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106-490: WHFS may refer to: WHFS (historic) , a group of radio stations in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area formerly licensed as WHFS WJBR (AM) , a radio station (1010 AM) licensed to serve Seffner, Florida, United States, that held the callsign WHFS from 2012 to 2023 WPBB , a radio station (98.7 FM) licensed to serve Holmes Beach, Florida, United States, that held

212-465: A 1995 book authored by Austin, Tales of the Old Detective and Other Big Fat Lies . In the summer of 1990, NPR producer Ted Bonnitt called Proctor and asked him if he wanted to contribute some comedy material to Bonnitt's nightly program HEAT with John Hockenberry . Proctor called Bergman, and the duo agreed to write and perform a serial consisting of 13 five-minute episodes, Power: Life on

318-409: A Break , which lampooned radio and television. The Starland Vocal Band also performed short comic radio breaks on this album. Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin 's Tandem Productions bought the rights to Nick Danger for a TV series to star George Hamilton ; and in 1978, New Line Cinema began negotiations to make a movie starring Chevy Chase . Both projects ended in development hell , and rights to

424-705: A book "Cerphe's Up: A Musical Life With Bruce Springsteen, Little Feat, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, CSNY, And Many More" (Carrel Books) which documents his years at the station, along with profiles of many of the DJs, staff and the rock musicians he interviewed and featured on his radio shows. His book is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Archive and Library). Don Grossinger did weekend late nights from 1976 through 1979 and, when Weasel moved to prime time, he took over overnights for two years, through 1981. He peppered his show with surprise rarities and unavailable tracks. Diane Divola came to

530-457: A cheese company in New York), and a new era was born. "It was Jake's vision that FM radio and rock-and-roll were about to collide," said Mr. Einstein's daughter Rose, who briefly worked at WHFS. "He saw it as an all-night format that would sustain a station." Within months, WHFS was drawing an average nightly audience of 32,700 listeners. Spiritus Cheese lasted just a year—someone complained about

636-501: A common practice in the radio industry to prevent situations where soon-to-be-former airstaff and listeners vent their anger on-air at a switch towards management, often with strong language. AOL , which had a partnership with Infinity Broadcasting and recognized that many people would miss the old WHFS format, quickly launched an internet-only streaming radio station with a playlist much like that of WHFS. Infinity Broadcasting saw an unexpected public reaction to their decision to change

742-479: A fan after forming the Firesigns. According to Ossman: We all listened to The Goon Show , Peter Sellers , Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe , at various times in our lives. We heard a lot of those shows. They impressed us when we started doing radio ourselves, because they sustained characters in a really surreal and weird kind of situation for a long period of time. They were doing that show for 10 years, all

848-605: A farm exposed to country and bluegrass, and later the broad NYC music radio influence of the Pacifica Network, gave his audience blues, jazz, classical, bluegrass and slightly warped sense of humor that fit the late night slot and blended into a bizarre listening choice for late-night workers in the listening radius. Although it was against station policy, there were live interviews and performances. But he always apologized when caught. At that time, Fridays and Saturdays belonged to David and Damian Einstein, David being, also,

954-673: A faux–Washington, D.C. tourism promo by the Feed referred to the mayor for life, adding that he "is featured on a totally hidden federal video program". Sunday broadcasts featured paid foreign language/culture specialty shows in the morning. In the afternoon in the 1980s, Tom Terrell would host Sunday Reggae Splashdown . WHFS on-air staff included: David Einstein, Damian Einstein, Bob "Here" Showacre, Weasel, Diane Divola, Dave Issing, Milo, Tom Terrell, Neci Crowder, Bob Waugh, Rob Timm, Kathryn Lauren, Pat Ferrise, Johnny Riggs, Gina Crash, and others. First held in 1990, WHFS has hosted an event called

1060-713: A few days. Media attention was attracted by a public protest in downtown Washington, outside a skate shop where WHFS maintained a remote storefront studio in its last few months. WHFS's main competitor, DC101 , paid tribute to the station, airing many memories of WHFS from its DJs and listeners. Infinity Broadcasting responded by resurrecting the WHFS format on nights and weekends on Live 105.7 in Baltimore, Maryland, beginning at 7 p.m. on January 21, 2005 with former WHFS afternoon DJ Tim Virgin. The station rebranded itself as "The Legendary HFS, Live on 105.7", Infinity Broadcasting moved

1166-475: A film, J-Men Forever , using clips from old Republic Pictures movie serials with dubbed dialogue, combined with new footage of them as FBI agents tracking down a villain known as "the Lightning Bug" voiced by disk jockey M. G. Kelly . This became popular on the 1980s late-night TV series Night Flight . Austin called Bergman in late 1979 to make peace and reunite the Firesigns. This resulted in

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1272-443: A four-letter word in a Firesign Theatre skit broadcast on the air—but by then the station had found its niche. By the early 1970s, the station phased in broadcasting progressive music nearly all the time. Early on the station still played MOR from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m. when Steve Walker started the rock-and-roll format. Sundays were given to "sold airtime" foreign language programs. Sunday nights reverted to Steve "Pontious" who came to

1378-465: A group of teenage hijackers . They turned this into a vaudeville -type show which they played on tour. While promoting the show, they did a radio interview with disk jockey Wolfman Jack . Meanwhile, Ossman wrote a solo album How Time Flys , based on the Mark Time astronaut character he created for a Dear Friends skit, used on I Think We're All Bozos and cut from Not Insane . He co-directed

1484-632: A housemaid as creaking bedsprings are heard. This album was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1971 by the World Science Fiction Society , Dwarf brought a level of success to the Firesigns that started to spoil them. Bergman said, "We toured after Dwarf and we began to realize the extent we were influencing people. We realized that FM radio was playing our albums whole, and that people were memorizing them." Austin said of this period, "At that point we began not to get along with each other that well, and

1590-542: A joke, throw in a Top 40 hit just to throw the listeners off. Sometimes, late at night, the DJ might announce "And now we'll repeat that for those of you on drugs," and immediately replay the last song. It furthered the careers of then-undiscovered stars Bruce Springsteen , George Thorogood and Emmylou Harris , who sometimes showed up at the studio. WHFS played the records of many local groups as well, including The Nighthawks , The Slickee Boys , Black Market Baby , Tru Fax &

1696-566: A large festival in Washington, D.C. , that was headlined by major acts and was surrounded by culturally significant booths, games, food, and rides, as well as an outdoor second stage. In 1999, there was an additional HFStival, headlined by Red Hot Chili Peppers , held at the then-new stadium of the Baltimore Ravens . It was held annually through 2006 and then again in 2010 and 2011. In the mid-1990s, Liberty Broadcasting published

1802-424: A leather vest, played me a tape of rock music from Los Angeles . We were losing so much money that another couple of dollars couldn't hurt, right? So we put him on. My God, the calls! I never knew we had an audience!" In 1969, three would-be DJs—Joshua Brooks, Sara Vass and Mark Gorbulew—approached Mr. Einstein with an idea for a free-form rock-and-roll program. They went on under the name Spiritus Cheese (derived from

1908-415: A level which revolutionized radio comedy . According to Proctor: We each independently created our own material and characters and brought them together, not knowing what the others were going to pull. And it was all based on put-ons; that is, we were assuming characters that were assumed to be real by the listeners. No matter how far out we would carry a premise, if we were tied to the phones we discovered

2014-607: A live show recorded on the Columbia album What This Country Needs , based in part on material from TV or Not TV and named for a song added to the show. The Firesign Theatre closed out their Columbia Records contract with a greatest-hits compilation Forward Into the Past in 1976. This title came from the A side of a 45 RPM single originally released in November 1969. This track and its B side, "Station Break", were included on

2120-412: A machine that mimics sexual intercourse. This album also received a Hugo nomination in 1972. Meanwhile, from September 9, 1970 to February 17, 1971, they were performing a one-hour weekly live series on KPFK, Dear Friends . These programs were recorded and then edited into slightly shorter shows and syndicated to radio stations across the country on 12" LP albums. Their fifth album, Dear Friends ,

2226-468: A nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album , and was followed in 1985 with the album Eat or Be Eaten , about a character trapped in an interactive video game. In 1988, Austin was signed by John Dryden to produce over 50 short Nick Danger pieces for his radio satire show The Daily Feed . These were published on cassette tape as The Daily Feed Tapes , and later formed the basis for

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2332-418: A quarterly magazine titled WHFS Press that was mailed to listeners and available in local music outlets. Though becoming famous as a cutting-edge station playing the latest underground music (and often beating the mainstream to the punch by months and even years), the station, under Infinity Broadcasting's ownership , became the local modern alternative station in the mid-1990s. In this period, WHFS featured

2438-537: A result of an agreement with Hope Christian Church; the power is now 10W. In order to preserve the rights to the WHFS branding and call sign, CBS Radio was required to " park " the call signs on another active station. Thus, CBS moved the WHFS call signs first to a co-owned FM station in West Palm Beach, which was known as "B-106.3" and previously housed the "WNEW" call sign. When that station, along with CBS Radio's entire West Palm Beach cluster of stations,

2544-481: A road show, Shakespeare's Lost Comedie and released it on a 1982 vinyl LP, which required editing down; it was re-released uncut on CD in 2001, retitled Anythynge You Want To . Ossman left the group in early 1982 to take a producer's job for NPR in Washington DC. The remaining three Firesigns produced a new album in 1984, The Three Faces of Al , with the further adventures of Nick Danger. This received

2650-669: A satire of the Europeans' displacement of the indigenous peoples of the Americas ; followed by "W. C. Fields Forever", a satire of the 1960s hippie culture; leading into "Trente-Huit Cunegonde (Returned for Regrooving)", a projected future in which the roles of the hippie counterculture and the Establishment culture are reversed. Side two, the title track, is a stream-of-consciousness play about an American tourist (Austin) to an Eastern Bloc country, who ends up in prison and

2756-412: A second Dwarf , which to me is a real disappointment." Their fourth album, I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus (1971), also a single play, centers on a young, early-technology computer hacker (Proctor) and an older "bozo" with a large nose that honks like a clown's (Austin), who attend a Disneyesque Future Fair. The blue comedy was dialed back from explicit to suggestive, as a scientist invents

2862-549: A second five-year contract. On March 30, they ended Let's Eat! with a live broadcast titled Martian Space Party , which was also recorded on 16-track tape and filmed. The Firesigns combined parts of the two shows with some new studio material to produce their sixth album, Not Insane or Anything You Want To . But before releasing the album in October 1972, they had discarded their original story line idea and some newly written scenes. The Not Insane album performed poorly, and

2968-739: A series of shows performed at the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles: "The Owl and the Octopus Show"; "The Joey Demographico Show"; "Nick Danger: Men in Hats"; and "Welcome to Billville". These included songs with music written by Austin, and were recorded; the live recordings were used to produce their last album of the decade, the 1980 Fighting Clowns . They also produced a show, "Presidents in Hell" ( FDR , Truman , Eisenhower , and Nixon ), which

3074-643: A specialty show called "Now Hear This", hosted by Dave Marsh, that highlighted indie and local music. Though in the few years before the infamous 2005 format switch the station did begin to combine more underground programming with its modern rock format, it never fully reverted to its prior all-indie status. In 1999, WHFS released a New Music New Video Compilation Volume 1 on VHS that was distributed free at Washington area Tower Records outlets. It featured tracks by Cyclefly , Fuel , Fastball , Elliott Smith , Kid Rock , Eve 6 , 3 Colours Red , Puya , and Joydrop . No longer playing rather obscure progressive rock, nor

3180-513: A sports talk format, similar to that of sister station WFAN in New York City . Along with the format change came a new call sign: WJZ-FM . On November 10, 2008, the WHFS call sign was moved to 1580 AM which dropped its long-time call letters WPGC . The format was changed to talk , with programs hosted by Michael Smerconish from sister station WPHT , Glenn Beck , Bill O'Reilly , Lou Dobbs , and Laura Schlessinger . The station dropped

3286-432: A stream-of-consciousness play on side one about a man named Babe (Bergman) who buys a car and goes on a road trip that turns into a parody of Norman Corwin 's 1941 patriotic radio pageant We Hold These Truths . Side two, The Further Adventures of Nick Danger , is a parody of 1940s radio, about a hard-boiled detective (Austin) who became possibly the Firesigns' most famous character. Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me

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3392-873: A year working in England on the BBC television program Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life and went to see surrealist comedian Spike Milligan in a play. Bergman went backstage and struck up a friendship with Milligan. Also that year, he saw the Beatles in concert, which gave him the inspiration to form a four-man comedy group. On returning to the US, Bergman started a late-night listener-participation talk show , Radio Free Oz , on July 24, 1966, on listener-sponsored KPFK FM in Los Angeles, working with producers Phil Austin and David Ossman . According to Austin,

3498-468: Is a porn actress, and whose police dispatcher wife (Ossman) lives in a soap opera . In a parody of Marlon Brando 's 1973 Academy Awards protest , the brother and sister stage a terrorist attack on an Oscar awards ceremony. This album, like Not Insane , also sold poorly, and Columbia declined to offer them a third contract in 1976. This time, the Firesigns didn't protest. Bergman said, "The group had really split apart; we had just burned out. I mean it

3604-831: Is rescued by the CIA . It was recorded in CBS 's Los Angeles radio studio from which The Jack Benny Program and others had been broadcast; the original RCA microphones and sound effects devices were used. It was released in January 1968, selling a modest 12,000 copies in its first year. The Firesigns continued to work on the radio and began performing in folk clubs such as the Ash Grove . Radio Free Oz moved again to KMET FM until February 1969. The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour [ sic ] aired for two hours on Sunday nights on KPPC-FM in 1970. They concentrated their writing on

3710-503: Is the frustrated, hungry caller trying to get food delivered from "Nick's". "He's no fun, he fell right over" became a famous catchphrase delivered by Austin in "How Can You Be In Two Places at Once" and repeated on side two in "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger". This line was repeated on the albums Not Insane and How Time Flys . The group reunited in late August 1973 to produce the Sherlock Holmes parody The Tale of

3816-661: The 1973 oil crisis , and the Presidency of Richard Nixon . The Firesigns made use of inside humor . They peppered Waiting for the Electrician and How Can You Be in Two Places At Once with Beatles references not found on the band's top 40 material. Firesign characters quoted lyrics from songs such as " The Word ", " I'm So Tired ", and " I Am the Walrus ". The name of Danger's criminal nemesis Rocky Rococo

3922-690: The HFStival , an annual (sometimes semi-annual) day-long (sometimes two-day-long) outdoor concert. The concert, often held at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium , features a variety of local and national acts; for example, the 2004 lineup included The Cure , Jay-Z , Modest Mouse , the Yeah Yeah Yeahs , and Cypress Hill . Robert Benjamin, Bob Waugh and Bill Glasser took the HFStival from a small yearly concert at Lake Fairfax in Reston, Virginia , to

4028-657: The National Recording Registry and called the group " the Beatles of comedy." Peter Bergman and Philip Proctor met while attending Yale University in the late 1950s, where Proctor studied acting and Bergman edited the Yale comedy magazine. Bergman studied playwriting and collaborated as lyricist with Austin Pendleton in 1958 on two Yale Dramat musicals in which Proctor starred: Tom Jones , and Booth Is Back In Town . In 1965, Bergman spent

4134-787: The Ramones every Friday towards the end of the work day. At 5 p.m. on Friday Weasel would play (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!) by the Beastie Boys and Bang the Drum All Day by Todd Rundgren (earlier in the 1980s, Weasel regularly would close his Friday shows with "She Makes Me Rock Too Much" by Ratso and Switchblade and "Here Comes the Weekend" by Dave Edmunds ) and also "Party Weekend" by Joe "King " Carrasco and The Crowns . Weasel also filled his playlist with requests like local DC near hit "Washingtron" by Tru Fax &

4240-649: The Reagan era . They experienced a revival and second wave of popularity in the 1990s and continued to write, record and perform until Bergman's death in 2012. In 1997, Entertainment Weekly ranked the Firesign Theatre among the "Thirty Greatest Comedy Acts of All Time". Their 1970 album Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers was nominated in 1971 for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation by

4346-488: The World Science Fiction Society , and their next album I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus received the same nomination in 1972. Later, they received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for three of their albums: The Three Faces of Al (1984), Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death (1998), and Bride of Firesign (2001). In 2005, the US Library of Congress added Don't Crush That Dwarf to

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4452-542: The "Nouvelle Nouvelle Vague Vague movement" and director of a documentary Two Weeks With Fred , which lasts a full two weeks. By 1967, Bergman had the Firesign Theatre appear regularly on Radio Free Oz . The Firesigns were strongly influenced by the British Goon Show ; Proctor, Austin, and Ossman were big fans since the NBC program Monitor broadcast Goon Show episodes in the late 1950s, and Bergman became

4558-712: The 102.3 facility, but its transmitter was located halfway between Washington and Baltimore, providing a strong signal to both markets. Eventually Einstein's group sold WHFS. When the station switched formats, it was located at the Infinity Broadcasting Center in Lanham, Maryland . The 102.3 frequency is now occupied by an Urban AC station in Washington, using the call letters WMMJ and nicknamed "Majic 102.3". A daily topical humor "news" show, The Daily Feed by John Dryden of DC Audio, aired for much of

4664-447: The 18-24 age demographic. At noon on January 12, 2005, 99.1 WHFS was switched to a Tropical Latin music format. Its call letters were soon changed to WZLL for a few days, and then again to WLZL , and the station was rebranded as "El Zol 99.1 FM". Although a format change had been rumored to some extent for years—due to slipping ratings (22nd) in its primary market of Washington (although its ratings in Baltimore remained high)—the switch

4770-940: The 1976 album. Meanwhile, Austin and Ossman toured the west coast, billing themselves as "Dr. Firesign's Theatre of Mystery". They produced a live stage show Radio Laffs of 1940 , which included a second episode of the private eye character Nick Danger , "School For Actors"; and a soap opera "Over the Edge". This was performed at the Los Feliz Theatre in Los Angeles in May 1976 and at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco in June. Austin wrote in 1993 that this tour "was meant to be an antidote to confusion but ... had not turned out to be much fun at all". The Firesigns took it easy for

4876-527: The 1980s on WHFS. It featured the sarcastic "Max Nobny" exchanging wit with straightman and nominal narrator, the Baltimore-accented "Frank Benlin", discussing current issues and using classic passion plays such as Star Trek parodies (during the Gulf shipping crisis of the mid-1990s when the U.S. reflagged Middle Eastern tankers) as a comedy vehicle. During Washington Mayor Marion Barry 's drug case,

4982-585: The 1998 album Pink Hotel Burns Down , a collection of material from two 1967 Magic Mushroom broadcasts, Exorcism In Your Daily Life and their early Sherlock Holmes parody "By the Light of the Silvery"; two cuts, "The Pink Hotel" and "The Sand Bar" from their video game record that eventually became Eat or Be Eaten ; the soap opera "Over the Edge" from Austin and Ossman's 1976 Dr. Firesign's Theatre of Mystery tour, and several clips from their radio work, including

5088-524: The Buckinghams ] and John Hammond ." Austin says, "With Hammond backing us up, CBS came around." They went on to produce three more Columbia studio albums from 1969 to 1971. Each grew technically more sophisticated, taking advantage of up to 16 tape tracks and Dolby noise reduction by 1970. How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All , released in 1969, consists of

5194-832: The Edge in L.A. Following the 1992 United States presidential election , and with Ossman back in the group, the Firesign Theatre reunited in 1993 for a 25th anniversary reunion tour around the US, Back From the Shadows , starting on April 24 in Seattle with an audience of 2,900. The title was taken from a parody of the Gene Autry song " Back in the Saddle Again ", which they wrote for I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus . The tour, consisting of live performances of material adapted from their first four Golden Age albums ( Electrician , Two Places At Once , Dwarf , and Bozos ),

5300-558: The Extra-Terrestrial ) using the album as the soundtrack. The film was shown in a live appearance at Stanford University and released on VHS video tape in 1993. In 1975, they released the black comedy album In the Next World, You're on Your Own , written by Austin and Ossman. The story centers on Random Coolzip (Proctor), an alcoholic dirty cop whose son (Bergman) is a by-the-book cop, whose daughter (Proctor)

5406-455: The Firesigns later claimed to be disappointed with it. In the liner notes to the group’s 1993 greatest hits album, Shoes for Industry: The Best of the Firesign Theatre , Bergman criticized Not Insane , saying it "was when the Firesign was splitting apart; it was a fractious, fragmented album." Ossman called it "a serious mistake" and said it “was incomprehensible, basically," and "it was not

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5512-518: The Giant Rat of Sumatra , based on one of the plays from their 1967 Magic Mushroom broadcasts, By the Light of the Silvery . This was released on vinyl in January 1974. The Firesigns sold this script to science fiction writer Harlan Ellison for Book Three of Ellison's anthology The Last Dangerous Visions , which Ellison never completed. In October 1974, the Firesigns released their eighth album, Everything You Know Is Wrong , which satirized

5618-624: The Insaniacs , Bad Brains and Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band." In addition to the station's progressive rock and alternative music, jazz, and even bluegrass were prominently featured on their format. One of the show's features was "Thor's Bluegrass" hosted by DJ Thor. Local bluegrass band The Seldom Scene would sometimes perform live from the station. Fans of the station came to expect certain "regular" features. Listeners were treated to Weasel playing " I Wanna Be Sedated " by

5724-477: The Insaniacs . The DJs answered the telephone themselves when requests were called in. WHFS made Root Boy Slim 's "Christmas at K-Mart" a holiday standard. Among the station's more endearing traditions was the broadcasting of the entire "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" suite that makes up the bulk of the first side of Frank Zappa 's " Apostrophe " LP, when the Washington area would experience its first snowfall of

5830-460: The Pliers (1970) is a single play centered around an actor named George Tirebiter (Ossman), who gradually ages into an old man while watching his old movies on television: a Henry Aldrich parody High School Madness (in which he is named Porgie Tirebiter), and the Korean War film Parallel Hell . Dwarf marked a high point in the Firesign's use of blue comedy : Porgie has explicit sex with

5936-558: The Program Director. Murray the K hosted the afternoon show in 1972, armed with his own advertising contracts essentially renting a slot for a short while with female partner Judy. In 1972, after Murray the K had left for WNBC (AM) in New York, Ty Ford left his Program Director and on-air positions WAYE to replace Judy. Ford remained at WHFS until 1975, as morning drive announcer, Chief Engineer and Production Director. Ford

6042-408: The WHFS call letters to the station days later. 105.7 HFS ceased broadcasting mainstream music on February 1, 2007, immediately before KMS on HFS premiered, yet retained the WHFS call letters traditionally associated with the music the station used to broadcast. During this period the WHFS format was moved to HD radio as WHFS 105.7-HD2 and was known as "HFS2". On November 3, 2008, WHFS flipped to

6148-542: The air and left in April 1963. (Jesse) Alvin Jeweler was hired as his replacement. Using the on-air name Jay Allen, he remained with the station as general manager, program director, and audio engineer. Jeweler formed a group that purchased the station in 1963. When he left in 1967, Jake Einstein became part-owner and the station's new general manager. At the time, the station had a broadcast signal of 2,300 watts . The station

6254-518: The album it should have been and I think that caused us to slope off rapidly in sales." The four decided to take a break from the group in 1973 to work in separate directions. Proctor and Bergman decided to perform as a duo, and made a separate record deal with Columbia, producing TV or Not TV : A Video Vaudeville in Two Acts . The record predicts the rise of pay cable TV, and it depicts an amateur station run by two men who must constantly block

6360-533: The album with Columbia producer Stephen Gillmor, and the other three Firesigns starred on it, along with several guest personalities including Wolfman Jack, Harry Shearer of The Credibility Gap , and broadcast journalist Lew Irwin . Mark returns on New Year's Eve, 1999, from a twenty-year round trip to Planet X , only to find the space program has been dismantled, and no one cares about him except for an eccentric impresario (Bergman) who kidnaps him for his video recordings of encounters with alien life. Austin wrote

6466-499: The attention of Columbia Records staff producer Gary Usher , who sensed commercial potential for the Firesign Theatre and proposed to Bergman they make a "love-In album" for Columbia. Bergman countered with a proposal for a Firesign Theatre album, and this led to a five-year recording contract with the label. Usher also used the Firesigns' audio collages on songs by The Byrds ("Draft Morning") and Sagittarius (the 45 RPM version of "Hotel Indiscreet") in 1967 and 1968. The album

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6572-477: The audience would go far ahead of us. We could be as outrageous as we wanted to be and they believed us—which was astonishingly funny and interesting and terrifying to us, because it showed the power of the medium and the gullibility and vulnerability of most people. On nights when he had no guests, Bergman would have the Firesigns come on the air and pretend (including himself) to be outrageously interesting guests. On their November 17, 1966 debut, they pretended to be

6678-420: The being taken so seriously — Rolling Stone did a long article on us, and we were being compared to James Joyce — there was a prideful attitude that took over. But we weren't making money; we might as well have been teaching school somewhere and worrying about making tenure for all the money we were making. So in some sense we didn't really understand what we were doing, which is why we were never able to make

6784-480: The calls on December 1, 2011, becoming WNEW . The WHFS calls were then moved to an FM station in West Palm Beach, Florida , otherwise branded as "B-106.3", which previously housed WNEW's calls for several years. On June 10, 2009, the WHFS alternative format was relaunched as "HFS2" once again, located at WIAD 94.7-HD2 in Bethesda, Maryland and serving the Washington metropolitan area . On January 1, 2012, HFS

6890-417: The callsign WHFS-FM from 2012 to 2015 WUUB , a radio station (106.3 FM) licensed to serve Jupiter, Florida, United States, that held the callsign WHFS from 2011 to 2012 [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about radio and/or television stations with the same/similar call signs or branding. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

6996-472: The character reverted to the Firesigns. In December 1978, they began writing five short (2:24) episodes of Nick Danger: The Case of the Missing Shoe for a possible syndicated daily radio series. When the syndication went unsold, Austin approached Rhino Records and secured a deal to release the five episodes in 1979 on a 12-minute extended play (EP) record. Meanwhile, Proctor and Bergman produced

7102-482: The characters of Christian Cyborg (Bergman), Coco Lewis (Proctor), Bob Chicken (Austin), and Tony Gomez (Ossman). Bergman coined the term " love-in " in 1967, and he promoted the first Los Angeles Love-In, attended by 40,000 in Elysian Park, on his program. The Firesigns performed there, which led to Radio Free Oz moving to KRLA 1110 AM , which had a much wider audience than KPFK FM. This event also caught

7208-412: The classic and hard rock of its Baltimore competitor WIYY , HFS was now formatted more towards a younger set of fans who were more apt to listen to Green Day and Fuel than less mainstream artists such as Fugazi or Lou Reed . The station played much of the alternative hits that were touted by the mainstream press and MTV, turning off many old-school HFS listeners, but in turn gaining many listeners in

7314-432: The developing New Age movement. Ossman said this record "grew out of our basic interest in those parapsychological things ... from Castaneda to the hollow Earth theory to the guy who bends spoons . Originally, when we started writing it, it was going to be a much more complicated and 'cinematic' record; we were trying to write a radio movie." The Firesigns produced a film made by Allen Daviau (who later filmed E.T.

7420-568: The drive-time afternoon weekday slot - about the time that bands setting up across the street were ready for a dinner break before a performance - provided details about the artists' experience, as well as providing plugs for the upcoming appearance. Weasel's obvious friendship with many of his guests elicited striking candor from them. During the 1970s, WHFS would broadcast music that other FM Rock stations normally overlooked, including cuts as long as 20 minutes. Artists like Frank Zappa , Yes , Genesis , Roxy Music and other non-commercial artists of

7526-599: The earliest recorded appearance on Radio Free Oz . The Firesigns satirized the turn-of-the-millennium Y2K scare with the 1998 album Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death , in which they revived some of their classic characters such as used car salesman Ralph Spoilsport (Proctor) from How Can You Be In Two Places At Once , news reporters Harold Hiphugger (Ossman) and Ray Hamberger (Proctor) from Everything You Know Is Wrong , and game-show contestant Caroline Presskey (Proctor) from Don't Crush That Dwarf . This earned them their second Grammy nomination, and they developed it into

7632-400: The early 1970s. Several part-time DJs such as American University student Mick Sussman handled the overnight and Sunday morning slots. In early 1971, the overnight show on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays was inherited by "littlejohn" (John Hendricks), who stayed until August 1972. His eclectic taste, brought from years of classical music training, mixed with his early upbringing on

7738-614: The fall of 1967, the Firesign Theatre was broadcasting Sunday nights from The Magic Mushroom , in Studio City , formerly a Bob Eubanks ' Cinnamon Cinder . In September 1967, they performed an adaptation of Jorge Luis Borges ' short story "La Muerte y La Brujula" (" Death and the Compass ") on Radio Free Oz. In 1969, they created improvised television commercials for Jack Poet Volkswagen in Highland Park, California, with

7844-500: The folk-club material and produced improvisational skit material for the Radio Hour and its successors. The Firesigns almost lost their recording contract after their first album. According to Bergman: "Columbia was going to kick us off the label, so we scripted the next record and the old guard at Columbia took a look at the script and said 'This isn't funny—this is dirty!' And to our rescue came James William Guercio [producer of

7950-436: The format of 99.1 FM in Washington. The story was covered by local TV stations for many days afterwards, and mentioned nationally by The Washington Post , The Howard Stern Show , and The Today Show . The corporate offices of Infinity Broadcasting in New York City were flooded with phone calls and e-mails from irate listeners. An online petition protesting the format change gathered tens of thousands of signatures in only

8056-416: The group inventing the name "4 or 5 Krazy Guys Publishing" to copyright their work. Their contract with Columbia, in exchange for a low royalty rate, gave them unlimited studio time, allowing them to perfect their writing and recording. Electrician revolutionized the concept of the comedy album : it consists of four radio plays. Side one is a trilogy of pieces: starting with "Temporarily Humboldt County",

8162-427: The group the "Oz Firesign Theatre" because all four were born under the three astrological fire signs (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius), and the group debuted on his November 17, 1966 show. Bergman had to drop "Oz" from the name after legal threats from Disney and MGM , who owned movie rights to The Wizard of Oz and other associated works . The Firesigns initially chose an improvisational style and carried it to

8268-550: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WHFS&oldid=1176754520 " Category : Broadcast call sign disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages WHFS (historic) WHFS began broadcasting on November 11, 1961, on 102.3 FM in Bethesda, Maryland . Its call sign stood for "Washington High Fidelity Stereo" (WHFS), advertising that it

8374-512: The owners of WTOP (AM) for $ 2 million which Einstein then used to purchase WNAV AM and WLOM FM Annapolis, Maryland . Eventually, WNAV-AM was sold and passed through several owners (including being resold to Einstein in the mid-1990s) until WNAV was ultimately sold to Pat Sajak , the game-show host, in 1998. Einstein took the 'HFS call letters with him and WLOM-FM 99.1 became WHFS (FM) in Autumn 1983. Not only did 99.1 operate with higher power than

8480-536: The panel of an imaginary "Oz Film Festival": Bergman was film critic Peter Volta, "writing a history of world cinema one frame at a time"; Ossman was Raul Saez, maker of “thrown camera” films, who had just won a grant to roll a 70 mm film camera down the Andes mountains ; Austin was Jack Love, making "Living Room Theatre" porn films like The Nun and Blondie Pays the Rent ; and Proctor was Jean-Claude Jean-Claude, creator of

8586-567: The rest of the 1970s, producing a 1977 album Just Folks... A Firesign Chat based largely on unreleased Dear Friends and Let's Eat radio material. Proctor and Bergman appeared as regulars on a 1977 summer replacement TV series hosted by the Starland Vocal Band . Proctor and Bergman gave up their road performances after witnessing the September 4, 1977 Golden Dragon Massacre , and in 1978 released another studio album Give Us

8692-462: The rights to the WHFS call sign were thus passed over to Beasley. However, on February 4, 2015, after WHFS-FM switched to a rock format, the call sign became WBRN-FM. The station is now WPBB . WHFS (AM), in turn, became WJBR in September 2023. Notable on-air talent listed by the station of their final appearance: Firesign Theatre The Firesign Theatre (also known as the Firesigns )

8798-514: The season. And every Thanksgiving , 'HFS listeners could count on Arlo Guthrie 's " Alice's Restaurant Massacree " being played, usually by Bob "Here", all 18:20 of it. According to the Washington Post, the 1978 DJ lineup at WHFS was: Damian Einstein, Jonathan S. "Weasel" Gilbert, David Einstein, Bob "Here" Showacre, Diane Divola, and Tom Grooms. (Cerphe Colwell left the station in 1976. In 2016, Cerphe, with co-author, Stephen Moore wrote

8904-508: The show "featured everybody who was anybody in the artistic world who passed through LA." Guests included the band Buffalo Springfield and Andy Warhol . In November, Proctor was in Los Angeles looking for acting work and watching the Sunset Strip curfew riots . When he discovered he was sitting on a newspaper photo of Bergman, he called his college buddy, who recruited him as the fourth man for his comedy group. Bergman originally named

9010-469: The solo album Roller Maidens From Outer Space , based on a hardboiled detective in the same vein as his Nick Danger character introduced on the B side of How Can You Be In Two Places... . Roller Maidens , released in March 1974 on Columbia's Epic label , also featured all four Firesigns and included actors Richard Paul and Michael C. Gwynne . The album satirizes series television , televangelists ,

9116-538: The station from a popular rock station in New Orleans . WHFS studios were now located in a second-floor luxury condo at 4853 Cordell Avenue. The station was also conveniently located directly across the street from the Psyche Delly, a venue for live performances by bands playing the club circuit. Local radio legends (Don) Cerphe Colwell and Jonathan S. "Weasel" Gilbert began their careers when they joined WHFS in

9222-497: The station in 1976 and took over the morning show (6 a.m. to 10 a.m.) and held that spot until 1984. Adele Abrams held weekend slots from 1974 to 1988 (and held a full-time shift for nearly two years following Damian's accident). She and Weasel also hosted a live show featuring local band performances called "Take One," which broadcast from the Sounds Reasonable studio in Washington, DC, during the late 1970s. Suzanne Gordon

9328-439: The station. Many cut WHFS-specific IDs. One classic example of a legal ID, done by The Persuasions , "WHFS, it's the station we like the best, we'll be rockin', we'll be rollin', on W - Hhhhh---F-Sssss - - - 102.3 - Bethesda." That was one of many special IDs and live performances recorded by Ty Ford when he was there and in charge of Production. The enthusiastic and knowledgeable interviews by such deejays as "Weasel", who held down

9434-414: The time were the normal format. If The Beatles were ever played, their more obscure tracks like Tomorrow Never Knows or Blue Jay Way were used instead of familiar tracks like Hey Jude or Lady Madonna. Once the station played all of Revolution 9 . The station made a policy of never playing a "hit" and broke with precedent by leaving the playlists strictly up to the DJs. Once in a while, the DJs would, as

9540-429: The way through the 1950s. So we were just listening to them at the end. It was that madness and the ability to go anywhere and do anything and yet sustain those funny characters. So when we first did written radio, where we would sit down and write half hour skits and do them once a week, which we did in the fall of 1967, we did things that were imitative of The Goon Show and learned a lot of voices from them and such. In

9646-771: Was a double-record compilation of what they considered the best segments from the series, released in January 1972. Dear Friends was followed with the KPFK show Let's Eat! in 1971 and 1972. Both titles came from lines uttered by televangelist Pastor Rod Flash (Proctor) on his "Hour of Reckoning" program in Don't Crush That Dwarf . In 1970, the group had performed a live stage show, the Shakespeare parody The Count of Monte Cristo , at Columbia University . In January 1972 they decided to expand this and retitle it Anything You Want To for their next album. On March 9, Columbia signed them to

9752-495: Was a parody of the Beatles' " Rocky Raccoon ", and Danger's girlfriend has multiple names but "everyone knew her as Nancy" just like Rocky Raccoon's girlfriend. Later the Firesigns created their own inside jokes by referring to their own previously released material. A famous example is when a confused caller tries to order a pizza from Nick Danger; the other side of this phone conversation is portrayed in Dwarf , where George Tirebiter

9858-842: Was an American surreal comedy troupe who first appeared on November 17, 1966, in a live performance on the Los Angeles radio program Radio Free Oz on station KPFK FM . They continued appearing on Radio Free Oz , which later moved to KRLA 1110 AM and then KMET FM , through February 1969. They produced fifteen record albums and a 45 rpm single under contract to Columbia Records from 1967 through 1976, and had three nationally syndicated radio programs: The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour [sic] in 1970 on KPPC-FM ; and Dear Friends (1970–1971) and Let's Eat! (1971–1972) on KPFK. They also appeared in front of live audiences, and continued to write, perform, and record on other labels, occasionally taking sabbaticals during which they wrote or performed solo or in smaller groups. The Firesign Theatre

9964-401: Was communally written, and if one person didn't agree about something, no matter how strongly the other three felt about it, it didn't go in." The resulting synergy created the feeling of a fifth Firesign; according to Austin: "It's like, suddenly there is this fifth guy that actually does the writing. We all vaguely sort of know him, and a lot of the time take credit for him." This resulted in

10070-566: Was divested to separate ownership in July 2012, it assumed the WUUB call sign. CBS then moved the WHFS calls to an FM station and [an AM station in Tampa, Florida, which both featured a sports talk format. Following CBS's multi-market station trade with Beasley Broadcasting , which included CBS Radio's Tampa Bay cluster and the current WHFS (AM) and WHFS-FM, neither of which had their call signs altered,

10176-500: Was five years non-stop work. We would stop one album and start writing the next. Frankly, we didn't have five more albums in us at that point." As Austin looked back on this period from September 1993, he wrote that he saw Proctor and Bergman wanting to take the Firesign Theatre in a different direction than he did, moving away from intensely written albums released one per year, to more live performances with lighter material. Proctor and Bergman turned their attention in 1975 to producing

10282-407: Was given the non sequitur title Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him , from Bergman's undeveloped 1965 idea for a comic film. The Firesigns changed their improvisational style, producing tightly scripted and memorized material. According to Bergman: "There was no leader." The Firesigns always billed themselves alphabetically on their album jackets and other printed materials. "Everything

10388-417: Was initially moved to Norfolk Avenue in Bethesda and later to Woodmont Avenue—all within a three-block area. In 1983, The Washington Post reported: When Mr. Einstein became general manager of WHFS, the station had been on the air for six years and was lucky to draw 800 listeners a night with its format of pop, light classical and jazz. "Then a guy named Frank Richards came in one day wearing cutoffs and

10494-488: Was not publicized beforehand and took many long-time fans, and even most of the station's staff, by surprise. Most of the station's staff were not told of the change until less than an hour before it happened, and new management presided in the air studio as the former format was playing its last few songs. The last song played on the station before the format change was " Last Goodbye " by Jeff Buckley . Though nearly always met with harsh criticism, such abrupt format changes are

10600-574: Was not recorded. The popularity of the group cooled off after 1980 as the social and political climate of the United States changed with the election of President Ronald Reagan . In 1982, they produced the album Lawyer's Hospital from a collection of live appearances, National Public Radio (NPR) performances, and the Jack Poet Volkswagen commercials from Radio Free Oz . They also expanded their 1972 Shakespeare parody into

10706-402: Was quick to admit that Alvin Jeweler was the real engineering brains for WHFS-FM, but Jeweler had allowed his FCC license to expire, so Ford was listed as Chief Engineer. Ford went on to peak his radio career with eight and a half productive years at WBAL and 98Rock in Baltimore before leaving to start his own company. Many musicians traipsed across the street to do interviews and perform live at

10812-494: Was recorded on CD and a DVD video released in 1994. They also released a 1993 greatest hits album, Shoes for Industry: The Best of the Firesign Theatre containing original material from the first nine albums, TV or Not TV , and Roller Maidens From Outer Space . In 1996, Bergman revived Radio Free Oz as an Internet -based radio station, www.rfo.net, calling it "the Internet's funny bone." The Firesigns followed this with

10918-553: Was removed and replaced with a WNEW simulcast. "HFS" was added to Baltimore airwaves at noon on August 1, 2011. The station was broadcast via two channels: WWMX 106.5-HD2 and W248AO 97.5. W248AO was moved to The Candelabra tower in Baltimore , and the power was increased to 250W. On April 1, 2014, the 97.5 feed was moved to a new translator at 104.9 W285EJ in White Marsh, Maryland and rebranded as "HFS @104.9", as

11024-409: Was the brainchild of Peter Bergman , and all of its material was conceived, written, and performed by its members: Bergman, Philip Proctor , Phil Austin , and David Ossman . The group's name stems from astrology , because all four were born under the three " fire signs ": Aries (Austin), Leo (Proctor), and Sagittarius (Bergman and Ossman). Their popularity peaked in the early 1970s and ebbed in

11130-599: Was the first station in the Washington metropolitan area to broadcast in FM stereo . It was originally located in a 20-by-20-foot (6.1 m × 6.1 m) space in the basement of the Bethesda Medical Building on Wisconsin Avenue with its antenna on the roof. Its original format was classical , with jazz after 10 p.m. The first employee was Marlin R. Taylor, who started three months before HFS went on

11236-456: Was the progressive format's first news director, hosting five "News of the Universe" segments, and various public affairs features, daily from 1975 to 1977. Susan Desmarais hosted the overnight weekend slots from 1980 to 1983, and went on to 99.1, hosting Saturday and Sunday afternoons. She eventually hosted the 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. slot until 1986. In early 1983, Jacob Einstein sold the station to

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