Paff

Thread title says it all.

For the young-uns here, the KBFH was a weekly program on Rock stations (before they became classic rock) that was a live concert of a different band every week. These were not crappo live recordings either, they were top notch in quality. They were promoted all week on the station, and if it was a band you particularly liked, you had a blank cassette tape at the ready to record the show. But even if you didn't record it, you tuned in every week.

The reason I brought it up is now that I've gotten back into vinyl and using Discogs to collect, I've found that these shows were actually one-off vinyl records that were shipped to the stations! The stations weren't supposed to re-sell them but take a wild guess how that worked out. They can be expensive on the used market, but not totally unreasonable. And often a great way to get a live recording of a band that never officially released a live record.

I just had a really interesting buy. It was the KB broadcast of The Romantics. The guy had it on sale super cheap ($15), because it only included one of the records (it was a two-record show). Still, $15 for 2/3 of the program is damn good. He said it was oddly bundled with a mismatched KB disc of a Utopia show. Well, now I found out why it was bundled. Despite the label, this record was actually 2 sides of the Utopia broadcast! The seller was super cool about it though; instead of doing a refund, he's just gonna send me the second disc so I can have the full KB Utopia show. Not as big a fan of them as I am The Romantics, but it will still be a nice addition to my collection.

Anyone have any memories of a great King Biscuit show that they recorded off the air so many years ago?

rw2516

Have to think about to remember the ones I recorded. I remember a Molly Hatchet one. Aldo Nova. Loverboy. Genesis. Rainbow. Triumph There were several. I recorded some BBC concerts too. What I remember best are the live simulcasts, complete show, commercial free. Foreigner live from Atlanta (Head Games tour). Kinks live New Years Eve 1981 from NYC. Two different Sammy Hagar (Standing Hampton and Three Lock Box tours). The Firm. Robert Plant (Now and Zen tour).

dom56

Oh,yeah I remember listening in FM radio. I have lot of cassette of live peformance Def Leppard, Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash, and many other.

rbrown498

I've got a few CDs of the show (Moody Blues, Elton John, Alice Cooper, Fabulous Thunderbirds) from when I worked in radio in the '80s and '90s. I didn't save many of the KBFH shows, but I used to have a good many discs from the In the Studio show. I sold 'em all on eBay last year.

wishbone

Local radio station played it Sunday nights -- a final hurrah for the week before starting school Monday morning.

Eddie W

I always thought it was the King Biscuit Flour Hour since, you know, biscuits are made of Flour. Only once I grew up did it see it spelled as Flower. Does anyone know the significance of the name?

I used to love the high quality of these. I remember how little you could hear of the audience in most cases. I would love to find some of these.

Paff

Yup! Was always the best part of Sunday evenings. And I suddenly realize how old I sound when I talk about being excited for a RADIO program every weekend, but there it is.

Same here!!

kd5

I remember the King Biscuit Flower Hour but I don't remember anything specific about bands I'd heard (it's been awhile).

Something you said about stations getting recordings that were never sold reminded me of a time I heard an extended version of Rozanne by the Police on WMMS in Cleveland, it had a rather lengthy instrumental in the middle of the song that kicked my ass. I've looked for that ever since but never found it.

Paff

May or may not be the same thing you're thinking of, but the movie Urgh! A Music War contains a live performance by The Police with an extended version of Roxanne. If you're a fan of that era of music (79-80), that's an excellent concert film. 2 hours, one song by each band (except The Police, they get to open and close the movie), lots of fantastic performances by new wave, punk, and post-punk bands like Echo and the Bunnymen, XTC (which is rare), Devo, Joan Jett, Oingo Boingo, X, Dead Kennedys, 999, Gang of Four, etc etc.

rw2516

The Sammy Hagar live simulcast of Three Lock Box tour he introduces a song with, "you won't find this on any album". Song was called "Satisfied". 20 years later, after internet came along, I discover "Satisfied" was the B side of vinyl 45. I haven't looked in a long while, but don't think it's turned up on any CD. Has it?

jpcamb

I loved the King Biscut back in the day! Looked forward to it each week and recorded some of them on tapes when it was a band I liked.

Paff

And did you real-time edit out the commercials with the pause button on your cassette player?

I was listening to that Utopia broadcast I bought on vinyl over the weekend, and it includes the commercials. That's kinda the best part, because it was a 1984 broadcast and the commercials are VERY 80s. I never knew I needed a punkish new-wave rendition of the Budweiser song, but now I have one.

PhantomStranger

I collected a few of the CDs available.

Giantrobo

Having heard that name in years.

The Cow

The Internet Archive has samples of some shows.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=king%20biscuit

Alan Smithee

A lot of radio shows were distributed on records even into the 90s. I have a few, mostly top 40 countdown shows. The commercials are the best part.

Paff

^ I figured you'd say that. Even though in my post I said "the commercials are the best part", that was kind of an exaggeration. They're amusing, that's for sure. But I know on future listens of this Utopia concert (or the Romantics/Nick Heyward that I got off of Discogs and would prefer not to disclose how much I paid for it) I might lift the needle after the actual music ends.

morriscroy

Only king biscuit show I have, is a Pat Benatar cd.

When I was younger, I remember friends who had "live tapes" with a decent sound production. Stuff like Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crue, etc .... which sounded like a professional multitrack production which I strongly suspected were from King Biscuit broadcasts.

Years later, I realized that king biscuit Ozzy tape I heard was likely from a 1986 live concert in kansas city. Several live songs which didn't show up on "The Ultimate Ozzy" VHS videotape, were on this king biscuit broadcast: The Ultimate Sin and Shot In The Dark. On "The Ultmate Ozzy" vhs tape, they replaced the latter two live tracks with the rock video versions of the same songs (ie. ozzy oil, etc ...).

In the case of the Motley Crue king biscuit broadcast from 1984, I don't know if the live tracks were ever re-released anywhere else (such as the 1999 "Live: Entertainment or Death" album, etc ....).

morriscroy

(More generally).

Another series of radio shows resembling the king biscuit flower hour (in spirit), might be The John Peel Sessions in england.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Peel_sessions

Paff

Oh, I like the Peel Sessions, and have a few of the records, but weren't they more of an in-studio live recording? Those are good, but KB was an actual live concert with fans, et al. And like you mentioned, a lot of "deep cuts", songs which don't appear on any live records or videos released. Often, they caught bands who were touring on a new album and they'd play a significant number of selections from that album. Not "just the hits". Or, the band was relatively new and they had to play deep cuts just to have a full concert. Like the Joan Jett KB show, it's pretty much all of I Love Rock-N-Roll and a few selections from Bad Reputation, 'cuz that was all she'd released at that point. I'm on the lookout for that one.

morriscroy

Did she play the song "Victim of Circumstances" in the KB broadcast?

Paff

Indeed she did. Looking it up online, the songs aired were:
Bad Reputation
(I'm Gonna) Run Away
Wooly Bully
You Don't Know What You've Got
I Love Rock N Roll
Nag
Crimson and Clover
Victim of Circumstance
Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)
Shout

For some reason, the rest of the show was 4 live cuts from The Romantics.

Count Dooku

Yes, I am old.

rw2516

For awhile, around 1979-81, local station aired BBC Live right after King Biscuit. These were actual shows not in studio. Only one I remember is Genesis from an outdoor festival in 1978-79. They opened with "Burning Rope".
Seems like for the longest time the sunday night line up was Reeling In The Years/King Biscuit/BBC/Dr. Demento.
Same station had a Midnight Album Hour monday thru friday. Whenever a new album was released they play the entire thing uninterrupted. Many times it was advance copy a week or two before the release date. I recorded Led Zep-In Through Out Door and Petty-Long After Dark and drove around listening to the tapes in my car for a couple weeks before you could buy them. By the time they did come out I didn't feel like buying them. They weren't new to me anymore. Wasn't till I switched to CD that I bought them.

Jason

Of course. I just heard these guys on there