Thinking back on it now, I suspect that Spooner was the first hometown band I ever heard on the radio. Growing up in and around Madison, Wisconsin meant I wasn’t exactly in the midst of a thriving music scene, but I still felt that our broadcasters could have done a little better job throwing some support towards the guitar-slinging local heroes. You never know when the next Oh-Needers might be out there. There were the occasional token local showcase programs–typically relegated to the Sunday night timeframe when the stations were fairly certain that practically no one was listening–but as far … Continue reading One for Friday: Spooner, “Mean Old World”

When I started the “Top 40 Smash Taps” series of posts, it was largely to push myself to write about music that was unfamiliar to me. Without the prompts delivered by decades of Billboard data, I can’t imagine myself having cause to write about Donna Summer. And now here I am, writing about her a second time in the space of three days. Part of the pleasure of writing the “Smash Taps” posts comes in discovering odd little details about the modern history of music that were previously outside my ken. For example, I was pretty fervently devoted to all … Continue reading One for Friday: Donna Summer, “Protection”

I remember finding it bizarre when the first Robyn Hitchcock album on Warner Bros. Records arrived in 1996. He had been on a major label before, having released four albums on A&M through the late eighties and early nineties. Still, there was something about seeing that iconic WB logo–about as major as a label could get at the time–affixed to a record by college radio’s resident warped genius. It was hard to conceive of their promotions department having any idea whatsoever as to how to market this thing, and Hitchcock’s relatively brief stay with the label seemed to confirm that. … Continue reading One for Friday: Robyn Hitchcock, “Sinister But She Was Happy”

Though I started at the college radio station in the fall of 1988, my first time on air was a few months before that. While in high school outside of Madison, Wisconsin, I turned into a little bit of a geek boy fan, listening to local radio station WMAD-FM and calling up the deejays to discuss music. I vaguely remember a couple longer conversations with their overnight guy and one day when I called in a talked at length with the midday jock about the new Springsteen album, which I’m sure the radio professional on the other end found mercilessly … Continue reading One for Friday: Jerry Harrison: Casual Gods, “Rev It Up”

During my first semester of college, I had a happy Sunday night ritual. After listening to The College Count-Up on 90FM–both before and after I became a member of the on-air staff there–I would head downstairs with a select group of discerning music fans from neighboring dorm rooms. We’d take over the TV room, usually with a ridiculous assortment of snacks and beverages–I recall mixing up jugs of Kool-Aid and consuming unseemly cheese spread on crackers–and watch MTV until after midnight. Our viewing typically started with an episode of The Young Ones, but we were really there for 120 Minutes, … Continue reading One for Friday: Karel Fialka, “Hey, Matthew”

There were all sorts of bands and albums from my old 90FM days that I returned to repeatedly because they carried with them some sort of added import and history, even it was something as simple of a strong memory of playing a track on the air and having my appreciation kick in sharply. But there were so many more than I had only the vaguest recollections of, even at the time. These were albums that I would stumble upon anew while browsing through the stacks, remember that I liked it when it moved through rotation, play it again, nod … Continue reading One for Friday: Gunbunnies, “Put a Tail on Your Kite”

When I got started in college radio in the late nineteen-eighties, there was still a lingering myth about broadcasting being a good route to do something truly daring, even subversive. It was, after all, a radio station that had played George Carlin’s routine about the seven words that can’t be said on television, leading to a landmark Supreme Court case that got the great comedian’s brilliant skewed linguistic analysis forever entered into the federal record. And the notion of the darkly philosophizing deejay still cropped up every now and again, as if everyone who got behind the microphone could hold … Continue reading One for Friday: Diesel Park West, “All the Myths on Sunday”

When I was removed from the constant discovery zone of college radio, I often poured through music magazines to find my way to new artists. This meant that, like a sportswriter considering whose name to write on his or her MVP ballot, I was unduly susceptible to a performer with a good story. Jack Logan had a great story. He was a longtime songwriter who came to prominence fairly late in life, after moving to Georgia, where he befriended Peter Buck of R.E.M. While Logan was still making his living as a swimming pool motor technician, he started releasing albums, … Continue reading One for Friday: Jack Logan, “Teach Me the Rules”