Beth Sereni remembers . . .

I found this site by accident, whilst I was reminiscing about my  earlier years.  It was 1979 and I was at a concert at the Old  Waldorf.  I want to say it was The Cars, but I could be totally  wrong.  I went to a lot of live shows there back then.  Anyway, Fred  Greene was sitting across the table from me and although I didn't  know who he was at the time, he later told me he was an engineer and  weekend DJ at KSAN.  The next day was a Saturday and I listened to  his show.  During the broadcast, there was an announcement of an  internship program (earn college credit!).  I wasn't in college so  the next Monday I went to my local community college and enrolled in  a broadcast journalism class and then took Golden Gate Transit to the  financial district to interview for the job and to drop off my resume  at Sansome Street.  Moe interviewed me and told me I was the only person to turn in a resume with my application.  I think I said  something like "all I want to do is rock and roll".  I was 18.

I was hired.  What was to be an early morning gig for a few months  turned into a year of unpaid bliss.  I would take the bus from Marin  County with the gray-suited commuters to the financial district.  It  was like 5:30am. Nothing but a coffee shop across the street was  open so all I ate was a donut and Tab from the vending machine until  1pm when I left.  It was my task to tally the week's playlist for  reporting to Billboard and such. Abby Melamed was Program Director and Kate Ingram was  Music Director.  I had to compile the playlists and that was really a  challenge, especially Richard Gossett's hieroglyphics during the  early morning hours.  Back then, there was definitely a structure to  the playlist and hot tracks (I think they were red dots - as  determined by management) had to be played a certain number of times  per hour/day/week.  My tallies were always carefully edited by Kate. Santana was supposed to be hot, so I made it hot by showing spins  that did not happen.  Elvis Costello was not hot (in view of the  station) and wasn't supposed to be getting 68 spins per week, so we  adjusted the numbers. It was quite a ride.

I remember going to a used record shop and finding a bootleg of Tom Petty's "Surrender," a live performance on vinyl and I brought it to  the station (one of my jobs was listening to new vinyl).  I got Glenn  to play it, then TK. Eventually they realized that it was  actually a KSAN sponsored live concert that had been broadcast and recorded!

So many people were so nice to me then.  It's an experience I will  never forget.