Welcome Back—Fall of ’83

By Henry Yu
(Above, L-R: Yuval Taylor 85, Nicola Ginzler 85, Colin Iosso 84, Henry Yu 84, Bob Bruce 85. On the road to an REM/Hüsker Dü gig in WPRB’s VW Rabbit. Photo by Kristin Belz ’84))

1980-1984 was such a great time period musically. First generation punk rock may have already been declared dead by the cognoscenti, but those four years would mark the heyday of the post-punk and hardcore eras, the advent of college rock, and the birth of what would come to be known fondly as 80’s rock. To have been at WPRB when so many incredible records were coming out, while clubs like City Gardens and Maxwell’s played host to these bands tours, and their records could be bought at the Princeton Record Exchange or a Saturday bus ride to NYC from in front of Nassau Hall, was an incredible experience. And to have shared it with fellow DJs who became lifelong friends has made WPRB much more than a four year experience.

I began my DJ-ing as one half of the self-proclaimed “no future glimmer twins”, since neither one of us was competent enough to both talk and engineer at the same time, it took both of us to get us through a show. We even walked around campus handcuffed together on occasion. Eventually, we got our own shows.

I played fruit pies on the turntable (never mind the stylus), two records simultaneously (Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop” made a sinister backdrop to any children’s record), or at inappropriate speeds in pursuit of tenuous segues (Killing Joke’s “Tension” and The Knack’s “My Sharona”), not to mention subverting studio B into recording the baddest-ass tape loops for Professor JK Randall’s composition class.

Below, also of the same era: Excerpt scans from the “Welcome Back” packets distributed to returning DJs in the Fall of ’83.