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Stanley Jordan, and the Battle Against “Your Music”

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.

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(Re-)Introducing WPRB’s 1980s House Band: The Funstigators!

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.

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WPRB’s Coverage of the Vietnam Moratorium

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.

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Friday WPRB DJ Pinup: Scott Lowe!

Years on air: 1985-1991. I was barely in high school when I got the radio bug in 1984 and managed to score a weekly show at another nearby college station, but getting on WPRB became a goal, which happened a year later. I became a volunteer DJ during seasonal breaks, plus emergency fill-ins during the school year. I’m not sure there were any other WPRB DJs as young as I was at the time.  Since then, my professional career in radio has taken me all over from stations in Philly to Los Angeles. I continue to champion new music and push the envelope with the spirit of college radio as my inspiration.

Favorite bands: XTC, The Fall, Let’s Active, Elvis Costello, New Order, Talking Heads and Devo are among my all-time picks.

Memorable on-air moment: At WPRB, I got to interview Martin Atkins (Public Image Ltd./Brian Brain), Dramarama, Salem 66, Chris Hartford and my fellow schoolmates, Dean and Gene Ween before they were signed to a label.  A lesser fond memory would be the cockroaches in the basement of Holder Hall that were the size of your thumb!

Advice for current WPRB DJs: The role of a WPRB DJ is part showbiz.  Remember, when the mic is on, you’re in the spotlight. Be prepared with what you’re going to say and have fun.

Bonus Audio: Here’s a pair of mic breaks from Scott’s show, circa 1987.

 

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The Razor Sharp Mind of WPRB’s Jeff Meyers

Photo: Jeff Meyers (aka Rod St. John) with Jean Shepherd
Text: Gregg Lange

The late 1960s was a highly active and diverse era for WPRB. News staffers aggressively covered coeducation, plus anti-war and civil rights demonstrations; the sports department traveled with Ivy champion football and nationally-ranked basketball teams; classical music was beginning to assert itself seriously; and the earlier preponderance of middle-of-the-road music was blown away by underground rock and a fabulous jazz department that appeared almost overnight, experimental specialty programs and even a highly popular Top-40 show, all by students. Meanwhile, the station sponsored concerts of all sorts, and its annual presentation of raconteur Jean Shepherd at Alexander Hall became the stuff of radio legend.

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“All those records—Who knew what they might hold?”

By Matthew H. Robb ’94 (center, looking skeptical at Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ)
DJ from 1991-1997; 1999-2000
Jazz Director ’92; Program Director ’93
Also pictured above: Greg Lyon (left), Evan Bates (right)

I’ve been thinking about this for a few weeks now and it’s funny to me how non-specific most of my WPRB memories are. There are definitely some concrete ones – I’m pretty sure I was in the old studio A / aux sorting records when the on-air DJ, who I am confident was Scott Crater, put on Superchunk’s Cool 7” and that just pretty much changed my life. It somehow coalesced everything I knew about music (well, alternative and punk music) up until that point and blew it wide open. But maybe that’s getting ahead of things.

I knew a little about radio when I was high school, volunteering at the local public radio station, and I was was of those alternative music teenagers—lots of New Order, the Cure, etc. Add to that an older brother whose tastes ran to the Jam, Elvis Costello, the Clash, and the Replacements, and growing up in the south with a certain familiarity with the Athens scene. I was definitely a pop kid more than a punk kid – the glasses made going to hardcore shows a little nerve-wracking when I was in high school, and the punk scene in north Alabama felt a little too aggro for me. So Josh Wise and I would listen to a lot of Pixies and REM and trade notes and records. That mixtape culture, way too may VHS recordings of 120 Minutes and IRS’ the Cutting Edge – that’s what I had when I walked into my first DJ training sessions (with Mike Graff, I believe). And seeing those stacks I started to realize how little I knew.

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Friday WPRB DJ Pinup: Ron Coleman!

Years on air: 1981-1985. I started doing [late night] graveyard [shows] — lots of them; it was like a drug! — my first semester of freshman year and came back to do Christmas shows when everyone else left campus and any help with filling air slots was appreciated. (Before I got married, I still lived with my parents in East Windsor and of course was home for breaks during law school.)

Favorite Bands: In my salad days on ‘PRB I was always certain to play Elvis Costello, The Clash, Joe Jackson and DEVO. I recognize how pedestrian that comes across now; it did then also. Thank God for the rotation system by which the PD’s taught me a thing or two! I also liked to play the Sex Pistols, Laurie Anderson and even Run-DMC. Unlike any other jock at the time, I’d also play Springsteen.

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LISTEN: Artificial Artifacts cover “Gilligan’s Island”

I started listening to WPRB during the summer of 1985 or 1986. For a misfit kid who’d not yet established a strong sense of self-identity, everything WPRB played at that time seemed utterly revelatory in comparison to the bar-band hokum, limp dance tracks, and horrific hair-metal that populated the corporate airwaves of the day. Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long for me to become completely hooked. One of the first bands I associated with the station was a local hardcore act called Artificial Artifacts. They did a ridiculous cover of the Gilligan’s Island theme song, which (I soon discovered) many WPRB programmers were happy to honor requests for. THIS IS THE STORY OF THAT BAND, THAT SONG, AND THE NOW-OBSOLETE TECHNOLOGY NEEDED TO PLAY IT. (As told by Artificial Artifacts member, former WPRB DJ, and noted filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig.) -Mike Lupica

Glenn Tucker and I were roommates at Trenton State College in 1985 where I was production manager and a DJ at WTSR 91.3 FM doing the Jeff Eph show (also known as “Radio Of The Absurd.”)  [A guy named] Gene was in a hardcore band named Send Help who had a 45 out titled “Buffy’s Dead” on the super cool Long Branch NJ Brighton Bar label Mutha Records owned by a leather and chains biker named Mark “The Mutha” Chesley. This of course spoofed the TV show Family Affair.  Here’s a link to the song and cover art.

John and Dave Tamp, along with Adam Bushman, were friends of Glenn’s from New Brunswick where we used to rehearse in a wild crumbling space owned by the leader of Terry Hughes and the Backyard Party. Terry also hosted Monday night jam sessions at the Court Tavern.

After hearing the Dickies and Circle Jerks do humorous covers and particularly ISM doing the fantastic Partridge Family cover of “I Think I Love You”, we were inspired to tackle Gilligan’s Island which we recorded live to 2 track in some cheap basement studio in Princeton on a reel of used 1/4″ tape from WTSR.

DOWNLOAD or LISTEN: Artificial Artifacts – “Gilligan’s Island”

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1977 Blackout Coverage from the Top of Holder Tower

By Rob Forman ’78

Just past 9:00 on the evening of July 13th, 1977 (or maybe it was 10:00), the phone rang as [Edgar Winter’s] “Frankenstein” blared from the Control A speakers. It was a listener asking whether I knew about a blackout that supposedly hit New York.

I checked the UPI machine, and returned to tell the caller that the wire had nothing about a blackout. Of course I soon figured out WHY the machine said nothing. At :15 past  the hour, the ABC network scrambled onto the air from Washington. Its New York operation, and who knew how much else, were in the dark. The fun at WPRB  was underway. So was what may have been the greatest audience coverage in the station’s history. Without power, New York stations that neighbored us on the FM dial  were off the air. Station members David Kurman in Mineola, Long Island, and Chris Fine near the Connecticut border in Harrison, New York, called to say I was booming in. I put Chris on the air with a report on his blacked-out but very peaceful neighborhood. John Shyer reported from the top of Holder Tower, “to the southwest, there is a glow in the sky. It is Philadelphia. But in the direction of New York, the sky is black…”

LISTEN: John Shyer reports on the NYC blackout from the top of Holder Tower. (Includes off-air technical strategizing between Rob and John.)

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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.