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Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame taps 9

RADIO
Published 2:43 pm, Thursday, August 2, 2012
  • Greg Kihn, the Morning Host speaks during the announcement of the changes at KUFX, also known as KFOX, radio station at the office of Entercom on January 18, 2011 in San Francisco, Calif. Photograph by David Paul Morris/Special to the Chronicle Photo: David Paul Morris, Special To The Chronicle
    Greg Kihn, the Morning Host speaks during the announcement of the changes at KUFX, also known as KFOX, radio station at the office of Entercom on January 18, 2011 in San Francisco, Calif. Photograph by David Paul Morris/Special to the Chronicle Photo: David Paul Morris, Special To The Chronicle

 

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The Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame, known for its wide-open doors and long-winded inductions, is tightening up.

Having let in 19 inductees last year (the year of the endless Ralph Barbieri acceptance), the hall will be enshrining only nine this fall, along with a historic station.

That station is KNBR. As for the human inductees, they are Greg Kihn of KUFX ("KFOX") and Steven Seaweed of KSAN ("The Bone") (Announcers), KCBS' Bob Melrose and Susan Leigh Taylor (News), Stan Burford of KGO (Traffic), Ted Robinson (Sports), former KNBR-KFOG-KSAN VP/GM Tony Salvadore (Management), Chuck Waltman of Clear Channel (Engineer) and former KRE manager Alice Potter (Pioneer Broadcaster). The inductions will take place in October.

I think the hall could have added two or three more inductees. It's a crime that no retired announcers - say, Dan Sorkin or Bobby Ocean - were recognized this year. And many behind-the-scenesters - I'm thinking Jane Morrison (KNBR promotions director) and Elma Greer (KSFO music librarian) - have been bypassed for too long.

Radio everywhere: Back in the day - which is to say, when I was much younger - when I wanted to hear the hi-fi in different rooms around the house, I had to run speaker wires to each room - or, in actuality, hire someone to do it for me. If I paid extra, I could get separate volume controls for each pair of speakers. Otherwise, the amp or tuner controlled everything. Now, of course, everything's wireless, and it can be as cheap as a Windows Media Player sending programming to PC speakers around the house - or as sophisticated as a Bose, Lync or Crestron whole-house system, running from $2,000 to $5,000 and up - way up.

Sitting comfortably below those numbers is the Sonos Play:3, which, basically, sends audio from online sources (Pandora, Slacker, Spotify, Rhapsody, MOG, etc.), including tens of thousands of Internet radio stations, plus anything you have on iTunes or in your computer, to Play:3, a speaker containing a pair of drivers and a tweeter. As a controller for what music goes to which room, you can use your smartphone, iPad or computer. And an optional "Connect" device links Sonos to your main stereo's speakers. Sonos has also introduced the "Sub," which the company says boosts audio to supersonic levels.

Not being an audiophile, I don't know about that. And, not being handy, I'm not in sync with reviewers who've lauded Sonos' easy setup. But, with help from Kevin Miller of IT-Computes, I got my Play:3 system running. As it played, Miller exclaimed, "This is the kind of thing you used to have to pay $6,000 for."

So what do you have to pay these days? About $350 for the Play:3 and a bridge to connect to a router. Add $100 for a heftier Play:5 speaker, and $350 for the optional "Connect." Sonos has lots of options. It's best you go to its site (sonos.com). I'm here to say that for radio fans who want both terrestrial and Internet radio, plus their own music collection, to be available beyond where the computer or stereo system is, this is pretty cool. I especially enjoyed exploring TuneIn Radio and its instant access to 60,000 stations around the world, including pretty much every Bay Area channel (even police scanners).

I'm on the great New Orleans station WWOZ as I write, where Soul Stu is manning "The Kitchen," segueing from Taj Mahal to Kris Kristofferson. Delicious! Upstairs, we have a San Salvador station (Laser Ingles) playing American hits. I can tap my Sirius/XM radio and, later, my Little Feat channel on Pandora, or dig up any of 14 million tunes from MOG or Rdio, or a fantastic Van Morrison performance (originally aired live in 1971 on KSAN) on Wolfgang's Vault. I can play a radio air check I have stashed on iTunes. And on Songza, I can find channels to match any of my many moods. Crazy.

Through an audio input on the Connect, you can Sonosize music from your CD player, turntable or digital music player. And it all sounds good. As an actual audio authority, Terrence O'Brien of Engadget, noted, "The Play:3 is more than adequate for casual listening. It's clear, loud and punchy enough to start up a small dance party if need be."

For listeners who like to hear talk as well as music, and who'd like a radio version of a DVR, there's DAR.fm, which just joined Sonos' lineup. DAR.fm, which has been available for PCs and mobile devices, has ramped up its roster of available shows to about 20,000, on 5,000 stations. Downloaded shows can be fast-forwarded and rewound. App names are (for Android) "DAR Radio Downloader" and (for iOS) "RSS Radio Lite."

Random notes: Lloyd Lindsay Young is the latest KGO castoff to join KKSF (910 AM). The sunny-sounding meteorologist made his debut on Gil Gross' show July 16 ... Dennis Netto, better known as Dennis Erectus, has died. The San Jose DJ (KOME and KSJO) died in mid-June after a heart attack, at a nursing facility in Castro Valley. He was 61 and an original, a true radio rebel. Said Ken Anthony Moniz, "While many would say he was one of radio's first 'shock jocks,' I found him much more creative and talented than just shocking." Colleague JonaDenz-Hamilton noted that, on the air, he was "a hard man to beat, and we loved him for his true self, too."

Good sports: The Chronicle's Peter Hartlaub conducted a poll on SFGate.com for the best Bay Area sports commentators. The big winner: Jon Miller, followed by Duane Kuiper, Greg Papa, Ted Robinson, Dave Flemming, Mike Krukow, Drew Remenda and Ken Korach.

Hartlaub chose Flemming as his own fave and admitted that many readers considered the pick "anything from premature to a horrific insult to the baseball gods." Still, he reasoned, "Flemming beat Mike Krukow, the most polarizing figure in Bay Area broadcasting, based on the comments."

I like Krukow, and all the Giants' voices, although Kruk should find a way to say a reliever is warming up besides "getting greased up." So gross. But the poll reminded me that, between los Gigantes and the A's, we have some of the most knowledgeable, entertaining and evenhanded sportscasters in the country. Not a single rabid "homer" in the bunch. (Just listen to the White Sox's "Hawk" Harrelson sometime.) As one reader commented, "The best thing people can do is get a trial subscription to MLB.com or satellite radio. Listen to how bad other teams' announcers are. We are so lucky as Giants fans." {sbox}

Ben Fong-Torres is a freelance writer. E-mail: sadolphson@sfchronicle.com

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