Director's Notes: Exit poll data concludes that not enough show attendees are actually reading these directors’ notes. So for the sake of cultural and -actual- literacy, we have eliminated all the infotainment documentaries normally sprinkled throughout the show in favor of the following paragraphs. Actually, none of that is true, but since you’re reading this might be our only chance to explain what this year’s Retrofest is all about.
The primary conceit of this show is to take one slice of the musical timeline, namely the year 1978, and show it through the lens of local radio programming. We are going to dim the lights, turn on the hi-fi, and spin the radio dial, and listen in on a number of legendary Southern California stations. Remember, this was a magical time where so many musical styles were emerging and popular all across the culture, and just before radio stations became stylistic silos where only certain kinds of records would be played. Different stations had their favorites, to be sure, but you were likely to hear very similar and eclectic choices just about anywhere you tuned in.
If you were here in 1978 SoCal you most certainly had a radio, and you may remember the stations and the DJ’s. We begin our show at KMET FM, on which the 1978 film ‘FM’ was based. Earlier in the decade they played longer songs and were very much the mouthpiece of the counterculture, but by '78 they were at their peak, and playing the same rock and pop as everyone else. Also on the FM dial was the rock station KLOS, with DJ’s like Jim Ladd, one of the only stations to stay true to its format into the current era. KUTE 102 was spinning Top-40 in 1978 which was skewing toward Disco and R&B, as was their neighbor KIIS FM, which was running on both FM and AM at the time.
We’ll be spending much of our show on the AM dial, where things were just a little more Top-40. KTNQ AM, the ‘new 10 Q’, a short-lived pop station that was in its third and final year of broadcasting. Many classic DJ’s of the 60’s and 70’s like Charlie Tuna and ‘The Real’ Don Steele landed there briefly in 1978. But the big daddy of AM was 93 KHJ, which had been the gold standard of Top 40 since the early 60's. They published their own influential weekly chart called ‘The Boss 30” that was available at record stores all around SoCal for nearly 20 years. By the end of the decade, most music listeners had all crossed over to the Hi-Fi stereo sounds of FM, and AM became the realm of talk radio, non-english language programming, news, and more obscure musical genres.
But our show really isn’t about radio, it’s about a narrow window of time that is chock full of incredible music. We could have easily made 10 different 1978 shows just as amazing as this one due to the rich history of music made at the time. We could only pick a few, but there isn’t a bad song in the bunch, and there are so many more where these came from it truly boggles the mind.
We’ve had a magnificent time getting this show ready and are so proud of our students and the great strides they continue to make. They are doing things in this show we’ve never done before. As always, we hope this is a rewarding musical experience for the audience just as it has been for the students and staff. So tune in, and then ‘don’t touch that dial!’. We’ll turn it for you. - Mr. Simmons