DUCK RUSH (Neon Mallard) KPPC-FM 1967-1971

Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Riffs are in tribute to creative legendary Disc Jockeys:
B. MITCHEL REED and LES CARTER and TOM DONAHUE

On the Web since September 1995, in tribute to legendary KPPC-FM 106.7 in Pasadena, California, the first FM Rock Underground Radio Station in Southern California originally located in the basement of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church and broadcasting hippie rebop from November 1, 1967 until the entire KPPC-FM airstaff was fired on October 24, 1971

HotLink: Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Radio History
HotLink: "Underground Radioland Murders" Hippie Radio Cybernovel by Ted Alvy
HotLink: Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Home Page

Current projects are Hippie Radio Web Pages and "true fiction" cybernovels:
60's L.A. UNDERGROUND RADIO "I Was A Teenage Disc Jockey" by Ted Alvy
WEST COAST UNDERGROUND RADIO "Songs & Sets & Segue-Ways" by Ted Alvy
© 1995 © 1996 © 1997 © 1998 © 1999 © 2000 © 2001 © 2002 © 2003 © 2004 © 2005 © 2006 © 2007 © 2008 Theodore Bruce Alvy
(Book Titles are Trademarks of Ted Alvy)

Important Note: SEGUE (pronounced SEG-WAY) is a musical or visual transition point known as a "gapless bridge".

KPPC-FM PASADENA, CALIFORNIA and NEON PARK and DUCK RUSH and LITTLE FEAT and TEXAS WEATHER

TOM DONAHUE (beat hipster producer extraordinaire) pioneered Free Form Underground Radio in the hip North Beach area of San Francisco, California during Spring of 1967 at KMPX-FM where he and soulmate RAECHEL (musical hippie hostess extraordinaire) went on the air the evening of April 7, 1967. He brought his brand of hippie radio to Pasadena, California during November of 1967 at KPPC-FM, where creative disc jockeys B. MITCHEL REED (folk jazz rock hipster musical educator mentor extraordinaire) and LES CARTER (jazzman hipster seque artiste extraordinaire) developed radio into an artform of unlimited musical potential and cosmic social impact.

Exactly 10 years after KFWB went Top 40, Program Director Tom Donahue debuted his KPPC hipster air staff on January 2, 1968 in the basement of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church:

6AM-11AM   LES CARTER (KBCA-FM)
11AM-4PM   ED MITCHELL (KFRC)
4PM-9PM    B. MITCHEL REED (KFWB, WMCA)
9PM-MID    TOM DONAHUE (KMPX-FM, KYA)
MID-6AM    DON HALL (KPPC-FM)

The original 1968 KPPC air staff included TED ALVY (Cosmos Topper) and STEVEN SEGAL (The Obscene Steven Clean).

HotLink: B. MITCHEL REED Los Angeles Radio Legend

In June 1968, B. MITCHEL REED began to create Progressive Rock Powerhouse KMET-FM Los Angeles along with TOM DONAHUE, then Program Director of sister Metromedia station KSAN-FM San Francisco.

[Please Note: The History of the Birth of KMET-FM Los Angeles in June 1968 is currently under construction; see excerpt below.]

KPPC-FM 106.7 PASADENA, CALIFORNIA:

In late 1970, after Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin had died, we received a white label promo copy from Warner Bros. Records of the first LP named after our local L.A. band known as LITTLE FEAT. Their album cover featured the mural on a building in Venice, California that was called something like "Snow On Venice Beach" painted by the L.A. Fine Arts Squad. Beginning with their second LP "Sailin' Shoes" every LITTLE FEAT album cover has been graced by cosmic artwork by NEON PARK (hipster guru psychopop artist extraordinaire). In those good old days, or "good old daze", every disc jockey on an FM Rock radio station received promo copies of most of the new album releases, as we, the DJs, could play anything we thought our audience would get off on. No play lists. No "ego dictator" Program Directors. No Consultants. No computer printout playlists. No money to speak of yet. A real hippie deal.

Side One, Cut One on the LP is the Bill Payne composition "Snakes On Everything" and that song was my introduction to LITTLE FEAT. When the Lowell George slide guitar hit, I was hooked. Cosmic irony, Ry Cooder played slide guitar on *Willin'* as Lowell had cut his finger and Ry Cooder added his guitar to *Forty Four Blues/How Many More Years*. Also in that Warner Bros. release package was the first LP by Ry Cooder, which has young drummer Richie Hayward of Little Feat playing some very tasty stuff. And another cosmic connection: Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band had an album in that same release package called "Lick My Decals Off, Baby". Bassist Roy Estrada would join The Magic Band after he left Little Feat. Roy Estrada and Lowell George had played together in The Mothers (The Mothers Of Invention) with Frank Zappa.

Our radio station was KPPC-FM 106.7 in Pasadena, California. KPPC-AM only broadcasted all day Sundays and on Wednesday evenings, sometimes broadcasting church services and sometimes as an FM simulcast. KPPC was the first FM ROCK radio station in Southern California beginning in November of 1967 (at midnight on Halloween with KBCA-FM jazz deejay Les Carter moonlighting as "Sleepy Gross"). With broadcast studios in the basement of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church (the PPC in the call letters), it was known as "Underground Radio" (in spirit as well as in location). By April 1970, KPPC-FM had moved into new broadcast studios at 99 South Chester Avenue near fururistic Cal Tech with a state-of-the-art sound board custom designed by creative engineers Matt Rubin and Mike Callaghan. On April Fools Day 1970, our very creative Program Director LES CARTER, who allowed complete musical freedom for us Disc Jockeys, began the eighteen amazing months of KPPC consciousness that would come to a sudden end "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" on October 24, 1971 around 11:30PM (a week before Halloween).

As Program Director, LES CARTER (Leslie "Frogman" Carter at times) brought many amazing personalities to the airwaves at KPPC during 1970 and 1971 including: THE OBSCENE STEVEN CLEAN (Steven Segal, nasty hip riffer extraordinaire); DR. DEMENTO (Barry Hansen, naughty roots musicologist extraordinaire); "The Incredible" CREDIBILITY GAP satirical news team extraordinaire featuring RICHARD BEEBE (radio news voice extraordinaire) , DAVID L. LANDER (squiggy character actor extraordinaire), MICHAEL McKEAN (musician x-factor actor extraordinaire) and HARRY SHEARER (everything showbiz political satarist extraordinaire); DON HALL (film music producer extraordinaire); MISSISSIPPI FATS (Joe Rogers, casual musical accident extraordinaire); MISS OUTRAGEOUS NEVADA (Susan Carter, airwaves singer extraordinaire); INOR (Ron Middag, audio producer extraordinaire); and JOHNNY OTIS (Blue Monday R&B pioneer extraordinaire). An early version of the current National Public Radio hour "Le Show" hosted by the many voices of HARRY SHEARER was broadcast on KPPC in 1970 and 1971 called "Destination Music". THE PERSUASIONS added soul to the station sound with their A Capella KPPC IDs and Promos. DEIRDRE O’DONOGHUE (humanitarian and Beatles host extraordinaire) started the KPPC Community Switchboard that gave out information on health issues and other data us hippies needed to know to survive

COSMOS TOPPER (Ted Alvy, hipster dreamer and cosmic catalyst extraordinaire) played most every song over the KPPC-FM airwaves from that first LITTLE FEAT LP, as did ZACHARY ZENOR (creative audio producer and hipster mentor extraordinaire) and JEFF GONZER (forever morning deejay extraordinaire) and "AJ THE DJ" (two lane blacktop extraordinaire). Almost twenty-five years later, JEFF GONZER introduced our local Los Angeles band LITTLE FEAT at the concert that KSCA FM 101.9 broadcast live from the Gene Autry Western Museum at Griffith Park in Los Angeles on August 29, 1995.

HotLinks: THE PERSUASIONS Home Page | HARRY SHEARER Home Page

THE FIRESIGN THEATRE broadcast on KPPC-FM from the basement of Pasadena Presbyterian Church beginning in November 1969 until they were fired in August 1970 at the KPPC 99 South Chester studios in Pasadena, California.

HotLink: THE FIRESIGN THEATRE

A 1970 KPPC-FM promotion for Friday September 25th and Saturday September 26th called DUCK RUSH “All Requests! No Commercials!” was heralded in an ad created by cosmic artist NEON PARK that ran in the L.A. Free Press with a multitude of ducks rushing everywhere. Just after KPPC-FM went full power with a new transmitter, DUCK RUSH "more power" took place Friday September 25, 1970 and Saturday September 26, 1970; and "more" DUCK RUSH took place Thursday December 24, 1970 and Friday December 25, 1970. RICK STAEHLING (graphic artist extraordinaire) created some amazing KPPC ads that ran in the L.A. Free Press heralding KPPC-FM in 1970 and 1971.

Another in the series of NEON PARK created KPPC-FM ads that contributed to the cosmic musical consciousness of Free Form Underground Radio station KPPC-FM is reproduced in the booklet included with the LITTLE FEAT album "Hoy-Hoy!" (in both the LP and the CD format). It shows a picture of a 1971 L.A. Free Press ad that NEON PARK created for a landmark concert event [scissors stuck in a hamburger that says Hoy Hoy! as a locomotive emerges over Pasadena]:

"captain beefheart . ry cooder . little feat . March 20th 8PM . Pasadena Civic Auditorium . TICKETS $1.50 . a concert presented by the disk jockeys of KPPC and warner/reprise records".

NEON PARK artwork has adorned the covers of every Little Feat album since their second LP titled "Sailin' Shoes". Neon Park brought Lowell George over to the KPPC broadcast studios after that Pasadena concert. On the turntables, it was Spike Jones meets the Summer of 1961 Lonnie Donegan 45 rpm record "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor (On The Bedpost Overnight)".

KMET-FM 94.7 LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA:

KMET was still automated in June 1968 (with female voices and middle of the road music) when the Stereo station first played Rock Music. It all began with legendary deejay B. Mitchel Reed playing a Beatles song on a pre-taped in Hollywood two hour B. Mitchel Reed show (programmed and produced by Ted Alvy, who acted as producer for B. Mitchel Reed from Summer 1967 until June 1976), followed by a two hour pre-taped at KSAN-FM San Francisco Tom Donahue show. B. Mitchel Reed then became the voice of KMET 24/7 before the suits finally allowed the deejays to broadcast live. If not for the strong broadcast signal and the creative dedication of B. Mitchel Reed, the glory years of KMET would not have happened (as a Top Forty format was to be used without Album Rock). Several former staff members of KPPC Pasadena (the first L.A. FM Rock Underground Radio Station) joined KMET after the mass purge at the Ol' PP in October 1971 and they built up the amazing KMET music library (essential to creative FM Rock) and brought cosmic consciousness to that uptight Metromedia outlet located across the street from the famous Tar Pits on Wilshire Blvd. that evolved into the highly rated KMET (the station moved in Summer 1976 to the Metromedia complex where KTTV Channel 11 was located; KLAC also moved there).

PEACE, Ted Alvy (Cosmos Topper)
© 1995 © 1996 © 1997 © 1998 © 1999 © 2000 © 2001 © 2002 © 2003 © 2004 © 2005 © 2006 © 2007 © 2008 Theodore Bruce Alvy
COSMOS TOPPER is a Trademark of Ted Alvy and Copyright 1970 via KPPC-FM Pasadena, California
All rights reserved.

E-MAIL TED ALVY via tedalvy@aol.com

NEON PARK interviewed by Charlie Haas in WAX PAPER (circa March 1979):

WP: Tell me about the ducks.

NEON: Well, I guess it began when I was working for KPPC [the first FM "underground rock" station in Los Angeles]. I was doing ads for KPPC, this was in the same period right after *Weasels*, and the ads ran in the L.A. Free Press and Rolling Stone. It was very loose there. We had control over everything, even the ads, which sort of fit with the basic absurdist format of the station. And I had done a drawing called "Duck Rush", which was a stampede of Hueys, Deweys, and Louies. Several hundred of them...

WP: Is it your belief that there are three distinct nephews, or is it all the same guy?

NEON: I think the basic difference is hat color. But I was working in black and white. So they decided that since I had this drawing of the stampeding ducks, they would have an event called "Duck Rush".

WP: What was the event?

NEON: People could call in and request songs, but they had to do it in duck voices. They did it for three days. All these duck voices on the radio. It became so popular that they repeated it a couple of months later. Duck Rush II.

The "Texas Weather" lyrics below were inspired by NEON PARK and the smiling *Texas Tomato* in a hammock from his painting on the cover of the LITTLE FEAT album "Waiting For Columbus" (the name of the painting used as the LP title)

From the second (and final) album by MALLARD called *In A Different Climate*

"TEXAS WEATHER"
Lyrics by Ted Alvy ASCAP
Music by Bill Harkleroad ASCAP

Tropical flatland, early spring midnight
Swamp bog seethin'
Air too wet for breathin'
Sunless morning brings tornado warning
Cyclone's sister, the Texas twister

Long neck people drinkin' it down
There ain't no reason for lookin' around
Nothin's changed in this Lone Star place
But a Texas Tomato is well worth the chase

Cockroaches so big that they bark
Water moccasins that lurk in the dark
Ain't no place for a sane man to be
But my Texas Tomato she is something to see

Stubborn, lazy, hardcore crazy
Tough as desert lizard leather
Lowdown Texas country weather

Tropical flatland, early spring midnight
Swamp bog seethin'
Air too wet for breathin'
Sunless morning brings tornado warning
Cyclone's sister, the Texas twister

Cockroaches so big that they bark
Water moccasins that lurk in the dark
Ain't no place for a sane man to be
But my Texas Tomato she is something to see

Current Cosmos Topper projects are Hippie Radio Web Pages and "true fiction" cybernovels:

60's L.A. UNDERGROUND RADIO "I Was A Teenage Disc Jockey" by Ted Alvy

WEST COAST UNDERGROUND RADIO "Songs & Sets & Segue-Ways" by Ted Alvy

(Book Titles are Trademarks of Ted Alvy)

60's L.A. UNDERGROUND RADIO is a Trademark of Ted Alvy

E-MAIL TED ALVY via tedalvy@aol.com

HotLinks: Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Radio History | "Underground Radioland Murders" Hippie Radio Cybernovel by Ted Alvy | Ted Alvy COSMOS TOPPER Home Page

HotLinks: MALLARD Web Pages | NEON PARK Web Pages