Paper: Houston Chronicle 
Date: MON 05/16/06 
Section: HOUSTON 
Page: 1 
Edition: 2 STAR 

From the Dial to the Web / Pop Radio from 1960s Makes a Comeback Online 

By BRUCE WESTBROOK 
Staff 
 

Every day at 2:00 p.m., Richard Kaufman throws on one of his over 100 Hawaiian shirts, steps back in time 40 years, and becomes Ricky the K of the Solid Gold Time Machine Radio Network.

“Have you ever noticed that Hawaiian shirts are never exactly in style, but they are never really out of style? They’re always on the periphery of fashion,” said Kaufman, founder, DJ, “chief cook and bottle washer” of the online radio destination http://60sradio.com.

Richard Kaufman is stuck in the '60s - and proud of it. Now he's pushing that passion into the 21st century. 

Kaufman, is a former disc jockey with a '60s-style show called the Solid Gold Time Machine. But it's not on radio. It's online. 

If you don't remember radio when the original, 1960s top forty stations were rocking with new music from ground-breaking artists, and big personality disc jockeys, dial up http://60sradio.com for a sample of Ricky the K's Solid Gold Time Machine. You'll get you an almost endless supply of great music and fun personality.

Each weekday, subscribers can download Kaufman's three-hour show, then listen to his wacky humor, varied music and time-warp oddities whenever they like. 

"This re-creates the sound of all U. S. top forty radio stations back in the '60s, complete with vacuum tube compression and limiting and plate reverb." Kaufman said. "It's like the big Top 40 stations were back then - which is light years from what oldies stations are today, for the few oldies stations that remain."

Kaufman records his show every afternoon, Monday through Friday, at his studio, then uploads it in the wee hours of the morning. Subscribers can download the show anytime they want which makes it convenient for anyone in any time zone in the world.

Subscriptions are $12.95 per month, with price breaks for longer periods. Visit the Web site at http://60sradio.com and anyone can subscribe by clicking on any of the Paypal icons.  

"I wanted this to be a dream service for people who want to hear it done right," said Kaufman , who grew up while grooving to pop radio in New Jersey, just outside New York City. 

Kaufman got a great, closeup radio education. His mentor was legendary WCFL, Chicago, 60s evening disc jockey, Barney Pip. Kaufman also said that listening to WABC, New York's, highly rated, afternoon drive disc jockey, Dan Ingram, had a great influence on his wanting to go into radio.

Kaufman originally developed the Solid Gold Time Machine in the early 1990s on KOMA, Oklahoma City, which itself was a major top forty force in the 1960s. KOMA, with its 50,000 watt A. M. signal on 1520, could be heard in 22 states, Canada and Mexico at night. Developing the Solid Gold Time Machine originally on KOMA, gave the Solid Gold Time Machine wide regional exposure and gave Ricky the "K" a cult following. Legend says that the Beach Boys used to listen to KOMA at night while they were growing up around Los Angeles.

Kaufman has also been noticed by various major electronic media outlets having had feature stories done about the Solid Gold Time Machine on the Fox News Channel, NBC, CBS and ABC.

One of his friends while growing up was the son of Nick Massi of the Four Seasons. Kaufman estimates he's seen that New Jersey group perform 100 times.

Yes, those were the good old days. But Kaufman despises the term "oldies." 

"It's demeaning to the music," he said. "This is great music. There's nothing old about it." 

He believes the '60s had such such vibrant, varied music because of "so many recording centers and so many different labels" - not to mention more receptive radio. 

"Since 1968, radio has been in a continuing downward spiral to the nothingness that it is today," Kaufman said. "But it used to be the greatest thing in the world." 

In emulating '60s radio, his show involves much more than music. 

"This is high-energy, in-your-face, personality-based radio," Kaufman said.

"I want to entertain. I'll do just about anything for a laugh. I'm obnoxious and do a lot of stupid stuff, including comedy with a dead person." 

That's the late Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto on TV's The Lone Ranger in the '50s. Kaufman uses hundreds of taped Tonto lines to engage him in a running, humerous dialogue.

His show also includes more than 1000 1960s radio commercials, from a 90-second Coke commercial sung by Petula Clark to a pitch for The Graduate to a political ad for Nelson Rockefeller and that is just the tip of the commercial iceberg. 

The Solid Gold Time Machine also uses vintage radio jingles that Kaufman re-recorded, tailoring them to his show. 

He's got 3,000 songs on his playlist. Choosing them wasn't easy. Kaufman sifted through thousands of records that made Billboard's Top 20 from 1955 to 1971. 

"It's still a judgment call," he said. "I gave a lot of thought to it, analyzing each song on its own merits. "

He said there are a few Top 20 songs that "nobody remembers". So I don't play them. 

"But I'll play some that didn't break the Top 20, such as Seven and Seven Is by Love, a regional hit in L.A., or I Can Hear Music by the Beach Boys, which only reached No. 24." 

Beyond a few Beatles songs, he plays no album tracks - just singles.

No song is repeated more often than every twelve weeks. That enables Kaufman to explore far more music than oldies stations. 

"Most oldies stations play 400-800 songs, and you hear Satisfaction and Baby Love so many times, you wanna puke," he said. 

Kaufman also plays what he calls "the right version" of some songs. While the correct versions of most of the songs on the show come from cds, this is not always the case. 

A good example of this is, Charlie Drake's early 60s hit, "My Boomerang Won't Come Back." The CD version is not the original, U. S. hit version, so Kaufman uses the original, U. S. hit version from a 45 RPM single. This is also true for every other record where the wrong version is on cd. Kaufman is a perfectionist when it comes to the accuracy of the music on the show.

He also delights in juxtaposing diverse songs, as '60s radio routinely did. "I might go from the theme from Exodus by Ferrante & Teicher to Fire by the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown to Diamonds And Pearls by the Paradons to Surfin' Bird by the Trashmen," he said. 

Kaufman's show is owned by Solid Gold Time Machine Radio Network Inc., of which he owns 100 percent. 

Though he jokingly calls himself "a martyr," he says he's already making money. 

He won't reveal his number of subscribers, but he said 25 percent are from other countries, such as England, Japan, Holland and Sweden. 

His core audience was born between 1935 and 1957, "and because we go from era to era, you're never more than one song away from one that you like," Kaufman said. 

After downloading the show, you can use your computer for other things while listening. But Kaufman said his audience finds that "very distracting. You can't really listen to this as background." 

"People like the musical variety, but they also seem excited about the return of personality radio." 

As much as he loves his work, 15 hours a week is all he can handle.

"More than that would destroy me," Kaufman said. "This involves a lot of energy, and I have to rest my throat and brain. 

"Even so, there's no better way to make a living and spend the rest of my life than doing this. I will do this show until a nurse has to take me to the bathroom … When I’m too old, the audience will be too old — we’ll erode together. I’m in this for the long-run.”