
Yep, same logo.
At 7 am today, after a mass firing and 84 hours of counting down (and pulling a couple of pranks), KUFO has relaunched as "Portland's Rock," a slogan nearly identical to the previous "The Rock of Portland." The logo remains unaltered and the playlist sounds familiar.
When the final 59 seconds of stunting had been counted down, an announcer read, "101 KUFO, Portland's Rock. Remember us? You will." Later, the station proclaimed, "We finally found our balls."
The inaugural song was "Bodies" by Drowning Pool.
On The Kidd Chris Show, KUFO's new morning drive program, the first caller asked, "Is Cort & Fatboy still on the air?" The hosts demurred. "We were in a hotel ... It sucks ... we've been on that side," they said, referring to being fired.
And, boy, have they been fired. Here's some background on KUFO's new hosts, dug up before the relaunch.
Kidd Chris, 5 am - 10 am
"Kidd Chris" Foley seemed like an easy-going and good-natured DJ shortly after KUFO relaunched, but he quickly warned that his demeanor is only temporary. Foley is a shock jock. He was fired from WYSP Philadelphia in May of last year after this song was sung by an in-studio guest and re-aired several times:
Coloreds steal your wallets and coloreds have pink feet. Coloreds are loud and obnoxious, when they watch movies. Sticky fingers, what they are, Always try to jack my car, Schwoogies! Or shines, you can call them anything you like. Schwoogies! Watch out, jigs will rob you, day or night. Schwoogies. Mookie doesn't like to work, Just rolls blunts all day long. But there's one job he can do, hold a lantern on my lawn. If someone else has your watch on, you can bet its a moolignon. Shwoogies! All Around, there's Sambos, monkeys, knuckle draggers, So much brown Mandingo, Go Mr. Bojangles (unintelligible). I have no problem singing about the Negroes.
In July of this year, Foley made one of his many appearances on The Howard Stern Show, during which he sang a song with these lyrics:
She's a Nubian queen, no Afro sheen. She wants to be s--t while running down the street in Cali. She f---s white men with coffee in her a--. Robin's looking so good I have my d--k in my right hand. Here's what you should do: Just pull out those big G's, girl. Here's what I wanna do: Drop some loads on some t---ies, girl. Black t---ies are so fine. My d--k is poppin'. Show me those big G's, b----. Black t---ies are so fine. My d--k is poppin'. Suck on those black t---ies, b----.
While incidents that got him fired or booked on Howard "too hot for terrestrial" Stern might not be representative of his regular routine, additional YouTube clips from Foley's WYSP show may be. One features a pedophile's bedtime story, titled "Rusty is a Homosexual," in which a nine year-old fantasizes about sleeping with a naked fireman and wearing bondage gear. Another consists of Star Jones being crank-called by a member of his show who asks, "How fat are you, Star Jones, and is your husband gay?"
In a clip from Foley's online show, which he hosted at kiddshow.com from May to September of this year, he pulls a prank on a gay man who answered a fake Craigslist personals ad. Foley and other hosts/voices get increasingly graphic in a seven-minute phone conversation that turns to farting, the disgusted caller turning them down, and bursts of laughter as the caller is asked, "Where you goin', faggot?"
"I don't think we 'push the envelope,'" Foley said in an interview with Philadelphia's City Paper this June. "If you can't figure out that The Kidd Chris Show is just a goofy radio show, then you should leave this Earth."
Foley was joined by co-host Thomas this morning.
Ditch, 10 am - 3 pm
Ditch, KUFO's new program director and now midday host, had hosted afternoons at KGB San Diego for four years before becoming a statistic in Clear Channel's nationwide restructuring at the beginning of this year. His show on KGB heavily featured prank calls such as this one, getting two Chinese takeout and delivery restaurants to order from one another:
After he was laid off, Ditch wrote:
Often we loose gigs because new management comes in and wants to “take the show in a different direction” to make the sound of the show fit their personal management abilities. Radio is also a business with many people who are in job-preservation mode and are constantly looking for ways to make changes for the sake of looking like they are doing something.
Ricker, 3 pm - 7 pm
Michael Ricker's radio persona might best be captured by the nickname "bro-ski," which he used for others, and others used for him, on KISW Seattle up until last Friday. Originally from Pensacola, Florida, he had been with KISW since 2003.
Rubber chickens were a regular part of Ricker's show, including one instance when he was presented with a giant one:
Listen to a random recent episode of Ricker's KISW podcast below:
Marconi, 7 pm - 12 am
New night DJ Marconi is returning to familiar territory, having been on KUFO from 2005 until last December. More recently, he's been a fill-in host in the same building as KUFO at KUPL (98.7) while producing a daily podcast for his website.
Like Kidd Chris, Marconi has been fired amid controvery before. Not from his KUFO gig, but from KNRK (94.7), when, in 2004, he and co-host Tiny laughed and played music to the screams of American Nick Berg as he was beheaded in Iraq. The incident made national headlines, and both hosts were fired the next day. Marconi apologized at the time, saying he had "become so numb to the horrific things that happen in this world that I sometimes forget there are still people who feel."
In the intervening five years, Marconi has managed to avoid causing national outrage, and is instead more likely to chat about his cat or his nana.
To get a sense of how Marconi might sound on KUFO, why not listen to ... his old podcasts on KUFO? Believe it or not, the station still hosts them. Here's hour one of his last available day, November 27, 2008:
Welcome to the new KUFO. And its balls.
UPDATE (10/28, 8:50 am): The station's press release is after the jump:
101 KUFO MOTHERSHIP REFUEL COMPLETE REVEALS NEW LINE-UP
The Kidd Chris Show, Ditch and Ricker Take Over the Airwaves Today
(Portland, Oregon) … After 84 hours of countdown clocks, speculation, rumors and bloggers gone wild, the 101 KUFO Mothership has refueled, revealing the all new line-up as of this morning:
The Kidd Chris Show, 5:00-10:00am
Ditch on the Job, 10:00am-3:00pm
Ricker, 3:00pm-7:00pm
Marconi, 7:00pm-12:00am
Art Webb, 12:00am-5:00am
The Kidd Chris Show is known around the country, having been on the air in Syracuse, Wichita, Sacramento, San Antonio and most recently Philadelphia at rock station WYSP, as the morning drive program. His association with the Howard Stern Show put Kidd Chris on the map and he’s been grabbing attention and ratings ever since. Now making his home in Portland, Kidd Chris is fired up and ready to get back on the air, keeping listeners on the edge of their seats, wondering what he’ll do next. Everyone is about to find out now at 101 KUFO.
Ditch will not only hold the programming reins of 101 KUFO, but also handle the midday shift, 10am-3pm weekdays. His career path has taken him from Seattle to Colorado Springs and then to San Diego where he spent the last 5 years at the legendary rock station KGB. A Harley riding rocker himself, Ditch is ready to crank up the volume for the working men and women in Portland.
Ricker comes to KUFO fresh from 7 years as the midday personality up the road at heritage rock station KISW/Seattle. His first foray into radio was at the tender age of 7 when he voiced a toy store commercial, received a paycheck of $5 and was bitten by the bug from then on. He’s been heard from Pensacola, Florida to San Jose, California, from West Palm Beach to Dayton. His unique style defies description except to say that his vocabulary of Ricker-isms will soon become the lexicon of Portland radio listeners. All shows can also be heard streaming live at www.kufo.com.
“This incredible roster of on air talent for KUFO marks the beginning of a new era for the station,” commented Alpha Broadcasting’s Director of Music Programming, Scott Mahalick. “We’ve decidedly raised the bar very high and think that each of these shows will infuse KUFO with a distinct flavor and energy unmatched anywhere on the radio dial in Portland.”
KUFO is owned and operated by Alpha Broadcasting, along with KXTG-FM, KUPL-FM, KINK-FM, KXL-AM and KCMD-AM. Alpha Broadcasting, headquartered in Portland, Oregon was formed by Larry Wilson, Bob Proffitt and Endeavour Capital, also in Portland. Wilson founded Citadel Communications Corporation, before it was sold to Forstmann Little & Company in 2001 for $2 billion.
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