Allen Daviau: There is no question that what was going on in the KMAK-KYNO, Jacobs-Drake radio wars was far more fascinating and entertaining than anything in my years listening to L.A. radio. From my first visits to my parents in 1962 I was aware that these Fresno stations were playing hardball. The ’Thons, the contests, the very basic, serious focus of every disc jockey let you know that this was war. As I got to know some of the combatants from the KMAK side, I knew that I wanted to be involved in some way. I was not interested in a radio career but perhaps I could be of use in the publicity or promotion aspect. I could offer still or motion-picture photography and stage lighting.
Ron Jacobs: Frank Terry and I were bachelors and roommates. As soon as we got to the weekends we’d rush down to L.A. or go to San Francisco. Each for different reasons. In Los Angeles there was, uh, female companionship provided by friendly record promoters. Having laid to rest such matters we’d drive the next weekend to San Francisco. In the fall of 1962 we saw some 49ers games in Kezar Stadium where the seagulls would shit on your head in the fourth quarter. And we would make the pre-hippie Beatnik scene. Like the City Lights Bookstore and Sausalito, before there was Haight Ashbury, and music at the Purple Onion. That was cool because several Honolulu schoolmates who became the Kingston Trio had made it there. KYA was picking up steam by then. I remember this one jingle, man (sings) “San Francisco, everyone every day, listens to KYA.” Only thing I didn’t like about San Francisco was the frigging weather, for me, barefoot jungle boy, I would always freeze my okole.
So Terry and I spent our Fresno weekends escaping from the place. South to get loaded and see Lenny Bruce at the Unicorn and look at the Watts Towers — anything just to get out of Fresno. It was still great to listen to KFWB, but by then each of us tacitly thought we could give them a run for their money. Like the mystique had worn off.
Frank Terry: I’m on the air one day at KMAK in Fresno while they’re removing railroad tracks and digging up the street. They told us “We’re going to cut your water off for the day.” So I start bitching about it on the air: “Can you believe this? We have no water here at the KMAK. I don’t know what we’re going to do if we have to …” I was just talking about how hard it is to exist without a day’s water. You can’t go to the bathroom, what are you going to do? Jacobs and Morgan are out in the hallway listening. Then they come in the studio. “Hey, got an idea! Why don’t you have the listeners bring you water? Let’s see what happens.” I go on the air and start asking for water. Well, this other guy came on after me and it mushroomed.
Jacobs put together this thing called the “First Annual KMAK McKinley Avenue Festival of the Water” — or “Water Festival.” We had an inflatable pool out there and Jacobs got the Beach Boys to play live on our roof. We had a National Guard tank circling the tower, a Miss McKinley Avenue Beauty Contest with chicks out there in bathing suits, a woman doing ice sculpture and people throwing balloons full of paint at the back wall of the building. Jacobs was mumbling “Jackson Pollack” and we had no idea what he was talking about — but we had a water festival! It became an acronym: The “KMAK AKMAFAF — Annual KMAK McKinley Avenue Festival of Arts and Flowers.” Stuff like that would happen. And KYNO was sitting there playing “The Peppermint Twist,” giving away $10 to the lucky caller.
Bill Drake: Let’s face it, Ron Jacobs is a hell of a radio man. I love Ron; he’s a great programmer. But I played a lot of psychological games with him in Fresno. It was a dog-eat-dog situation. His guys would follow me down the street in the middle of the night with two-way car radios playing private eye — tailing me — trying to catch me doing something illegal. It was unbelievable. I’ve told everybody I ever met, I’m convinced either one of those two radio stations in Fresno at the time could have come into L.A. and kicked ass.
Ron Jacobs: What we did in Fresno was frenzied. After meeting Elvis Presley’s manager Colonel Parker in 1957 in Honolulu and watching him operate, I used to think of our promotions as “Circus Radio.” The crazy stuff we’d first done at KPOI in Honolulu was more in the Chuck Blore, KFWB style.
Tom Rounds: At KPOI, the “Circus Radio” concept continued to evolve. Unpredictability and chaos ran rampant over a tight play list and constant jock-to-jock interaction and cross-promotion. We competed like mountain goats. Driven by Jacobs, who fancied himself “The Lombardi of Waikiki,” we were a fiercely loyal team. When we weren’t behind the board doing combo we were in the production studio, often 18 hours a day, six days a week. Jacobs went way beyond simple cross-promotion. We each assumed roles in his “Theater of the Midway.” As the audience got larger, they started to know the “Poi Boys” as larger than life characters.
Frank Terry: Fresno is where a lot of the creative stuff really started happening. Talk about a nucleus of people — there was Ron Jacobs, of course, kind of the quarterback of the whole thing, Robert W. Morgan who, as we know, went on to become one of the greatest radio personalities ever. A guy named Tom Maule who was very talented. He eventually worked at KHJ. Jim Mitchell was there. He became KHJ News Director Jim Lawrence. We talked a lot about what we’d do if we had an opportunity to work in Los Angeles. We didn’t know it at the time, but people who happened through Fresno and heard our radio station would stop and say, “Wait a minute!” The record promotion people from L.A. used to come there. Once a month, somebody would come through and drop in and they would all say, “Wow! I can’t believe this is Fresno. You guys are doing some radio here!” It was that “Circus Radio” stuff Jacobs first did in Honolulu, something wild-ass going on all the time.
Allen Daviau: Getting to know Frank Terry and Sunny Jim was a great preparation for getting to meet Jacobs. That happened in a crowded KMAK hallway and consumed about eight seconds. But I was now the official photographer to the K-MAKErs. A few weeks later I was at the Fresno County fair shooting stills of the KMAK Newscruiser, containing a not very “Sunny” Jim Price, hanging from some type of crane above the fairgrounds. This was the KMAK Hang-A-Thon and Sunny Jim was broadcasting from the cruiser every day and supposedly never leaving it. I realized that these people were not only crazy, they would do anything to win.
Ron Jacobs: Can you remember the first time you and I ever actually saw each other? ’Cause I can.
Bill Drake: The first time I remember was at the Fresno County Fair.
Ron Jacobs: Right, right . . .
Bill Drake: I remember this weird looking dude and somebody said, “That’s Jacobs over there.” (Laughs.) And you were going like, “Hmm.”
Ron Jacobs: Right. right, right. And do you remember what we had going on and you had going on?
Bill Drake: We had the Money Monster giving away like one and five dollar bills, the ancestor of the Big Kahuna.
Bill Drake: Yeah. (Laughs.)
Tom Rounds: I learned the basics in New York at 1010 WINS from people like Rick Sklar, Tom O’Brien and Mel Leeds. I was 20 when I started working summers there. When I moved to Hawaii in 1959 I encountered Jacobs for the first time. I had no idea that we’d work together on this new station with as-yet-secret call letters. I discovered a young guy who was not trying to emulate Martin Block and the Make-Believe Ballroom on WNEW. He was doing his own thing, learning from his great anti-hero, J. Akuhead Pupule, and Top 40’s original consultant, Mike Joseph. Jacobs was a veteran jock, promoter, music guy and master of street theater all rolled up in one cute, roly-poly red-haired drag racer at the age of 19.
When KHON became KPOI 1380, hitting #1 in the Hooper ratings in what seemed like five minutes, I was a very serious newsperson who jocked on weekends. Within six months Jacobs had psyched me into launching my career as afternoon-drive jock. He staged a promotion that had me risking my sanity, if not my life. It was called the Wake-A-Thon. For 8 1/2 days I staggered and mumbled to thousands of Hawaii’s residents at the Wigwam Department store. Jacobs actually spun it all into front-page coverage every day in both morning and afternoon papers reaching most of the population of Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the seal population on French Frigate Shoals. I was a hero, big enough to cover for my dubious talents as a jock.
Ron Jacobs: When I first got to California in 1962 all I knew about promotion was the wild stuff we did in Honolulu at KPOI. The studios were at the entrance to Waikiki, just across the street from the Ala Wai Canal. Back then, when your station hit #1, the artists made it a point to visit you first. Some acts like Paul Revere & The Raiders, Bobby Rydell and Connie Stevens came straight from the old Honolulu airport in a flimsy helicopter. It flew parallel to the canal opposite the station, made a hard right and landed on the roof. Pretty wild: A chopper sitting on top of KPOI. Hundreds of hysterical girls waited for hours in the parking lot if a “teenage idol” was due to land. Going “remote” meant running a long mike cable out to the sidewalk. A bizarre star arrival was when Fabian flew in for a visit. When the chopper swooped sharply starboard, Fabian’s manager, Bob Marcucci, hung out over the side and rained vomit down on some of our unfortunate listeners. Those deals could get ca-ray-zeeee.
Tom Rounds: During the KPOI years in Honolulu, we’d take as many field trips to L.A. as we could. We went just to listen to Chuck Blore’s “Color Radio” format on KFWB. We’d walk up and down Hollywood Boulevard and accept free drinks from George Jay, one of the few record promoters who knew KPOI existed. Impressed as we were, we all agreed that, “Hey, maybe this town could be taken.” After Jacobs moved to California, I flew over as often as I could to visit him and his troops in such lovely garden spots as San Bernardino and Fresno. Definitely not as nice as Hawaii! But these were the proving grounds for Jacobs’ unsystematic system. Rather than rest on tried and true tactics, like other PDs who had already worked up to the biggest markets, he never stopped pushing the envelope.
2 B continued . . .
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