KRLA and the Beat history
KRLA personalities
KRLA specialties
Radio Free Oz
Radio Free Oz had its start on Los Angeles station KPFK in July 1966, an amalgam of radio insanity led by four masters of surreal radio comedy. Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman had met at Yale in the late 1950s. After Bergman spent some time in England during the mid-1960s and was exposed to BBC television and the Goon Show genius Spike Milligan, Bergman brought back the germ of an idea for his own theatrical production...but it required a foursome.
The preliminary group included Phil Austin, David Ossman, Paul Jay Robbins, and Peter Bergman, who hosted a fundraising show for FM radio station KPFK on July 12, 1966. Bergman and Robbins hosted a three-hour radio show throughout the summer of 1966 with an eclectic mix of interviews, live music, astrology, and call-ins. It wasn't exactly a comedy show, but improvisational moments began to emerge in the interplay among its nascent hosts. Read more on the early broadcasts of the Firesign Theatre here.
Robbins left in September 1966 to pursue journalism (his byline can be seen in archived copies of the Los Angeles Free Press). Bergman stayed and the remaining assembled group included Phil Proctor, David Austin, and David Ossman.
By 1967 the Firesigns began broadcasting from The Magic Mushroom, a club on Ventura Blvd. that had once been Bob Eubanks' Cinnamon Cinder -- there's that KRLA connection! By 1967 they'd moved from KPFK to a Sunday-evening show on KRLA, broadcasting live to a much larger audience. Their radio plays were heavily influenced by The Goon Show, obvious to anyone who was a fan of both.
The Firesigns also performed live at an event at Elysian Park in Los Angeles, which Bergman termed a "love-in," patterned after similar events held at Sheep Meadow in Central Park and the "Human Be-in" at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Drugs may have been involved. Nevertheless the Firesign Theatre's performance in Los Angeles caught the attention of record producer Gary Usher, who offered the group a Columbia recording contract.
By 1968 the Firesign Theatre had moved its radio show to KMET, a hard-rock FM radio station where the group's extended and free-form style was better suited.