Brian “Sludge” Haddad is leaving Sandusky rock station 93.3 KDKB after holding down the morning shift since July 2010. His last day is tomorrow, Friday, and will be headed to Philadelphia.

Below is a montage of Sludge videos:

Sandusky rocker 93.3 KDKB is celebrating 40 years in the Valley with a special anniversary reunion show on Saturday, August 13. KDKB has invited many personalities of the past to join the fun at Danny Zelisko’s new downtown venue, Foundry on First.

KDKB Personalities Sit-In

Former KDKB personalities will sit-in on KDKB live from the venue.

The Party Doesn’t Stop

In addition to sit-ins, many more former KDKB personalities will be present for the 40th anniversary reunion show. KDKB’s Sludge “Build A Band” will open for The Tubes.

Tim Scott (from Tim & Mark), Dennis McBroom, Lynda Clayton, Marty Manning, Bill Andres (from John & Bill), Carol Springer, Mark In The Dark, Pat Powers, Larry “Purple” Hayes, Linda Thompson, Lee Powell, Tracy Lea, Mary Stoddard, Watson, and more.

Everybody’s Invited

Tickets are $19.71 in advance and $25.00 at the door.

Click here for more information.

By Hardy Price

The Arizona Republic, N1 – December 11, 1977

Two days and two nights on the road. Fighting fatigue and accidents by playing the radio. Picking up Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Chicago, Fort Worth. Listening to announcers pitching everything from pine tar and Pontiacs to alum and autographed photos of Jesus that glow in the dark.

Roaring up I-10 north of Casa Grande in the pre-dawn hours. It was with great anticipation that eyes started straining for the blinking red lights atop South Mountain. Not only would it mean that home was near and the end of a long trip, but the tinny car radio speakers would begin to shoot with familiar voices.

Hey that’s Toad Hall on KDKB and there’s Heywood on KOY and Spero on KXIV. Wonder what corn Len Ingebrigtsen is dishing out this morning on KOOL? Art Webb, W. Steven Martin and Richard Ruiz on KRIZ, KUPD and KRUX, respectively, will have already started to talk a mile-a-minute. Chris O’Connor at KNIX and Larry Scott at KJJJ have already fed the chickens, milked the cows and slopped the hogs, getting ready for four hours of Buck, Willie, Ol’ Waylon and Hag. Too bad Johnnie Linn is no longer talking about July pork bellies on KTAR.

Just as soon as the sun breaks over the Superstitions, the Christian stations will start saving souls, KMCR will begin educating and KXTC will be denying rumors that it will change from an all jazz format to a gospel-Christian-Catholic-Jewish-Zen-agnostic country-western station.

That’s good old Phoenix radio. A little something for just about everybody, unless you happen to be black. Phoenix has 33 radio stations (18 AM and 11 FM) but not one with a dominant black format. Matter of fact, Phoenix is the largest metropolitan radio market without a black station.

It would seem that Phoenix has just about more radio stations than anybody. According to Spot Radio Rates and Data, a monthly radio trade publication, Phoenix has more radio stations than Los Angeles, 28; San Diego, 18; Denver, 26; Miami, 24; Chicago, 27; Kansas City, 20; St. Louis, 23; Buffalo, 28; New York, 29; Boston, 28; Dallas, 18; Houston, 25 and Salt Lake City, 18.

Radio in Phoenix grew with the population boom. KOY signed on first in 1922, but KTAR gets the nod as the first commercial radio station to hit the air, also in 1922. KOY started out as an experimental station with the call letters of 6BBH. It turned commercial shortly after KTAR.

KJJJ (then called KPHO) went on the air in 1940 to be followed by KRUX and KQXE (formerly KBUZ) in 1946, KOOL in 1947, and KIFN in 1949. Things really began to pick up in the 1950s with KRIZ (1950), KXIV (1954), KHEP (1956), KSGR (1956), KMEO (1957), and KPHX (1958) right on into the 1960s with KNIX (1960), KUPD (1960), KRDS (1960), KDKB (1960), KCHS (1962), and KASA (1966).

You have to understand that some of the call letters are not the same ones as those originally granted the licenses. Many times when ownership changes, so do call letters. And a recent Federal Communications Commission recommendation calls for stations with both AM and FM outlets to have separate call letters. The FCC has already required that stations with both outlets provide substantial differences in programming, thereby eliminating the goold old days of cost-cutting, simultaneous broadcasting.

For many stations in Phoenix, cost-cutting is essential. There are just so many ways to split the profits pie and no matter how thin the slices, somebody always comes out with the crumbs.

“This just might be as competitive a radio market as there is in the country,” said one station manager. “And that does make it hard on the coffee pots (small stations). I would guess there’s always one or two stations in the Phoenix market for sale.”

Radio stations, just like any business, operate in different ways. One station use to pay its on-air staff by allowing the staffers to sell their own programs, splitting the fee with the station management. “I was trying to sell spots on my show for $8,” said a former disc jockey. “Come to find out this other jock is going to the same people offering spots on his show for $6. Helluva way to make a living?”

This instance is an exception to be sure, but would seem to indicate that all is not well on local airwaves. To attempt to judge the relative healthiness of a station by checking the rating can be just as misleading. There are almost as many ways to interpret radio ratings as there are ways to interpret the bible.

Station managers privately admit to this, but would rather see their children spirited away by gypsies in the night than tell a potential advertiser that his station is not at least No. 1 during some time of the day.

Several years ago one station manager wrote an advertiser, and friend, asking for a letter of recommending the merits of buying time on the station. The station’s rating was so low that even a ladder wouldn’t provide much help. “I really hated not to write him the letter,” said the friend. “I know it would probably help him, but next year when I go to buy advertising, he could pull my letter out and tell me I could afford to pay more since advertising on his station proved to be of such benefit to me.”

Her project, “Lee Stone’s World of Sound” first aired on Zona Rocks (zonarocks.com) Saturday, April 9 and airs on “The Buzz,” Prescott Valley’s rock station.

“I am very excited to be in control of my own broadcasts,” Stone tells Phoenix Airchecks.

In addition to the new show, Stone will continue producing and anchoring traffic for six markets at Metro Networks.

The Sludge morning show has been a part of KDKB mornings since June 2010. Sludge and Hippie Dom remain. More changes and/or replacement is currently yet to be known.

PD Marshall writes:

Dear KDKB Alumni,

As KDKB prepares to celebrate our 40th Anniversary, I wanted to take a moment to reach out to you to first, thank you for your contributions to the station’s rich history. It is upon the foundation that you have laid that we continue to build our future. And second, I want to officially invite you to participate in this year of celebration.

We are asking all interested alumni to share their stories, photos, or even audio from your time with KDKB. It’s very rare that a radio station reaches their fifth decade in the same format. KDKB is in very rare company as one of America’s longest-running Rock stations, and we’re all very proud to be part of that history. None of what we do today would be possible without what you did yesterday.

If you would like to take part in this momentous occasion on any level, please contact KDKB Assistant Program Director / Promotions Director, Matt Spaetzel at 480-752-7428 or e-mail matt.spaetzel@kdkb.com.

Also, please take a moment to help us update our alumni database by answering a few questions below. If you have info on any other KDKB alumni out there, please contact Matt Spaetzel as well. Any help is appreciated.

Feel free to reach out to me anytime. Thank You for All You Have Done!

Paul Marshall
93.3 KDKB Program Director
paul.marshall@kdkb.com
480-897-9300 ext. 419

Position at KDKB / Air name (if applicable):

Years at KDKB (ex. 1987-1995):

Mobile / Home Number:

Email Address:

Address / City / State / Zip:

What are you up to these days?:

Want to share a few memories of KDKB?: (NOTE: we’d love to get some audio of your memories on-air to help promote the 40th. Let us know if you can come to the station to cut something or if you can mp3 something to us asap)

We look forward to hearing from you!

For detailed information on the history of KDKB, click here.

As reported to PhoenixAirchecks.com, he was “off the air Saturday midway though his show… On 10/9 Eric signed on at 6am, and in an hour or so he was gone, and new KDKB PD Paul Marshall was on instead.”

Later in the day, Eric announced on his Facebook that he is no longer with KDKB and did not give a reason.

Painting by artist and listener Brian Brooks, in celebration of Radio Free Phoenix's 6th birthday and depicting founder Andy Olson.

Radio Free Phoenix (RadioFreePhoenix.com), the free-form internet rock radio station based in the Valley, turns six years old this week.

Founded by Phoenix radio veteran Andy Olson in 2004, Radio Free Phoenix has continued to gain a loyal group of listeners that grow each year. The station prides itself on being free-form and on the internet. The on-air lineup is made of terrestrial radio veterans– a majority being from the Phoenix market–who have made the transition into the world of internet radio.

Some Radio Free Phoenix names that longtime Valley radio listeners would remember include Andy Olson (KSTM, KSLX, KZON), Liz Boyle (KOOL, KDKB, KESZ), Dave Cooper (KZON, KYOT, KJZZ), and Angela Allen (KOOL).

New KDKB program director Paul “NeanderPaul” Marshall, who has been with the Sandusky rock station since late June, is to be taking over the afternoon drive, 3-7pm, replacing Mike Gaube except for Fridays. Gaube is said to be moving to evenings, 7pm-midnight. This all apparently leaves Lee Stone down to weekends.

The on-air lineup change is said to start on Monday.

Program Director Steve King is out at Sandusky’s rocker 93.3 KDKB, after two-and-a-half years with the station. Most recently, he was holding down both PD and morning show duties.

Sandusky is bringing in Paul Marshall, who was formerly the MD/afternoon drive guy at Kansas City’s rocker, KQRC, Entercom.