60 Million Buffalo

60,000,000 Buffalo has now been released on CD. Below, please find a review of what was once an album, followed by a brief bio of Bill Ashford...







60 Million Buffalo - Nevada Jukebox

While Zephyr made their mark first, this band was easily as popular in Colorado during the '70s. In fact, these two bands shared the stage on more than one occasion, with a friendly competition between Judy Roderick and Candy Givens, the two lead vocalists. 60,000,000 Buffalo were known for their original material, arrangements and Don Debacker's guitar work. They completed one of two contracted albums for Atco, Nevada Jukebox, then broke up. They epitomize loose, funky Rocky Mountain rock & roll in the '70s.


Bill Ashford

Bill Ashford is a radio veteran of over four decades, starting in his high school years in North Carolina. He made a giant leap from there to Denver, Co., after experimenting with underground radio in late 1966-1967. He became one of the pioneers to help build one of the first five full time underground/freeform FM stations in Denver, along with others in L.A., S.F., N.Y.C., and Detroit. He went on to work in several other major markets and is currently living in Florida with his wife and grown children, operating a 24 hour a day full time freeform stream called The Rock Garden, and hearable at freeformrock.com.

He is also a songwriter, having co-written many titles, recorded by several artists including his own band in the early 1970's, "60,000,000 Buffalo", whose album has just been digitally remastered and released by Collectors' Choice Music at collectorschoicemusic.com. One of his co-writings, "Floods of South Dakota", recorded by Tim & Mollie O'Brien, was nominated for a Grammy in 1992. He has also reviewed artists and their work for All Music Guide.

Ashford is currently filling out his days writing a book about his days in the wildly experimental days of FM radio between 1966 - 1978. Working with collaborator Malcolm Gault-Williams, he expects to finish it in 2009.

Buffalo Chip

Last couple of months, a good number of us former KFML staffers have been conferencing via Skype. One sorely missed brother is the legendary Buffalo Chip (RIP):


Image courtesy of Hamilton Agnew

Radio Paradise

Radio Paradise continues to do a great job. Listen by going to:

WNEW.com

WNEW is back... kind of. Check it out online at:

WNEW.com: "Where Rock Lives"

Here's some video from 1982. Shows a little bit of Scotso:

Trial fo The Chicago 10

Appreciations to Bob Fass for giving me the heads-up on the new film about the trial of the Chicago 10. Much of the sound in the film came from Bob Fass's "Radio Unnameable." Here's a clip combining real audio from Bob combined with animation (the film also contains good archival footage):

Malcolm's Recommendations

I'm adding a link to Amazon.com resources relevant to freeform radio. It will always be in the sidebar. To go there, click on:

Freeform Radio @ Amazon.com

Jean-Francois Bizot

Jean-Francois Bizot

OFF THE TRUCK 004

For those of you not on the mailing list for the Freeform Radio Google group, here's another installment in the "OFF THE TRUCK SERIES" where my friend and legendary freeformer Bill Ashford lays it out...

-------------------------------------


THE MIDNIGHT RIDER

Sitting here doing my show today and listening to Patti Smith sing
"Midnight Rider," I have one of those in the mirror moments when I
wonder why I keep doing this. It's sure not the glamour although I
certainly had my share of that, "living the life I sing about in my
song", as Judy Roderick sang on a long ago out of print album on
Columbia. Quite to the contrary, it's quiet these days. A long time
and space from my start in 1961 in Fayetteville, N.C., trying to sound
like those top 40 "Good Guys" on WMCA, and Cousin' Brucie and Scott
Muni on WABC. What a time, I didn't know a turntable from a toenail.
All I knew is I had to to it. I had to, just not being cut out for a
lifetime in retail management that my dad wanted so much for me to
have. I couldn't. Sorry, Old Man.

I have been quite fortunate, making a king size jump from Fayetteville
to Denver in '68 that people still talk about. It just didn't happen
that way, but it did for me and soon with a handful of scruffy
pioneers, we helped invent something full time that we had been
messing with, at least in my case, since 1966, when we started
inserting Beatles and Stones album cuts into the playlist and playing
Mothers of Invention singles as "golden oldies", til I got busted by
the owner and told to knock it off. That's when the tape went to
Denver and two weeks later, we were on our way, my wife, daughter,
adopted son and our German Sheppard, driving to Alabama with our hair
tucked up under baseball caps, hoping not to get killed. I don't
think the flower on the back of the Volkswagon helped much, but we
made it on the George C. Wallace, Great White way, past the Arkansas
muddy river pirates to Denver. We discovered there that cowboys
didn't much like hippy boys either. Not for a couple of years when
they began to realize that long hair on men was attractive to women
and suddenly they were long haired cowboys.

I lived a life in rock radio I never imagined, running with the
artists, blind eyed high and drunk for days, weeks at a time and
managing to turn out good radio. We were for a while #1 in our key
demo in Denver. We had grabbed the gold ring, but as usual, the
owners grabbed the gold and we were doing a lot of different things to
stay alive and we did until ultimately, our dream was stolen pieces at
a time by business men and copycats who didn't have a clue why we did
what we did. I still know some of them and they still don't know.

Anyway, that's a longer story better told by others. Now I'm an old
man living quietly with my family in the South. I have my souvenirs,
photos with my heroes who were peers at the time, boxes of promo junk
and children who are curiously interested in the old pics they see of
their old man with people they've only read about. I also have a body
riddled by cancer, lung disease and a heart attack. All that gross
abuse was fun, but you WILL pay for it in time, so the drugs we used
to take for fun are just medically necessary.

I get up every morning and come into my home studio and stream to the
world, the music I loved then and the newer music I love now. I
confess to being especially prickish to criticism. If you can't say
something nice, just shut up, don't try to pidgeon hole me. Just like
the old days, I sometimes lean heavy on the blues, or Americana or
whatever and if I'm lucky, it all merges well and I've had a good
day. I have a bad habit of asking what people I respect think of it
and if they find fault, I get pissed. Just tell me it's OK and leave
me alone because after all these years I have discovered this: I do
this because I can't help it and I've always done it not for you, but
for me. I have to be happy with it, and like those holes in one in
golf, that's what keeps me coming back everyday, sick or not, to see
if I can nail another one. I hope so and I do truly hope you like it
too, but in the end, I'll do it one way or the other.

Keep Freeform Rolling,

BILL ASHFORD
(aka "Dump Truck O'Neill")

The Rock Garden

Vin Scelsa 40th 'Idiot's Delight'

[ Excerpt from: "Vin Scelsa marks 40th anniversary of 'Idiot's Delight'," By DAVID HINCKLEY, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, November 8th 2007 ]


Vin Scelsa, whose "Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight" is heard on WFUV (90.7 FM), marks his 40th radio anniversary starting this weekend.

This Saturday night, 8-midnight, he'll be joined by past colleagues, including Rita Houston and Meg Griffin, former WNEW-FM and CBS journalist Robin Sagon, his K-Rock and WNEW producer, Kara Manning, and his WFUV producer, Kim Ferdinando.

Scelsa started his radio career on WFMU and has kept the free-form flame burning. Besides eclectic music, his shows may include readings from novels.

On Dec. 13 at Lincoln Center, Scelsa will receive the 2007 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award.

In announcing the citation, ASCAP said, "Vin Scelsa, a mainstay of New York radio for four decades, is one of the last true free-form radio hosts. He is a sharp raconteur, a champion of new and unusual music and, with his devoted listening public, an important tastemaker."

Vin Scelsa marks 40th anniversary of 'Idiot's Delight'

Wikipedia

A growing resource on the history and current state of Freeform Radio is Wikipedia:

Freeform (radio format) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia