"I was one of the original presenters on Isle of Wight Radio, from 1991 to the end of 1994 I was a DJ at 91X in San Diego California. This is probably the most influential radio station in southern California along with KROQ."
FLO's "RESURRECTION" SUNDAY"91X was the model on which X-FM in London is based. I was very proud to have been involved in "breaking" such artists as Nirvana (I was there when they were third on the bill in a sweaty flea pit etc etc), Pearl Jam, Crowded House, we literally discovered Beck and played "Loser" from a homemade disc when he didn't have a deal."
"I got to sing "Vienna" on stage with Midge Ure too. So a pioneering radio station it was . . . 500,000 Watts out of Tijuana Mexico with a signal that went 300 miles to North of Los Angeles. Flo's "Resurrection" Sunday was something of an institution where I got to play my favourite new wave stuff (and in the US) rarities like Undertones' b-sides. Out of dozens of radio stations in town, 91X was always Number 1, and is still going strong, check out their web page."
"91X in the early 1990's was a job a thousand times more exciting than the dream of many radio presenters to be on Radio One - you played music you believed in, and perpetuated the image of Southern California as the USA's cutting-edge."
"I came to America in 1988 for a Masters course at San Diego State University. My academic work at SDSU on Postmodernism led to the publishing of "Madonna and George Michael: PostModern Stars" in American Heroes and the Media Age edited by Bob Cathcart."
"Based on my efforts on college radio there, KCR, I was hired by Jean Paul Hansford for Isle of Wight Radio."
"I wrote and researched a documentary about the Afton Festival for Isle of Wight Radio. We devoted an hour to the 20th anniversary and we had some terrific tape of people sadly now deceased like Rev. Bowyer of Mottistone. It was recorded by Barnaby Kirk (Adam's brother), and edited and mixed by Barnaby and Paul Seed. Both of them deserve a lot of credit for the "sound design" of the program. Barnaby and Paul have gone on to work at Meridian Television. The festival documentary "the Last Great Festival" aired on IOW Radio on the exact 20th anniversary of the Afton event."
THE LAST GREAT FESTIVAL DOCUMENTARY"It's really an hour long sound-montage of the people involved, because I didn't want to "re-write" something I'd not actually witnessed first hand. So we had so many people I can't even remember them all, including Peter Harrigan, who did PR for the event, who happened to be passing through England escaping from escalating tensions in the Gulf in Summer of 1990. No comment from Ray or Ron Foulk despite a lot of effort on my part."
"I've often thought that it would be nice to have a copy of this project archived somewhere on the Island so people could hear it but there is nowhere for that right now. In my opinion, the "story" of the festival is just as compelling as the galaxy of musical stars that showed up - but it's all been conveniently forgotten by the people who seem to be the guardians of Island history . . . the County Press for example."
"Working at Isle of Wight radio in 1990 gave me enough experience to try and sell myself to radio stations back in San Diego. When I came back to California at the end of 1990 I got a job at San Diego State at the Public Radio Station (like BBC local radio)., I was hired as a weekend jock at 91X early in 1991 and so had two part-time jobs. KPBS, the public station, was my serious job - we were sort of the Southern Cal bureau for the National Public Radio network and made lot's of talk shows."
BACK TO SAN DIEGO"By 1994 I was the full-time Operations Director for KPBS, the 12th largest public radio station in the country - with control over every aspect of the air sound. We produced 10 hours a week of serious news call in shows, we also did the first ever remote broadcast of our national talk show "Talk of the Nation". At the same time I'd be running over to 91X to fill in during the week, and do promotional work, in addition to doing the Resurrection Sunday."
"So it was a lot of fun but very intense for a few years! By 1994 I realized I didn't want to be at 40 year old "jock" so I began to focus on my non-commercial radio gig."
MOVING OUT TO KANSAS "In 1995 I came to Kansas and work in a much smaller station in a rural area that truly makes a difference in people's lives. I now play classical music in a non-commerical station. You can imagine what the radio is like here . . . there's country and western or religious and nothing else. So non-commercial radio that plays classical, jazz, folk, bluegrass and non-commerical news from NPR and the BBC World Service is very important."
"Learning about classical music has made me grateful for the years of French and German I took at Carisbrooke High School! I have also done a lot more feature reporting which is an area I'm currently interested in."
"We are a professionally run station licensed to Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg is in the corner of SouthEast Kansas and our signal is the only non-commercial NPR station available between Joplin, Missouri to Wichita, Kansas, to Tulsa, OK and to Fayetteville, Arkansas. So it's a bit like having one BBC radio station that serves England everywhere south of Manchester."
"My 1970 IOW Pop Festival Poster hangs proudly on my wall at Pittsburg State University."
Florence Rogers
Assistant Manager
KRPS-FMWe thank Florence for her fascinating contribution to our archive. Florence has just recorded a feature report on a painter from Kansas, Thomas Hart Benton, who is held in high regard around here.
Mike Plumbley (22nd May, 1998)