Radio DJ ‘Machine Gun’ Kelly Makes a Little Music of His Own

“Machine Gun” Kelly, best-known as a radio personality, has a new sideline as front man for a band of Hit Men.

Kelly’s band will be performing Saturday at the Universal Amphitheatre as part of a show featuring veteran performers Jan & Dean, Little Anthony and Gary U.S. Bonds.

“We do stuff from the ‘50s and ‘60s,” Kelly said, “mostly things that go with the ‘Machine Gun’ image--’Jailhouse Rock,’ ‘I Fought the Law (and the Law Won),’ ‘Secret Agent Man,’ stuff like that.”

The group made its debut four months ago, opening a post-USC football game-Beach Boys concert at the Coliseum. Long Beach native Kelly, 37, a drummer, started playing in bands when he started his radio career, in Oklahoma about 1967.

“I was in a band called Genesis, that worked the Kansas-Oklahoma circuit, playing contemporary songs--the same kind of things we’re playing now, as oldies,” he said.

Kelly holds down the 4 to 7 p.m. weekday shift on KODJ-FM. He’s also been with KIIS-FM and manned the late afternoon drive slot on top-rated KHJ-AM from 1973-78. He also produces two nationally syndicated shows: “Live from the ‘60s,” featuring The Real Don Steele, is heard on KRLA-AM; and “Machine Gun Kelly’s Hit List,” which will debut March 4 on KODJ.

On most songs, Kelly defers to vocalist-rhythm guitarist Dave Paulson. But the disc jockey does handle some of the less melodic material--”Treat Her Right,” “Chantilly Lace” . . . “things that I can get away with singing,” he said. Kelly’s life has been spent in Top-40 radio, but he vows that he is now committed to the oldies format. “I grew up with these songs,” he says. “We all did. I’m at a point in my life when I just don’t like what’s happening in contemporary music. Oldies is fun radio. It’s fun music, and it really gets audiences.”

The KODJ-FM Pure Gold Birthday Party begins at 8:15 Saturday night at the Universal Amphitheatre. Tickets are $20 and $22.50. For information, call (818) 777-3931

On their debut album, Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Trio stick to original compositions and obscurities from rock ‘n’ roll’s Stone Age--songs including “Rock Rock,” originally recorded by Johnny Powers on the Fox label out of Detroit, and Cliff Blakeley’s “High Steppin,” originally a late-’50s Starday release.

The members of Big Sandy are all between 22 and 27 years old.

Robert Williams--”Big Sandy”--said he discovered rockabilly through his father’s record collection. “I rebelled against it at first,” he said, “as most kids stay away from music their parents like. But when the first rockabilly revival hit 10 years ago, it was easy for me to get involved, because I already had a background in it. Plus, my parents would let me go to rockabilly shows when they might not let me see a punk or new wave concert. Sometimes, they’d even come with me.”

Lead guitarist T.K. Smith based his style on that of Cliff Gallup of Gene Vincent’s Blue Caps--a band that had six charted records in 1956 and 1957 and was far more influential in England and France than in the United States. Though Williams doesn’t sound like Vincent, he is as much a Blue Caps fan as the rest of the band; indeed, their album (“Fly Right With Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Trio”) cover design is based on Vincent’s 1956 “Bluejean Bop.”

There is no producer or engineer credit on the Fly-Rites’ album, released last month on the independent Dionysus label, because, “there was really no producer or engineer. We just set up in a shack behind bassist Wally Hersom’s grandmother’s house, set the levels on the tape machine, played, and stopped the machine when we finished a song,” Williams said.

In addition to their own material, the Orange County-based Fly-Rites look to garage sales and record swap meets for archaic material. A highlight of their set is a version of “Wash Machine Boogie,” written and originally recorded in 1957 by Bill Browning and the Echo Valley Boys on the Ohio-based Island label.

“We thought that was real obscure,” Williams added, sighing, “until some French rockabilly fans saw us one night a couple of nights ago. The French are real rockabilly fanatics, and to them, ‘Wash Machine Boogie’ is as well-known as “Rock Around the Clock.”

Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Trio perform Saturday night at the Palomino, 6907 Lankershim Blvd. $5 admission. For information, call (818) 764-4010.