The Proud Tradition of WPRB DJs Wearing Ramones Shirts
A slideshow showcasing the proud, decade-spanning tradition of WPRB DJs photographed wearing Ramones shirts.
Have a shirt to share? Please send a picture our way!
1981 Decline & Fall playlist
When a reunited Detention came to record a live session at WPRB in 2010, Kevin Shields gifted this 1981 playlist for the show “Decline & Fall.”
Mark Dickinson and Lloyd Handler (aka “Larry Void”) started “Decline & Fall,” WPRB’s late night punk/hardcore show earlier that year. The program’s run spanned the entire decade, with the hosting torch passed several times over into the eventual hands of Ethan “Eddie Mosh” Stein and “Slammin'” Sam Youakim.
During the mid-late 80s, Chris Mohr would periodically host special editions of the show re-titled as the “All Fall Decline & Fall”, and would feature music only by The Fall.
Punk specialty shows have continued to air sporadically on WPRB over the years. From “Hey You Kids Get Off My Lawn” to “Punk vs. Metal” to “Totally Wired.”
Perhaps someday, the Decline and Fall franchise will be re-animated.
“The Gravitational Pull” by Daniel Gabbe
I was young when I fell for radio. I fell asleep listening to Phillies games and reruns of radio serials like The Shadow on the local AM station. I got my broadcasting license at a summer camp in the Poconos and waged a one-man war on behalf of heavy metal at age 11, even though people had to be within a few hundred yards to hear it. A local alternative station in Ohio introduced me to Nirvana and Joy Division. My father had done play-by-play on WPRB for Princeton basketball as an undergraduate in the 60s. I loved radio, and I knew about PRB, but I didn’t know that the radio station would bend the course of my whole life.
Welcome!
Welcome to wprbhistory.org! This site gathers stories, photographs, archival recordings, and other ephemera pertaining to WPRB—Princeton University’s student-run radio station, now entering its 75th year of broadcasting.
With so much history under our belt, the 75th anniversary emerged as a great opportunity to finally put it to work for us. Last summer, we mounted an effort to begin organizing and cataloging the 1000+ 1/4 inch audio reels that had been sitting in deep storage here at the station. Among the treasures unearthed were archival airchecks and show promos which reveal WPRB’s long term trajectory from an ambitious station serving the immediate community, to the 14,000 watt broadcasting and online powerhouse it is today. (more…)