Smile-era Radio Station Newsletter: KFXM 1966-67

[A Million Units In Jan!]

Besides Melcher, has anyone ever come forward with another take on the story? I wonder if any of the other guys have ever been asked about it.

[Cam Mott]

I think Al has talked about it but he names another station and there weren't a lot of details as I remember.

[Cam Mott]

It wasn't Johnny but he remembers they got an advanced copy. He's referred me to Ron Jacobs. Fingers crossed.

[Custom Machine]

I contacted KHJ program director Ron Jacobs yesterday, and he replied that he has absolutely no recollection of this incident.  He says that doesn't mean it didn't happen, but he has no memory of it occurring, and wonders if the story became hyped up over time.  He also says that if the story is true, the jock did the right thing by not playing something handed to him when he had absolutely no knowledge of what was actually in the grooves.  (This could explain part of the delay in playing the record, after Maule got permission, in that perhaps it was listened to prior to airing it.)

Jacobs added that it would have been virtually impossible to contact anyone at the station via phone around midnight since all switchboards were shut down, except for the listener request line, which was answered only if the dj had time.  He also said that anyone trying to get into the studio would have to get past the guard shack, and that the guys manning the shack had heard every bs story around from people trying to get inside.

Ron Jacobs forwarded my email to a whole bunch of other people, including former KHJ djs Humble Harv and Johnny Williams for recollection and comments.  (KHJ jocks Tom Maule, The Real Don Steele, and Robert W. Morgan are no longer with us.)  Johnny Williams, as Cam mentioned above, said the record was not delivered to him, although he does remember playing it with Ron Jacob's whispered voiceover saying "KHJ exclusive".  (This recording, with the Ron Jacobs whispered voiceover occurring a few times during the song, would have been prerecorded and played back on a tape cartridge, so that other stations could not have recorded the KHJ broadcast in order to get access to the song for rebroadcast.)  Johnny added that there is no way anyone, including Brian Wilson, would have gotten past the KHJ security gate without prior approval of management.  And he closed by saying that back then and still today he considers H & V to be one of the Beach Boys weakest songs.

Ken Levine, whom Jacobs also sent my email to, then contacted David Leaf, who said this story was first told by Terry Melcher (which is the first time I ever heard it) when it was printed in Rolling Stone in October 71.  Leaf said that perhaps Bruce Johnston could shed some light on the story, and added that he'll be seeing Brian in a couple of weeks and will ask him about it.  He then added that it's such a good story, don't we want to just keep printing the legend?

In my next post I'll share some info I received about the KHJ survey with Heroes and Villains listed as a "Boss Hitbound".

[Custom Machine]

OK, got some really good info from broadcaster Michael Haggerty about the timing of the KHJ survey.  Here's what he said:

Rob: The KHJ Boss 30 was compiled on Tuesdays, the day when record stores were called for sales figures and that week's Boss Hitbounds were chosen. So to the extent that sales figures and requests were used ... they would be from Wednesday of the previous week until Tuesday.

The Boss 30 was then "previewed" (played in order #30 to #1) at 6PM on Wednesday, the date shown on the survey.

I saw surveys in some stores as early as Thursday morning (never before the Wednesday night countdown), while others didn't seem to get them until Friday. Any later than that would work against KHJ, which often used the front or back of the survey to promote weekend specials and their regular "Million Dollar Weekends".

It's possible, given that KHJ actually did play the record the night Brian showed up unannounced, that the date is accurate and that Ron Jacobs simply called the printer Wednesday morning (or woke them up Tuesday night) and had them change one Hitbound. That would be a pretty minor deal given the clout KHJ had. The number of stores carrying the surveys meant they were a very big (and regular, 52 weeks a year) client of whatever printer they used.

By the way, "Heroes and Villains" didn't actually chart until 2 weeks later...most likely because there wasn't stock in the stores that first week.

Don Jennett then added:

Michael, remember we got into this same subject concerning the Bobby Tripp July 1967 aircheck, in which you estimated the date of that aircheck to be either July 13, 14, 17 or 18. Bobby indeed plays "Heroes and Villains" on the 'check, comments that his producer says it will reach #1 on the Boss 30, to which Bobby replies "I don't think so." It peaked, by the way, at #9, it's short chart history being 25-9-9-20-24 and then off the Boss 30 after only five weeks.

When I asked Ron Jacobs about calling the printers to add H & V as a hitbound, he said:  

I cannot recall EVER calling the printers.  But perhaps someone in Betty Breneman's music library did.  But it sounds a bit too complex for us to worry about or deal with.

So that leaves the July 11 still within the realm of possibility, but it seems perhaps the visit could have been a day or two earlier.  That's if for now.  Fascinating history.

One more thing! I recall recently reading Al Jardine and Stephen Depser's account of the trek to KHJ.  I think Jardine wasn't sure about the radio station, thinking perhaps it had been KFWB, but Desper added some details about the event as they pertained to one of the vehicles that was used.  The time mentioned was around midnight.  I seem to recall that the link to that article was posted somewhere on this site.  Can someone post it again?  Every other published account (a whole bunch of them!) appears to be based on Terry Melcher's 1971 comments in Rolling Stone.  Carlin's book is the only one I'm aware of which mentions the dj by name - Tom Maule.

[Cam Mott]

Good job. I'll stand down on the Ron Jacobs e-mail.

So until someone comes up with an aircheck or log or memory, sometime from July 5 to July 11 is best we can do on the date and Tom Maule [or his unexpected substitute for a night] is the best suspect for the DJ.

Alan in Goldmine in 2000: "We were working on "Heroes And Villains" just prior to his withdrawal and we were excited. Actually Brian was so excited, more excited than the rest of us about the way "Heroes And Villains," the single, had come out. We went down to a radio station, I think it was KRLA, and burst in on the jock and played the record. Brian wanted to be the first person to play it for L.A., for the whole city to hear it, and it just didn't have any punch."

[Custom Machine]

Good job. I'll stand down on the Ron Jacobs e-mail.

So until someone comes up with an aircheck or log or memory, sometime from July 5 to July 11 is best we can do on the date and Tom Maule [or his unexpected substitute for a night] is the best suspect for the DJ.

Alan in Goldmine in 2000: "We were working on "Heroes And Villains" just prior to his withdrawal and we were excited. Actually Brian was so excited, more excited than the rest of us about the way "Heroes And Villains," the single, had come out. We went down to a radio station, I think it was KRLA, and burst in on the jock and played the record. Brian wanted to be the first person to play it for L.A., for the whole city to hear it, and it just didn't have any punch."

Cam, thanks for the reminder about the Alan's 2000 interview in Goldmine.  The other article/interview I'm thinking about has Stephen Desper adding some comments, for example recalling that some items had to be taken out of the back of a car (maybe Brian's car) to make room for passengers before heading to KHJ.  I think it also mentions the time being close to midnight.  Anyone recall where that article is from?

[Cam Mott]

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,10295.msg186304.html#msg186304

[guitarfool2002]

Fantastic, just terrific research on this thread!!! Thank you many times over for this. The real pros around here beat me to it - had it been a slower working night and a less busy day I wanted to email Jacobs on a lark just for the fun of it to see what he thought, but it's already been done and the info is in. Great stuff, and it's very much appreciated!

It gets a few things cleared up - the date of the "Hitbound" survey and how that worked when adding songs, the protocol at KHJ regarding taking calls, playing records which had not been screened, how the front gate worked, etc.

It is actually interesting to see Ron Jacobs almost get Tom Maule "off the hook" for not playing the record that night. I even heard others say Jacobs chewed him out for not playing it. Maule took all kinds of heat from fans for years - his name and picture also appear in LLVS since the first printing in the 80's, and I'm assuming Bill Earl was the source of naming Maule for that book project as his name was mentioned elsewhere, and I think that is one source where fans saw that and formed their impressions of what happened that night (myself included until I got more into researching KHJ). I have re-read Jacobs' comments - again he'd be the guy who got the call from the studio asking if they could put the disc on the air - and he all but absolves Tom Maule of the blame he may have gotten for that. What Brian and the Beach Boys asked him to do that night was not done under the rules at the station...so I may have been mistaken too when I suggested Steele or Morgan would have played the disc immediately. They would have gotten permission first from Jacobs or someone under him after actually hearing the record.

That part about hearing the record before airing it is what I never factored in - and they would need to hear it in order to tape the "KHJ EXCLUSIVE" voiceover which Jacobs would add to the carted version so no other stations could steal it and re-broadcast it. I think I have one KHJ aircheck with a song featuring Jacobs saying "KHJ exclusive" over it, and I believe Good Vibrations was first heard in LA with the Jacobs voiceover until the record broke nationwide.

Again, my deepest thanks and appreciation for the info posted here, and I look forward to hearing more as the emails come in!

[guitarfool2002]

Just wanted to add a few things that came to mind:

- I've heard Ron Jacobs had his car equipped with one of the precursors of the cel phone, back in the mid 60's when this was a very lavish feature, so he could call KHJ from his "radiotelephone" rig in his car if he saw or heard any breaking news in LA. KHJ was big in going for the "exclusive" and this car phone was probably one way they thought they could get it.

- I think it was Bill Drake who had some kind of a telephone linking system in his office where he could listen to a simulcast of any one of his stations around the country at any time in his office - sort of a precursor to satellite radio or internet radio only using phone lines. If anything was going down on a Drake station, he could hear it immediately. One of the Don Steele recordings is apparently sourced from a recording of that system.

- That information about the Boss Radio top-30 previews happening at 6pm on Wednesdays in 1967...one of my all-time favorite pieces of audio *ever* is an aircheck shared by the Steele family where Don's shift ends at 6 and Humble Harve takes over - previewing the Boss 30. And the song Harve plays...Don't You Care by the Buckinghams. When I first heard that, I nearly cried it sounded so cool and it's a song I loved but rarely heard on the oldies stations. It's nice to hear that confirmation and how it tied into those surveys being printed.

[guitarfool2002]

Have any replies come in from the emails mentioned above?

[Custom Machine]

Have any replies come in from the emails mentioned above?

Just the ones I've mentioned so far.  Nothing from anyone who says they recall hearing about the incident first hand from one of the participants.  But Ron Jacobs has sent more info, doubting and/or contesting some of the details in the story.  I'll post his responses soon. 

As I previously posted, David Leaf says he'll ask Brian about it, but added, "It's such a good story, don't we want to just keep printing the legend?"   

This would be a good time for someone to contact Stephen Desper, Bruce Johnston, and Al Jardine for more recollections of either being there or hearing about it at the time.  Plus, it would be interesting to know who else was there that night that could be contacted today.  Wish Tom Maule had had an opportunity to comment on the story in an interview, and defend himself if he were, in fact, the jock.  Johnny Williams says it wasn't him, and neither Tom Maule nor Terry Melcher are around to provide more info.

We've gotta remember, this all happened 44 years ago, so the actual truth of the story may never be known, although Melcher's comments were published in Rolling Stone only 4 years after the incident.  But, did Melcher embellish the story to some extent?  Did Maule or whoever the dj was actually matter of factly say that he couldn't play anything which was not on the playlist, which was true -- then, since before he could make a phone call to ask permission, he may have had to cue up the next record, check the log, cue up carts of upcoming spots, promos, and jingles -- did that delay cause BW to think his record had been rejected when in fact the guy was just doing his job?  Who knows?

[guitarfool2002]

Thanks again for all of the info!

Since getting into the history of KHJ in the 60's, the story of the "Heroes" single became even more fascinating to me, and any new bits of information we can cobble together to better tell the story are very much appreciated!

I'm now thinking there may have been a bit more of Hollywood hype behind the story than previously thought, and I think parts of it were pumped up and blown up bigger than the actual events. I could go through each point but it's all spelled out in various posts and comments in the thread. Just to sum up I think as someone who for years thought Brian received and outright, cold rejection at KHJ that night (an impression I mostly got from the Todd Gold biography, Melcher's memories, and LLVS...), I'm seeing the story on a much smaller scale. After reading what Ron Jacobs said, I'm more convinced Tom Maule was simply doing his job.

Authors, of course, are called on to "juice" a story to make it more interesting. If the story were told that Brian and company showed up that night and the DJ had to call his PD before airing it, and they had to tag it "KHJ exclusive" before airing it as was the standard protocol for an exclusive airing of a new song, the story wouldn't jump off the pages. I'm just sayin'....And as with everything from this era, all of what I said could be wiped out by one person with a clear memory of that night who could confirm the questionable details which were told before.