Though it may seem quaint now that we exist in an era where it’s widely understood that bands and performers toiling on the lower rungs of the fame ladder should exploit every revenue possibility that comes their way, there was a time when it was surprising to hear a song from a favored artist at our station used in a more commercial venture. Now actual commercials didn’t happen too often, but John Hughes had spent much of the nineteen-eighties teaching his fellow filmmakers to look to the left end of the radio dial to find low-cost options to fill out … Continue reading One for Friday: Paul Kelly and the Messengers, “Dumb Things”

Sometimes–often, actually–I miss radio. I don’t solely mean working in radio, though that’s true, too. Twenty-five years ago as I type this, I was in my first year of college, meaning I was in my first year at the college radio station. Around this point in the year, I’d just been elected to serve in my first position on the executive staff, a vital part of my higher ed journey that itself would represent four-and-a-half years of diverse, exhausting, challenging, exciting, gratifying work. From there I went to commercial radio for a time, learning just enough to realize it was … Continue reading One for Friday: Steve Carlisle, “WKRP in Cincinnati”

I didn’t know of the Outlets back in my college radio days, but I should have. I’m not saying I should have known them because the Boston band was one of those that evaded my attention despite the prominence of their music elsewhere, but because I’m sure I would have absolutely loved them. On their debut album, Whole New World, the Outlets played exactly the sort of rough-hewn, punk-pummeled rock ‘n’ roll that I found irresistible at the time. Had the record landed in the station Heavy Rotation during my tenure, I would have never stopped playing it. I’m not … Continue reading One for Friday: The Outlets, “A Valentine Song”