Naked Radio, Classical KISW Sneaks Progressive Rock Into Playlist, Stereo KOL FM Powers Up, & KRKO Celebrates 50th Anniversary

July 10, 1970 –

Paxton Mills, newest disc jockey in town, needed all the Texas cool he could muster when, on the first day at KOL, he was greeted with:
“Hey, get your coat on, Paxton. We are going to a nudist colony.”
Lan Roberts, Don Clark and Paxton Mills, KOL disc jockeys, visited Fraternity Snoqualmie, a nudist colony, last weekend. This morning was more exciting for Roberts, nevertheless. He held a luau on Alki Beach.
The luau was to top off a week of outdoor, remote broadcasting for Roberts and not-too-coincidentally, to call attention to a new movie in town, “The Hawaiians.”
The beach party, which Roberts reported attracted about 300, was BYOBananas.

Speaking of bananas, how about a big hand for KOL? It has been a long, long time since Seattle had a genuine remote broadcast of any kind, particularly by a popular music station.
(Disc jockeys, despite all their up-beat chit-chat, have about the dullest environments in which to work. Dingy, dusty record bins, crammed with mysterious buzzing devices and dimly lit dials are what most of them get to look at all shift long.)
Roberts on the beach–and the delightful descriptive announcement of the stunt, done in Jimmy Cagney fashion, offered a refreshing change for at least one week of sunshine-filled summer mornings.
More than one fan took up the stations invitation to visit and wish Roberts good health, but none with the enthusiasm of Manny Almo, a printer at this newspaper.
“You know,” said Almo on meeting Roberts early in the week “for about the last 10 years I had been listening to you and wondering what you look like.
“So, at seven in the morning I drive down here, expecting to see, say, 1000 people and a mass of electrical instruments.
“But all I see are 17 huddled, shivering people trying to keep the beach fire’s smoke out of their eyes–and YOU! Almo said in near disbelief.

Jim Mitchel, news man at KIXI for the past two years, will be leaving next month to become a general-assignment and investigative reporter for a Sacramento television station…
Jim Nelly, sales manager at KMO Tacoma, has moved to KTAC Tacoma, where he is now general manager…
KBIQ has added marine weather forecasts for weekend boaters: at 5:45 PM on Friday and at 6:45 AM Saturday and Sunday. Early risers, those KBIQ boaters.…
Disc jockey’s at KTAC are getting ready to move into new studios in the Tacoma Mall… Says Steve West, program director…
Jim Kelly is back as the all-night man at KING-AM…
Jay Bratton of KISW reports the classical station music will be offering stock market reports weekdays at 8:15 AM and 5:15 p.m.

Technical measurements will be made on stereo broadcasting for KUOW tomorrow. Then after about a week’s evaluation and form-filling-out, regular stereo broadcasting will begin on the Baroque-lecture-concert music-discussion-swing-opera station. No rock music all summer!