One of my subscribers suggested this story and it’s something that’s became an urban
legend.over the past 30 years or so.
The story i am talking about dates back to the late 80’s in Denver, when supposedly
a deranged man held up a radio station at gunpoint.
He would order them to play nothing but the music of the Smiths for 4 consecutive hours
before the police convinced the assailant to give himself up..
It had been widely reported and accepted that this event did in fact happen.
But there’s more to the story and it didn’t go down exactly the way it’s been described
in the press and on internet message boards That’s what were going to talk about in
today’s video.
The incident had been reported as being true by several media sources including IndieWire
and The Believer.
It has even discussed in the book Saint Morrissey.
Not only that, but according to IMDB holly wood is making a monvie about the whole incident
called Shoplifters of the World.
It’s also been long rumored that the 1994 film Airheads starring Brendan Fraser, Steve
Buscemi and Adam Sandler was also based on this story.
Local Denver publication Westworld looked into this urban legend and uncovered a much
more different story than what had previously been reported.
The publication initially reached out to Saint Morrissey’s author Mark Simpson who stated
and i quote "I can't remember now what my sources were, except for some online bits
and pieces back in the late '90s, early nineties,.
"It seems rather unlikely the event did actually happen if your paper didn't report it.
But obviously, it was such a great story for my purposes that I didn't really want to know
if it didn't actually happen.
Though I will keep on pretending it did, probably because I could easily have done something
similar myself back in the day" he'd say.
The paper also reached out to the production of shoplifers of the world, with an anonymous
source from the movie claiming that despite all their research for the film, they couldn’t
find any evidence this incident happened, they did however point to westword to an interview
morrissey gave to details magazine in 1994 where the incident was in fact discussed.
The article would state When Morrissey heard what had happened, he felt, of course, extreme
pleasure.
"But how did you know about it?" he demands.
"I've never come across anybody who knew about it."
The fact that the siege has never been properly reported anywhere outrages Morrissey.
"If it was any other artist, it would have been world news.
But because it was poor old tatty Smiths, it was of no consequence whatsoever" he would
tell the interviewer.
The Denver Post did in fact cover the incident at the time reporting that an 18 year old
man spent months staking out his target radio station the now defunct KRXY or Y-108.
The Post corroborated the long rumored story that the man was going to take the employees
hostage and have them play the Smiths on repeat.
And according to the article the gunman did in fact drive down to the radio station, and
apparently had second thoughts and gave himself up.
The Post article stated the following at the time
Radio station KRXY (Y-108), the Lakewood-based Top 40 station, got a request that was hard
to ignore.
An eighteen-year-old Arvada man entered the station with a rifle to insist the station
play seven tapes and an album by the Smiths, the now-defunct British band led by the whiny-voiced
singer, Morrissey.
The man was arrested after he changed his mind and gave the weapon to a station employee.
He's now in the Jefferson County Jail, awaiting a psychiatric evaluation….But the lighter
side, the fan should have known better than to request the Smiths from a Top 40 station.
As far as Top 40's concerned, Morrissey might as well be a Martian.
For his Smiths fix, the guy should've thrown his gun into the lake and tuned in to Fort
Collins' KTCL, which plays the band in regular rotation" the article would state.
Westword was able to obtain the police report from the incident.
and the event occured in the fall of 1988 and the police had two witnesses.
The suspect was an 18 year old man named James Kiss who according to the report was a very
troubled individual.
He did in fact intend on taking over the station at gunpoint and wanting to force them to play
the music of the Smiths.
In six months in the run up to that fateful fall day Kiss had purchased a Remington .22
caliber Apache 77 rifle and had surveiled the station by driving by it on several occasions
and even entering the premises and even chatted with the receptionist.
Fast forward to the Tuesday night when the incident happened, Kiss showed up to the building
housing the station with his rifle and six casette tapes of the Smiths in addition to
one Morrisey album.
Production director Greg Fadick was leaving work for the day around 5PM and walking to
his truck.
Parked next to him was Kiss who was in a station wagon.
Kiss motioned to Fadick to come over to his driver side window.
Upon rolling down the window Fadick saw a rifle pointed at his face.
Within a few seconds kiss turned the rifle around and handed the butt end to Fadick and
said “Would you go inside and call someone and tell them that I need help?'
. Fadick ran back into the station and asked the receptionist to call 911.
When the police arrived they approached Kiss who was sitting calmly in his vehicle and
asked him to get out.
After patting him down for weapons they found ammunition for his rifle on the dashboard
and Kiss would reveal to the authorities that he got cold feet.
So you're maybe wondering, why carry out such an action in the first place?
Well according to the police report Kiss believed and i quote “The Smiths play music about
how insensitive everyone is," and he wanted to play their music as a sort of protest.
Radio Station Y108 was chosen because they were the most popular station in the city
at the time and he despised top 40 music.
The police would search Kiss’ home and they also found several letters written to his
parents painting a picture of a young man who was lost in life.
Kiss would be arrested on suspicion of attempted first degree kidnapping and extortion, but
the Jefferson county district attorney ended up dropping the charges, because Kiss didn’t
go through with his plans.
in the end it ended up being a big wake up call for Kiss.
In fact Westword was able to track him down after all these years and they found a man
in his 40’s who used that incident to turn his life around.
He explained his actions that day telling the publication “My intention was to throw
my life away, At the time," "I just wanted somebody else to make the decisions.
If you're going to throw your life away, you might as well do it in a way that makes the
most sense to you, I guess.
"I guess you would have to understand the Smiths and know the Smiths, "to understand
that there's something poetic about a Top 40 radio station playing all Smiths songs."
he would say.
At the time of his arrest, Kiss had recently graduated from high school.
He was dealing with a physical injury that prevented him from getting a job and he was
also dealing with depression telling the same newspaper .” I was not really liking what
life was like," "Anybody who's listened to the Smiths knows that if you're depressed,
they're great to listen to," And several months after the incident Kiss
seemed to have turned his life around.
He enrolled in classes at Metro State and soon started to meet people just like him
and over 30 years later he now finds himself working with young people telling the publication
"I can see it when kids start to paint themselves into corners, and I try to get them to work
their way out of that" he'd say.
That does it for today's video guys.
Be sure to hit the like button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true
stories.
Take care.