About: Beaker Street

Beaker Street with Clyde Clifford was the first underground music program broadcast regularly on a commercial AM radio station in the central US. The station's signal carried far and wide. In early 1967 Beaker Street was a staple for adherents to the burgeoning underground communities in the upper Mid-West especially in Des Moines, Iowa, where it was the only access to Dr.Demento and Firesign Theatre. Beaker Street began on Little Rock, Arkansas 50,000 watt AM radio station KAAY late in 1966 and ran through 1972. The show's original announcer, Clyde Clifford, moved to FM in 1974 as the rise in popularity of FM radio began to impact the operations of many AM stations. Beaker Street pre-dated the FM radio boom of the mid-1970s and foretold the rise of album-oriented Rock and Classic rock for