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Dan Ruccia

WPRB in Miniature

Words: Kelsey Halliday Johnson

1- This photo collage (above) was on the door to the music office for my tenure as music director. The photo was taken of me when Dan Ruccia (outgoing music director) and I were starting to really unpack and decorate (rehanging some old posters from [WPRB’s old studios in] Holder [Hall] and hanging some new ones, along with junk CDs and other summer staff/intern coloring book doodles among other things that made it the cavern of greatness that it is today). Bloomberg Hall (then known simply as “The Ellipse”) was made into a home over the course of one semester and one summer …..Where the moose collage element came from continues to mystify me!

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Xenakis Liner Notes of the Gods

By Narin Dickerson (above)

I started out listening to WPRB during my freshman year (1999), but I didn’t become involved as a DJ until, I think, 2001. One of my first recollections of WPRB was tuning in shortly after I’d moved into my dorm and hearing someone read from the Q section of the dictionary. I’d grown up with somewhat experimental radio theatre sneaking into the overnight hours of my now-all-too-tame local NPR affiliate, so this made me excited and curious for more.  (more…)

Friday WPRB DJ Pinup: Dan Ruccia!

Years on air: 2001-2005

Favorite bands: Sonic Youth, US Maple, Gun Club, Cannibal Ox, Lightning Bolt, Sleater-Kinney, Arthur Russell.

Memorable on-air moment: The crazy Halloween noise sculpture I made one year with Narin Dickerson. I remember it involving lots of Shadow Ring records being played at the wrong speed.

Advice for current WPRB DJs: Play as many things that you don’t know or have never heard of as things that you do; there is so much good music out there, and the WPRB library happens to have a bunch of it.

Singing Telegram does “Hip Priest” by The Fall

the_fall

In 2002, a big chunk of the WPRB airstaff engineered an on-air birthday prank by hiring a singing telegram artist to serenade beloved DJ Greg Lyon with “Hip Priest” by The Fall. In order to maximize Greg’s mortification, this had to occur A) without any warning, and B) on the air.

As such, the crafty perpetrators disguised the prank’s introduction as a scheduled announcement in that day’s program logs for Greg to play on the air. As the time approached, and unbeknownst to Greg, the conspirators hid just outside the studio with the singing telegram guy, and waited for their cue.

Here is audio of the incident as it transpired on the air. The first voice you will hear is Greg’s, unknowingly setting the wheels in motion. (Followed by the voices of Dan Ruccia and Jannon Stein.)

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