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”

The only other song that we did was “I’m A Jewish Guy In A Hardcore Band” which was an original I penned and was also in the Joke-core genre with equally embarrassing sopho-moronic lyrics. Both songs were only ever released on cart at WPRB, WTSR and WRSU where they got a fair amount of play. (Ed Note: A “cart” is broadcast lingo for a Fidelipac Cartridge—a playback format native to broadcast environments. They were common at WPRB during the 1980s. See pic, above.)

The connection to WPRB was that I was a WPRB DJ as well as a WTSR DJ. Through the City Gardens punk and radio station scene I became friends with WPRB DJ Ken Katkin and when Ken was thrown off WPRB for a semester and I was suspended from WTSR, we switched stations. I continued doing shows at WPRB because I loved the station.

Artificial Artifacts only ever played one show which was at the Court Tavern (see flier, below). We promoted it pretty heavily on WPRB and to our extremely nervous surprise, the basement was packed with fans yelling for both songs. We opened with Gilligan’s Island and the place went nuts as we had rehearsed it to death. Then we played a very sloppy drunken set of Eddie Cochran’s “C’mon Everybody”, The Clash’s “Big Black Cadillac”, Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane”, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”, and closed strong with “Jewish Guy”, where the place went nuts again.

There were some younger guys from the Princeton area named Dicky Dahl and Arthur Owens who had a show on WPRB called “Youth Brigade.” They used to come on air and “guest” on my show as well and we became friends. They ended up forming a band named Stratotanker and Dicky also co-wrote the excellent documentary “The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack” about Ramblin’ Jack Elliot. What’s interesting is that there was this feeling that I shared as well which was that these radio stations combined with Punk “saved our lives.”

True story: One day in 1986, I was walking into a supermarket in Morganville, NJ where my mom lived at the time and there was a young high school kid sitting on the curb wearing a WPRB t-shirt. This was not something you would ever see outside of the station, so I walked up to the kid and introduced myself. He looked up at me wide-eyed and said, “WPRB is my whole life.”              -Jeff Feuerzeig