Remember the Roses
Bret Walton / Audio CD (January 1, 2002)
Buy this from amazon.com!
Track Listings:

1. Remember the Roses 2. Slip Away 3. Osama Run Home to Your Mama 4. Go Ahead and Cry 5. The Angel

6. Let That Cowboy Ride 7. Down and Out in California 8. Joe Poe 9. Every Soldier Fallen 10. Remember the Roses(acoustic version)

For more information about Bret Walton, please visit this page here...
Bret Walton

The Fifth Annual State of San Diego Radio Address (Jan 1, 2002)

It is now January 2002, the fifth year of doing the Southern California Radio Wish List.

For the past seven years, we the people in San Diego have been witnessing a decline in the quality of radio product in a degree that we have never seen before. Radio, as a business, will always be a business with a goal to make a profit. The way radio is running itself, however, is causing themselves to collapse on their own weight of mistakes.

Missed programming opportunities, ignorant of people with talent, overreliance on automated programming, redundant formats, overspending on overpriced sport packages, underspending on the people that labor to make the station make money, not having the complete picture of the evolving music scene, underprogramming for the lucrative male demograhic, overprogramming for the female and teen markets, overconsolidation of news departments within a company's market, too short playlists, hanging on to the same hit songs too long, treating a genre as a period piece, exploitating the public for self-publicity stunts, music directors who are too chicken to take resonable chances and those who choose to play music that drives people away, companies who exercise too much control over the music they are playing, buying events and shutting out other stations from participation, punishing music acts who are just trying to make a living by not playing their music if they do a venue for another radio station, overabundance on the watering-down of enjoyable music into unlistenable and boring soft versions, longtime underperforming stations who insist on programming for a niche that isn't in large enough numbers to satisfy the bottom line and the ratings, stations that repeatedly take pot shots at their competetion in bumper spots between songs for no reason other than pure jealousy, creating formats that do not bring in new listeners from a pool of people who quit listening to radio, and more than I can name.

A fictitous soap opera like the oil baron war between the Ewings and the Barnes in Dallas? Nope. It's a real-life soap opera radio war between Clear Channel, Califormula, Infinity, Midwest Television, Jefferson-Pilot, and Astor Broadcasting in San Diego! Too bad we don't really have a multi-dimensional villian like J.R. Ewing we can love to hate or a Cliff Barnes we can feel sorry for, but Clear Channel vs. Califormula comes close like it.

Anyway, like the oil barons, money is made and lost all the time with business transactions. Like in real life, businesses make mistakes, some bigger or more noticable than others; in radio, a mistake is blown many times more than any mistake a real life oil company like Enron ever makes since mass amounts of people are witnessing the radio mistake simultaneously.

That is the subject of the fifth annual state of San Diego radio address, to address basically totally ignorant to programming and talent opportunities that could help swell up their sagging ratings that bring in listeners. Cutting costs for stations with sagging ratings is one thing; putting on what people what to hear to raise ratings is another.

2001 was a year that more people realized that they were not restricted to the narrow selection of some 27 stations in San Diego to listen to. Thanks to streaming audio, they have a choice of many thousand formats to choose from, but radio continues to ignore the evolving tastes of the modern music fan and chooses to program basically the same old songs rearranged into new songs or acts that sound like other acts or acts with no charisma or personality to differentiate themselves from others to improve their recall factor, and other mistakes in music programming.

In order for radio to survive the possible threat of a mass exodus of automobile commuters going to pay-satellite XM Band radio, CDs, MP3 players in cars, and even cassettes, broadcast radio must do something about their programming on the creative level to make the listeners want to choose it over the recorded medium.

Four years have passed since I wrote this and San Diego radio, as well as Los Angeles, in general has degressed from people-and-business-based into solely business-based. Where are the people working in radio who are fans of music that they are supposedly programming?

Several notable omissions are: no upbeat adult contemprorary music playing swing and jazz mixed in without the watery wimp songs, no all-groove station, no station playing Dr. Demento weekly, no adult AOR rock station that plays today's traditional rock, lack of an adult pop station that spans several decades of good adult pop from the 1950s-today (Christmas 94.1 doesn't count), no oldies station that plays the wide variety of oldies the old KCBQ used to play, no complete alternative rock and pop station (92.1 plays mostly the hard stuff), and no station specializing in world beat music.

Los Angeles is the suckiest radio station market in the nation. Los Angeles used to have a AAA station, an all-groove station, an alternative alternative station, and a real hard rock station almost six years ago already. Now they've all gone Spanish! This is progress? The alternatives to these former formats don't hold a candle to these stations that should have gotten better ratings.

Here's the landscape of San Diego radio and comments...

KOGO-AM: 600 excels in news, albiet, we could use far more news in the afternoon drive when people are going home and want to hear the developing news stories of the day in lieu to getting home in time for the TV news. Drive times are longer nowadays, and a 3-7pm drivetime radio news block should be in order. Moving the popular Roger Hedgecock is not an option, but a possibility is to shore up the sagging XTRA 690 ratings with an afternoon newscast (if they're not airing sports). Clear Channel did the right thing to program the 94.5 frequency in Temecula, a bedroom community between the San Diego Outland and the Inland Empire Outland, with a similcast of KOGO so that people can be able to follow the news and Roger where KOGO's 600 kHz frequency is hammered by San Bernadino's AM 590 adjacent in frequency. The duo of Rush and Dr. Laura should be broken up eventually and one could be moved to shore up KSDO's ratings. Dr. Laura should do the job. Another option: KOGO could move Roger back to NOON-3pm, and put on the afternoon drive-time news from 3-7pm. The Padre telecasts can still move Rush to KSDO, but no more I.D.ing KSDO as KOGO or calling their news KOGO on 1130 (call it Clear Channel News or something else) to help the Arbitron diarists to write in the correct call letters of the radio station they are listening to.

One mistake Clear Channel San Diego made on September 11th was to simulcast KOGO on almost every radio station they run in the San Diego and Temecula markets continuous coverage of the terrorist attacks far longer than necessary. The first six hours was so shocking enough, but it is radio's job to do its duty to inform and serve the public interest, but replacing station Y's programming with a feed from station X for a day or two is ridiculous. On an infamous day like that, each radio station should continue to man their studios and let the programmers work in the news bulletins as they develop while interacting with their listeners and playing appropriate music and comments from the callers. The listeners can still turn to KOGO AM and FM for continuous coverage if they wish, but turn to XTRA 690 for a sports perspective, KSDO 1130 for another perspective with Roger and the other local KOGO hosts, KPOP 1360 for soothing nostalgia music with bulletins about the attack, the music stations on the FM band for a more subdued playlist with news bulletins and talk between its radio hosts and their listenres they are connecting with. If there's no new news coming out of New York, why keep up the continuous coverage on all its stations? Sets and 92.1 did what they thought was best to go to a more subdued music playlist when the information about the terrorist attacks began to die down. The result: keeping the listeners from switching off the radios by maintaining a diversive chioce (however few) for the listeners to tune in.

KOGO excels in news coverage, but too bad it's the only commercial radio news organization (KPBS 89.5 is the notable public raido news organization) while the other radio folks, as we shall see, pretty much curtailed their radio news operations, or folded them into other news organizations.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We can use an all-news station for San Diego. I don't care what station does the job. Program ABC news at the top of the hour, then 10 minutes of local news, followed by sports, weather, business, more local news, 5-minute in-depth special report, sports, weather, misc, all in one hour!

KNX 1070 is currently the only all-news outlet in Southern California, but it serves the Los Angeles area. Though most of their news is of use down here, we San Diegans can use the same down here. Remember the Harmony Grove fire from October of 1996? How far did KSDO 1130 reach the area at night for continuous coverage? Thought not. AM600 would be a much better station bringing in all-news, especially during very important news stories that break out and warrant a strong station at night to cover all of San Diego county, and then some!

XTRA-AM: 690 why keep Jim Rome on tape delay in San Diego? Sure, the ratings are ok for the station, but to move it so that Los Angeles' KXTA 1150, a Clear Channel owned sports station, can have its show not compete with XTRA, is a disgrace. How many times did we hear Jim Rome talk about something in the 1-4pm replay what could be happeing (when he was on live from 9am-NOON) after it already happened during the time the show was replayed. When major sports coverage happened between 1pm and 4pm, XTRA chose to stick with the the tape, leaving the sports fan to seek out news from KFMB or the Internet for a breaking sports bulletin that was happening with the Padres or Chargers camp at 2:30pm. Time to stop insulting the senses of the sports fan and end this ridiculous experiment and put Rome back on live. If KXTA doesn't like it, then screw it and change the format of that station up there to nostalgia or something; there's too many all-sports stations up there anyway!

KFMB-AM: 760 You could do better than Ted Leitner in the morning, but then again, what morning talent is left to put on in the morning? Why Ted Leitner in the Morning? Bad move. Use your energies to come up with something better. With Ted working a lot of sports-related projects, how can he maintain a top quality morning show?

This station has never been a winner since they lost Dr. Laura to KOGO/KSDO years ago. Rick Roberts isn't making a dent in Roger Hedgecock's goliath-size radio ratings. Do we need more sports talkers when the ratings aren't that good? What about having KFMB going back to adult contemporary and nostalgia music to give Clear Channel's KPOP a run for its money? Folding its radio news operation and stretching its TV8 news operation to work in radio very much invalidates its radio station's commitment to public service; stretching the TV operation to cover radio demands more out of the reporters, making it seem like we're listening to a TV news instead of a radio news operation. The lack of a true radio news operation at KFMB very much gives the Clear Channel San Diego radio news operation top honors by default. Cutting costs is one thing; cutting quality is another.

KCEO-AM: 1000 Your signal comes in OK during the day, but at night, you can't be heard south of MCAS, with your signal going down at night and a Seattle station also at 1000 taking over for South San Diego county. Can't you get a signal in that region to translate your programs on, say, 1400 AM?

KNX-AM: 1070 LOS ANGELES -- No suggestions at this time.

KSDO-AM: 1130 Do something with this format! Move Dr. Laura there. Move that financial guy Ray Lucia to the afternoon drive. Put on morning news in the 9am-NOON window, moving Rush there when the Padres are playing on KOGO. If the Padres play on KOGO, give Roger the day off with pay and leave Dr. Laura and the other talkers alone, and don't mention KOGO on 1130 as people get confused and write down KOGO during the hours when they're listening to KSDO.

KCBQ-AM: 1170 how about That 60's and 70's Afternoon Drive Oldies Show instead of talk? Bring back the days of AM radio magic to tbe aging baby boomer!

KSON-AM: 1240 Radio Disney was the most innovative musical mix in San Diego around 1998, but unfortunately, it's devolved into "Radio Dismal" with teen music supplanting the kids and goofy gold music. Radio Disney has turned into a non-stop promotional machine for its corporate parent, Disney, plugging mostly tie-ins to its movies and theme parks (KSON is owned by Jefferson-Pilot Communications and is simply an affilliate) all the time. Where's the local programming on KSON? At least Clear Channel, programming KSDO owned by Chase Partners, has some local programming on it.

Lose "Radio Disaster" and switch to something like a nostalgic oldies format (no more talkers here) or an adult-conemporary oldies format. Program some kids blocks locally designed for parents to share with their kids, not programming just for the kids. Where's the station on the Arbitron ratings radar?

KPOP-AM: 1360 Expand the nostalgia format with MOR music from the 60's and 70's era. Move that other talker, Joe Bauer, back to KSDO and have music in the morning again!

KSPA-AM: 1450 Why switch from nostalgia to a narrow niche classical format that basically sounds like, excuse me, pure shit on a weak AM station? The absoulute worst signal in San Diego county, coming from Escondido. This signal cannot be heard south of Miramar Marine Corp Air Station at night and barely as far as I-8 during the day. With classical music on a strong Tijuana station on AM 540, full time classical on 90.7 FM, and part-time classical on 89.5 FM, this DisAstor-owned station is a total complete loser. You did better as a nostalgia format on 1450, and the classical music was decent on 92.1, another weak FM that serves principally the North County area. End the charade and either go back to nostalgia, or give the station to Palomar College, which is currently programming on AM 1320, a weak 250 watt station (enough to power two light bulbs) that is listenable only within a 20 mile radius while stations on AM 1310 in TJ and 1330 in LA interfere with it adjacently outside its range.

KKSM-AM: 1320 Should move "The Comet" to 1450 where the range is at least more decent, and turn 1320 over to Clear Channel's KPOP or Salem's KCBQ so that they could still reach the North County at night when their respective sticks on 1360 and 1170 have their power trimmed according to FCC rules.

KSDS-FM: 88.3 They've increased their signal to 2,200 watts at last. I applaud your efforts to strengthen your FM signal, but with XETV channel 6 VERY CLOSE BY IN FREQUENCY challenging your efforts to boost your power to about 20K or so, I have an alternative: Try to buy some other frequency in town from anybody if you can for dirt cheap, move your jazz format over there, and sell the 88.3 frequency away to UCSD, who is seeking a radio outlet for their KSDT campus radio station, currently on cable only. This will also silence XETV's need to block the signal boost...unless UCSD wants to boost that power, but that's another time.

But since KSDS is just about the only San Diego-based public station aside of KPBS-FM, could they play more than just traditional jazz and blues all the time? How about filk music? How about electronica at night? Let's have some other genres mixed in along the way such as World Beat Music and others not hear locally?

KPBS-FM: 89.5 FINALLY some music on the station.

XHITZ-FM: 90.3 Why is this station sinking? I listened to it the other day (actually, the co-worker insisted on listening to it instead of Magic, which I wanted to listen to) and the only song I could recognize was a rap tune that sounded like the Star Wars Imperial March riff played a couple of times. Other than that, none of the hip-hop and R&B tunes have anything new to stimulate me, getting monotonous with acts that do nothing more than just recite poetry to a beat sampled from a well-known oldie such as, believe it or not, I'm serious, the old theme song from The Young and The Restless soap opera! I'm not making this up! Now hip hop is really out of ideas when it goes to TV for sampling ideas. Let's hope nobody takes the awful theme from Dynasty II: The Colbys to sample for a rap tune!

Formerly one of the best stations in the early 90's, now it's down to just rap and watered-down R&B. They brought back "The House of Z". Good. We need dance music all day, not just from 2-4am Saturday mornings. If not dance on Z90, then Califormula should create an all-dance station on another station I shall name in a moment.

Z90 does have some good points: all local, and tops with the young crowd demographic. If I were young, I would be just as bored with today's R&B and rap music as I was with 70's soft A/C and R&B music in my teenage days; I just spend time looking for more interesting music such as the developing punk and new wave scene, which really got me interested in music in the first place.

XTRA-FM: 91.1 What's going on with 91X? Where's the unpredictability factor the station enjoyed at the beginning of the last two decades? Why so much KIOZ hard rock and so much watered-down soft rock? We already have KIOZ for that.

Bring back more of the English rock imports, play faster and more upbeat modern rock, plenty of ska, rocking swing, alternative blues and country, synth rock, and bring back the true local flavor. The alternative music variety will eventually come around, but when? Also, lose Loveline to 105.3 so we can hear more alternative music once again at night!

XGLX-FM: 91.7 Lose the weird bilingual music mix. Reformat this station into a world rock/dance/pop station with announcers announcing the songs in both languages. Play songs from Europe, Americas, England, etc. Bring in songs that cookie-cutter corporate radio isn't bothering to touch!

KFSD-FM: 92.1 they switched to alternative rock in May 2001. Why so much hard rock we can already hear on the local KIOZ? This station isn't going to get many listeners if they program what's aleady on the stronger 91X and KIOZ. The early days with the groove alternative stuff was cool, but where is the cool music? I can't stand Puddle of Mud, Linkin Park, and Staind; I turn the station to 91X or the MP3 when they come on. I liked the modern new wave dance stuff I heard on WLIR and MORE-FM. I'm glad rock music is making a comeback though, but why so much depressing music? I'm not sticking around long once they are played.

XHRM-FM: 92.5 Good old school jams mix, they just stretched to 60's-early 90's old school jams (90's Old School?), but why no modern R&B-based dance mixed in? Magic 92.5 could literally kick some ass in town if they reformatted into a dance station that brings in literally all demographics (including the Spanish listeners) who want the best rhythmic music from the 70's through the present, playing everything from disco to freestyle to house to contemporary electronica (not the underground stuff) to R&B rhythmic classics. They'll mix fine as long as the music has the beat! Who cares what decade it's from. I don't think in period pieces, period.

KHTS-FM: 93.3 What was the worst year in Top 40 music? 1981? 1972? 1962? or 2001? If you said 2001, you were right, given the fact that today's Top 40 music has devolutionized from mass appeal to just teen appeal, playing mostly stuff aimed at the 12-24 female crowd, severely limiting its potential as a mass appeal Top 40 station that plays a variety of genres and styles in the MOR and pop angles that appeals to people older than 24 years of age.

2001 is the worst year in pop music ever, with nothing but clone hip hop, soft R&B, teen, skate-rat alternative, and downtempo acts airing all the time. Yucch! There's so much trash hitting the airwaves that its not even worth taping off the radio!

I get bored to tears literally yawning through half their playlist. This station needs a competetor that can do the job better. When Channel 9-3-3 began, during the time Q106 was still around, I was hoping it would evolve into a format similar to the late Groove Radio 103.1, which I could barely get in North County, or WKTU in New York, playing upbeat house music, without hip-hop and sleepy slow jams.

Club 933 is a joke and needs a new music director, playing rock and slow jams many times instead of REAL club music, you know, DANCE music, and calling it club music. Slow songs is not dance music. At least The Digital Groove is getting it right; why not more Digital Groove for more hours and also simulcast L.A.'s KIIS-FM's "Full Frequency With Christian B" on 93.3 down here. You're sitting on a ratings winner by restricting it to just L.A. Clear Channel has tons of microwave stuff so it can beam FF over to San Diego and everywhere else!

KMYI-FM: 94.1 Don't be fooled. It's the 1998-2001 incarnation of Mix 95.7 only on a stronger stick! They're playing basically the same stuff you can hear on KYXY or Star, which does nothing to bring in listeners who are bored with the abundance of soft music all over the dial. Boring. What a waste of a 100,000 watt transmitter. How about programming something like a folk/country/blues station that can tap the lucrative male demographic that's fed-up with chick and teenage-angst music and is bored with just talk all the time?

KBZT-FM: 94.9 all 80's sound promising, but how long will the format last without going deeper and playing a wider selection of genres that made the 80's great. Their Saturday night 80's dance mix show needs a wider selection of music; we're hearing the same stuff again and again every month.

KJO-FM: 95.7 Moved its 60's and 70's oldies station from 94.1 to 95.7, replacing the 80's format that was sinking faster than the Titanic. Will this new frequency and a new "KOOL" handle revive this format?

KYXY-FM: 96.5 Needs more contemporary adult pop hits. Play some upbeat swing and jazz, adult rock and upbeat dance music. Why so much dowbbeat music? Perfect for offices, except in confined areas.

KSON-FM: 97.3 Remember the country music icons of the past and play more music that sounds closer to the true sounds of country than what sounds like just crossover A/C music.

KIFM-FM: 98.1 It's not jazz. Call it something else. It plays R&B, adult contemporary, and other contemporary soft genres including smooth jazz. Why is it called a jazz station if it plays a lot of other genres?

MORE-FM: 98.9 Rock en Español. 24 hours of Rewire world dance hits of today and the 90's all the time sounds like a great idea! We need announcers in English to ID the songs and better Internet e-mail response.

XHCR-FM: 99.3 Country. Where's the ratings? It's been two and 1/2 years since this format was introduced in San Diego. Where's the ratings? New billboards stating that they play 25 percent more country music. Great. Is there enough listeners to support two country stations?

An idea. Califormula should take the dance music they're not airing and program an all-dance music on 99.3. This genre will serve both sides of the border well. Mix in about 20 percent dance music in Spanish and play some dance music of international flavor such as Europe and Australia. There's enough dance music from the late 80's on to create a format of its own!

KFMB-FM: 100.7 What needs to be done? This is a top station for chicks, pure and simple. Rivals KYXY-FM in popuality. For the male, like KYXY, it's pure musical torture. Definitely not for the teenybopper set either. Why a small playlist? A similar format in Los Angeles, 98.7 Star, not only plays more of the modern adult hits 100.7 plays, but they also have a Friday night show playing a better mix of 80's songs and a Saturday night show "All Mixed Up" playing remixed modern rock hits.

KGB-FM: 101.5 A station that had an opportunity to hire a new PD and let the talented Nicole Sandler put a fresh spin on this tired-out classic hard rock format period piece and move it into the era we are in now. Instead, we get a new PD that's just as out of touch than his predecessor. Lose the dreaded Prophet automatic radio programming...now! This used to be a world class rock and roll station....back in the 70's and 80's, but no amount of publicity on the backs of buses promoting money giveaways will get the listeners back. Fix and update the rock and roll programming first! Classic rock is a great genre (not a period piece), and there is so much to choose from. Have some DJs who really sound like they're "into" the music. There is so much cool stuff in the classic rock vault; stop playing it so "safe." Your listeners need to be saying: "Wow, I haven't heard that one in ages." Also, it couldn't hurt to play more of the newer classic rock artists (I.E.: 1985-2002 songs) such as Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, and others' more recent rock releases, and play album cuts off their CDs for us to hear and to help us decide if we really want to shell out $20 for their albums. There's so much rock history that KGB has been part of since 1972, it's time to change for the new millenium!

KXST-FM: 102.1 Too much on the soft side of rock. Time to get tough! Reformat this into a harder-edge (but no speed metal and grunge junk) rock and roll station playing the rock from the 60's through today. Play mostly the acoustic and blues stuff at night when people are trying to relax and wind down. This station needs to get its ratings up. Lose the softer rock and give us a rockier AAA sound we deserve to hear.

KPLN-FM: 103.7 This is a very valuable frequency. Why aren't you doing much with it other than the same songs from the 60's, 70's and 80's? Play some 90's and 00's adult rock and roll!

KIOZ-FM: 105.3 This is what today's rock and roll station sounds like, or is it what an alternative rock station sounds like? Who can tell nowadays? Pop alternative and traditional rock are redundant nowadays. Whatever. It's working here. The voice-tracking has got to go! Loveline would be a perfect fit for KIOZ. Let 91X program music at 10pm once again!

Time for radio changes, and here's what you should do...

1. All contest winners announced must be identified by name, city and state, and station they were listening to if the contest was of national coverage. All contests that are nationwide in scope must be identified with Nationwide in the name of the contest as well as full disclosure of cities where the winners won the prizes. No more pretending to make it feel like the winner was local with fake conversations of a deejay in one station congratulating a winner who won it on another station. That's cheap!
2. Fire all the people who haven't a clue what music is about. If you don't know how to appreciate music, then you just don't deserve a career in radio.
3. I would also fire anyone who has no clue about what listener relations are about. If you can't take the criticism, why be in the business? I can almost name several of Jacor's reps that don't deserve a job in radio for one reason or another. Um, what album did your request come from? Duh!
4. Hire musical directors and programmers that are completely independent of what the mainstream dictates mixwise, be bold enough to seek out new music and break them out on the air, then let the listeners tell you what works and what doesn't, and then you have your playlists.
5. Their jobs are to know the music they are programming, create innovative ways to get people to listen to them, and the only way you're going to get listeners is to not only play their favorites, but to introduce new favorites that sound original and don't sound like another song someone else made famous.
6. Encourage them to introduce nightly features that will be an interesting alternative to network television, which is also completely lagging in entertainment value nowadays as much as radio is today.

What is D.T. Watching Tonight?

8:00 PM FOX That 70's Show (rerun)
8:30 PM ABC Spin City (not on)

Jeff and Jer Newsletter

None this week. Happy New Year!

Radio Wires

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Wired News

Sexchart Degrees of Separation (Culture Saturday) http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48997,00.html?tw=wn20011231 Picture a connect-the-dot puzzle in which the dots represent people, mostly computer geeks and their ilk, who have hooked up romantically with others. And, whew, there are a lot of connected dots. By Farhad Manjoo.