If you’re new to us, Open House Party is a huge radio show which airs every Saturday and Sunday night on hit radio stations across North America.  It is and always has been totally listener interactive and is transmitted live via satellite from the homes of host John Garabedian (Saturday)
and Kane (Sunday).  

14 year old John Garabedian started DJing at high school "Sock Hops", dances held after basketball games where everyone was required to take their sneakers off so they wouldn't leave marks on the gym floor.

A DJ since he was 14, John Garabedian now lives (and parties) in three homes; suburban Boston, in the mountains of Vermont, and on Cape Cod.  All three have radio studios in the basement, all three have satellite uplinks, and all three have private airports (for John to travel between his houses…he is an experienced instrument/multi engine rated private pilot and collects and restores classic aircraft)!

Kane, who is originally from Southern Connecticut, actually grew up listening to Open House Party while in high school. He lives in Tampa, Florida where he blasts out Monday-Friday afternoons on 93.3/WFLZ-FM.  Kane began hosting Sunday OHP in March, 2004. He was formerly afternoon DJ and a program director at XM Satellite Radio.

The original Open House Party actually started in 1955 when it was created as the afternoon show on radio station WORC in Worcester, Massachusetts. John Garabedian stumbled into WORC a few years later when he was 17 and was hired to DJ on Saturday and Sunday nights (sound familiar?). Blown away with the power and popularity of the weekday Open House Party, and the 100% interactive listener-driven format, he ended up years later as co-host.

Dick Smith (l) and Bob Bryar (r).  Bryar was voice of the New York Rangers before buying WORC with his wife Shirley and creating Open House Party.  They co-hosted Open House Party with another DJ who developed a relationship with Shirley. Shirley and the other DJ eventually ran off together to Hawaii, leaving Bob behind. Shortly thereafter Bob developed a relationship with a hot OHP phone operator, a 19 year old redhead. Note the pre-computer blue request table covered with paper requests.

The history of the current Open House Party began one night in 1987 when John Garabedian went to a party in Boston.  Bumping into him was legendary radio programmer Sunny Joe White of Boston’s KISS 108. Sunny asked John if he would like to do a weekend air shift.  The station was experiencing ratings dips on the weekend, and Sunny knew John could increase the ratings. 

The two of them met to discuss it at dinner the following week, where John proposed to Sunny the idea of a spectacular, national party show.  “I know exactly what you need…I’ve done this show before”, exclaimed John, “It’s called ‘Open House Party’!”. The idea was for an interactive weekend party show consisting of all-request music, 800 call-in lines, live studio audience, superstar guests, live performances, beat-to-beat music mixing, hot party music, and of course, a superb, hot DJ to host it...John Garabedian!

"I love it" was Sunny's response.  Sunny told John that if he wanted to build a studio and start doing the show, Sunny would put it on KISS 108 right away, and then John could get it perfected and ready to go national.  John went to work looking for a place to put the studio.  After touring available office buildings and getting turned off by too much flourescent lighting, John figured "why not do it at home in the basement?  There's plenty of room, it's much more homey, and people would really be in the mood to party."

Sunny Joe White was one of America's best respected and innovative radio programmers.  His vision of radio was to create a community of listeners who connected with his station the same way people constantly check email today.  He understood and recognized the programming power of Open House Party and was first to launch it in 1987 on KISS 108 in Boston.

Since then, weekends in America (and at John’s house) have never been the same.

To get the signal from John's house to the KISS 108 studios, John and his buddies strapped a 50 foot pole to the chimney (poor Santa) to hold up a little microwave antenna aimed at the Prudential Tower 27 miles East in downtown Boston!  The connection was made.

On Saturday night, September 5, 1987 at 7 PM, Open House Party hit the air for the very first time on KISS 108.  Within six months it became the most listened to radio program in Boston on Saturday night, as well as the most listened to radio program every week in the Boston radio market with a 14.8 share (which means that on Saturday night in Boston one out of every six people was listening to Open House Party)!

The first Open House Party in-studio guests were Aerosmith, Peter Wolf, Milli Vanilli, and Vanilla Ice (left).  Entrance to the OHP studio in John's basement was through the garage, stuffed with an old 1946 Ercoupe airplane fuselage, wings, and assorted typical garage junk.

By the following April stations across the country had heard about Open House Party’s success and were signing on. Down came the 50 foot pole and up went a new satellite dish about the size of a ’92 Lincoln. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Buffalo, New York debuted in May, 1988, followed by Mobile and Dothan, Alabama, Cedar Rapids Iowa, and Burlington, Vermont in June. By 1990 over 100 stations were carrying Open House Party in the US and another 40 in Canada.

Now he's a big movie star, but in 1992 Mark "Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch" Wahlberg was a white rapper with a number one song ("Good Vibrations") and his picture on Times Square billbaords wearing only his Calvins.

In 1998 Open House Party was became the first radio show in America to stream via the internet, on broadcastamerica.com, along with live television cameras in the studio. Web surfers could actually watch what was going on in the studio, along with videos of the hottest songs. Unfortunately, broadcastamerica.com died in 2001, one of the casualties of the “dot.bomb” era.

Getting out of the studio and broadcasting live from big events with big stars is something Open House Party has done well over the years.  Left is our pre-Grammy show broadcast from Planet Hollywood in Times Square/NYC

Virtually every major star in the world has been on Open House Party, from Cher and Madonna to Eminem and 50 Cent. Most artists love coming by live on a Saturday or Sunday night to party, due to our loosey goosey fun atmosphere. Open House Party has broadcast from some of the biggest social events in America, including Mardi Gras from New Orleans, Summerfest from Milwaukee, Winter Music Conference in Miami Beach, Rockfest in Dallas, and the last two Woodstocks.

The direction of Open House Party is totally driven by the listeners. All music played is 100% by listener requests, which keeps Open House Party tuned in to what our core listeners actually want to hear on the weekend, rather than by CD sales, spin, or “callout” charts. This enables Open House Party to spot hot new hits first, to identify which songs are really the most popular, and almost as importantly, to determine which songs have died and have high “burn”.

Thanks to you and the rest of our listeners who have truly made Open House “the biggest party on the planet!"