Years on air: 1979-1984.
Favorite Bands: The Ramones. And also, The Ramones.
Memorable On-Air Moment: 12-hour shift on Thanksgiving, played “In A Gadda Da Vida” twice in a row.
Advice for current WPRB DJs: Play lots of Ramones. Ease off the Partridge Family (but still play them.)
If there’s one thing I’ve learned since initiating this history project, it’s that once the research bug bites you, the related fever is hard to shake. Case in point: these just-rediscovered artifacts from the mid 1940s, when WPRB (then called WPRU) was still in its infancy, which sent a considerable thrill up my spine. A huge part of the fun of digging into the deepest recesses of the station’s history is noting how doing so keeps moving the marker for the oldest-known (document/photo/recording/etc) further back.
While we have unearthed a few yellowed letters and documents from station founder H Grant Theis that detail the plans which lead up to the station’s launch in December of 1940, the assortment of scans presented here offers one of the oldest-known insights into what the station’s programming was like.
These clippings were discovered by current WPRB staffers Zenala and Misha in the bottom of a filthy file cabinet during an otherwise routine cleaning project. The documents were actually sent to the station back in 1992 by Stanley Abensur ’42. Huge thanks to Stanley for anticipating their relevance 25 years ahead of time, and to Zenala and Misha for bringing them to my attention!
Without further delay, we are pleased to present the following:
Exhibit A: Early floorplan of the station’s old studios in Holder Hall. (See above)
By Rupert Macnee ’69
When I arrived at Princeton in the fall of 1966, I brought a suitcase full of British pop records of the era. I very quickly realized that all these records were knock-offs of what was happening in the United States. Motown was flourishing. I discovered Blues and Jazz and even though Chuck Berry was a disappointment at one of our dances, I was deeply in awe of the rich heritage of American music.
WPRB was at that time firmly devoted to MOR – easy listening like Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, classics in their way, but not exactly 1966 teenage stuff. I got a spot on the WPRB roster because Boyd Britten, (later “Doc on the Rock” at KROQ in Los Angeles), thought my voice sounded like the world service of the BBC.
After a year of this dreadful music – well I thought it was then – I went back to England for the summer of 1967. Apart from Sergeant Pepper, it was the summer of Jimi Hendrix, the Who, and Cream. When I got back to Princeton in the fall of 1967 the playlist opened up a bit, and for a few months we did daily shows featuring loud rock and roll from a mobile set-up in one window of the University Store. It was fun to wander around on the sidewalk with a microphone interviewing passers-by and playing the latest batch of records from England. I’m firmly convinced that WPRB actually premiered a good many records that didn’t really kick off in the U.S. until early 1968.
WPRB was also a great facility for recording and mixing. I did the music for several films in that tiny studio – Barry Miles playing Harpsichord, Al Price, Oliver Whitehead, Jim Floyd, Lindsay Holland, Vincent Gregory, all were much-appreciated contributors to some less than memorable epics!
Few on-air promos enjoy the kind of reputation this pair of early 90s WPRB recordings promoting the station’s “Hypnotized Cheese” t-shirts do. Apart from being one of the most popular shirts ever produced by the station (in its day, the Hypnotized Cheese guy could be frequently spotted in the crowd on any given night at Maxwell’s or the Khyber Pass), the on-air spots used to hawk them were almost as ubiquitous as the shirts themselves. (Listeners would routinely call and request them. Jon Solomon claims to have received one such request within the last year!)
To properly honor the legacy of WPRB’s Hypnotized Cheese mascot (who also appeared on the cover of a printed program guide which you can check out in our upcoming exhibit of station history at Princeton University’s Mudd Library), here are the two original promos. These spots were voiced, written, and produced by Matthew Robb (Myron), John Clements (Robin Leach impersonator), and Hugh Hynes (production).
Hypnotized Cheese Promo #1
Hypnotized Cheese Promo #2
Bonus: Here are scans of the original scripts and production notes for each.
A limited-run, 20th anniversary edition of the Hypnotized Cheese t-shirt was produced as a special fundraising item back in 2012. It sold out rapidly, proving the design’s enduring appeal. Will there be a third edition? Time will tell…
In the meantime, here’s the video for Spectrum’s “How You Satisfy Me”, which served as background music in Promo #1 and was, by all accounts, one of the biggest WPRB hits of the era.
Years on air: 2002-2006: Mixtape Maker/Heartbreaker. 2006-2014: Clean Yr Room (w/ Art Andrews) and Born Inflamed.
Favorite bands: Modern Lovers, Dead Moon, The Replacements, Arthur Russell, Kate Bush, Screaming Females, Beat Happening. Favorite bands I found through WPRB: Half Man Half Biscuit, Red Krayola, The Mekons, Television Personalities, The Soft Boys, Desperate Bicycles, Silkworm, Meredith Monk, that crazy closed-loop record that has 500 tracks on it.
Memorable on-air moment: The time I tried to explain to Wilbo that I self-identified with the cover of Blurt’s In Berlin LP in deep deep ways. It was, needless to say, a confusing moment for both of us.
Advice for current WPRB DJs: Keep it weird, and DON’T DRINK THE BLEACH. Outside of the WPRB studios and on the rest of the dial, life can get pretty bland and bleached out. Your show can be a portal or it can be par-for-the-course. In the style of Hawkwind’s weirdly delivered monologues: “CHOOSE WISELY, MORTAL BEING.”*
*Not an actual endorsement of Hawkwind.
Bonus audio! Here’s Julia providing a non-verbal impression of the drum fill from Big Star’s “September Gurls” in WPRB’s infamous “Fish Fingers” station ID.
WPRB’s John Shyer ’78 says: I produced the “Disco Duck” promo in the old Holder Hall production studio late one night. I was trying to find a way to express my contempt for mindless disco, which was everywhere in [the late 70s]. The DJs found the cart in the studio (labeled “Dead Duck Promo,” I believe), loved it, and played it constantly. We finally had to retire it for excessive airplay.
Listen below:
By Kenneth McCarthy ’81
I first got involved with PRB in the spring of my freshman year (1978). It was an interesting time for the station. Though there were a lot of talented individuals in areas like engineering and programming, other area like sales, training, and scheduling were a bit shaky to say the least.
As best as I can remember, the station had only one sponsor, the University Store and one ad, the “These Are My Favorite Things” spot. Thank God it was a good spot because we played it twice an hour, every hour. And we didn’t log that many hours. It wasn’t unusual for the station to sign off after Morning Classical at 10 AM due to a lack of DJ’s.
The details of what happened the next year when the new management group took over could fill a book. It was a complex situation. As an organization, PRB had to be rebuilt from scratch. We had very few members and new people had to be attracted, brought in, and trained fast. There was also a major ideological split among the managers. You had one group that wanted the station to have a top 40 sound and another group that wanted the station to be an alternative to what was available on commercial radio.
By Steve Buratowski ’84
DOWNLOADS: The Complete Funstigators WPRB Tapes (.zip file) and the original Funstigators bio (.pdf)
One by-product of WPRB in the early ’80s was a band called the Funstigators. The band consisted of Steve Buratowski, Mark Crimmins, Ray Gonzalez, Kevin Hensley, Chuck Steidel, and Charles Sullivan. All were class of 1984 and, and except for Charles, joined the station as DJs soon after arriving at Princeton. Mark, Chuck, and Charles were roommates, and as far back as freshman year one of their favorite things to do on weekends was to get some cheap beer and play music. Chuck and Mark had guitars, and Charles played one of those tiny squeaky Casiotone keyboards that were popular in the ’80s, using an overturned trashcan as a stand.
It was fall of 1969. Despite the recent reduction of troop levels, over 475,000 young men were still fighting in Vietnam—most of them conscripted. Young people from all walks of life were getting drafted into the army, including many Princeton students and graduates. As was the case on many college campuses at the time, Princeton experienced a growth in campus unrest in protest of the Vietnam War.
On October 15, 1969, Princeton, along with hundreds of other campuses across the nation, participated in a national moratorium against the war. The Peace Moratorium is believed to have been the largest demonstration in US history with an estimated two million people involved. At Princeton, this included a day of teach-ins, speeches, and demonstrations. WPRB’s News Department covered the event live.
