Shane - the american

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Postby Jack Bennest » Sun Feb 04, 2007 2:29 pm

a number of us here remember shane from KGA in spokane circa 1968-1969



"The bombastic, yet personable Shane arrived on the Buffalo radio scene in 1973. He had worked at such stations as KPUG Bellingham, Wash., KGA Spokane, Wash., WLEE Richmond, Va., and KNAK Salt Lake City, but it was Buffalo where he really made his mark. For the better part of two decades, Shane would provide some memorable radio for listeners in Western New York and southern Ontario.

After a short stop at WYSL, Shane arrived at WGR in 1975. He would spend eight years in the 6-10 p.m. shift there, part of a superb on-air staff that also included Stan Roberts, Larry Anderson, Frank Benny, Tom Donahue and John Otto. As you'll hear on this aircheck, Shane did a personality-driven show that well suited the friendly style of WGR at the time.

Shane left 'GR in 1983, only to return to the station in afternoon drive from 1986 to 1989. He took a short-lived stab at midday talk at WKBW in 1993. Shane was also at CHSC St. Catharines, Ont. - albeit briefly - in the early '90s.

After a couple of failed attempts at running for Buffalo city council, Shane (real name Ron Gibson) left Buffalo in the 1990s. He did a stint in mornings at WLEE-FM Richmond in 1995. The last time he appeared on Buffalo radio was at a radio reunion on WHTT-FM in 1999, when he spent a Saturday afternoon reminiscing on-air about his Buffalo days."


here is a clip from WGR - maybe someone can confirm this is the
same Shane

http://rockradioscrapbook.ca/shane80.ram


jon - your feature has this:

"Rumor has it he went to Top 40 CKXL in Calgary, to capitalize on KGA's listeners there, but no one has heard of him since."

Should that be updated?
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Postby jon » Sun Feb 04, 2007 3:27 pm

Top Dog is referring to this: http://www.reelradio.com/jp/index.html#shkga69

reelradio policy is to leave the original description, except under extraordinary circumstances. It was written in 1999, and is corrected in the Comments thread attached to the exhibit.

Yes, it is the same Shane. All that I can add is that the Shane name was created during the move from KPUG to KGA. And his ill-fated 1995 WLEE-FM stint (a few months) was also a comeback, as he was quite a legend in the market from many years there previously. The failure was the format ('80s didn't go over there in 1995), not Shane.

Last I heard, from a DJ who had airchecked Shane's first half hour back in 1995, Shane was still in Richmond, selling cars.

Funny coincidence. A couple of hours before TD posted this, I had been thinking, for the first time in 30+ years, of my Junior High School (Grade 10) graduation event in Burnaby. The social mixer after the formal ceremonies was held in the cafeteria. The music in the background was Shane on KGA.

In case it isn't obvious, I join Radiofan and many others in our belief that KGA's single year (Jan 1968-Jan 1969) of Top 40 (which effectively ended with the aircheck on reelradio) was some of the finest radio ever made. Played great songs that no one else did, by groups like The Roosters.

Killer signal at night after they built their new transmitter early during this period. In 1979, while visiting San Diego, KGA was the loudest non-local signal at night.

By the way, I recently tracked down another KGA DJ, but he has not, as yet, responded to my query about any KGA airchecks he may still have. I am not aware of any airchecks other than the one on reelradio.
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Postby Jack Bennest » Sun Feb 04, 2007 4:32 pm

Unfortunately you have to pay $12.00 us to hear shane at kga and for 12 dollars less
you can listen on rockradio scrapbook.

Yes I would like everyone who looks at my site to pay 12 bucks but that is highly unlikely.
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Postby jon » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:37 pm

Dale Patterson, who runs rockradioscrapbook, would be the first to agree with me that you cannot compare the two sites. Reelradio represents at least 10,000 hours of state of the art technical work to provide the very best possible on-line presentation of 1790 airchecks of mainly Top 40 radio. Yes, there are a few remaining airchecks there that were first presented in 1997 and are still only state of the art for 1997; many have been updated.

The minimum $12 U.S. annual donation was the only way that the site curator could continue his job, since he had been unemployed for nearly 2 years at the time the decision was made to charge the fee. He was only weeks away from losing his house, not to mention his responsibilities caring for his family and aged mother.

Dale works hard at his site, too, but does not do the kind of museum quality audio restoration that you will hear on reelradio. For example, I worked with several others over many months to locate all the music to recreate a 1971 KOL aircheck in stereo, from a scoped (no music) original spanning 1 hour, 40 minutes. The reelradio curator pulled off the re-creation, despite the fact that KOL had sped up the turntables at the time it was originally aired.

I should also mention that Dale does not have to deal with the RIAA and other fees that reelradio has been paying since they were put into law in the U.S. nearly 5 years ago. Those fees would paid from the donations, averaging close to $100 U.S. per year each, of the site's small group of supporters. When more money was needed to pay the curator a small portion of what his time was worth, the subscription approach was the only method that the Board of Directors could see as viable. Many efforts had previously been made for both corporate and government support, without success.

For those who might argue that reelradio should accept advertising for its support, may I remind you that there were quite a number of years at the beginning of this century when many sites disappeared when the advertisers disappeared.

Consumer Reports charges for access to many of its Web sites, so why can't reelradio?
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Postby jon » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:41 pm

I guess I should also have mentioned that Dale Patterson, curator of rockradioscrapbook, is a strong supporter of reelradio, with his own collection on the site, as a current subscriber, and as a financial contributor in years past, before the current subscription system.
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Postby Gord Robson » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:52 pm

I remember Shane on KGA very well. I started at CKXL Calgary that year and KGA was the big alternate nighttime station to us, for listeners in the area, and into BC. It was a very well programmed, big sounding station with talented jocks....Shane being the best of the lot. He used to really reach out to the listener, endearing himself with things like running the soundtrack from the end of the Alan Ladd movie "Shane' with the boy calling out "Shane, come back, come back" over smaltzy music as he ended his show. He also did heartfelt nonsense commentary over "People" the Barbara Streisand song in the background. A real showman. Our nighttime 'star' was Buddy B, who really didn't come close, although he had a big following. I did the allnight show on XL and constantly got calls asking for songs that only KGA played and we didn't. Other jocks at KGA included Joe Fiola and Johnny Novak. They must have been a station that excelled only with their nighttime signal and not necessarily in the Spokane market itself which had KJRB, KJR's sister and KXLY. It must be the reason they changed format after only one year. I know a lot of listeners were sad the night they switched, as it was a total surprise.
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Postby jon » Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:29 am

After the aircheck appeared on reelradio, I got a note from a fellow in Manitoba who'd worked at the station (off-air). He said that what killed KGA was KJRB's stranglehold on national advertising accounts. KGA was just never able to break it, and could just not generate enough ad revenue locally in Spokane.
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Re: Shane - the american

Postby StevenSmith » Tue Jan 03, 2017 9:43 pm

Interesting in a few ways. First, as you know I am very familiar with KPUG, but I am drawing a blank on Shane. I will have to ask Dick Stark...KPUG's longest serving employee. I saw up there Shane's real name, but does anyone know his air name at KPUG? As for KGA, I used to listen late at night, in Bellingham, when they were playing rock. I tended to hear Derek Shannon, who was good. I met him years later when he and a partner looked at buying KBFW. But they ended up with SRO's stations in Longview. They already owned a property in Chehalis. After KGA was country, mid seventies, I had a job offer as a jock from their PD Ron Norwood who shortly thereafter went to KMPS as PD. I turned down the offer, always wanted to stay in Bellingham. In retrospect I am glad I did. By doing so, I was able to buy a local station...A unique opportunity.
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Re: Shane - the american

Postby jon » Tue Jan 03, 2017 10:58 pm

As I recall, Norm Gregory told me that Shane used his real name, Ron Gibson, on the air at KPUG. I have never double checked that, but just assumed it was true.

At one time, he (Shane) even signed up for this discussion forum.
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Re: Shane - the american

Postby StevenSmith » Tue Jan 03, 2017 11:25 pm

Jon...I googled Shane Brother Shane and saw lots of hits...Mainly tied to WGR. Somehow this guy is totally off my radar, yet I was familiar with so many of the KPUG guys from 66 to about 69. There are videos of Shane on YouTube and he has a Facebook page..But no updates in a long time at FB
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Re: Shane - the american

Postby Neumann Sennheiser » Wed Feb 17, 2021 10:00 pm

This thread began slightly more than 14 years ago......and now has come full circle.
DJ “Shane” Gibson Dies - Age 78

https://buffalonews.com/obituaries/feat ... 2NGIWm9274

Image
"You don't know man! I was in radio man! I've seen things you wouldn't believe!"
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Re: Shane - the american

Postby Neumann Sennheiser » Wed Feb 17, 2021 10:42 pm

This 1975 short feature aircheck from his stay at WYSL - Buffalo nicely captures Shane’s singular style.


http://blog.buffalostories.com/wp-conte ... eYSL75.mp3
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Re: Shane - the american

Postby jon » Thu Feb 18, 2021 8:31 am

Interesting coincidence, as a server named Shane reappeared at the Old Spaghetti Factory in West Edmonton Mall a couple of weeks ago after a 5 year absence. Both were named after the Alan Ladd character in the 1953 movie "Shane".

Does anyone know if JB Shayne, who originally spelled it "Shane", also named himself after the Alan Ladd character?
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