[WillowBend56]

In the 1970s, station KIKK promoted itself with bumper stickers which boldly proclaimed, " I'm a KiKKer" or "I'm proud to be a KiKKer." (The Ks were in cowboy boot form.) Has the station changed its broadcast format since then?

I had one of those stickers on my vehicle. While traveling on the West Coast in the late 70s, I got a dirty look and angry reaction from someone who probably did not see the small 'i' in KiKKer--- or didn't know what "kicker" meant.

[NenaE]

WillowBend56, on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 @ 12:45pm, said:

In the 1970s, station KIKK promoted itself with bumper stickers which boldly proclaimed, " I'm a KiKKer" or "I'm proud to be a KiKKer." (The Ks were in cowboy boot form.) Has the station changed its broadcast format since then?

I had one of those stickers on my vehicle. While traveling on the West Coast in the late 70s, I got a dirty look and angry reaction from someone who probably did not see the small 'i' in KiKKer--- or didn't know what "kicker" meant.

I remember the logo (K's) were in the shape of a boot. The radio station was located on Southmore street, in Pasadena.

[Original Timmy Chan's]

I was definitely a KiKKer as a kid...while all my panty-waist schoolmates were blasting the Q-Zoo on their boom boxes.

[crunchtastic]

'KiKKers' was a huge part of 70s culture here and a major social food group. No one used the term 'redneck'. Growing up in 70s suburban Houston, you were either a jock, a kikker, a head, or a noboby. We had turf wars. I think I may have told the story of how at Katy High the heads had the smoking area, and the kikkers had the 'dipping tree.' As you would guess, the kikkers and the jocks (there was probably 80% overlap) would gang up on the heads and beat the crap out of them. The heads would sabotage the kikker's trucks (the gearheads being a subgroup of the heads), and it would start all over again.

[pineda]

Here's where all the Westbury High School KiKKer's hung out on the weekends!

[lockmat]

crunchtastic, on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 @ 1:29pm, said:

'KiKKers' was a huge part of 70s culture here and a major social food group. No one used the term 'redneck'. Growing up in 70s suburban Houston, you were either a jock, a kikker, a head, or a noboby.

I never knew this is where the term kikker came from! I remember calling people that, but just thought it was something everyone knew; I found out in California that everone did not.

interesting...

[WillowBend56]

Was the term "kicker" derived from the radio station KIKK? I thought not. I thought kicker (spelled just like that) had widespread vernacular usage---at least in Texas--- aside from the word's association with KIKK in the Houston area. Hmmm...

[memebag]

As I understood it, the radio station KIKK piggy-backed on the pre-existing term "flurf kicker".

At my high school, the heads were called "jellies" or just "jels".

[texianjoe]

The term "KiKKer" was a shortened polite word for the term "flurf Kikker" refering to the cowboy boot wearing folks running around with cattle stepping in or kikking cow patties. It started as an insult and evolved into a badge of honor for cowboys and country music lovers.

joe

This post has been edited by texianjoe: Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 3:41 PM

[crunchtastic]

WillowBend56, on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 @ 2:10pm, said:

Was the term "kicker" derived from the radio station KIKK? I thought not. I thought kicker (spelled just like that) had widespread vernacular usage---at least in Texas--- aside from the word's association with KIKK in the Houston area. Hmmm...

you could easily be correct--I always assumed it was from the radio station, but that's because as an impressionable young anti-kikker I felt like I couldn't escape it's evil grasp. I'm trying to remember what I heard in other parts. I know my cousins in Beaumont said 'kikker' also.

[RhinoVP]

We always called them "Goat roper's", "Stoner's" , "Jock's" , "Prep's , "Punk's" and "Nerd's". Then there was the ROTC guys....

I do however remember KIKK, form back in the time KIKK and KILT were the two country stations. You also had rock stations KLOL, KSRR and KRBE (KRBE was awsome back in the day). I remember 79Q on the am dial too, before the fm 93Q.

[rsb320]

Crunch, which category did you fall into??

KRBE did rock back in the day. I remember John Alan Whites was a DJ.

Later came 93Q with the Q Morning Zoo. Mr. Leonards was hilarious. Apparently, he wore a lime green suit. One of his lines was "That's a real purdy dress, but it's a booger to iron".

[FilioScotia]

crunchtastic, on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 @ 3:37pm, said:

you could easily be correct--I always assumed it was from the radio station, but that's because as an impressionable young anti-kikker I felt like I couldn't escape it's evil grasp. I'm trying to remember what I heard in other parts. I know my cousins in Beaumont said 'kikker' also.

I've never heard the term "flurf kicker." However, I HAVE heard the term "sh-t kicker" all my nearly 70 years of living in Texas. When I was growing up it was a derogatory term city people used to insult people who weren't from the city. Somewhere in the 60s, we "sh-t kickers" -- "kickers" for short -- started feeling pride in the fact that we didn't live like city folk, and in fact we started feeling sorry for them.

Then, in the early sixties, the owner of KRCT Radio in Pasadena changed the call letters to KIKK, and we listeners just went with it and proudly started calling ourselves KiKK'ers. The station owner promoted that image with those bumper stickers and everything else he could find to stick those letters on. That "Boot-I-BOOT BOOT" sticker was everywhere.

Some KiKK'ers were open and unashamed racists, and scissored the letter "i" out of the bumper sticker, leaving only the letters KKK. The sticker then read "I'm proud to be a KKK'er." There were a good many vehicles around town with that particular sticker on them -- mostly pickup trucks with gun racks. It was about that time that I started disassociating myself from that station and finding other things to listen to on the radio.

I still love country music though. Too bad Houston doesn't have any. REAL country music that is.

This post has been edited by FilioScotia: Friday, January 30, 2009 at 3:30 PM

[memebag]

FilioScotia, on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 @ 4:47pm, said:

I've never heard the term "flurf kicker."

"Flurf" is what the profanity filter calls the vernacular for "feces".

[Original Timmy Chan's]

FilioScotia, on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 @ 4:47pm, said:

There were a good many vehicles around town with that particular sticker on them -- mostly pickup trucks with gun racks.

aka "KiKK'UP TRUCKS"

Slightly off topic, but something I've thought about a number of times recently...when's the last time you saw a truck with a gun rack? Maybe it's my redneck family, maybe it's the fact that I spent much of my childhood in Pasadena, but it sure seems that 95% of all pickup trucks in the 70's and 80's had a gun rack, and 95% of those had at least one rifle or shotgun on the gun rack.

When did that go out of style?

When will it come back?

[memebag]

Original Timmy Chan, on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 @ 6:45pm, said:

aka "KiKK'UP TRUCKS"

Slightly off topic, but something I've thought about a number of times recently...when's the last time you saw a truck with a gun rack? Maybe it's my redneck family, maybe it's the fact that I spent much of my childhood in Pasadena, but it sure seems that 95% of all pickup trucks in the 70's and 80's had a gun rack, and 95% of those had at least one rifle or shotgun on the gun rack.

When did that go out of style?

When will it come back?

I think pickups just became more popular with long gun-less drivers. When I was a kid, pickups were mostly driven by people with blue collar or agricultural jobs, many of whom were also hunters. I think in the 80s they broke through to white collar folks.

[crunchtastic]

rsb320, on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 @ 4:04pm, said:

Crunch, which category did you fall into??

I started out as a head/jock, but could not do better than JV volleyball. So, head/nerd, basically. Honor student/speech and debate team and ran the school newspaper. that and one of the first two 'punkers' in school. The heads still claimed me despite the punk music thing, which was nice. I was very outgoing, but terribly (awfully) uncute and uncool. Won a crapload of speech trophies though. At one of the class reunions much later on I found out I was a huge fan favorite of the nerd underclassmen. Funny.

Ha! goat ropers ad flurf kikkers were popular variants. And the FFA kids in their blue corduroy jackets (those kids were cool because they actually did something country-ish). Kids used to go the Fulshear rodeo on Friday nights. Very small town-ish, even late into the 80s. I believe that's now a Kickerillo development out there.

memebag, on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 @ 7:47pm, said:

I think pickups just became more popular with long gun-less drivers. When I was a kid, pickups were mostly driven by people with blue collar or agricultural jobs, many of whom were also hunters. I think in the 80s they broke through to white collar folks.

I haven't seen a gun rack in a while. They used to be everywhere, or so it seemed growing up. You'd think people driving the 1 ton dualies in my parking garage at work might need gun racks, but I guess not. What am I thinking? They've all got CHLs.

[baron]

I can confirm that at Memorial High in the mid 70's, the stoner kids were referred to as "jels" I have never encountered that term anywhere else.

[HarrisCountyEx]

Some guys had very domestic girlfriends and they would make curtains for the back window of their truck!

This post has been edited by HarrisCountyEx: Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 10:54 PM

[KimberlySayWhat]

I thought "Kikker" was primarily a '90s thing. Had no idea it went back that far.

One thing I noticed was that "Kikkers" seemed to always have bad acne.

This post has been edited by KimberlySayWhat: Friday, January 30, 2009 at 10:49 AM

[LunaticFringe]

I can confirm I was a "head" in the 60's. Stoner was a seventies term. Never have I heard the term
"jels".
And yes "flurf kicker" was a popular term long before the radio station came along.

[memebag]

More on the "jel" term:

It came from "jelly head" or "jelly brain", and referred to the effects of smoking large quantities of weed. "Flip-flop" sandals were known as "jelly thongs" when I was in school. The uniform was long hair, black concert shirt, faded jeans and jelly thongs, sneakers or bare feet.

[crunchtastic]

memebag, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 10:05am, said:

More on the "jel" term:

It came from "jelly head" or "jelly brain", and referred to the effects of smoking large quantities of weed. "Flip-flop" sandals were known as "jelly thongs" when I was in school. The uniform was long hair, black concert shirt, faded jeans and jelly thongs, sneakers or bare feet.

That's really interesting, because I suspect you and I are the same age, give or take a year. The uniform was the same pretty much everywhere, but the jel thing just didn't get used out my way. Maybe because we were so country. Katy was still 2 A for my first couple of years of high school.

[rsb320]

crunchtastic, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 12:00pm, said:

That's really interesting, because I suspect you and I are the same age, give or take a year. The uniform was the same pretty much everywhere, but the jel thing just didn't get used out my way. Maybe because we were so country. Katy was still 2 A for my first couple of years of high school.

I think that Houston must have lagged other areas of the country, in fashion anyway. By the late 70's, we were already in Levi straight leg jeans rolled up at the bottom, Izod shirts and Bass Wejun penny or tassle loafers. This created a new sector, referred to as Preppies.

We called the stoners 'Heads' too, even though we partook ourselves.

[icepickphil]

At Robert E. Lee Sr. High in the mid-seventies there were the kickers, freaks (stoners), jets (jocks, rich kids), and the geeks (nerds). The boundaries between the groups were fairly distinct.

The kicker boys used to get to school a half hour or so early before school started and park their trucks across Beverlyhill Street in the vacant lot (a lot that was also used for some serious drug dealing by the freaks). Once parked they'd take their car stereo speakers out of their trucks and put them on the roof where they'd blast KIKK or the latest Charlie Rich 8-track.

You'd have the same thing going on in the other end of the lot except it would be a freak and his van. If he was lucky he'd have his girlfriend in the van with him. Instead of KIKK it would be music like Robin Trower or 'Dark Side of the Moon'. Cranked up volume to the max. Alot of the freaks would smoke reefer before school started with their car windows closed. You'd see them open the door to go to class and the smoke would just pour out of their cars.

This all started to wind down after the big HPD narc bust of several students selling acid in the vacant lot before school. That happened in October of '74. Before that kids would buy their "Quays" (quaaludes -- usually Rorer 714s) for a dollar in the lot before school.

I knew some FFA kickers who used to "shotgun" pot smoke into their steers faces right before they were inspected by the teacher. They said it sedated the animal and they always got a better grade.

[memebag]

crunchtastic, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 12:00pm, said:

That's really interesting, because I suspect you and I are the same age, give or take a year. The uniform was the same pretty much everywhere, but the jel thing just didn't get used out my way. Maybe because we were so country. Katy was still 2 A for my first couple of years of high school.

Maybe. I was at Dobie, which was a huge school that was in Houston but part of the Pasadena ISD. Maybe we just had better weed...

[NenaE]

memebag, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 2:20pm, said:

Maybe. I was at Dobie, which was a huge school that was in Houston but part of the Pasadena ISD. Maybe we just had better weed...

Wonder why that was...a Houston location, but a Pasadena school. Never heard of that before. That's where a lot of people went, when they moved out of my neighborhood. Those sandpits were talked about alot. What years were you there?
KIKK also reminds me of KENR, that other country station.

[rsb320]

NenaE, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 3:40pm, said:

Wonder why that was...a Houston location, but a Pasadena school. Never heard of that before. That's where a lot of people went, when they moved out of my neighborhood. Those sandpits were talked about alot. What years were you there?
KIKK also reminds me of KENR, that other country station.

Spring Branch ISD is in Houston - go figure. As a matter of fact, so is Alief.

[crunchtastic]

Nothing said KIKK like rodeo time! Do schools still give rodeo days off? It was a huge deal out in Katy, with such a big FFA. Maybe it's me, or that it's all become such a bland 'entertainment' venture, but the LS & R is a lot less kikker than it used to be.

Of course these days it's all about how I can score tickets to the cook-off, not watching small town/suburban teenagers get drunk at fight at the carnival.

[memebag]

NenaE, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 3:40pm, said:

Wonder why that was...a Houston location, but a Pasadena school. Never heard of that before. That's where a lot of people went, when they moved out of my neighborhood. Those sandpits were talked about alot. What years were you there?
KIKK also reminds me of KENR, that other country station.

I believe Dobie was built before Houston annexed the area. We were right at the edge of Houston. I never understood why PISD was involved, though. I was there in the late 70s, early 80s.

[texianjoe]

NenaE, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 3:40pm, said:

Wonder why that was...a Houston location, but a Pasadena school. Never heard of that before. That's where a lot of people went, when they moved out of my neighborhood. Those sandpits were talked about alot. What years were you there?
KIKK also reminds me of KENR, that other country station.

And sometime in the mid 70s KNUZ converted to county. KIKK and KENR were AM, KIKK-FM and KNUZ were FM.

joe

This post has been edited by texianjoe: Friday, January 30, 2009 at 6:39 PM

[NenaE]

memebag, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 4:10pm, said:

I believe Dobie was built before Houston annexed the area. We were right at the edge of Houston. I never understood why PISD was involved, though. I was there in the late 70s, early 80s.

That was the same time I was at Milby.

[FilioScotia]

memebag, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 5:10pm, said:

I believe Dobie was built before Houston annexed the area. We were right at the edge of Houston. I never understood why PISD was involved, though. I was there in the late 70s, early 80s.

School district boundaries have nothing to do with city limit lines. They can go anywhere and they can even spill over into neighboring municipalities.

The Pasadena ISD spilled out of Pasadena long ago in the 1950s with the building of South Houston HS and JHS, which are in South Houston. Then came Dobie HS, which was in an unincorporated area for a time until Houston annexed it. It's in Houston, but it's still a Pasadena ISD school.

There are any number of other examples. For example, Bellaire HS is in Bellaire, but it's in the HISD. The Houston ISD lines go outside the Houston city limit lines in several areas. A bunch of CyFair ISD schools are inside Houston. Several Clear Creek ISD schools are in Houston by virtue of Houston annexing the Clear Lake City area in the 1970s.

This post has been edited by FilioScotia: Friday, January 30, 2009 at 8:24 PM

[cowboybud]

WillowBend56, on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 @ 1:45pm, said:

In the 1970s, station KIKK promoted itself with bumper stickers which boldly proclaimed, " I'm a KiKKer" or "I'm proud to be a KiKKer." (The Ks were in cowboy boot form.) Has the station changed its broadcast format since then?

KIKK remained country (although tweaking their format, first to Texas-centric country, then to "Young Country"), up until the early 2000s when the station flipped to smooth jazz. They recently flipped to dance/top 40 and are now known as "Hot 95.7".

[memebag]

KILT (which is still country) used to be rock. When I was young, there was a rock demographic split between KLOL and KILT. They both played Led Zep and Neil Young, but KLOL played more Skynyrd and Hatchet, and KILT started playing Elvis Costello and B-52s every once in a while. I lashed my teenage identity to KILT, of course, and was crestfallen when my clock radio went off one morning and C&W was blaring out at me. I'd never experienced a format change before, and it was devastating.

[crunchtastic]

memebag, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 10:24pm, said:

KILT (which is still country) used to be rock. When I was young, there was a rock demographic split between KLOL and KILT. They both played Led Zep and Neil Young, but KLOL played more Skynyrd and Hatchet, and KILT started playing Elvis Costello and B-52s every once in a while. I lashed my teenage identity to KILT, of course, and was crestfallen when my clock radio went off one morning and C&W was blaring out at me. I'd never experienced a format change before, and it was devastating.

Ah, clock radio memories of KILT!
Did they air a syndicated billboard top ten show at night, say 75-77, with a dj called 'the catfish', or was that another station?
My formative junior-high years were spent with KILT. And the heads.

[memebag]

crunchtastic, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 10:49pm, said:

Ah, clock radio memories of KILT!
Did they air a syndicated billboard top ten show at night, say 75-77, with a dj called 'the catfish', or was that another station?

I don't recall. All I remember is that Dana Steele had a late night show there in the late 70s and one night I requested "Sugar Mountain" and she played it.

[crunchtastic]

memebag, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 11:58pm, said:

I don't recall. All I remember is that Dana Steele had a late night show there in the late 70s and one night I requested "Sugar Mountain" and she played it.

ah yes. Meme, un-plugged.

Or did you just want to talk to Dana Steele?

[FilioScotia]

crunchtastic, on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 @ 2:05am, said:

Dayna Steele -- unplugged

All you Boomer and Gen-X K-101 fans may be interested to know that Dayna Steele is still "out there", making a good living with her national reputation as a motivational speaker and writer.

She's one really great lady. I'm proud to say we once worked in the same building at 510 Lovett -- me at KTRH -- she at KLOL -- but I will always regret not getting to know her.

Here's her website: http://www.daynasteele.com/

Check her out on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/daynasteele

This post has been edited by FilioScotia: Saturday, January 31, 2009 at 7:22 AM

[NenaE]

memebag, on Friday, January 30th, 2009 @ 10:24pm, said:

KILT (which is still country) used to be rock. When I was young, there was a rock demographic split between KLOL and KILT. They both played Led Zep and Neil Young, but KLOL played more Skynyrd and Hatchet, and KILT started playing Elvis Costello and B-52s every once in a while. I lashed my teenage identity to KILT, of course, and was crestfallen when my clock radio went off one morning and C&W was blaring out at me. I'd never experienced a format change before, and it was devastating.

I remember when KILT was rock...my dad had a white fold-out album with info. on the disc jockeys in it. I believe it was top 40's of the time, 1960's, I guess. Green Tamborine was one song listed.

[Original Timmy Chan's]

NenaE, on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 @ 9:08am, said:

I remember when KILT was rock...my dad had a white fold-out album with info. on the disc jockeys in it. I believe it was top 40's of the time, 1960's, I guess. Green Tamborine was one song listed.

I think my dad's got the same album you're talking about...does it feature Hudson and Harrigan inside?

Of all my dad's albums, I don't recall that one being one of my favorites. I never got into his Bloodrock album, either...

[NenaE]

Original Timmy Chan, on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 @ 9:40pm, said:

I think my dad's got the same album you're talking about...does it feature Hudson and Harrigan inside?

Of all my dad's albums, I don't recall that one being one of my favorites. I never got into his Bloodrock album, either...

I actually have that album around here, somewhere. Yes, it does feature Hudson & Harrigan. My dad had quite a variety in his collection of albums: soundtracks (Henry Mancini, James Bond theme), 50's thru 70's rock, country, R&B, etc. One album was some kind of Jazzy Fifties music called Exotica, used to scare me looking at it, had a shrunken head on the cover, really freaky. But the music is nice, I like jazz & R&B. I still call cd's "albums" sometimes and miss the artwork on them.

This post has been edited by NenaE: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 10:23 AM

[Original Timmy Chan's]

NenaE, on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 @ 9:23am, said:

I actually have that album around here, somewhere. Yes, it does feature Hudson & Harrigan. My dad had quite a variety in his collection of albums: soundtracks (Henry Mancini, James Bond theme), 50's thru 70's rock, country, R&B, etc. One album was some kind of Jazzy Fifties music called Exotica, used to scare me looking at it, had a shrunken head on the cover, really freaky. But the music is nice, I like jazz & R&B. I still call cd's "albums" sometimes and miss the artwork on them.

I have to thank my dad for giving me much of my musical taste. I think I first started listening to his albums after all the "devil music" stories I heard at Easthaven Baptist. You know, the stories about AC/DC ("After Christ, Devil Comes") and how you could hear satanic messages if you played Beatles and Led Zeppelin records backwards. Of course, having had no previous interest in the Beatles or Led Zeppelin, I immediately went home and spent hours playing my dad's albums backwards, listening for satanic messages. Having failed to hear any satanic messages, I started playing the records forwards and realized there was some pretty good stuff there...at least on the White Album and Sgt. Pepper's.

After my aunt told me how my dad got kicked out of the house for playing Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" from Woodstock, I had to hear for myself what that was about too!

Speaking of album art, my favorite of my dad's collection was the Cheech and Chong "Los Cochinos" album...funny stuff (and the comedy was pretty good too!)

Outside Cover:


Inside (dust jacket):


Of course, as kid the Woodstock album was kinda cool with the butt-nekkid people all over it!

This post has been edited by Original Timmy Chan's: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 7:45 PM

[NenaE]

Here's the ones I remember, see what I mean...scared us kids...http://www.amazon.co...n/dp/B000005Z65 (he also had the one with the lady and the bamboo), the exotic Arthur Lyman & exciting Martin Denny.
I always liked Santana, Guess Who,...my dad also introduced me to Motown, Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, The Drifters, etc. just love it all, mostly the old stuff.

This post has been edited by NenaE: Thursday, February 5, 2009 at 9:01 AM

[e streeter]

NenaE, on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 @ 10:08am, said:

I remember when KILT was rock...my dad had a white fold-out album with info. on the disc jockeys in it. I believe it was top 40's of the time, 1960's, I guess. Green Tamborine was one song listed.

i remember getting that album in 7th grade. it was called kilt gold. it had pictures of the dj's and lots of the top 40 hits.

i did a drillteam routine to green tambourine in 6th grade. we used real tambourines and we thought we were the coolest drillteam at FUN football.

anyone remember FUN football? i was a raiderette for the raiders who were mostly red elementary students.

[Retama]

Bloodrock from Paschal High, Fort Worth Texas! My cousin hung out with them and Joe Don Looney.

I was a jock but my neighbor was a stone-cold KIKKer: 1966 Chevy pick'em up truck with a "I'm Proud to be a KIKKer" sticker as well as a "Better a Roper Than a Doper" sticker. Gun rack in the cab with an axe handle on it.

YeHaw!

This post has been edited by Retama: Sunday, February 8, 2009 at 12:51 PM