The Riverside Press-Enterprise
At KGAY, the call letters say it all
It's the only terrestrial radio station in the U.S. that programs for an LGBTQ+ listenership
Fog clouded the San Jacinto Mountains recently as Brad Fuhr approached the headquarters of KGAY, a radio station in an undistinguished Palm Springs strip mall. Fuhr, the station’s chief executive, was tuned to KGAY in his allelectric Volvo, and the morning’s soundtrack included “Bad of the Heart,” George Lamond’s 1990 freestyle cri de coeur about getting dumped, and “Lucky Star,” Madonna’s 1983 dance hit of bouncy adoration.
KGAY’S call letters aren’t a fluke but a savvy marketing tool. While there are streaming stations devoted to gay audiences (like iheart’s Pride Radio and Gaydio out of Britain), and gay-themed talk shows and dance formats have thrived on commercial and nonprofit radio for decades, KGAY is still one of a kind. It’s the only terrestrial radio station in America geared toward LGBTQ+ listeners and their allies, where gay personalities broadcast in person, “WKRP in Cincinnati”-style, at least part time. (There’s WGAY, a “party station” in the Florida Keys, but it doesn’t market itself as gay.)
KGAY covers the Coachella Valley with its FM signal at 106.5 and is simulcast with KGAY AM 1270; it can be streamed globally at Kgaypalmsprings.com. Its two full-time DJS are Chris Shebel, the old-school, nononsense program director and weekday afternoon personality, and the wisecracking John Taylor, who covers mornings. Three other DJS — Eric Ornelas, Galaxy and Modgirl — provide the station with homemade mix shows that play around the clock.
Born Dec. 25, 2018, KGAY replaced KVGH, an oldies station, with a playlist that rotates over 900 pop songs, disco anthems and dance remixes from the ’70s through the latest releases.
“It’s an entertaining, mass-appeal radio station
first,” said Fuhr, 65.
KGAY serves primarily the clubby slice of the queer music pie. There’s no Barbra or Bikini Kill, no American songbook showstoppers or lesbian breakup ballads. There’s no rap or country, although it does play Lil Nas X and dance versions of songs by Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and other country divas.
Shebel said the station mirrors the tastes of its core audience: gay men of Gen X age and older who enjoy Rihanna and Lady Gaga but still worship Donna Summer and Crystal Waters. That’s a snapshot of waygay Palm Springs, where the latest census data shows the
population of about 45,000 to be generally White, well off and male. About 30% to 50% are LGBTQ+, although those numbers are more anecdotal than official, and about a third are 65 or older.
“It’s OK to listen to our radio station if you’re 60 or 70,” said Shebel, who is 69 and married to Oscar Luis Uvillus, the reigning Mr. Palm Springs Leather. “Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you’re dead.”
Indeed, Palm Springs may be the only American market that can sustain a traditional radio station that primarily plays songs that older gay guys like — the men with still-fresh memories of music that “left them all on the dance floor with heads back, eyes nearly closed, in the ecstasy of saints receiving the stigmata,” as Andrew Holleran put it in his landmark, 1978 gay novel “Dancer From the Dance.” The club has long been a gay second home, a safe place to find sex, friendship, anonymous camaraderie and love.
Lucas Hilderbrand, author of the new book “The Bars Are Ours,” a history of gay men’s bars since the 1960s, said it’s no surprise that KGAY would be popular with generations that listened to — and made mixtapes from! — honest-togod radio. These were also the last generations to come of gay age with no choice but to meet other gay men by cruising, even during the worst years of the AIDS crisis.
“People who grew up with these experiences of going out have a sense of having lost those things, a nostalgia for a time in their life when they went out more,” he said. Listening to KGAY, he added, quenches “a desire for a sense of connection that was in person, that was live and public.”
KGAY’S offices are so modestly appointed that a visitor might think they’ve wandered into an insurance company until they notice the rainbow ombre, Kgaybranded rug and hear Gloria Gaynor on the speakers. A framed gold record on the wall was given to Fuhr for helping break Men at Work’s debut album in the early ’80s when he worked at WSPT in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. (He and Shebel met there when both were still closeted.)
On a recent morning, Taylor cued songs and interviewed the musical comedy duo Deven & Ned from behind a control board inside the cozy broadcast studio. He played a station ID recorded by a famous local listener: Barry Manilow. Screens overhead displayed where KGAY’S listeners were in real time: Festus, Missouri; Andalusia, Spain; Surrey,
British Columbia. The average morning streaming audience is approximately 2,400 people, according to numbers Fuhr provided.
Taylor, 58, became emotional as he talked about meeting a listener — “a guy in this little Christmas sweater and cute shoes with a little dog,” he said — at a free Christmas breakfast that KGAY co-sponsored one year.
“He said, ‘I can’t tell you what KGAY means to me. I listen at home all the time, thank you,’ ” Taylor recalled. “I said, ‘Where do you live?’ He goes, ‘My car.’ ”
Taylor paused, tears collecting in his eyes. “We have a connection,” he continued, his voice almost a whisper, “even if it’s one guy alone with his dog.”
Like Patagonia or Ben & Jerry’s, KGAY operates as a public benefit corporation, a venture that’s about “purpose over profit,” as Fuhr put it. The station’s on-air and digital advertisers have included Mcdonald’s, during pride events, as well as local businesses including a Kia dealership and the menswear store Bear Wear, which sells gay threads like teeny man-bikinis and “Captain Abearica” T-shirts in big-guy sizes.
Fuhr, who got his start in radio 50 years ago in his hometown, Hastings, Michigan, operates KGAY as part of a mini gay media empire that includes the Gay Desert Guide, an LGBTQ+ online directory and events calendar, and a digital marketing company. Fuhr said KGAY doubled its revenue year over year the past two years but is still breaking even. He expects KGAY to be profitable this year.
An impromptu survey of around a dozen gay men in Palm Springs — bartenders, servers, Uber drivers — revealed that all had heard of KGAY, but only about half said they listened regularly.
Among them was Christopher Musser, a retired nurse and hairdresser who also drives Uber. He said he is 62 and too old to dance the way he used to at Rage, a West Hollywood gay bar where he turned heads in the ’80s — not that he goes to clubs now anyway.
He listens to KGAY, he explained, because it makes him, and his passengers, feel good.
“But if I go to pick up some old people, I won’t put it on,” he said.
“It’s OK to listen to our radio station if you’re 60 or 70. Just because you’re old doesn’t mean you’re dead.” — Chris Shebel, DJ at KGAY AM 1270 and FM 106.5