remembering KEXL San Antonio 104.5 1970's

Dedicated to the San Antonio radio station of the 70's that was unique and affected so many folks.

Why I've put this website together:
On my 13th birthday - Friday Aug 13th - I was given a portable cassette recorder and a clock radio. I started running through the radio stations on the clock radio to find something to record on the new portable cassette recorder and came across a station playing some Firesign Theater - it was a very young KEXL - and I started taping things off the radio over the years for my own enjoyment - definitely not high quality with it being a portable mike pointed at the speaker of a clock radio - a lot of the time I wouldn't even tape a whole song - but I'd be trying to capture the magic that was KEXL. That was 30 years ago but I kept those tapes in a box all these years thinking that someday I'd be able to transfer the audio tape to digital to be able to be nostalgic for a bit. - Jay Pennington

It has been an extreme thrill to hear things I taped 30-35 years ago. It is a slow process but I wanted to save some of the gems that happened between the songs during the KEXL days. I'll be adding these gems here from time to time as I work through all the tapes.

One thing that has really struck me when listening to commercials for big name rock stars coming to San Antonio was that tickets were $2 and $3 !!!!!

- One of the early station ID's (Sept 71) - KEXL - reflecting the sound of a nation thinking....with possibly Nick St. John announcing that Nikita Khrushchev has just died (Sept 11, 1971) ....(unfortunately poor recording quality on my part.)

- Sunday nights were more open ended than just the standard music/jock format - things like playing a full album, concerts, Dr. Demento, the Forth Tower of Inverness, and the National Lampoon Radio Hour (30 mins) with a lot of the first year SNL cast before SNL existed....This sample is actually on a Friday evening with Nick St. John covering what the upcoming Sunday night schedule was. It does give you a feel of how the station was.

- Nick St. John and Sam Kindrick in the morning!!!! (with mention of the KEXL mascot Samueleto)

- Bob Dylan's Sarah into a KEXL jock stating that today is January 1, 1977 and KEXL is doing a countdown of the top albums of 1976 - Frampton Comes Alive being the top album for 76.

- a locally made commercial for the first album made by Loggins and Messina with references to local record stores

This was a real find! Thank you to Nick's ex-wife Sharon. Action Magazine January 1977

- this neat segment was a great example of KEXL's free format - (it's a 2 minute segment so a bit longer to download) - it starts with a Michael Murphy song to Ron Houston (Ron also mentioning Sam Kindrick and The Morning Show) to one of my favorite Rod Stewart songs (that is not very well known). Listening to it felt like I'd gone back in time. :)

- Although I didn't have a favorite KEXL jock, Nick St.John was one of several I fondly recall. Here is a sampler

Nick St. John / Aubrey Cook sadly passed away June 23rd this year from a battle with cancer.
Our prayers go out to the family and friends of Nick's.
David Doerr made the historic recording of the last 4 hours of KEXL on the air. In light of Nick's passing, David
sent me this clip of Nick chatting with Allen during that evening if you were trying to recall Nick's distinctive voice.. Thanks David!

- local KEXL commercial for a Taj Mahal concert - lots of interesting references / unfortunately with the sound of a parent in the background fussing - I need a parent filter!

- KEXL jock Lloyd Lopez talking about Allen "the flash" Grimm singing and raising armadillos and mentioning KEXL's phone number 690-9090

- This was in the middle of a KEXL cassette. I'm not completely sure if KEXL played the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre but this clip has a jock doing a scary intro to the actual Radio Mystery intro - if you were a fan of this mystery program then you'll enjoy hearing this even if it wasn't on KEXL. Maybe someone will recognize the intro disk jockey's voice and let me know if it was a KEXL broadcast.

- Ron Houston talking about the Mother Earth News playing early each morning at 6:15 am "kind of a Farm Report". Sample starts with a "hippy" version of Okie from Muscogee plus promo for club Midnight Special.

- Allen Grimm - nice block - Allen sandwiched around a Britannia Jean commercial for Joskes - then doing the weather and then mentioning upcoming songs by Willie, ELP, Stevie Wonder, and Elton John plus giving away tickets to Bad Company concert in San Antonio.

- KEXL is "giving away the radio station" - one listener per week could have one hour on the air to be a KEXL jock. - (starts off a little warped)

This was the car decal - photographed off a car's back windshield then digitized and then colorized and multiplied...done a number of years ago. (There was also a horizontal version of this decal.)

- The Dr Demento show was a regular KEXL feature. The Dr. is still around and still producing shows and has a website www.drdemento.com . Since his programs are part of our memory of KEXL I've compiled just a couple quick sound bytes together.

- An unusual Dr Demento / UTSA personal connection. I attended UTSA starting in 1976 and graduated from there December 1979. While I was attending UTSA they decided to have a student-wide vote for a mascot for the young university. On the first student-wide vote the armadillo won. However, for some reason we had to have a second student-wide vote - and the armadillo won again. However, for some reason we had to have a third student-wide vote and that third time the roadrunner won. However, for some reason we didn't have to have a forth student-wide vote. Now on the Dr. Demento show you could call in a request for a song and sometimes the Dr. would play throughout the nationwide syndication the actual call the caller made. I guess I didn't want to make a mistake when I was calling in so sometime in 1978 I recorded my request onto tape and then must have called up the Dr.'s request line and played the tape of myself instead of speaking live into the telephone - I warped the end of the message of myself which seemed to fit with the actual popular Dr. Demento song being requested - "Hey babe, you wanna boogie." / and "Don't leave your records in the sun" ("Boogie" and "records" by John Hartford on his album Aereo-Plain) I didn't remember doing this till just now playing that part of the cassette about 30 years later. It's a little out there for my own controlled self/personality but I must have wanted to get it on the air badly enough. I'm actually imitating the actual song pretty well and today looking up and listening to the original John Hartford song I'm wondering if the Sling Blade character was influenced by that song too! Go UTSA fighting Armadillos! :)

- Here is a nice segment - KEXL jock Martha Martinez mentioning the National Lampoon Radio Hour then leading into a commercial for the 1st annual ZZTop Bar-B-Q and Barn Dance.

- January 23, 1973 - Nixon goes on live television to announce a treaty that will end the war in Vietnam. Very fortunately I had my cassette recorder handy and taped that off of the TV. Phil Cook did the news for KEXL and later that day I taped the KEXL news coverage as well which also included reference to LBJ's death at the same time. Listening to it now, it strikes me on different levels including comparing it to the current Iraq war and what the news will be like when that ends.

A recent EBay acquisition. Not sure of the date - it would be early because of the Menger Hotel
but probably not in the very beginning because of the Quadraphonic reference.
How many FM stations exist in San Antonio now?

- Seems KEXL jocks and staff had a softball team....do you recall the name of the team?

-This is a really nice time block - December timeframe - Nick St. John, a couple interesting local commercials, a KEXL Listening Post mention, the KEXL Christmas Book contest, and great music. (this is a longer download)

- Lloyd Lopez mentioning the club Playpen North then a KEXL made commercial with Ron and Sam for Boots and Saddles Western Discothèque

- KEXL made commercial for a Halloween party with Allen Grimm at the Playpen North

- A Sunday evening staple would be the latest edition of the National Lampoon Radio Hour. I think it actually did start out as an hour long but then switched to 30 minutes (still calling itself "radio hour") Normally made up of multiple skits, every once in a while it would be one 30 minute skit - ie. Moby Dick and Sluts From Space. NLRH's Moby Dick is a musical, of course, and you should recognize John Belushi, Brian Doyle-Murray (Bill's older brother), and possibly Harold Ramis. I sampled a few places here an there in the Moby Dick story.

Some commercials played on KEXL:
- When you were little, did you go down to Brackenridge park & the zoo and ride the train?
- KEXL commercial mentioning two landmark businesses you may have frequented.
- A public service announcement from KEXL
- local commercial for Tokyo House Massage.
- buying land from SA Sam Greene - tape is a bit warped
- the new club BoJangles (Allen)
- Sprite...the movie Billy Jack...then Coke

- A KEXL jock mentioning that at that time (70's) there were people just then getting FM radios.

- When I first started listening to KEXL we were still in the midst of the Vietnam War. John Denver had recorded a poem/story called The Box which was in the form of a children's story protesting war in general - KEXL would play this on occasion. When I first heard it I don't think John was quite famous yet with his folksy style of music. He released it on his "Poems, Prayers, and Promises" album - the lyrics can be found at THE BOX LYRICS Before I was later somewhat turned off by John's "country boy" and "Grandma's feather bed", The Box really hit home.... with us being in midst of Vietnam and the other song writers as well writing protest songs during the time. As far as I can research this, there was only just the one recording of The Box which didn't have any background music just John's narration. What seems quite unique about my cassette recording is that it seems that an instrumental part of Elton John's "Funny how young lovers start as friends" is the background music with Elton singing the song just as soon as John is finished. Since this was the days of vinyl my guess is that Elton's song had his vocals and piano on say the right channel and the other instruments were on the left channel - so possibly the KEXL jock was being creative and played on one turntable Elton's right channel only (non-vocal channel) with John Denver's The Box playing on the other turntable - when John's poem finished they turned Elton's right channel on to hear his singing and piano. Making the two separate songs seem like one. Nick, could that be the way it was?

- Contests: KEXL had a number of contests and giveaways over the years. During the KEXL Summer Sweepstakes one year I remember I won a 10 speed bike and a waterbed (although the waterbed turned out to be 4 pieces of plywood and the waterbed bag). A big contest was when they gave away a Volkswagen Thing.

- Way back when, radio stations didn't have CDs and digitized recordings but played vinyl records that on occasion had skips. CDs can have skips too but you don't often hear those except for maybe some college radio stations with a small budget.

- Firesign Theatre - The reason I stopped the dial the first time I came across KEXL was because they were playing a Firesign Theatre cut. To me they weren't fall down funny like the National Lampoon Radio Hour could be but for me Firesign always had a fascination and humor. Here is a part of their skit Deputy Dan. A new public service comic book written in Spanish about Deputy Dan is being discussed...this is a larger part of the skit. They are still around btw, www.firesigntheatre.com

KEXL jock Nick St. John wearing a favorite KEXL T-shirt during a KEXL skateboarding event -1976
- photo by fellow KEXL jock Bobby Reyes.
From October 2007 to April 2008 Nick would correspond with me about the ol' KEXL days.
Sadly Nick passed away June 2008 due to a long battle with cancer.

Oct 2007 - Sam Kindrick was nice enough to tell Nick St. John about this site and Nick has been emailing me some of the history of the station and his experiences. I plan to include a lot of that as Nick was a key jock and he was there at the beginning of the station. I think most people who fondly remember KEXL would like to hear more of the things that happened behind the scenes. As to the origins of KEXL it first was KITE-FM that had an adult easy listening type format. Nick wrote "We changed the call letters to KEXL, and began tinkering with the music. At first we did little things like substituting the Beatles version of Yesterday for the version we had been playing by Frank Sinatra. We started slowly adding cuts from new albums by previously unheard of artists. Love Song by Elton John, Danny's Song and Winnie the Pooh by Loggins and Messina mixed in between the Tony Bennetts and Rosemary Clooneys of the old format. Since Top-40 stations only played the most popular singles there was a wealth of new music on albums that had never been played on radio before, and we soon found our niche. We dropped more and more of the Engelbert Humperdinck's and Tom Jones's for selected softer cuts from the Moody Blues, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Seals and Crofts, Brewer and Shipley, the Doobie Brothers, Joni Mitchell, Boz Scaggs, Judy Collins." Shortly after I read this I was digitizing one of my earliest KEXL tapes and came across a splice of time that really seemed to be part of that time period where they were substituting a "Beatle song instead of a Frank Sinatra version and playing a softer cut of Joni Mitchell". The second commercial in this time splice would definitely fit with the KITE-FM audience but maybe not the KEXL audience. ...plus a mention by the jock, Mike Callaghan, that he was subbing for a vacationing Nick St. John. (a longer download than normal)

- Brad Morrison has informed me that another KEXL jock alumni, Martha Martinez is currently at a sports talk station in Houston. KFNC 97.5 FM. Thanks Brad! Brad was fortunate enough to have been one of the "giving the station away" fans who got to be a jock at KEXL for one hour on a Sunday evening. Lucky dog! ;) We've started corresponding lately because of this site. Besides both being affected by KEXL in our teens, we found out recently that during those teen years we lived a few streets from each other, that we attended the same high school just different class levels, and that we both got Computer Science degrees from UTSA - same instructors, just a few years apart from each other. Brad also contributed the play list for the last hours of KEXL (see below).

- The Ladies of KEXL - Just being a jock on the FM band at that time was a rarity as KEXL was one of the first successful FM band stations. I'm thinking that there is a story to be told of the historic times of FM's infancy and the Ladies who were KEXL jocks. Martha Martinez, Barbara Marullo, ..... I'm hoping to get more info on this subject.

- Jan 2008 - Just heard from Barbara "Legs" Marullo !!!! I asked her how a radio person gets the handle "Legs":

During the early years of KEXL I was a teen who was supposed to be sleeping on weekday nights by say 11:00...but at midnight if you could turn the radio volume low and not turn on any lights you could hear the continuing radio serial The Fourth Tower of Inverness - the continuing spooky, eerie, imaginative & odd adventures of Jack and the Madonna Vampira. Just recently I found where you can purchase a download of all the episodes - http://www.zbs.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1 Each night's story was about 7 minutes long and they have all 7 1/2 hours of the entire serial http://www.zbs.org/catalog/

Nick St. John mumbling the morning news so much so that the other person in the booth was laughing hysterically the whole time.
Nick St. John news (1971) plus a great Budget Tapes and Records local commercial

The National Lampoon Radio Hour (60 minutes the first season, then 30 minutes but still called Radio Hour) had many of the SNL first year's cast before SNL existed. Once in a while the whole 30 minutes would be one story such as Moby Dick and one of my favorites Sluts From Space where aliens are attacking the very moral fiber of the men of planet Earth because the aliens just happen to look like very beautiful women! Only Timmy (the local non-attractive smart boy in town) can save Earth!

Still missing: I'm still in search of some of my cassettes that had things such as:
- KEXL poor man's concerts - playing the songs of an artist during their San Antonio concert time.
- The KEXL armadillo races
- The National Lampoon Radio Hour additional episodes.
- I believe it was Sam saying ...this is K E X L ....KEXL for short, but not for long

- If you are going sequentially through the downloads, I hate to finish the page with the End of KEXL. I'd rather finish the downloads with the Start of KEXL for me - the first time I heard KEXL - my first recording from KEXL and what caused me to stop turning the tuner from station to station on the clock radio looking for something to record on my new portable cassette recorder - it was Firesign Theater playing on KEXL ( www.firesigntheatre.com ) and then a bit later some Beatles with Ron Houston on the mike. When the tuner hit the KEXL station they were playing something so different so odd so fascinating I had to stop and listen/record. Firesign Theater on KEXL.

At some point in time, the Express-News printed in their paper a colored page that could be ironed on to a T-shirt. As you can see it wasn't the most successful but still rather clever being part of newspaper print.

BTW, I FOUND MORE TAPES!!!!!!!
Scroll to the bottom to continue with the sound bytes. :)

From Nick St. John -
(one of the key jocks at KEXL and who was there to help mold the station before it was even named KEXL.)

The backside of Nick St. John at a KEXL skateboarding event - 1976 - photo by fellow KEXL jock Bobby Reyes

"Jay, what a great thing you put together...Boy, did that take me back for a moment to a more simple carefree time! Thanks for the memories......since I listened to the clips, I have reminisced often back to the good ole days of being a teenager....What a great time and great radio station that was!" ---Juli Kahn Ottea

"Jay, please include my favorite quote from Sam Kindrick when he was at KEXL "I'm wired 'n inspired... and want to thank you for being an American." I still think of it and say it to myself just for motivation." - Sam Meyer

I found about 6 more KEXL era cassettes in a different box.....currently digitizing them....check back soon for additional gems! - Jay

Another of Nick's T-shirts, courtesy of his sister, Denise Cook. Thanks Denise!

I was at an Augie Meyers concert the other day. From a distance, folks say he and I look like twins. Augie's ponytail is a few inches longer :) Augie said he heard that Ron and Sam were going to have a KEXL reunion. I hope that happens and I'd love to help!

KEXL jock Bobby Reyes and my friend Brad Morrison have sent me a list of KEXL jocks in no particular order and their last whereabouts:

Don White - San Antonio - Matchframe Technologies and ten-eighty, inc - www.1080.com

Mike Collie - lives in San Antonio and sells insurance to bands and musicians across Texas and in Vegas