K-2000

Check out the entire audio archive of K-2000

K-2000 by Chris Lobdell

[Voted in To The North American Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame in 2012]

K-2000, which actually stood for KGUN 2000, was in the planning stages in 1991, founded by two pirates who had been pushed out during the 1990-1991 pirate battles. K2000 was their retaliation, so to speak.

There was going to be a final show in 2000 in which those behind the station planned to reveal their true identities, but the station died in 1997 so that never happened.

The following Ten Shows Were Produced:

  1. July 4th 1993
  2. Halloween 1993
  3. Valentine’s Day 1994
  4. Summer Jam 1994
  5. Halloween 1994
  6. Holiday Jam 1994
  7. JTA Verdict-DX Smartyline – 1995
  8. Spring Fling 1996
  9. Summer Revival 1996
  10. Abortion 1997

Of these 10 shows, studio copies exist of eight of them. We are still missing copies Halloween 1994 and Summer Revival 1996. We would love to add copies of these two shows to complete the K2000 collection, so if you have either studio copies or good off the air copies, please let us know!

K2000 used two slogans during its' existence: “K2000 – Maximum Power” and “K2000 - The Loose Cannon”. The station used the Box 146, Stoneham, Massachusetts as its' mail drop.

What was the station’s “raison d’etre”? Well, I will let the founder of K2000 chime in on that:

“K-2000 was as much about its programs as it was the buzz and gossip it generated off-air in pirate circles. We knew that as soon as we'd close out a show, phones would light up across the hobby. So we played to it. We used an intermediary - M. Lee - in NYC to communicate with our mail drop op and drop hints to suggest connections with the Radio Clandestine gang in New England. We sent Terry Provance a rejection letter knowing that he would fly off the lid and knowing that fingers would point to the late Kirk Trummel. We were provided anonymous access to the "Newsline for Free Radio" toll-free number and occasionally called to promote upcoming shows, knowing that the organizers would have a pretty good idea about who had the number and who didn't - except for us! We imitated as many DXer voices and dropped as much inside information as we could despite having never been to Winterfest or any other meetups at that time. We also shied away from developing any recognizable on-air personalities. ("Bob Rock" appeared only once.) If I recall, we never signed any of the QSLs that we sent. In 1994, we included photos of our recording studio surrounded by three guys in sun glasses giving the camera the finger. All three were regular voices on K-2000 but none of them were DXers or in any way involved with the pirate or SWL communities. It was entirely about the listeners themselves, trolling them, and driving them crazy.” I my opinion, K2000 has to be the best DXers Parody Station of all time. All of their material was original, sounded professional, and considering it was done before todays digital editing systems, that is impressive. Every show they ever did was great. A couple of my favorites are the “Trial of JTA” which was modeled after the O.J. Simpson Trial that was happening at the same time. As part of the same program, The DX Smartyline parodied Rich and Lisa McVicar who were in Quito Ecuador, working at missionary outlet HCJB. HCJB’s DX Party Line was a popular DX program, founded by The late Clayton and Helen Howard. Ken McHarg didn’t get off the hook either. Other funny moments include Jerry Seinfield and friends going to The Winterfest, “Dunlo” Dave Valko promoting his get rich quick scheme “The Valko System”. Oh, and we have Glenn Hauser hosting a Valentines Day live edition of Continent Of Media in an Enid, OK, retirement/nursing home. Let’s not forget the People’s Court type parody with George Zeller’s mail order bride who turned out to be a man. If you’ve never listened to K2000, you really need to, as it will give you a good idea what was going on in pirate circles in the mid-1990s.

I’d like to thank the creator of K2000, whom I’ll call Bob Rock, for his input. Without his help, I could have not written this.