Off-Site: WWSU audio at reunion page

For the unaware, Wright State University's campus radio station is having a reunion that's generally for staff who worked there through the '80s and early '90s (although my impression is that pretty much anyone who has ever worked at the station is welcome). For some inexplicable reason, I still haven't registered for the reunion, but I will be there. And I've been keeping up with reunion planning events via the e-mail list and the WWSU '80s Reunion Page.

Although some would disagree, I think of the 1980s as sort of the silver age of indie rock. When rock and roll first came along and for the next decade or so after that, there was no need for the term "indie rock" because all rock was indie rock: that is, rock and roll music produced by small, independently owned record labels with limited resources -- because at that time, rock and roll was controversial and no executive with any business sense would touch a rock act. Of course, by the mid-'60s rock and roll had become big business, gigantic corporations had wised up, and record labels owned as sole proprietorships or close corporations were beginning to feel the squeeze. But even then you could find such labels competing with the big guys -- probably the most notorious example being CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL, who released on the independent label Fantasy Records throughout their career.

Through all of this, because the FCC carefully regulated the number of radio stations any single entity could own in a given market, even the smaller indie labels could still get their records on the charts by working hard to get them out to radio stations and cold calling the individual program directors. But a lot of that changed in the '80s when Ronald Reagan's FCC basically deregulated the commercial market (as the current FCC continues to do today). Suddenly, as more commercial stations in different regions came under centralized control, program directors became less and less likely to play anything but the playlist approved by some home office in Delaware.

In my view, it's here that college radio became an important outlet for indie rock. Don't get me wrong, good college stations have always been host to out-of-the-ordinary programming of all kinds, and a lot of that was music. But such music tended to be the kind of thing that wouldn't ordinarily appeal to a mass audience (like most of what BOMP! Records (god bless 'em) was putting out). I think it was in the '80s that a lot of music which was otherwise commercially viable suddenly found itself shut out of the commercial market simply because it was not on a major, corporate label.

This is what impressed me about what we used to call "Alternative" or "Modern" rock back then when I first started working at WWSU -- how radio friendly it otherwise was. Sure, artists like BONGWATER and HALF JAPANESE opened up new horizons for me about what music could sound like, but what amazed me most was how so many artists on college radio should have been climbing the top 40 charts.

I'm talking about acts like THE REPLACEMENTS, KILKENNY CATS, THE NUNS, THROWING MUSES, THE PIXIES, THE DIVINYLS, THE CURE, THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, VOICE OF THE BEEHIVE, SOUNDGARDEN, and probably most glaringly CONCRETE BLONDE -- also, pretty much everything that was played at Alternative Tuesday. Although each of these artists had a sound that was a little outside the mainstream, none of it was anything the general public wouldn't have liked. Of course, a few of these artists would later chart on the Top 40, and one or two would have undeniable mass appeal later on in the '90s, but only after being relegated for years to the "Modern Rock" charts (or scoring chart toppers overseas while their albums languished in this 50-state cultural backwater). CONCRETE BLONDE, in fact, had been signed, ignored, and finally dropped by a major label several years before they had a string of Top 40 hits in the early '90s.

As I said, we called it "Alternative Rock" back then, but even when that term was taken seriously (i.e. before "Alternative Rock" became so mainstream that it was no longer an alternative to anything -- which is about when people started calling the music on college radio "indie rock"), it should've been replaced by something more descriptive: like "Human Rock" or "Real Person Rock" or something like that -- because the real difference between Alternative Rock artists and commercial radio artists was that the people making Alternative Rock were far more human and real to me than the people who made commercial rock.

First of all, people like Paul Westerberg, Bob Mould, Johnette Napolitano, and Kristin Hersh did not really look like rock stars. They were overweight or they were underweight or their faces weren't air brushed or their hair wasn't styled. Their wardrobes weren't selected by some art director in a New York design firm. Their videos (those that had them) weren't professionally produced, nor were most of their recordings. They played small venues where I didn't need binoculars to see them, and if I wanted to, I could meet most of them and have a conversation after the show (which I often did). They made music that was as good as or better than anything I could hear on commercial radio, but unlike bigger commercial artists, I felt like these guys were actually working for a living.

Anyway, that was the thing that really attracted me to Alternative Rock back then. I liked that most of it was fairly original but also had a good beat and melodies you could sing along to, and I liked that it seemed close somehow.

WWSU, like a thousand other college stations across this country, played this kind of music all the time, and in keeping with that indie aesthetic, the people who worked at WWSU produced all kinds of audio creations for the station: station IDs, comedy shows, news reports, unclassifiable oddities. In my previous post on WWSU, I mentioned "Das Boot," which Darryl Brandt and Matt DeWald produced in WWSU's secondary studio. I think I've also mentioned at some point that Matt lent me a reel-to-reel containing either the original or remixed versions of that recording. Unfortunately, I need a 1/4" reel-to-reel player to rip it, and I haven't located one yet.

But some kind soul at the WWSU Reunion page has gathered some other recordings produced at WWSU in the '80s and posted them on the WWSU Reunion Site. On the Audio Page, you'll find seven recordings to listen to. This is great stuff and a reminder of a time when all radio stations made their own spots rather than playing whatever Corporate sent them.

take care

---Jones()

GLEE & BEAK, Live at the Wright State Rathskellar (unofficial, cassette, 1990)

GLEE & BEAK was sort of a folk-lite duo (sometimes a trio) featuring Dave Ponitz and Morgan Taylor, often assisted by a drummer whose name I can't remember right now. Although I never knew Dave or Morgan, I saw GLEE & BEAK a few times at Canal Street and Wright State. Their particular brand of cute and clever folk rock was never exactly my cup of tea, but it was charming, creative, and original. I genuinely enjoyed their shows. So did a lot of other people around town. And along with their obvious talent, their dueling boyish good looks didn't hurt their popularity either. As with THE WIZBANGS, I remember thinking of GLEE & BEAK as an act that inevitably attracted swarms of swooning girls.

Some other facts:

• GLEE & BEAK were featured in an Undercurrents Music Showcase in 1990.
• Dave's first band in Dayton was THE SCAM. They had played all over town for a few years before GLEE & BEAK got together (it's just a guess, but I'll put their tenure as running between 1986 through 1988, maybe?). Come to think of it, although I never saw THE SCAM live, I'm pretty sure that either they or DALE WALTON (Oh! There's a name from the distant past!) are the first local music group I was ever aware of (for some reason, it seemed I always heard ads for their shows on WTUE).
• Here's what Dave had to say about THE SCAM in a 1998 interview with Yeah, Yeah, Yeah: "We were a quartet. We played Kinks, Stones, Who, Hendrix, Zombies, Bowie and such. We played "Good Lovin", you know. We played "Shout!" We were all friends. A guy named Jellyass played bass and sang harmony. We had a lead guitar savant named Blando who was handsome and had a talk box. And then the drummer, Red Ned, who was like Mickey Dolenz with flame-on hair. It was probably the most solid project I've ever had, up until the current line-up of Sim Cain on drums and John Abbey on bass."
• Here's what he had to say in the same interview about GLEE & BEAK: "I also played in an acoustic rock trio called Glee & Beak in the early 90s in Ohio with a percussionist named Kelodg and a ridiculously talented guy named Morgan Taylor."
• According to an editorial note directly following that comment, "Morgan Taylor now lives in New York and leads a rock group called Morgan Taylor's Rock Group. David produced a demo for them in 2000."
• Dave used to write local music news for the Go! section of the Dayton Daily News under the pseudonym Braxton Hicks.
• In 1992 Dave Ponitz moved to New York. Since that time, you may have come to know his work under the name David Poe.
• David Poe's most recent release that I know of is Love Is Red (available at this page on e-music), but David Poe's Wikipedia entry will inform you of a couple of other projects he has in the works.
• Here's a link to David Poe's web site.
• In the '90s Morgan Taylor was in OO OO WA, a sort of tongue-in-cheek ultra-pop outfit that also featured Nick Eddy. OO OO WA had at least one full-length release, Screen Kiss (1993).
• Morgan also worked at Gem City Records (which, along with Canal Street Tavern, seemed to be the area's leading day job supplier for local musicians throughout the '80s and '90s and probably today too) for a number of years before heading to New York in 1998 and starting MORGAN TAYLOR'S ROCK GROUP.
• Morgan's current project is Gustafer Yellowgold, which is a bit of an enigma to me. However, from what I can tell, it's a combination of storybook, music, and now an off-broadway show for kids. And for some reason, it doesn't surprise me one little bit that Morgan Taylor is writing stories and music for kids. If you've been to even one GLEE & BEAK show, I don't think you're surprised either.
• Here's an interview with Morgan that better explains the premise behind Gustafer Yellowgold.

To my knowledge GLEE & BEAK issued no studio recordings. In fact, the only evidence of their existence I know of is this recording of a GLEE & BEAK show that Mite ripped and sent to me a couple of weeks ago.

Neither of us has a specific date on this, but both Mite's and my best guess places it somewhere in 1990 or perhaps as early as 1989. It was recorded at the Wright State Rathskellar. At that time, campus radio station WWSU was experimenting with broadcasting live shows from the Rathskellar. I remember OXYMORONS did one of those shows in October 1989 (it was, in fact, Pat Hennigan's second to last show with the band), and I'm sure other bands did too. Grog has lent me a tape of the OXYMORONS show as it was broadcast on WWSU. Mite made this one of GLEE & BEAK. Here's hoping some other WWSU/Rathskellar tapes survive.

I think listening to this recording will give you a pretty good idea of what GLEE & BEAK were all about. Their appeal was very closely tied to their live show. There's a good amount of stage banter, and a lot of the immediate charm of the band seems to come through best in this context.

Track List:

1. Window
2. Bloody
3. All of Your Letters Back
4. Down
5. How Much
6. Dandelion
7. Leave Brutality
8. Feedback Jam
9. Mystery Love Revealed
10. Grow
11. Tree House
12. Infinity Ring
13. Tunnel of Trees
14. I Am Not A Hippy

Download It! (62 MB) (link re-upped on 2-1-2013)

Again, you'll hear a drummer on some songs, but I just can't remember his name now.

UPDATE: The drummer was Kelly Morelock. He later played percussion for JAYNE SACHS' band. There's a bio for him here on her page.

I ran Mite's rip through some post-processing to boost the overall presence and eliminate tape hiss. Unfortunately, removing the hiss sometimes introduces latency (audible distortions -- kind of like a low resolution MP3) where the volume gets very low. I don't think it affects the quality where the band is playing, but it does introduce a little distortion where the volume dips between songs. Mite, if you're reading this, listen to it and let me know if you like the original version you sent me better.

take care

---Jones()

Music View, Holiday Show (12" & 7" vinyl, 1990)

If you know me, then you probably know that I go absolutely ape for pretty much anything related to the holidays. It's a shortcoming, I know, but it's one which, like my smoking, I feel no compulsion to correct. When it comes to Christmas (and Hannukah and Solstice and even Kwanzaa to a degree -- NOTE: I don't include Ramadan among the holidays NOT because I have any problem with Islam but because, as the black muslims at London Correctional taught me, Ramadan is not a "holiday" as we ordinarily think of one (though Eid ul-Fitr sort of is) and it often comes well before December (this year it ended on October 12)), I pretty much go for the whole package: decorations, wrapping paper, holiday-themed television, books, movies, music. I buy as many presents as I can afford. I stuff myself with food and candy. I take my son to see Santa Claus. For fuck's sake, I saw Surviving Christmas (with that delightful Ben Affleck) in the theater -- and liked it! (though I draw the line at Deck the Halls (Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito), which was just too inane even for me)

More than anything else, though, I dig the music. Every year, in lieu of Christmas cards, I distribute a Christmas-themed CD of indie rock and audio miscellany to everyone I know -- a disc I spend pretty much all year compiling (yes, you'll often find me listening to Christmas music in July). In addition to just being fun, I find that sampling a wide variety of Christmas music keeps me in touch with heights of beauty and solemnity, as well as the depths of absurdity, to which every strata of the media can transmogrify the holiday spirit in song. In the old days, my grandfather used to play stand up bass and violin in various bands around Chicago, and it was a favorite saying of his that any musician who can't get a job on New Years Eve is no musician at all. Being a musician and general music lover myself, I would add to my grandfather's observation that any musician who doesn't do something related to the holidays at some point in his career has no idea what he's doing. Everybody does a Christmas song -- I mean, everybody.

Of course, with that in mind, I must now admit that even among the voluminous collection of music extant from Dayton's indie rock history in the collections of Grog, Gail, and me, there is not a single Christmas song to be found. And for the life of me, I can't remember anyone from the era I ordinarily cover on this blog actually recording one. Sure, THE OXYMORONS did "Silver Bells" live once or twice, and THE OBVIOUS used to crank out a great cover of "White Christmas." I have a vivid memory of one Christmas show we did together (i.e. OXYMORONS and THE OBVIOUS) that ended with Greg Johnson taking a drunken backward tumble off the stage and into Canal Street Tavern's Christmas tree -- there was tinsel and beer everywhere. For Christmas 2003, my band THE VECTORS did a mini-holiday party at Canal Street Tavern at which we gave our CD away for free and performed a second set consisting entirely of Christmas songs (I even have a video tape of that show somewhere, but ripping and sharing of that will have to wait until next year). And I've no doubt any number of other Dayton bands recorded some kind of Christmas tuneage, but I currently have access to none of it.

Yeah, that's Dayton. For decades this town has provided nothing appropriate to this season or any other. I can think of no better metaphor for living here than being a ten year old kid ripping open a package on Christmas morning, expecting an Atari 2600, and getting a box full of dress socks or something.

And that's why, in lieu of any holiday audio specifically related to Dayton, I am today offering, for your holiday listening pleasure, a lame substitute:

Music View was a canned weekly music news program distributed to college radio stations on 12" vinyl in the late '80s and early '90s. At WWSU, we usually ran it on Friday nights at about 7:30 p.m. (and maybe once or twice more over the weekend). The show featured interviews and music with various luminaries and up-and-comers in the universe of what was then called "alternative" or "modern" rock. Or, at least, that's what it was supposed to do. You see, even at the time, I was a little suspicious of this program because although the production company (Joseph Fox Communications, Inc. -- which I believe was gobbled up by Time Warner at some point in the '90s) was technically independent, the whole thing was underwritten by that evil soul-sucking demonic cabal of the consumer recording industry: The Columbia Record and Tape Club!

Remember the Columbia Record and Tape Club? Remember how they lured you in with the irresistible promise of "12 records for a penny!"? Remember how, after you got those records, you then found yourself snared in a dizzying miasma of contractual obligations to buy so many records over a 12-month period for the rest of your natural life? Remember how often you forgot to send back the little notice attached to each monthly catalog to tell the company that you did NOT want whatever their featured piece of crap was that month? Remember how that resulted in you actually having to pay for some shitty record from the ALAN PARSONS PROJECT? Remember having to explain to your friends why you owned some shitty record from the ALAN PARSONS PROJECT? If none of this rings a bell, count yourself lucky. I was but one of many who, like any drug addict, got sucked in by the promise of a cheap score, only later to find out that nothing in life costs a penny -- and for the next seven years, me and my credit report suffered.

Yeah, that's where the money behind Music View came from, and so even back then I used to wonder exactly how the featured artists on each show were chosen. But even so, in a world lacking the magic power of the web, Music View remained one of the few places to hear information and music from artists outside the top forty mainstream. And although host John Fox spent a good amount of time covering concocted industry experiments who were supposed to be "the next big thing" (TRANSVISION VAMP anyone?), he also hit on a lot of good music from real artists in there.

The 1990 holiday show (officially, episode #98), presented for download here, is a pretty good example of the good and bad that Music View had to offer. Listen and you'll hear Christmas cuts from THE RAMONES, THE GONADS, THE REDUCERS, ED GEIN'S CAR, DAVID CASSIDY (no shit!), and BABY TAPEWORM. Interview segments feature artists like LIVING COLOUR, BLUE HEARTS, INSPIRAL CARPETS, DAVID CASSIDY (the only artist with both interview and music presented), and CIRCLE JERKS. The whole thing is hosted by the aforementioned John Fox (who must've finished in the top of the class at The Casey Kasem School of Broadcasting, 'cos he sounds just like him), with a brief segment on punk rock called "Rabid Food" hosted by Jack Rabid. "Rabid Food" was a regular feature on Music View and always my favorite part of the show.

Download It! (54 MB)

Like all Music View episodes, this one is presented in three segments (on the vinyl, each segment was separated by a locked groove allowing the DJ on whatever station was playing the show to pop in and perhaps give things a more local feel). Tracks 2-4 in the download package are those segments. Each show also came with a 7" record full of daily promo spots for what was coming up on the show that week. Those promo spots are track 1. The whole show is 28 minutes, the dailies about 7. The package also includes scans of the promo sheet and show schedule that came with the record.

Although the dailies inexplicably promise music and talk from PRIMAL SCREAM, that band appears nowhere in the show itself.

Yeah, it's not Dayton-related -- but hey, it's Christmas...

...and it only gets worse: return to this blog on CHRISTMAS EVE for another audio offering that will simply curl your ear-hairs. Until then...

feliz navi-nada, baby...

---Jones

WWSU, 4-Play (7" vinyl, 1987)

One word of warning about today's download: it's the first vinyl offering on this blog, and my turntable blows. There'll be a noticeable difference in the overall presence of the sound as compared to the cassette stuff you might've downloaded (like, compared to the cassette stuff, the vinyl will sound like it's coming through a one-speaker AM radio). [UPDATE 2-12-2013: ignore this.  I have a better turntable now.  This rip is much better.]  I'm planning on getting a new turntable some time in December. When that happens, I'll likely re-rip and re-up the vinyl links with better sounding files. But for now, the sound of vinyl will just have to suck. Anyway...

WWSU is Wright State's campus radio station. I worked there from early 1988 to late 1990. At that time it was (at least as far as I know) the only place in Dayton to hear anything approaching decent music on the radio (WOXY's signal didn't reach too far north of Beavercreek, and although WYSO had Jim Carter's "Around the Fringe" show, that station didn't play music consistently), which was probably the reason that so many people who were involved in local music worked there at one time or another. And why not? For people who ate, slept, and drank music in one way or another, it was Candyland. Here's why:

In addition to the main broadcast studio, they had a secondary studio for recording in-house PSAs, station IDs, news (real and fake), station IDs, whatever. It wasn't incredibly sophisticated, but it had a quarter-inch reel-to-reel, 8-channel mixer, a couple of turntables, microphones (beautiful old microphones that any sound engineer would give their right arm for today), etc. I used that studio to record tons of mix-tapes (two turntables made it easy to get that perfect, radio-style segue between cuts) and a few strange audio collages. But probably the most creative thing to come out of that studio was "Das Boot," which was Darryl Brandt and Matt DeWald just ranting over a generic industrial beat (I can't really describe it, but if I ever dig up a copy, I'll post it). They put it on a cart (that's short for "cartridge," which was a plastic box about the size of an 8-track tape with about 5-10 minutes of tape on a loop inside--you could set a cue-tone right at the beginning of whatever you had recorded so that when the DJ played it, he or she could get a precision start upon pushing the play button), and DJs would play it on their shows. It became a bit of a campus hit.

WWSU had an incredible library that included thousands of records, tapes, and CDs from obscure indie rock artists and most of the better major label releases (i.e. "alternative" when that term meant something). They had KILKENNY CATS, MASTERS OF REALITY, THE DAYLIGHTS, FOURWAYCROSS, and hundreds of other great bands I've never heard of anywhere else (not even on the web). They had original pressings of SCREECHING WEASEL's first two albums that included songs that were left off later versions. They had a HUSKER DU 12" single from Zen Arcade with that Husker symbol etched in the b-side, which I've never seen anywhere else. They had promotional singles with outtakes, live cuts, remixes. They had racks and racks of cassette-only releases. They had picture discs and colored vinyl. All together, that music library would probably fetch somewhere in the six-figures on ebay today.

New records came in the mail every fucking day! Just about everybody who worked there was pretty good about not stealing anything if it was the only copy. And although plenty of us copped duplicates and promo pieces (I got my share), it always seemed there was plenty to go around.

The artists and labels who sent music to college radio stations would take any kind of promotion they could get. This was true even for bands on major labels. So if you wanted to see a free show and meet the band afterward, all you had to do was call the artist's management and identify the radio station you were working for. I got into dozens of shows that way, including SOUNDGARDEN, CONCRETE BLONDE, VOIVOD, MISSION OF BURMA, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, THE DEAD MILKMEN, DINOSAUR JR., BOB MOULD, PETER MURPHY, D.I., THE REPLACEMENTS, SONIC YOUTH, LOVE AND ROCKETS, THE PIXIES, BILLY BRAGG, NINE INCH NAILS, and I almost always got to meet the band afterward (one notable exception being PETER MURPHY, who wouldn't even let us backstage -- asshole...).

WWSU used to sponsor "Alternative Tuesday" in the Rathskellar, which was a shitty campus eatery just down the hall in the old student union. The Imminent zine article I posted a couple weeks ago has a pretty fair description of the place: "[It] was so lame, it made the Rhine Room look like CBGB’s.... I looked about the place waiting for Marcia Brady to appear." But you could get Black Label there, so I guess it wasn't all bad (and I remember a four or five week period when Kattie Dougherty was addicted to their calzones). Every Tuesday night, some WWSU staff members (I remember Darryl Brandt and Matt DeWald DJing a lot, but there were many others) would clear the tables to make a big dance floor and haul some turntables and a PA down there. Before 1470-West (local gay bar) started doing a similar thing on Thursdays, this was the only place in the Miami Valley you could get alternative dance pop and industrial music in a club atmosphere. Sometimes they'd book a band instead of having a DJ. I saw DEMENTIA PRECOX, DANSE POSITIVE, and RED MATH there. Alternative Tuesday was also the site of the Alternative Fashion Show fiasco of 1988 (which I've been putting off blogging on in hopes of scrounging up some pictures, but if none turn up soon, I'll post the story without). Finally, I'm pretty sure Alternative Tuesday is where I first met Gail. It was just this great big party where you always knew someone interesting would show up -- in the middle of the week.

WWSU was incredibly supportive of local artists. Unlike all the commercial stations in town, who limited local artists to some lame-ass specialty show that lasted for thirty minutes once a month (and even then they usually played the forgettable variety of hard rock bands or top-40 wannabes -- believe it or not, commercial radio in the '80s was even more clueless than it is today), WWSU included locals in regular rotation. WWSU is where I first heard THE OBVIOUS, THE HIGHWAYMEN, and DEMENTIA PRECOX, and it's where I made a point of playing every local release I could get my hands on.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever. At college stations, student management usually changes every academic year, and weak managers are subject to the will of whatever idiot staff "advisor" the college sees fit to place. About a year before I quit, Wright State hired just such an advisor. I don't remember her name, but she talked a lot about "paradigms" and "new models" and "the business of media" -- which pretty much translated to, "WWSU should have exactly the same programming that commercial stations have." Some time in the mid-'90s, they sold all the vinyl for about a tenth of what it was worth then (which is about a hundredth of what it would be worth today). Dave Graeter told me that Laura Pop-Tart bought every HUSKER DU record for a quarter each. Worst part is, I missed that sale, so I didn't get shit! Motherfucker...

Of course, some of the things that made the point of working at a college station have been made irrelevant today by consumer technology. Local bands can get better exposure on the web than any radio station could offer. Any decent rave or club plays the same music (or its present-day counterpart) and has fewer restrictions than Alternative Tuesday. No record collection anywhere at any time can match what's available through audio blogs, file sharing, and legitimate music download sites on the web. And any PC or Mac will give you production power that's as good as the average studio (even bands are recording entire albums on PC). But at the time, college radio stations like WWSU were a vital place for the music-obsessed.

This entry is only the first of two or three I'm planning on WWSU. Today I just wanted to talk about the station and why people who were dissatisfied with what the mainstream music industry was offering would congregate there. In subsequent posts, I'll be talking about some of the personalities that made WWSU such a great place to be. But enough words--let's get to the music.

For your downloading pleasure, I Remember Dayton presents Side One of a WWSU-produced 7" EP of local artists released in 1987. I'm only giving you Side One because that's the "modern rock" side. Until Spring Quarter of 1988, WWSU used to split its schedule into jazz during the day and modern rock at night (I think the switchover was 3 p.m.). Side Two is a couple of local jazz artists, and because this blog is called "I Remember Dayton PUNK and INDIE ROCK" (and because I just don't like jazz), I'm not going to the trouble of ripping that side.  UPDATE 2-4-2013: That's really kind of a stupid reason not to rip the whole thing, so when I did this re-rip, I got both sides.

Track List:

1. That Hope, "Space Boys in Love"
2. Pleasures Pale, "Lovely, Lovely"
3. Chain Link Fence, "A Sound Alternative"
4. The Blues Doctor, "No Midlife Crisis Blues"
5. Ocean, "East Coast Cruise"

Download it! (24 MB) (link re-upped on 2-4-2013)

UPDATE 2-4-2013:  In addition to the second side, this new package also contains scans of of the test pressing of this record.  It was also recorded on much better equipment than the old rip, so even if you have that package, consider downloading this one.

I know nothing about THAT HOPE, except that they hailed from Bloomington, Illinois.

Of PLEASURES PALE, for now I'll tell you that Luis Lerma played bass and that they were gigging around Dayton in 1987. I'll be posting their album some time in the next couple of weeks.

CHAIN LINK FENCE is from Boston. The cut is a brief promotional spot for the station (whose catch-phrase at the time was "WWSU, A Sound Alternative") recorded in the secondary studio.

I'm not wild about the design of the sticker (left) included with this record. To me it just screams "AM RADIO, 1974!" I much prefer the "alternative" logo the station adopted in '88 (right).

There's no date anywhere on the packaging, but this was out before I started working there. My impression is that this record came out early in 1987, though it might have been a year earlier.

The cover picture (by Ty Greenlees, who went on to a distinguished career with the Dayton Daily News) shows the WWSU main broadcast studio in 1987. Try to ignore the tacky wood panelling. Instead, check out the reel-to-reel on the left, the tube driven board and cart rack in the middle, and the dual turntable setup on the right. Go, analog technology! And what's missing? Look ma, no CD players! WWSU didn't get one until 1988.

From what I can tell, WWSU today is playing indie rock and other styles--everything from country to speed metal. It just depends on what DJ is on the air. Most of the time, it's pretty good stuff. I usually catch a good mix of indie rock contemporaries and classics. But occasionally, I'm wondering if the DJ is taking any prescription medication (like the other day when I heard the DOOBIE BROTHERS, followed by some speed metal act--what the fuck?). When there's no DJ, they're apparently automated, and it seems that the automation plays mostly contemporary indie rock. But this is all guesswork based on the few times I've tuned in over the past few months and from reading the WWSU Wikipedia entry (the pathetic WWSU web site is a marvel of brevity, containing no information about the station's programming or personnel -- and the listening link was broken last time I checked).

I like to think that WWSU is just as fun and interesting a place to work now as it was then. But honestly for music listening, I'm an XM satellite radio man now. Between Fungus 53 (punk channel) and XMU (newer indie rock channel), I hear far better music programming than any terrestrial radio station I know of. And if I'm feeling nostalgic for the old days, XM's channel Fred plays a mix that I would swear was ripped right from WWSU playlists circa 1989.

take care

---Jones