Deidre O'Donoghue Memorial

DEIRDRE IN THE NEWS...

Los Angeles City Hall salutes "Breakfast With the Beatles"

By Randy Lewis
Los Angeles Times
11/6/08




Chris Carter		Deirdre O’Donoghue

You say you want a resolution?

The Beatles will get one Friday in L.A. City Hall from Councilman Tom LaBonge, who also orchestrated the council’s proclamation of “Brian Wilson Day” in Los Angeles.

Specifically, the council will salute “Breakfast With the Beatles,” the weekly radio show focusing on the Fab Four’s music for its 25 years on the air in L.A.

Host Chris Carter, who took over seven years ago after the death of the show’s originator, Deirdre O’Donoghue, will accept the proclamation, but as he often does on the air, will use the occasion to salute his predecessor.

“I will be dedicating this all to Deirdre, as I’m just carrying the Beatle torch,” Carter said Thursday.

Chris Carter photo by Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times

"Breakfast With the Beatles" reaches 25 years

By Randy Lewis
Los Angeles Times
6/28/08

There’s no big anniversary celebration scheduled, in part because no one’s quite sure about the actual date the show went on the air in 1983 at long-defunct rock station KMET-FM.

The original host, Deirdre O’Donoghue, who died in 2001, would hold court every Sunday with a new playlist largely drawn from the 200 or so tracks The Beatles released from 1962 until they broke up in 1970.

LIVE BROADCAST PERFORMANCES
ON THE "SNAP" RADIO SHOW
HOSTED BY DEIRDRE O'DONOGHUE
DURING THE 1980s-1990s
ON KCRW 89.9 FM, SANTA MONICA, CA

Note: please help us complete this list. See contact info below.

DATE

ARTIST

1986

01/16/86

Meat Puppets

02/27/86

Dream Syndicate (Steve Wynn)

03/13/86

Rave-Ups

03/16/86

Dwight Yoakam

05/14/86

Dancing Hoods (Sparklehorse)

06/19/86

Pop Art (Smart Brown Handbag, David Steinhart)

09/04/86

Peter Holsapple (Continental Drifters, dBs) & Syd Straw

??/??/86

Robyn Hitchcock (Soft Boys)

1987

03/27/87

Peter Case

04/23/87

Concrete Blonde

05/15/87

Dancing Hoods (Sparklehorse)

06/18/87

House of Freaks

06/24/87

Harry Dean Stanton

07/20/87

Dave Alvin

08/10/87

Camper Van Beethoven (Cracker)

09/11/87

Go-Betweens

09/16/87

Downy Mildew

10/01/87

Walking Wounded

10/23/87

That Petrol Emotion (Undertones)

12/03/87

dBs (Continental Drifters)

12/09/87

Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate)

1988

01/29/88

Reivers

02/15/88

Michelle Shocked

02/29/88

Neil & Tim Finn (Crowded House)

03/17/88

Silos

03/24/88

Church

03/25/88

Hugo Largo (Mimi Goese)

03/29/88

Martin Stephenson

05/06/88

Syd Straw

05/08/88

Dancing Hoods (Sparklehorse)

05/09/88

Graham Parker

06/13/88

Poi Dog Pondering

06/22/88

Concrete Blonde

07/14/88

Dream Syndicate (Steve Wynn)

08/13/88

Marty Willson-Piper (Church)

09/01/88

Meat Puppets

09/21/88

Railway Children

10/02/88

Paul Kelly

10/??/88

Natalie Merchant (10,000 Maniacs)

11/12/88

Go-Betweens

12/16/88

Henry Rollins (Black Flag)

12/18/88

Dream Syndicate (Steve Wynn)

??/??/88

Paddy MacAloon (Prefab Sprout)

1989

01/11/89

02/20/89

03/08/89

03/30/89

04/24/89

Robyn Hitchcock (Soft Boys)

06/28/89

07/??/89

07/??/89

08/03/89

08/07/89

08/16/89

Maria McKee (Lone Justice)

09/13/89

Difford & Tilbrook (Squeeze)

09/14/89

Camper Van Beethoven (Cracker)

09/18/89

Lloyd Cole

10/11/89

Exene Cervenkova (X)

10/26/89

That Petrol Emotion (Undertones)

11/13/89

11/29/89

11/30/89

12/06/89

??/??/89

??/??/89

Men They Couldn't Hang

1990

01/08/90

02/19/90

02/26/90

03/12/90

04/27/90

04/30/90

Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate)

11/20/90

An Emotional Fish

11/26/90

Exene Cervenkova (X) & Jazz Butcher

1991

04/??/91

R.E.M.

05/29/91

Peter Himmelman

ABOUT DEIRDRE O'DONOGHUE (1948-2001)

The beloved host of the radio shows "SNAP" on Santa Monica's KCRW and "Breakfast With The Beatles" on Los Angeles' KLSX was found deceased in her Santa Monica apartment on January 20, 2001 at the tragically young age of 52.

The cause of death was never disclosed, though it was known she suffered from allergies which had caused her to stop producing her show in the KCRW studio which had notoriously poor ventilation.

SNAP (an acronym for "Saturday Night Avante Pop") aired three nights a week and featured (for lack of a better term) "indie" artists of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Artists who Deirdre championed included Lloyd Cole, Crowded House, Downy Mildew, Dream Syndicate/Steve Wynn, Glass Eye, Go-Betweens, Robyn Hitchcock, Hugo Largo, Jazz Butcher, R.E.M., Martin Stephenson, and many, many more.

Frequently, when these bands were in town to play club shows, Deirdre had them as guests on her show to perform their songs live in the studio at KCRW. Those live sessions had a raw, intimate, in-your-face sound quality different from the artists' more polished commercially released recordings. Many fans went down to the studios to watch the shows in person.

Some of these artists have licensed their live SNAP performances from Deirdre's estate and released them commercially, most notably Go-Betweens and Mighty Lemon Drops.

Unfortunately, those are the exception. Hundreds of hours of unique performances were only heard once on the Los Angeles airwaves by those who were lucky enough to have been listening at the time.

It is rumored that a relative of Deirdre's has a complete reel-to-reel tape archive of the SNAP shows. Wouldn't it be great if the tangled legal issues could be worked out between KCRW, the artists, and the labels (many of the latter two now defunct) so this lost music from the late 1980s could be as accessible as your nearest CD player?

Some of us who live in the L.A. area still have tapes that we recorded off the air back in the day. Perhaps through contacts made via this page and the companion YahooGroup forum, we can assemble an archive.

Deirdre and SNAP are fondly remembered by those of us whose tastes were so influenced by hers. This page is dedicated to her memory.

Thanks for your help keeping her memory alive.

Email me with corrections and additions to help complete the live performance chronology and fill out this page with photos of Deirdre and/or the bands she loved.

Bill Wilner
West Covina, CA, USA

EULOGIES AND ANECDOTES:

If you have your own eulogy or anecdote that you would like hosted on the web and listed above, please email me.

(Updated 11/6/08)