Up on the Eighth

I read Joseph Woodard’s piece on the centennial celebrations for the Granada Theatre with interest and warm memories. I too saw some great concerts at the Granada over the years, including a fantastic double bill of Fleetwood Mac and the Steve Miller Band.

But my fondest memories aren’t of the theater, but rather the eighth floor when it was the home of Santa Barbara’s KTYD.

In 1976 armed with a freshly minted broadcasting license I managed to talk my way into a job there! And what a great job it was; playing music that I got to select myself for an appreciative audience in the company of some amazing radio pros like Proctor and Ward, Edward Bear, Laurie Cobb, Jim “Mr. Infinity” Trapp, Gerry “’60s revisited” Dewitt, and Program Director Larry Johnson.

If you’ve never heard a diverse freeform station that was completely in tune with the town it served it may be impossible to appreciate how great it all was “back in the day.”

I soon learned that the only constant in radio is change as that early crew eventually dispersed, and by 1982 I left.

In a month I’ll be celebrating my 48th year as a radio DJ and program director. I’ve won awards and had ambitious dreams come true working my way up to San Francisco and beyond. I’m still fighting the good fight for quality broadcasting, but I’ll never surpass the incredible joy of doing the overnight show from the eighth floor of the Granada.