TM Stereo Rock

[radiorob]

It seems Kentucky and adjoining markets had several FM's who used the format including:

Of course WQHI
WLAP-FM Lexington (1974-87)
WDDJ Paducah
WSAI-FM Cincinnati
WAKQ (KQ-101) Russellville
WQHY Prestonsburg
(The old WDOC-FM 95.5 changed the calls and called themselves "Hi-95")

Any additions?

[tmguy]

How about WUME in Paoli, IN?

And this may be a stretch for the Louisville market, but WFBQ (Q-95) in Indy, the home of Bob and Tom, ran TMSR from the spring of '74 to February 14, 1978.

TM Stereo Rock was a great format! My dad's FM station, WGFM (Rock 99) in Albany/Schenectady, NY was one of the first to get the format in early 1973. I still have some of the jingles and cue sheets I got from the PD at the time. When you view the overall playlist, you get a real good feel for the type of music they did and did not play.

I especially liked the professional, smooth sound and was amazed at how TM got such a quality audio on their reels from recorded vinyl LP's. And, in some cases, from 45's! If you listen to the first WQHI "aircheck", the SR-100's (currents) are from early fall of 1973. The version of "Clouds" by David Gates is the single version, which only came out on a 45 RPM vinyl. (the LP version had a much longer intro that faded into where the single version starts). From the quality, you would think it was from a remastered CD. The EQ was mixed to perfection in Dallas. IMHO, far superior to the other services at the time.

[John Quincy]

When I was at WBLG in Lexington in the late '70s, we briefly had a morning guy (Allen somebody...later went to WJMM in Versailles) who came from Dallas where he had worked for TM Productions. He told me how they would use a razor blade to splice out the pops and clicks (which lasted just a fraction of a second) in the master tapes they made of the records. In some cases they would physically scrape the oxide off the tapes at the point where the pops would occur. Tedious work, but in that pre-computer age, it paid off in success for TM.

[tmguy]

Some random thoughts............

In the simulated aircheck #1 from WQHI on this site, the "voice" doing the backannouncing of the currents (and some of the imaging) is Brice Armstrong, a longtime TM guy. As I understand it, he was actually the second voice of TMSR, beginning in early '73 and lasting until the very end of '74, when John Borders took over. The first voice (I don't know his name) is featured on the original TMSR demo from 1972. I have a copy if anyone is intersted. They use the same national commercials (PanAM, Pepsi, Cantrice, etc.) that the WQHI demo featured. It also includes a 15 minute narrative from George Burns on the concept of the format, which was then called "Adult Stereo Rock", or "ASR" for short. It drags on a bit, but it is pretty insightful. The station sampled was one of two original TMSR stations, KXXY-FM ("Kicksie" 96) from Oklahoma City simulating September, 1972. (the other not featured was....WMAQ-FM, Rock 101 in Chicago)

The jingles on the first WQHI are from the second TMSR package that came out in 1973 shortly after the format debuted in early fall, 1972. The KXXY aircheck above uses the first package from TM. The third package was called "SR-1" and was made memorable by the "three bongs", which were included in every jingle. It came out in late '74. Not sure if WQHI used yhese, but WSAI-FM in Cincinnati and many other TMSR stations did. The goal from TM Productions was to issue one new jingle package per year for the syndicated division. They mostly accomplished that. Some stations used other TM jingles though. WFBQ here in Indy used TM's Pacific and Southern package when it ran TM Stereo Rock from '74-'77.

The jingles on the second WQHI aircheck are from the SR-7 package, I believe, which was released in mid 1979, at the height of disco. They have some very tight harmonies and are one of my favorite packages.

If anybody has any airchecks and/or jingle packages from TMSR, it would sure be great to hear them! If they can be posted as an .mp3, that would be great! If not, please let me know and I would be happy to arrange a trade with you.

[billelliott]

WQHI did use the next series of jingles in late 1974. As a matter of fact, we edited a couple of the jingles to use only the three "bongs" as the entire jingle. The old automation system would not handle such a quick jingle because of "EOM" cuing issues from the previous source. SonoMag Corp designed a secondary cue buss card for us that we tied to the single play cart machines that would allow the machine to advance to the next audio source during the quick three "bongs". I have these jingles somewhere and will post them if they every get found.

[Travis]

The SR-100 back-announcements were often funny to me because of John Borders' sugary-syrupy delivery style ("... and before that... KC and the Sunshine Band... Shake, Shake, Shake... Shake Your Booty")

I'm now remembering when ZZ Top's "Tush" was a hit. For some reason, John Borders would not mention "Tush" in his back-announcements. He would only mention the band ("ZZ Top... and before that... " -or- "... and before that... ZZ Top") and that's all you got. I heard that it had something to do with TM not wanting to send obscene material through the mail.

Does anyone else remember? And can you clarify as to what the reason was for this?

Oh, and you can stop laughing now.

[tmguy]

TM had no problem in the fall of '74 announcing "The B...CH is Back" by Elton John.

I thought some of the more humorous back-annoucements were unintended. And, in spite of John's Borders' best attempts, they still sounded funny.

Such as the one from 1977...

"Do you Wanna Make Love" with Peter McCann.....and before that...