ENTERTAINMENT: GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN/A GOOD RADIO STATION GONE BAD

The first place I heard "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" was in October 1983 on the San Antonio rock radio station 99.5 KISS-FM. KISS disc jockeys have included the late and legendary Joe Anthony. Joe Anthony, whose nickname was "The Godfather of Rock -N- Roll," was the first in the nation to play numerous well-known rock bands. These include AC-DC, The Scorpions, UFO, Judas Priest, Rush, Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush, Triumph, Budgie, Moxy, Legs Diamond, Krokus, Def Leppard, Accept, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Mercyful Fate and Metallica. Joe Anthony's show is where I first heard Joe Satriani. As I recall the song was "The Snake." Many of the bands who got exposure on his show are still popular today. In the '70s and early '80s KISS-FM shows were simulcast daily on its now long-defunct sister station 60.1 KMAC-AM. The latter station's separate programming included blues, folk, roots rock, psychedelia, avant-garde--what many today might call an "alternative radio" format. KMAC-AM is where I first heard The Charlie Daniels Band's "The Devil Went Down To Georgia," in August '79. KISS-FM had been an independently-owned radio station from its inception until August or September 1980. That was when its owner, Howard G. Davis, died and a corporation that was then named Columbia Broadcasting Corporation bought the station. It has been a corporate radio station since then--and, strangely, pays no tribute to Joe Anthony. It once experimented with an unpopular and thus short-lived oldies format playing music such as The Four Seasons' "Big Girls Don't Cry."