 Tom “Big Daddy” Donahue
At 8 p.m. on Friday, April 7, 1967, Tom “Big Daddy” Donahue cracked open the microphone in the KMPX studio at 50 Green Street in San Francisco, setting the stage for a radio revolution that has echoed across the airwaves forever. Something in the Air: A Rock Radio Revolution, is a wild and colorful sonic tale of how Donahue created America’s first commercially successful underground rock ‘n roll radio station. His invention used the brand new stereo FM technology to present a mix of rock, jazz, R&B, folk, and classical, to immediately attract a community of the Bay Area’s hippest. |
 Photo: Baron Wolman
By 1968, KMPX (and its sister station, KPPC in Pasadena), had the best live rock events, produced their own hilariously creative ads while receiving complete support from the best bands who loved and appreciated that KMPX played their San Francisco Sound when AM stations would never risk it. But bitter relations between KMPX’s owners and its free-form, free-spirited workers led to America’s first “hippie strike” when the young staff walked out at midnight Monday, March 18, 1968. Tom began looking for another station and soon he and the loyal staff he had assembled, found their new home on KSAN FM, May 21st, 1968. |
 Norman Orr Poster, 1973
Carlos Santana, Elvis Costello, Sammy Hagar, members of the Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead and over 70 industry professionals and fans share their memories of KMPX, KSAN and those turbulent and magical times. Many of the musicians interviewed in the film were influenced by the music on KSAN or attribute their success to getting repeated airplay on KSAN. |
 News Anchors Danice Bordett
& Peter Laufer
As much as KSAN influenced a generation musically, it was its outrageous “Gnus” Department that set KSAN apart from other freeform stations across the country. The counterculture in all its ups and downs was presented by brilliant, innovative, and dedicated reporters who produced radical daily segments, unique documentaries and specials, while also breaking major stories involving the Altamont catastrophe, the Patty Hearst kidnapping and a major oil spill that inspired the Ecology movement.
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KSAN’s 12-year stretch 1968-80 as The Jive 95 was pivotal in announcing and reflecting upon new countercultural movements that exist today. And from psychedelic to punk, KSAN was on the edge musically, broadcasting hundreds of live shows, including the San Francisco sonic debuts of Elvis Costello, Devo, Dire Straits, as well as the last concert blast ever heard from the Sex Pistols. |
Something in the Air: A Rock Radio Revolution explores those times and how they continue to affect the world today. As YouTube, Sirius, Pandora and Spotify are the new technologies for listening to music today, and radio storytellers are podcasting, KMPX > KSAN FM introduced a brand new way to do radio back in the day. The film showcases the musicians, music, DJs and listeners who contributed to the cultural revolution of the the sixties and seventies, its historical impact around the globe and why a station like KSAN and a city like San Francisco so powerfully rocked people, movements and feelings by sending something never-heard-before on the airwaves into the air itself. |
