Since WABX came up in the course of the WKNR thread, I thought that it would be appropriate to start a new thread... I started to listen to WABX when it first came on in 1968 with its amazing free-format flow of everything wild and eclectic. You could hear everything from the Jefferson Airplane to Pharoah Sanders to the Velvet Underground to Coltrane to the MC5 all in the space of an hour. Things that I remeber fondly about the station are: - a wide and cool selection of tunes 24 hours a day. - BBC Concerts, King Biscuit Flower Hour concerts, Rock Around the World concerts. - "The Alien Trade Agreement" import album show. - WABX sponsored cheapie concerts at the Ford Auditorium ($2.50, $3.50 tix) with folks like Tommy Bolin, Heart, Paris, Thin Lizzy, Dr. Feelgood, Starcastle, Journey, Tangerine Dream, Robert Palmer, Nils Lofgren etc... I think that I saw just about every one of these shows. - their TV show on WXON - "The Detroit Tubeworks" which featured performance by Captain Beefheart, Wishbone Ash and tons of other folks. - DJs like Dave Dixon, Dennis Frawley... Anybody else with fond memories of the X? Cheers, Chris
I first heard WABX at my friend's house. His dad had an old radio-phono console that had an FM tuner (and its record player had more bass than anything I' had ever heard up to that point - fond memories of being blown away by the bass on Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - which we could hardly hear on our cheap machines.) It was, for all intents and purposes, the first FM station I'd heard. For the youngsters (I'm *so ancient!*): in those days radio generally meant AM radio. FM only had "educational" stations, "beautiful music" (read gawdawful elevetormusic) stations, and occasionally odd things like WABX. Nobody listened to FM. Most radios didn't have FM, and those that did usually had serious reception problems. And they drifted off frequency. Ah, the bad old days. (Of course audiophiles could buy decent tuners that got good quality FM, but I hadn't met any of those yet.) Frankly I didn't know what to make of it at first. Being used to the high pressure AM radio style of the day, I thought the DJ's were all depressed. THey spoke slowly and quietly. (I was too naive at the time to think about possible chemical explanations.) But they played all sorts of good stuff. And they weren't ashamed to play things that some people would call "guilty pleasures". And they also weren't past putting it over on their sponsors. THey were always making fun of the Certs commercials, for instance. I also heard the white album for the first time on WABX. They got a copy, I think probably on broadcast "carts" (they look like 8-track cartridges, but have better quality, though they have their problems). At any rate, they played it before the release date. I can't remember if it was just for one day, or for a few days, or a whole week, but I do know they played the white album and nothing but the white album for a good while. They didn't just let it run, they did the manual equivalent of shuffle play, as I recall. WE thought it was great! (And very exciting.) Capitol apparently had other ideas.
I loved listening to WABX! King Biscuit being one of my favorite shows. Remember the cool T-shirts they had with the airplane?
That station came along justas I was "coming of age". Much great music that I never heard anywhere else since. Loved teh attitde of the raio persoalities as well. We'llnever hear anything like it again, I'm afraid. Favorite radio jingleof all time, "WABX, Big DEAL" (For all you non-Detroiters, Big Deal was a play on refering to Detroit as "Big D". Maybe you had to be there.)
