There will be a special screening of a new documentary, KGB and the FM Radio Revolution, on November 18 at 6 p.m., in the Neil Morgan Auditorium, located at the Downtown San Diego Central Library. Focusing on legendary local radio station KGB, the documentary was put together by Raul Sandelin and filmmaking partner, Tony Butler. “He also grew up in SD and has the same early impressions of KGB that I have,” Sandelin said. “Whereas I’m more the writer/director, Tony is our team’s cinematographer/editor. He and I are co-producers on the film.” Amongst Sandelin’s previous documentaries are features about Lester Bangs and Gary Heffern (The Penetrators), as well as Ticket to Write, a film about music journalism.
A Q&A session with the filmmakers and several of the DJs interviewed will follow the screening.
As it did for many San Diegans during the late 1970s, KGB-FM loomed large in Sandelin’s life. “I was inspired to make the film because I grew up in San Diego and was a rock n’ roll teenager in the late-1970s when KGB ruled the airwaves,” Sandelin explained. It was his lifelong love of the station that resulted in the documentary. “I met Jim McInnes at a KGB remote when I was 14, around 1977-78,” he recalled. “I continued listening to KGB through the 1980s, even to today. I loved Berger, Prescott, Cookie Chainsaw Randolph, and later the DSC. I also interviewed various KGB personalities over the years, including Gabriel Wisdom. So, when Gabe invited me to an annual KGB lunch at his house, I couldn’t refuse. It was at that lunch (in 2018) that the project began.”
Sandelin notes that many of the KGB DJs and personalities still live in San Diego. “So, it wasn’t too hard getting everybody together, although there were some people who now live in other cities. We interviewed some when they flew into town.” Regrettably, he didn’t get to interview everybody he wanted. “Most importantly, we missed interviewing Ron Jacobs, the program director who created the KGB phenomenon. Unfortunately, Ron died a couple of years before we started the project.”
For his part, Sandelin is happy to spotlight an important part of San Diego’s history. “I’m most proud of the fact that I got to memorialize the KGB radio station that I was in awe of as a kid,” he said. “I mentioned that I met Jim McInnes when I was a freshman at Grossmont High School. Then, I LISTENED to so many other KGB alums over the years. So, it was a real treat to actually meet and see these people who had only been “voices on the radio” for much of my life.”
https://sandiego.librarymarket.com/event/hold-picture-323200
Link to trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixsahB0_9sw
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