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James Brown Interview — 1996

Photo: The Daily Princetonian

Things have been pretty quiet here at WPRB History Central for a long time, but with several new volunteer archivists itching to cozy up with our trusty Otari MX5050 reel-to-reel player, we’re aiming to get back to regular posting. And what better way to re-launch the ship than with this brief James Brown phone interview from 1996, performed by the great Lily Prillinger!

At the time, the Godfather of Soul was busy promoting the “Live at the Apollo 1995” album, and Lily managed to contact his management and secure access to The Man Himself for this brief phone interview. Lily is obviously nervous, but hell, what 20-year-old who’s about to speak to JAMES EFFING BROWN wouldn’t be?! For his part, Brown delivers on every level you could hope for—fielding Lily’s anxious questions with a mix of sincerity and almost mechanically-deployed James Brown-isms. (Put another way, it’s either like James Brown doing an impression of himself, or Eddie Murphy’s legendary “Celebrity Hot Tub Party” parody.)

The lead up to Brown taking WPRB’s call is also kind of fascinating, as Lily is given stern instructions by (presumably) Brown’s agent, as to what she may (and may not) ask about. Listen or download below.

[Download]

James Brown performed in Princeton’s Dillon Gymnasium in February of that year (to mixed reviews.)


1968 Princeton – NYU Basketball Excerpt

Text: Edward Labowitz ’70

[Download Princeton / NYU Basketball Excerpt, 1968] (19.5mb MP3 File)

Gregg [Lange] and I broadcast the (Men’s, as there were no Women’s) Basketball games on WPRB during our years, 1966-1970. During freshman year, ’66-’67, the team was ranked third in the nation and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. However, as fledgling freshmen, we did not broadcast many of the games, but watched and listened to our mentors, John Barnard ’69 and Hal Pote ’68.

We were the regular broadcasters in ’67-’68, ‘68-‘69, and much of ‘69-‘70, until senior theses began to occupy our time and our successors took the mic.

I recently found a ¼ tape of the last 18 minutes of game time of the NYU-Princeton game, in early December 1968. I transferred the tape to digital, and it is a good thing I did, because it was beginning to deteriorate. The first 1:15 is a bit garbled, but the rest is fine. I am doing the play-by-play, Gregg does a bit of color toward the end of the game, and John Barnard does the post-game wrap-up. Our engineer was either John Bongiovani ’70 or Tom Kendrick ’72. This was the sixth game of the season, which Princeton won, making it 3-3 at that point. The Tigers went on to a 19-7 season, which was Pete Carril’s second year at Princeton. NYU, of course, eliminated its intercollegiate basketball program many years ago. This may be the last extant recording of any NYU basketball game. (more…)

LISTEN: Fugazi Interview from April of 1989

Here’s a very early Fugazi interview which was recorded at WPRB on April 6th of 1989. This recording was made in advance of their gig at the Terrace Club in Princeton, which took place later that same evening.

LISTEN: Fugazi interviewed by WPRB’s Ethan Stein, 4/6/89.

[Right-click to Download]

This interview was recorded squarely between the release of the band’s debut and “Margin Walker” EPs on Dischord Records. (WPRB’s copy of the first is seen above.) All four members of the band join the discussion, and hold forth on matters including their rigorous touring schedule, the genesis of their legendary $5 door price policy, the metamorphosis of the DC music scene, and how they were verbally harassed by some local idiots on their way down to WPRB’s studios.

The Terrace Club gig which took place later that evening is available for download as part of Fugazi’s Live Music Series.

Uncle Mark’s 4th Annual Mondo Xmas Spectacular (Part 1)

With Jon Solomon’s 27th annual Holiday marathon on the approach, what better time to take a spin back through WPRB’s glorious Christmas specials of yore? Here’s a recently unearthed aircheck recording of DJ Mark Dickinson’s Mondo Xmas Radio Spectacular from December 15th of 1984. It’s a wild smackdown of sounds ranging from The Fall to Jimi Hendrix to Tuxedomoon to the Sonics…. only we had to cut all of that out for copyright reasons, leaving only the thrilling sounds of mic breaks from more than 30 years ago. Joining Mark are DJs and friends Dana Batali, Nicola Graham, Jared Silverman, Mark Crimmins,  “Death” Ray Gonzalez of the Funstigators, and the Shields brothers of notorious Jersey punk band Detention. (“Dead Rock & Rollers, they were out of controllers!”)

You’ll also hear a rehearsal medley of hardcore holiday tunes from the Wild Hairs, courtesy of the Shields brothers. Stay tuned for part two in the coming days!

 

[Download]

 

LISTEN: Singing Station IDs by the Tigertones

William Borchard (class of 1960) recently submitted an acetate disc of WPRB station breaks, as performed by University a cappella group, the Tigertones. Below are his written recollections of the recordings’ origins, as well as interleaved ‘Listen’ links to hear them.

 

In 1957, I wandered over to Holder Hall and became an on-air engineer at WPRB. In those days, we had vinyl LPs and 45s (in quite an extensive record library), and large reel to reel Ampex tape recorders. The engineer played the records and the announcer was on the other side of the glass. We had a teletype machine that sent us the United Press International feed, and that is what we read for the newscasts on each hour.

There were no women undergrads or cars in those days. All we did was drink. But Dave Fullhart, a WPRB executive, was permitted to have his white station wagon, with antennas all over it and WPRB on the door, in order to carry equipment to remote locations. It was all very serious, exciting and fun.

One evening we got everyone on campus to tune in and played “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets over and over again. The students opened their windows and played it loud all over campus. Then they started a riot which got out of hand. As a result, the University banned us from playing that song ever again.

I started doing the remote broadcast of the Sunday Chapel service each week and finally I got my own one-hour show on Saturday mornings. It was called “Saturday Morning Showcase” playing mostly standard pop music. I got Jimmy Stewart to record a spot announcement about my show when he came to Princeton. I also got some townie girls to swoon over my show in a spot. I think by then I was doing the engineering and announcing myself.

And . . . . I wrote the singing station breaks. I had my high school music teacher arrange them, and I convinced the Tigertones to record them. I played them on my program but I doubt anyone else played them. Standards were lax, the AM signal was carried through the electric lines, and the FM signal could only be heard on or close to campus, so the audience generally was small, if any. It did not matter because we just assumed someone was listening—I think my roommate listened sometimes.

I still love radio, and am a strong supporter of New York Public Radio WNYC.

LISTEN: Promo for Eight-Hour Spotlight on The Residents

Adam Gottlieb was one of WPRB’s more assertively challenging DJs of the early 1990s. As has been previously mentioned here, he once subjected himself to every single Jandek LP in one marathon/overnight session. On top of that, his love of skronky jazz, Captain Beefheart, and obscure international music often made his show something of an endurance test for more timid listeners.

Mixing all of those sounds together into a single freeform show was no big deal for Adam, but sometimes (usually during school breaks when the majority of the airstaff was away from campus), he’d embark upon marathon broadcasts devoted to a single artist with a sprawling back catalog—as much as to fill/kill long stretches of airtime as for the irritainment of the listenership. Case in point, his 1992 eight-hour spotlight on The Residents.

Here’s the promo:

 

John Catlett Reflects on WPRB at 75

Here’s another great reason to support WPRB during this week’s 75th anniversary membership drive from John Catlett ’64—a man with a fascinating radio résumé that extends well beyond WPRB (as you’ll hear in the clip below.)


John further recalls his time at WPRB:

“It was that Fall [1963] as I recall that one of our students who had spent his summer in Europe came into our studios with a single record by a new singing group he said was getting a lot of attention in England. I don’t know if he had brought with him a pressing from England, so I don’t know if there’s any chance we were the first station in America to play “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” but we must have been one of the first. By the Beatles, of course.”

WPRU Bulletin + 75th Anniversary Message from Paul Dunn

Here’s the second (and final in our existing archives) WPRU Bulletin. Paul Dunn ’58 was the Bulletin’s managing editor as a Princeton Undergraduate, and continues to play an important role on WPRB’s board of trustees today. You can download the complete bulletin (.PDF) by clicking here.

Below, an important message from Paul about WPRB’s 75th Anniversary Membership Drive.

 

Fishbone at City Gardens

1987 was a busy year for Fishbone at WPRB. First up, here’s a promo for Fishbone’s gig at City Gardens from July of that year.


And below, a visionary excerpt from the WPRB interview conducted by Ethan Stein (aka “Eddie Mosh”) with band members Angelo and Norwood. This interview took place earlier that year (May), prior to the band’s gig with Adrenalin O.D.