Dr. Demento Playlist KSWD 7/10/09

The Dr. Demento Show
Live on KSWD 100.3 Los Angeles
July 10, 2009, 7-8pm
This is a one-time live appearrance as part of the tribte to KMET 94.7

The Time Warp - The Rocky Horror Picture Show Original Soundtrack (f/ Richard O'Brien)
Pico and Sepulveda (The Street Song) - Felix Figueroa and His Orchestra
Fish Heads - Barnes and Barns

Another One Rides the Bus - "Weird Al" Yankovic (-including the intro and outro from 94.7 KMET Sep 14, 1980-)
Stardrek - Bobby Pickett and Peter Ferrara

Pencil Neck Geek - Fred Blassie (-not including epilogue-)
Titties and Beer (Bleepers and Beer) - Frank Zappa (-edited-)

Dead Puppies - The Ogden Edsl Wahalia Blues Ensemble Mondo Bizzario Band f/ Bill Frenzer
Poisoning Pigeons in the Park - Tom Lehrer (-orchestral-)
They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! - Napoleon XIV

Note: I drove to Carlsbad with a cassette tape recorder to tape the show.

Dr. Demento on The Sound 100.3 Today 7-8pm (July 10, 2009)

But back in the day, when KMET 94.7 was once the home of the Doc, it was a challenge to get the signal on a portable radio, but with a lot of antenna swinging around and rabbit ears, I managed to get some kind of decent signal of 94.7 despite being close to a strong local 94.9 playing what was then an oldies format.

From 1981 on since Dr. Demento was on the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder, where he announced that he was on KMET, I decided to try to get the signal of KMET from my house around March of that year. With a lot of work, sometimes requiring me to move my drawer around the room, and add some boxes on top of it and the radio on top of that pile, I managed to get the signal of KMET. Sometimes, I had to stand in a certain way so I could block some of the KBEST 94.9 signals from reaching the radio. It was literally a pain in the legs to stand for long periods of time to get the signal.

Wasn't easy. I had to tape One Day at a Time for later viewing on a cassette recorder hooked up to a TV Sound radio so I could listen to the Doc live. Sorry, Valerie Bertinelli.

The Doc's show ran on KMET Sunday nights from 6-10pm from around 1972 or whatever, until KMET did away with the live four-hour version of it in early 1983 and went to a syndicated version of his two hour show from that point on until 1985, when KMET returned the Doc to a live two-hour version for the final two years of its existance.

Also during the time until 1984, KOLA 99.9 from San Bernadino ran the syndicated Dr. Demento show from 10pm-MID, a time slot selected so that it would start after the Doc's live KMET show ended and he wouldn't be competeting against himself between Los Angeles and San Bernadino. I picked up the KOLA signal a bit easier, and about three times from 1983, I could get it in stereo from my house, which was very rare. It also helped when the Tijuana station at 99.7 FM signed off early on Sunday nights so KOLA could come in without adjacent channel interference.

I wrote Dr. Demento back in 1982 in a letter. Yes, you know. What we used to write with back in the day before the Internet. He wrote me back, saying that I was the first person he read about that listened to his show on KMET and KOLA. Huh? He means that nobody in Los Angeles ever listened to six hours of dementia between the two stations from the late 70s until 1983, and I was the first, and I wasn't anywhere in the Los Angeles metro area?

KMET was pretty good whenever I could get the old Torino and Mustang into the signal area away from K-BEST so I could sample the rock and roll format back in the day from 1981 until 1987, but since KGB, the original KPRI 106.5, the rock format of Z90 back in the 80s, and the more easily picked up KLOS 95.5 were playing many of the same songs as KMET, I wasn't missing much as far as music was concerned. I managed to listen to KMET when I was driving on the I-5 down in Oceanside, and around one of the times, it was playing Sweet's song "Ballroom Blitz."

Most of the time in the day, I listened to KIQQ 100.3 back when it was a top 40 station playing a lot of the popular rock and rhythm songs. That signal was picked up easily on all of my better radios. It's kind of strange that it's coming full circle 28 years since I discovered KIQQ and Dr. Demento on KMET in 1981 that they're coming full circle together for one day, July 10, 2009, on the frequency of 100.3 FM, where you can hear Dr. Demento relive the KMET days from 7-8pm, as well as many of the other KMET deejays except for the four that are employed by KLOS, KMET's longtime chief competetor.

Also, around the time, I discovered another station, K-Earth 101.1 playing the rock and roll oldies and some of the hits of the day. Little did I know that Shotgun Tom Kelly would join the station later in 1997.

Those were my glory days of listening to FM radio back in the days.