MEN's connection to the song couldn't keep it off KFXM.

Interesting song by tht Merry-Go-Round-Gonna Fight The War-Merry-Go-Round

My favorite personal pick Mercy Mercy Mercy/You Are Gone-Buckinghams Good flipside, but not one you remember being played as a single

KCAA Inland Empire Radio

Inland Empire Radio at it's finest-Tim-Ralph-Bill

Yesterday, Saturday June 9, 2007 from 11:00 am until 1:00 PM Ralph Torres hosted a radio program on KCAA 1050 AM http://www.kcaaradio.com/ , on the topic of Inland Empire radio. The main point of discussion was KFXM and K/MEN. His guests were Bill Earl, an authority on L.A. radio http://billearl.blogspot.com/ and Tim Abney, and Inland Empire radio expert. I was supposed to be there, but family committments kept me away.

The first hour covered the history of the stations, while the second covered more current events on the state of radio today. A few calls into the show, including. Jim-"The Biggest K/men Fan" and Bob Morgan an LA DJ (who also worked at KFXM in 1963 and has a current show on KCAA). You can go to KCAA's website to hear a podcast of the broadcast (and Bob Morgan's shows). The 10:00 hour's topic was "Fast Food In the Inland Empire", so you'll get that first. It was pretty interesting also.

PS: Tim, if you read this it was Fannie Mae by Buster Brown

K/men's largest playlist

Received this note, photo and playlist from Johnny Helm.
The story in Johnny's own words.

Hi Doug, I really enjoy your blog, thanks for doing it. Those days in the Inland Empire were the greatest and I was privileged to work at both stations. Here's what I've got for you. I'll need your mailing address to send it to you. I'm going to attach a picture to this e-mail to give you an idea of the size of the item, here's the background. Back in 1968 Dave McCormick was Program Director of K/MEN and was swarmed by record promoters to add their songs to our playlist. It got to the point he decided to play a practical joke on them. He promised them a bigger and expanded playlist that would surpass anything ever seen in radio!! He kept on assuring them that soon it would be completed. After several weeks went by, he had our playlist blown up and printed. We then mailed the new playlist to all record promoters and companies.
I have two copies and I'm giving you one of them for your collection. When you get your copy you'll notice a small message titled: "Fellow Record Guys". There you have it. The picture I'm sending you was taken last Sunday. Enjoy,Johnny Helm March 15, 1968. This is the portion of the playlist that fits on the scanner.

Thanks Johnny!

K/mentertainer June 3, 1967 First Soundathon Edition

#1 all time hit in 1967 Cherish-Association I was surprised. Even Monday Monday-Mamas & Papas surprised me. Shotgun-Jr Walker & The All-Stars sneaked in at #300

#1 The Flower Children-Marcia Strassman, with #2 Light My Fire-The Doors on it's heals

#8 Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead-Fifth Estate second biggest jump into the top ten.

Notice: Most requested songs Sgt Peper's Lonely Heart Club Band. If they would have released a single, what would it have been? Any suggestions?

KFXM Tiger Mag June 2, 1967

Sgt Pepper's/Beatles pictures

Spanky & Our Gang article

1st week # 1 Light My Fire-Doors

My favorite song at this time was the debut on the top 40 It's The Little Things-Sonny & Cher. I still like it. Probably because the radio hasn't overplayed it like I Got You Babe. If you ever listened to Little Things, it has a similar theme as Babe. It just didn't make it nationally.

Look! Both Sammy Davis, Jr and The Music Machine are both personal picks of the week.

KFXM Top 200

It seems like KMEN usually did the All Time Greatest Hits Countdown surveys. But not always, this KFXM Top 200 was from Memorial Day 1977 or 1978. I'm not sure which, but probably 1978.

Since KFXM was a top 40 station at this time, their all time greatest hits was very different from KRTH's which was an oldies station. Only two songs in the top 10 were the same on both surveys. Stairway To Heaven and If You Leave Me Now

Very few 1960s songs made the survey, and I didn't see any 1950s songs on the KFXM survey. The highest 1960s song is #21 Nights In White Satin (which was also a 1970s hit) Next is of course Hey Jude at #65.

The oldest songs on this survey are from 1967 which include Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, Ruby Tuesday, White Rabbit, Somebody To Love and Sunshine Of Your Love (this hit the KFXM charts in December 1967). But the surprise is Light My Fire by the Doors was not on the list. Led Zeppelin, John Denver, Aerosmith, Captain & Tennille, Parliament, Andy Kim, Labelle, Barry Manilow, Rufus, David Soul, Alice Cooper and many others all made the list. The interesting thing is that after the the #1 song it states (RULES AGAIN!!!!!!), so this must mean there was a countdown the year before. I'd love to get a copy if anyone has one.

Click on each picture to enlarge in order to read the list.

KRTH Firecracker 300 for 1978

There was a comment after the last post about Stairway To Heaven-Led Zepelin, notbeing released as a single. That was true, but it didn't stop it from being #1 on Top 300 countdowns. KRTH in LA did a Firecracker 300 from 1978 through 1989?? on the 4th of July.

Stairway To Heaven was #1 1978 through 1982 and 1984.

Top Ten for 1978
1. Stairway To Heaven-Led Zepelin
2. Yesterday-Beatles
3. Hey Jude-Beatles
4. If You Leave Me Now-Chicago
5. Nights In White Satin-Moody Blues
6. Hotel California-Eagles
7. Dreams-Fleetwood Mac
8. American Pie-Don McLean
9. Let It Be-Beatles
10. Good Vibrations-Beach Boys

One thing for Oldies Station KRTH they seem to count your vote for your favorites (at least during the 1980s) There was always surprises on the Firecracker 300. The 1978 300 for example #52 Happy Man-Chicago #132 Feelings-Morris Alpert #147 Free Bird-Lynyrd Skynyrd #282 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry-B.J. Thomas #298 Ask The Lonely-Four Tops #300 Feels Like The First Time-Foreigner

I know some of these songs weren't on their regular playlist, but if they got enough votes, they made the Top 300