Brian Kreizenbeck

KFML AM-FM Colorado Free Form Radio

Text Box: KFML the First Time Around, Part 1 In January of 1968, I owned a little headshop, Posters and Things, at 15th and Larimer. A fellow shopkeeper was doing an interview show on Sunday nights from 10 to midnight on KFML. She asked me to be on her show. After the interview, she introduced me to the owner, Tim O'Connor, and I hit him up for a job. KFML, at that time, was Denver's #1 classical station, a simulcast daytimer AM, and a 24 hour FM, which they shut down at midnight. FM in those days was for audiophiles only, you had to have a fancy stereo with a good tuner to get the signal. They shut it down after 12 to save money. I told Mr. O'Connor I could make some money for him, if he let me do midnight to six, and play my kind of music. I would work for free, sell advertising, and we'd split the money. I was very surprised when he said ok. I did my first show on Feb. 17, 1968. I called myself the super warthog, an inside joke among the people I hung around with. If you were horny, you were a warthog. I was a super warthog. For the first month or so, things were pretty slow, but picked up, and really started rolling that April. I was tied in with the Family Dog, and whoever played there would usually come down to the studio after the show. Frank Zappa, Janis Joplin, Country Joe, The Allman Bros, Blue Cheer, Richey Furay, Chuck Berry, a whole lot of people stopped by. It was great. I tried to play anything and everything from John Cage to the 13th floor elevators. KFML also had a jazz show once a week, so I used those records too. The show got popular, I sold a lot of advertising, so much, that they put me on salary, instead of the split. I should have learned something from that. Denver, at that time, was not exactly hippie heaven, and the cops were always hassling any poor long hair they could get their hands on. I got even by putting a laugh track on a police recruiting commercial, and played it all the time. I'd been doing it for about a month, when someone at City Hall finally heard it, and after a heated meeting with the then program director, I was out. A couple of weeks later, I heard a fella named Craig Bowers, who had a little station KMYR, in the Villa Italia mall, was looking to take his station underground. We had a long talk, but he was wary of me, I had a bad reputation, he wouldn't hire me. I was managing a band at the time, The Conal Implosion, so I went to Aspen with the band. In August, I heard from Trey, Ham's brother, that Ham had a station in Springfield, Mass. That's where I landed next. Brian Kreizenbeck The “Super Warthog” May 3, 2010