ON the Beat | Past-Tense Reflection on the Viva La Phenom
“Old Spanish Days,” at 99, is History, with some Histories Attached
This edition of ON the Beat was originally emailed to subscribers on August 10, 2023. To receive Josef Woodard’s music newsletter in your inbox each Thursday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.
A sure way to age yourself, not to mention aligning with a certain alternative-progressive perspective, is to pine for the days when witty troublemakers Proctor and Ward used to offer their satirical services with the cheeky Fiesta Parade coverage on KTYD. This was at a time when KTYD was still the young upstart on Santa Barbara’s radio dial, seeded during the FM alternative radio revolution of the 1970s.
Proctor and Ward (aka Richard Proctor and Mark Ward), taking cues from gonzo radio-based comedy comrades in Firesign Theatre, could still find plenty to jive about. They might have made hay, for instance, about this year’s parade along Cabrillo Boulevard, which included both a float all about the Old Mission and a “Chumash” float — representing the enslaved labor force behind building the Mission — or noted the moment when the Chumash float dreamily passed the site of the memorialized Syujtun village next to the Veteran Memorial Building.
Credit: Josef Woodard
