History Page

    I've been a lover of Music forever! My Mom & Dad were East L.A. "Pachuko Jitterbuggers" from the 1940's and 50's, and family parties happened all the time  where the family, friends, and neighbors got together to play music and dance. Everybody knew everybody, and it was all good! People stuck together, and we  appreciated the World we made for ourselves. I can't remember when somebody wasn't playing and  listening to music ...even during  hard times!  I grew up with a transistor radio in my shirt pocket, and a small table radio on my bedstand!                                                                                                                              
     I grew  up in the East L.A.~San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles,California in the 1960's and 70's,during the birth and heyday of the "West Coast East Side Sound" and Lowriding CHICANO Music, Lowriding, the Civil rights era, the Chicano Movimiento &  Moratorium, the High  School walkouts, the Viet Nam war, and the explosion of American Rock & Roll & Soul music into many different and new genres...just too much history & cultural change to absorb & digest at one time, so we made it easier by taking it in with the music that represented our hearts & souls at the time. Also,as a young U.S. Marine overseas, I was able to meet other U.S. Marines from other parts of the Country, and we shared our music and exposed each other to new & varied tastes in music...and now, over 40 years later, with a better educated, older generation of Gente taking better care of themselves and living fuller, more active lifestyles, the music remains alive, and is inspiring live shows & concerts, books, movies, comedy, plays, poetry,  art,...and of course, more beautiful Chicano music. Our generation, our people, and the music that represents us is not lost, and in the tribal tradition, it should and will be shared.                                                                                                          
   After a brief stint as a club & mobile DJ/Club bouncer in the 1980's, I started out on the American Radio Network's cable radio station KCLA  FM, 99.3 in 1999, after winning a Doo~Wop DJ contest, and the owner of the ARN invited me to join  his new cable radio station  . They added internet/satellite station KCLAFM.com in 2000. During the taping of one of the earlier shows, one of the station managers complimented me on my choice  of music & songs that he had never heard during a show he was monitoring. ( originally called "Firme  Hits of the  Past with Firme Frank"). When finding out that most of the music was from an era  when he himself was young and had focused only on hard rock &  "surfer music",  he  stated "Wow!  I missed that stuff the first time around... Glad you're keeping it alive, Frankie!  Thus, were "The 2nd Time Around" and the "bringin' it back, and keepin' it alive" concepts born, and my show began to be  heard coast to coast, & around the World, with over 2 million listeners weekly after just 3 years on theair!                                                                                                                                                                      People just couldn't get enough of a good thing, it seems, and then, other internet Oldies radio stations started popping up after mine...not that I claim exclusive domain, just the huevos to get something started that wasn't supposed to last very long, and didn't leave the classics behind for more modern music and a new kiddie audience . With the advent of more affordable lap top computers, iphones, smart phones, iPods, and satellite radio,Internet Music Radio can boast of  a World wide audience and network.

   In early 2004, I was invited by the legendary "Godfather of Tejano Soul" Crazy Chuy Hernandez of Texas's CHICANO EXPRESS RADIO NETWORK and member of the prestigious TEJANO  R.O.O.T.S.  Hall of Fameto begin taping shows for his station, and in late 2005, I was invited by East L.A. Chicano Music pioneer "Froggy" Camarena and Q-VO magazine's Benjamin Hernandez to also submit shows to their new  Q~VO Radio Station for a short while.                       
   In late 2006, in response to a large World wide listening audience's suggestions and problems encountered by overloaded webstreams, I left KCLA FM after 7 years, and Q~VO Radio after 6 months, to move to bigger web server capabilities that  were  available exclusively only on East L.A. Revue Radio (California) and Chicano Express Radio (Texas), where the clear, digital sound is now even available for downloading, and Internet "drop offs" are almost a thing from the past.          
    In late 2008, popular L.A. Club DJ Art 'Mr. O.G" Rocha started his own Oldies
Radio Station "The Lost Memories Show" after a brief stint with the East L.A. Revue, inviting me to record & broadcast shows on yet a third world wide Internet radio station, where listeners could hear what most other commercial FM stations that claim to be "Oldies" stations just don't play... we're talking the rare & hard to find stuff ! What THE GENTE wants to hear and slow groove to !                                                   
  Then in late 2009, I was invited back to Q-VO Radio by Mr. Benjamin Hernandez to add to his "between the sheets" format of romantic Oldies & Soul ballad music for the lover in all of us....YOU know what I mean, right ?                                                  
   I laugh now when I remember all the self proclaimed"Oldies DJ's" from some commercial L.A. FM station I once interviewed for who just didn't know the music from the heart, and relied on old commercial sales charts, a researcher, and engineers to help them find music put together their "Oldies" shows. These shows were pretty much standard, and run of the mill stuff I didn't listen to when it was supposedly "top 40".            Then, some stations started pushing 1970's funk, retro-disco from the 1970's, and early Hip-Hop & Rap from the 1980's and started calling it "Old School"
  At the time, they attempted to make me feel "out of the loop" and "not with it" for not bowing down to some lame , inexperienced, so called "programming manager-music expert" who insisted that Oldies fans in L.A. wanted to hear non-stop white groups like Beach Boys, Beatles, Hollies, and Air Supply, with an occassional Motown song thrown in (REALLY?), and now stuff like"Atomic Dog" and "Rapper's delight"...and NO southwestern Chicano rock & roll bands or classic Black soul groupsthat have had the reputation for keeping it alive for years! . So I didn't take the job.....and they are no longer on the air for lack of an audience!                                                                                                                                                              Music Radio stations in Los Angeles have sadly recently taken to cater to younger audiences in the so-called "trending" genres of Rap, Hip-Hop, and retro new world fusion rock music, leaving an older audience without music if not for Internet & satellite radio stations, and out of town stations that still play Oldies & classic soul....but the Oldies willnever go away!

    Don't get me wrong,I can still put out that dance-boogie-booty slappin' club/party funk musicto get & keep any party going at gigs (I ain't dead), it's just that you won't hear me jammin' the Beach Boys or Rapper's Delight and  trying to pass them off as "Oldies" or "Old School".
   It is with that in mind that I do what I do, with so many talented artists and fans 
 supporting me around the World, I don't think I'll ever stop! Music is just too beautiful an art to ever ignore the time, love, talent,and effort put in by the artists for an ever grateful audience that includes yours truly!

  THANK YOU ALL! And may the music play forever!!  

HEAR THE FINEST CHICANO MUSIC ON:

www.eastLArevue.com  ~ 

Once my radio show "the 2nd Time Around" became popular on the Internet around 2000,  and commercial radio stations continued to ignore the mature Chicano &  Black audience with their take on Oldies, I thought of a webpage where other Oldies lovers could drop by and check out all the 411 I could find on music,  books,  groups, dances, concerts and other websites without the corny "happy days" commercial spin. I also began promoting Lowrider car shows & dances, and my audience just grew & grew. From 1999 to 2006, I developed an audience made up of listeners from all over the United States, as well as Europe, Japan, Canada and U.S. military personnel from different parts of the World.

...that audience listens faithfully to this day!

As my involvement with music grew, I became priviliged to meet some of the talent of my music world, and have been invited to promote, host, or emcee live shows ( and make friends ) with such greats as Steven Chavez's East L.A. Revue All Star Band, The Coasters, The Satisfaction Band, The Olympics, The Blues Straight Up Band, The Temptations, Tierra, Chico, Nuestro, Rosie & The Originals, Steve & Rudy Salas, Brenton Wood, Soto, Gilbert Esquivel, The  Premiers,Cory Silva, Sangria, Malo, Pepe Marquez, Cannibal & The Headhunters, Rocky Padilla, Al Wilson, Joe Bataan, El Chicano, Sapo, The Kool Katz, The Latin Oldies Festival, The Chicano Oldies- Rock n Roll & Blues Show,  The Oxnard Annual  Salsa Festival, Thee Mr. Duran Show, and most recently Ray Carrion & The L.A. Latin Legend All Stars,  among others.

"Bringing it back, and keeping it alive " has become the theme of my show & commitment to the music of Aztlan, writing all about it in www.LatinoLA.com  , and broadcasting it all over the World on Internet radio stations www.eastLArevue.com and www.ChicanoExpress.com,   ~ whoever said "you can NEVER get enough of a good thing" must have been in love with a BROWN woman and Chicano music!

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                Land of 1000 Dances