I’ve been talking with Dave Beasing, programmer of The Sound, about doing a “My Turn” segment on the station for almost as long as the station has been on the air. For various reasons, we never did it until last month – just after the announcement that the station was being sold. Honestly, neither of us knew it would ever air when it was recorded in early October when I visited the station, due to the station’s impending sale and unknown format-change date.

It aired last Sunday.

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The plan was right up my alley: A tribute to some of the stations we loved but are no longer with us: KHJ (930 AM) as a top-40 station, the Mellow Sound of KNX-FM (now KCBS-FM, 93.1), The Mighty Met KMET (now KTWV, 94.7 FM), KLOS (95.5 FM), KNAC (now KBUA, 105.5 FM) and The Sound itself.

Admittedly, the KLOS segment could be considered a roast, as kids say today, since KLOS is most certainly still on the air. As Johnny Fever announced on CBS-Television’s “WKRP in Cincinnati,” “How can I miss you if you won’t go away,” but this was actually meant as a tribute to the KLOS of the mid-1970s and what it played as it competed against KMET.

My plan was to play songs representative of each station’s heydays, which for the most part I think came out OK. For KHJ, the songs were “This Diamond Ring” (Gary Lewis and the Playboys) and “I’m Just a Singer” (Moody Blues); for KNX-FM they were “Fire and Rain” (James Taylor) and “Who Can it Be Now” (Men at Work); and the KMET songs were “D’yer Mak’er” (which I still pronounced wrong in spite of practicing, by Led Zeppelin) and “Rock and Roll Never Forgets” (Bob Seger), one of the last songs played on KMET before it left the air in 1987.

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For KLOS, I chose “Bungle in the Jungle” (Jethro Tull) and “Jamie’s Cryin’” (Van Halen), two songs I heard often on the station … the former at Clear Creek Camp and the latter in electronics shop at San Pedro High. And finally, for KNAC, I “cheated” and used a song from my son’s band that would have fit were it still on the air, “Misdirect” (Divine Intervention). The finale was Zeppelin’s “Ten Years Gone,” a song that just seems to fit The Sound’s ten-year existence.

As I said, I think the songs fit fairly well. But as Sound DJ Cynthia Fox – a KMET alumnus – pointed out, “one of the outstanding aspects of KMET was playing deeper tracks by the bands the fans loved; it established our credibility as true music fans. So with Led Zeppelin, you’d hear deeper album tracks like “The Rover,” “In the Light,” “Bron Y Aur,” “Tangerine,” “That’s the Way,” “How Many More Times,” “No Quarter,” and on and on. “D’yer Mak’er … not so much emphasis there!!”

Interestingly, I chose the song because it was included in an old KMET air check I was listening to before the show was recorded. But in hindsight, she’s right … not the best choice to showcase KMET.

Regardless, it was a blast to do, fun (for me) to hear, and if you heard it, I hope you enjoyed it. It is programs and attitudes like this that help set The Sound apart from the crowd; I sincerely hope that someday, somehow, some time, The Sound can return. We really need stations like this: stations with soul. Stations that treat listeners with respect and try to be at least a little different. Or, as Cynthia Fox calls it, intelligent radio.

Thank you, Dave Beasing, for letting this all happen.