KurtfromLaQuinta wrote:
 

Ok, I need to wear my reading glasses, even with a 24" monitor. I read your location as South Carolina...

I'm more west than Goldfield, Nevada.

A long, long time ago when I was 18,

 KurtfromLaQuinta wrote:
 
Wow... that's awesome!

There's a lot to see in the 'big empty', so if you find yourself goin' out west sometime, I can suggest some interesting, esoteric sites.

 Manbird wrote:
 
Do the math.

A long, long time ago when I was 18, I lived in a small North Central Texas town about an hour west of Fort Worth.  The town was nestled into some small hills & was just far enough out of the Dallas/Ft.Worth area that the FM signals were sketchy. We had a local FM station positioned on top of one the hills but they were a 24x7 easy listening station. A friend of mine knew the station owner's kid & & one summer (1971 I think) talked the owner into letting him do a 2-hour rock music show every night 12am-2am.  Problem was, the station didn't have much in the way of rock albums, just a few left off by promoters wandering through. My friends personal album collection was pretty sparse, but I had a decent collection going so I became his engineer of a sort, lugging a bunch of my albums up the hill every night. We had a 2-hours slot but the station was mostly automated so we could go long if we wanted.

It was really fun and I pretty much set the playlist ......  Beatles, Rolling Stones, Animals, and so on, and I was getting into Prog so we mixed in Yes, Moody Blues, ELP, along with things like Led Zeppelin I & II, Wishbone Ash, the first Allman Brothers album, Jefferson Airplane., Steppenwolf, The Who.  I was also into jazz, so we mixed in some Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, Les McCann & Eddie's Harris Swiss Movement, Coltrane, Blood Sweat & Tears, Chicago. Quite the eclectic mix and we didn't know much about creating setlists, so it could be any of those one after the other.  Sometimes we'd track an album side or whole album .... Days of Future Passed, Sgt Peppers, Tommy, Swiss Movement, Aftermath, Chicago I, Surrealistic Pillow, Steppenwolf the Second (side 2) and so on. 

The kids in town loved it and we'd get phone calls all during the show for requests, which of course had to be from my record collection.  I remember thinking what a cool way to make it living it would be, spinning music on the radio, learning how to create actual planned playlists, maybe being kind of the late night soundtrack for that little town.

Unfortunately, the station owner got quite a lot of phone calls as well, from his easy listening crowd who apparently really missed hearing Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, big bands and what not in the middle of the night. By the end of the summer the plug was pulled on our little show & we were back to try to catch a wave on the Dallas & Fort Worth stations through the static. Several months later I started my first rock band & lost track of that friend as he went off to college & I stayed around at a nearby junior college.

Turns out Bill & I are the same age. I've often wondered if that has anything to do with how much RP works for me, but of course RPeeps of all ages & backgrounds love it.  I've also imagined a young BillG doing his first gigs and thinking what a cool life it was and where he could take it.  Thankfully his genius for the art of creating magic with music led to RP, and 20 years later here we all are.

Well, Carl the program director I talked to, has a show on the station. He played a couple of the Mike Nesmith songs I sent him.
While he played them, a friend texted him telling Mike was a former Monkee. Yep. That's what I told you Carl. 

 
He did mention my name. So now I'm semi- famous in Goldfield, Nevada. 

 KurtfromLaQuinta wrote:
 
Very cool!

I used to live in Tonopah as a kid... about 30 miles north of Goldfield. Around the turn of the century, Goldfield was one of the largest cities in Nevada. These days it's home to hearty, independence-loving folks. Their station reflects that. I'm sure they'll appreciate your suggestions.

The old abandoned Goldfield Hotel is famous in Ghost Hunting circles.

I talked to the owner of KGFN yesterday and sent him some music to try out.

 KurtfromLaQuinta wrote:
 
KHUM... I just pulled them up. They're playing Captain Beefheart... wow. Ahh yes, Humboldt County. :-)

KVMR Grass Valley and KZFR Chico are two non-profit, non-NPR stations with interesting music shows. KZHP-lp Sacramento is a tribute station... a tribute to the old KZAP.

So much good music, and only 2 ears to listen with...

 
Thanks for the lead.
I'll check them out.
Have you tried KHUM in Ferndale, California?

KVAR, 93.7, in Chadron,NE/Pine Ridge, SD,  is a remarkable station. BillG inspired type playlists.  (not available streaming, last time I checked  a few weeks ago).

 KurtfromLaQuinta wrote:
They still exist, usually in small towns, like Truckee and Quincy, CA, or Gerlach, NV. Sometimes they have an internet feed. KGFN in Goldfield, NV is a little gem. I like to use Radio.Garden as a media player. It's a good way to navigate the world of local radio. But I still come back to RP. It was there when I was using dial-up, and I'm glad to see it's always at the top of every media player's most-listened-to selection.

 KurtfromLaQuinta wrote:
They still exist, usually in small towns, like Truckee and Quincy, CA, or Gerlach, NV. Sometimes they have an internet feed. KGFN in Goldfield, NV is a little gem. I like to use Radio.Garden as a media player. It's a good way to navigate the world of local radio. But I still come back to RP. It was there when I was using dial-up, and I'm glad to see it's always at the top of every media player's most-listened-to selection.

Yes!
I've been a seeker of those FM stations for years.
R. Paradise is my default.
But always looking.
I listen to a few that have hung on to those glory days.

You've been warned, Pyroglyph.  manbird is the Batman of Bizzaro World.  A much darker character, with his sidekick, Robber.

Back in the early 90's I worked overnights at a station in Marysville, CA. Our format was eclectic free-form rock. CD's were still relatively new, and a lot of artists hadn't released their back-catalogues digitally, so our PD Andy Emert brought in his vinyl collection. Listeners would donate or loan us their LPs. We were probably the last commercial FM station in the US to spin vinyl, crackles and all.

 
 
No.
The rock blocks the beautiful sunset!