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Friday WPRB DJ Pinup: Jen Moyse!

[Photo from the “Hey You Kids Get Off My Lawn” archives]
 

Years on air: 1990-1999 (living nearby had its perks.)

Favorite bands: The Life and Times, Caspian, Moving Mountains, MC5, The Appleseed Cast, Shiner, Trail of Dead…there are so many.

Memorable on-air moment: When I was a sophomore, I made a casual request over the air for someone to help me locate a hard-to-find 7″ single I had just played, and coveted. A short while later, I got a call from a nice guy who offered to come down to the station and give me his copy. That was the day I discovered that people really *were* listening — and met my future longtime cohost and fanzine cofounder (and the mastermind behind the WPRB archive project), Mike Lupica. I still treasure that single.

Advice for current WPRB DJs: Explore the stacks, play everything, learn all you can, get involved, and have fun! If you’re having a great time, your listeners will, too.

Bonus content! Here’s a quick mic break of Jen back-announcing a set of music from 5.29.93.

 

 

 


LISTEN: “Music You Can’t Hear on the Radio” promos, 1977

[WPRB’s John Weingart — “Radio With Feet”]

WPRB’s John Shyer ’78 recently unloaded a box of archival airchecks on us which he claimed had been stashed in the back of his closet for decades. Dating from the mid-late 1970s, these airchecks were on both 1/4″ reel as well as cassette, and unlike most of PRB’s native collection, were all in perfect condition (no creeping black mold!)

As such, we were pretty excited to dig in and see what treasures lurked within. Here are the first fruits from the cassette pictured below: a trio of 1977-era promos for John Weingart’s “Music You Can’t Hear on the Radio” — a longtime staple of WPRB’s schedule, which is still heard on a weekly basis every Sunday night from 7-10 PM.

 

 

Stay tuned for more from John Shyer’s incredible archives in the coming months!



WPRB at the DNC, Sting from the Police, and Freeform vs. Format

By Jordan Becker

I started at WPRB during the second semester of my freshman year in 1979. The ability to have the entire record library—and it was still all vinyl—at my disposal was intoxicating. Unless that was the fumes from the records.

At the time, the station’s rock programming was still very much beholden to the freeform model of the late 1960s-early 1970s. In fact, to my memory, the only requirement that we had was the obligation to play a certain amount of jazz during a rock show. That all changed, though, when Ashley Ellott became station manager, and Jason Meyer became program director. They attempted to turn the rock programming into something more consistent and more rock oriented. To me, there is something to be said for listeners having a general sense of what they might hear when they turn on the radio, and having some consistency from day to day and time slot to time slot theoretically results in listeners staying with the station for longer periods. On the other hand, they also insisted that we use the slogan “Your Music,” which was generally reviled—it might have worked at a professional commercial station, but was a bad idea for a college radio station.

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LISTEN: Anyway/Datapanik Records Spotlight promo

Here’s WPRB’s Dan Gabbe (with production wizardry and pre-take snarkiness from Hugh Hynes) promoting a 1993 edition of Spotlight. As previously noted, Spotlight was a weekly show that allowed programmers to devote an hour to a favorite band, record label, or scene. Dan was from Columbus Ohio, and his arrival at WPRB ignited a staff-wide obsession with bands like Gaunt, V-3, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, and the New Bomb Turks (all of whom recorded for the Ohio-based Anyway and/or Datapanik labels.) Given his credentials, a thusly-focused edition of the show was inevitable.

 

Superchunk Interview, 1991

On February 3rd of 1991, the mighty Superchunk visited WPRB (inbetween gigs at Maxwell’s and CBGBs) where they were interviewed by WPRB’s Scott Crater. Here’s the interview, in which the band dishes on the Chapel Hill scene, wide-belled trousers, Honor Role, No Idea Fanzine, and the disgusting, DNA-crusted floor of WPRB’s old lobby.


You can also download the interview by clicking here. (Reel digitized by Jon Solomon on 10/15/14) (more…)

Pierre Moerlen (Gong) Interview, 1980

By Bill Rosenblatt ’83

This was my first ever interview with a musician on the air. There I was, a wide-eyed sophomore, treating this obscure French drummer like he was a huge rock star. The drummer was Pierre Moerlen, leader of Gong. They were in Princeton for a WPRB-sponsored stop at Alexander Hall (now Richardson Auditorium) on their first US tour ever.

[LISTEN or DOWNLOAD: Pierre Moerlen interview, 8.28.80]

 

[Digitized 11.25.14 by Bill Rosenblatt]

If you have no idea who Gong was, you are far from alone. Gong was originally a band from France that started in the late 60s, led by Australian guitarist/singer Daevid Allen, formerly of the seminal British psychedelic band Soft Machine. They had a cult following through the early-mid 70s as a wacky, spaced-out post-hippie band, along the lines of early Pink Floyd (but zanier) or Hawkwind (but softer and proggier). Gong’s “Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy” of 1973-74 is its best-known work and remains a favorite of mine to this day. (more…)

LISTEN: Captain Beefheart “Spotlight” Promo

Spotlight was a weekly, early-90s program that enabled WPRB programmers to play the deep fields of self-indulgence by dedicating an entire hour to a specific artist, scene, or record label. (My earliest understandings of Einstürzende Neubauten were informed by a thusly-dedicated edition of the show. I can also remember Spotlights on Galaxie 500, Ohio garage rock, and the Residents. I hosted one dedicated to the Canadian punk band Nomeansno.)

Direct from WPRB’s reel-to-reel archives, here is a promo for an edition of the show where Captain Beefheart was the distinguished point of focus.

 

Spotlight promos like this one were traditionally voiced by the host who’d later present the actual show. In this case, the host was Adam Gottlieb, who was one of the first people I ever met when I started volunteering at WPRB. I’ll never forget arriving at the station in the middle of the night and finding him in the production studio, armed with a brick of Z-grade blank cassettes. His mission? To tape WPRB’s entire catalog of Jandek records. This may have something to do with why I haven’t seen or heard from Adam in 20+ years.

The Sound of WPRB in 1972 (Part One)

Here is a selection of station IDs and announcements from 1972. These were all sourced from a single 1/4″ reel (pictured above), and provide a good snapshot of WPRB’s airsound from that era. Stay tuned for more in part two! (All selections digitized by Rob Schuman on 11.17.14)

1. Morning sign-on message.

 

2. The Alice Coltrane ID. (At least I think the background music is Alice Coltrane. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong.)

 

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“WPRB and Me”

[By Chris Fine]

LISTEN: Mic breaks and news reports from Chris Fine’s rock show on WPRB, February 25th, 1980.

 

Introduction
I write these words about WPRB because I love the station. The people of WPRB were some of my best friends during my years at Princeton. WPRB was the single best activity (including courses – as my transcript reflects) in which I participated during my undergraduate years. My interest in radio, and technology in general, dates back well before my journey to Princeton University in September, 1976. Encouraged by my father, who was an audio engineer and inventor, I started tinkering with electronics and chemistry at a young age. Predictably, a number of shocks and small fires resulted – but fortunately no major injuries, and my family was always patient with me.

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