Come with us now to those thrilling days of who remembers when, when way before podcasts proved that radio still rules! Once upon that time a tiny radio station blew up America. Armed with  music as their weapon and comedy their kiss, ideas as their maps and San Francisco their outpost, KMPX & KSAN’s companeros were among the super heroes of the counterculture. And this original origin story is as-told-by the original freaks & heads who created, in the Summer of Love 1967 underground rock & roll radio.

 Imagine an entire generation –wasn’t that a time? — of young Americans tuning into and turning onto “the Jive 95.” (94.9 on the dial, let’s get that myth over with) And what did they hear there, my darling young ones? Funny, fearless, free spirits whose spoken words were backed up by the new bands coming over something called FM STEREO. When stereo was fresh, government-mandated in the good ol’ USA! A sound revolution was happening: people had to hear the newest tracks off the album wax, from either side of the LP, be it rock & roll, jazz, gospel, honky-tonk tunes or something 18 minutes long that goes all over the place inside your headphones.

Before cyber-communities was something called a radio audience. Alive-in-the-moment listening and dancing like a tribe all feeling the same vibe. And who were these smart feeling voices transmitting the latest turntable truths?

Radio, by nature communal communication, was right in tune with mid-1960s citizens who were really listening.

You’ll hear stories from folks like Lennon, Zappa, Van the Man, Jerry, Janis, Big Brother, Santana, Sex Pistols and the Clash. Sly, Joni, Otis, Grace or the Dead have something to say? KSAN brought it live to the brothers and sisters,  sisters & brothers.

A book is a show, a journey to the show, the myths made up after it’s over.  This is about a hippie-run radio outpost in the middle of a countercultural revolution blasting a signal to northern Californians going thru Them Changes, too. From out of the west, hipster heads never heard before: “Cosmic cowboys” who “crossed the diamond with the pearl…turned it on the world…that’s when you turned the world around.”

Acid Rock. The San Francisco Sound.

KSAN was a 24/7 wake-up call and response. The people had gotten ready. People sang out, went with the flow, down streaming/returning to forever…

Mick Jagger called KSAN: Radio One.  By 1968, there were many big city FM chimes of freedom flashing. The San Francisco sound had rung out a warning — feel free to add your own lyrical faves here; hip-like like: “The Byrds and The Airplane, they fly,” or “Be sure to wear some” warm hats on your heads because it’s freakin’ cold in San Francisco!

Despite their casting of luv & peace seeds,  this children’s crusade faced attacks from a Dark Ether  air attacks burying citizens under the lies of R.M. Nixon (“Moloch!”). Another war of all against all. So how was one to keep their head above the brains of shit-breathing madmen? Not by keeping it down. Country Joe, & Fish had something to say. Quicksilver Messenger Service had their…messages. Jesse Colin Young. Youngbloods. Cold Blood. Commander Cody, Dan Hicks. Hot Licks. Elvis Costello came on to ask the musical question, “What’s so funny ’bout peace, love & understanding?”  

Voices like Ken Kesey’s  (tapes liberated from basement archives!) who discussed how, “The light of consciousness came on for a minute…and then the door clamped shut.”  What Was That All About? Did That Really Happen?  Was it a Neil (Young? Cassady?) “hippie dream”?  Just “a happening that happened,” as Abbie Hoffman laughed it? KSAN’s avatars-of-the enlightenment included: Scoop Nisker’s  Last News Show. Alan Watts’ Buddhist seminars. Plus, Duck’s Breath Mystery Theater and The Firesign Theatre: surrealistic pillows for postmodern head banging and mind re-arranging.  Satirists possessing mental agilities far beyond the abilities of normal beings! The medium was their muse. 

And so Dear Friends (shout out, Firesign),  curious about What’s Going On in the 60s & 70s? What the Fug was it all about, Mr. Natural? Stay tuned. Our elixir of profusely illustrated (shout out Firesign) pages include fotos, tasty psychedelic comix and a mix of new-fangled yet already de rigueur QR code links to concerts, on-air all-stars and entertaining holy goofs. So be there then! When KSAN floated out of high Victorian windows (funky apt. windows, too) — high above the Haight Ashbury, from Buena Vista west into the lush green redwood buffalo aeromatical pot-praising hippies who patchouliated in magical Golden Gate Park. Turn up that new FM Hi-Fi set…only $400 at Pacific Stereo, including disk preener…

As “The Swami from Miami” (KSAN’s Darryl Henriques) sez: “Can you dig it?”