WBCN FM Airchecks from 1971

I worked mornings in the bio lab as an undergrad at BU back in the 80s... always had the radio on for 9.45!

 

Commercial radio is all crap perhaps, but...

• WHRB-FM, Harvard University's station, has a wide variety of programming and is excellent much of the time. Great jazz and classical is broadcast daily, and the Saturday morning/afternoon blues and country shows are a treat
• We have not one, but two, NPR affiliate stations, WBUR and WGBH. WGBH plays jazz on weekend nights too.
• WCRB - all classical (albeit fairly 'safe' classical)
• WICN out in Worcester is mostly jazz, with some folk, blues and soul programming thrown in.

 

WMBR (MIT) is one of the best stations in the country. WMFO (Tufts) is freeform and mostly students. WZBC (BC) has become literally a synonym for "No commercial potential" modern rock and freeform music and has a long storied history.

 

I checked out WBCN tape #2. Really great to hear Jim Parry. He was a guy who sounded like he had extra air chambers in his cheeks when he was speaking. I was fascinated by it back in the day. Never could understand how it was done.

 

I too was a huge fan of 'BCN almost from the start. Had an older concerts that turned me on to it when I was 12 in '69 and I was hooked. In the 70's and 80's nobody could touch them.

Everybody who is from the area and a fan of 'BCN should own a copy of this book https://www.amazon.com/Astral-Weeks-Secret-History-1968/dp/0735221340

 

The WBCN tapes that I have are amongst the very best in my collection. Over the last four years I have uploaded almost 9.5 hours of content from the station. With a bit more to come in the future. You can use the search function on the site to find them and if you have time have a listen to other great FM stations on the site including WNEW, WUWU, WBUF, WZIR, CHUM FM, CFNY FM, WKNR FM, WMMR FM, KMET, KPPC and more. Fidelity is not always great on those old tapes but mostly it's passable.

 

There's a Boston "Rathskeller-The Rat" sub group on Facebook that I belong to and I posted the link to the air check, along with that picture of him from '72, last night. Immediately somebody tagged Charles, who within a couple of minutes "liked" it. FWIW...

 

These stations have been getting it done since I started listening in the 70's. There is no good big commercial FM station anywhere in the country that I'm aware of, but with college stations and streaming one can easily still find great radio, local or otherwise.

 

Thanks that explains all the Facebook referrals to the site for once, mostly I never know where they are coming from.

In terms of a commercial FM stations that still have the spirit. The only major market one I can think of is WXRT in Chicago. There's a few smaller were like KPIG, WHEM and KHUM as well.

 

KPIG is far from the station that they used to be, but yes they're better then most commercial radio. Haven't listened to the others.

 

There is also a AM stereo station called the Goat from Minnesota that has a nice take on classic rock but unfortunately they are mostly automated.

The Goat Stream

 

I can't listen to commerical stations. I lost the habit and it's hard to go back. But you don't need to. I cannot urge people enough to familiarize themselves with these college stations and their schedules, if they care about radio and music programming. They are all apps for your phone too. WFMU in NJ is the big kahuna in this space.

WMBR has 60s deep stuff, experimental jazz, vintage and raw rock and roll, and all forms of recorded music. They had the first punk music show in the US and it's still going I think.

 

The first Punk show in the US was The Demimonde with Oedipus. Oedi started at BCN in '76 or '77 while still doing that show on WTBS (which is what WMBR's call letters were at the time - until Ted Turner bought them from MIT for a song). Oedipus became Program Director in 1981, no longer doing a show on WMBR but doing Nocturnal Emissions on Sunday nights on BCN. He is now very happily retired and living in marital bliss somewhere on this planet. And BTW, the first thing he as Program Director was to promote me to Music Director. I will always love him for that, and the fact that in 40 years he never once forgotten my birthday.

 

WTBS, now WMBR, was freeform in the early 60s, during the actual folk boom! Think about that.

There is a tape of Mississippi John Hurt playing live at the studio, in 63 or so.

 

A new WBCN upload

Charles L plays some rare ( at the time) Dylan recorded in mono and turns the stereo feed off and then on again. When he is turning it back on he says “plunk your magic twanger froggy” Classic !

In the best tradition of free form radio the clip starts with a long selection of classical music and then on to Dylan. Recording is from 1971.

WBCN FM CHARLES LAQUIDARA TURNS STEREO LIGHT OFF AND THEN ON

 

Thats pretty cool! I have not heard that one. We don't have it in the WBCN archives at Umass Amherst. The WBCN Documentary came out this past spring. It's two hours long and pretty awesome, it's winning multiple awards. Right now it's mostly playing at film festivals, but will hopefully see bigger release in Theatres, perhaps TV and Blu Ray Release.

 

Love this thread and the air checks. Thank you once again!

Very ironic that radio host was playing Stravinsky before this cut of Dylan on the 1966 Tour with The Band where he was being hassled over his use of electricity.

In the liner notes for the CD Dylan Live 1966 the author notes that audiences in a Paris theater rioted after the first presentation of Le Sacre du Printemps to compare it to Dylan's trials and tribulations in Great Britain that year.

I guess in both cases something was happening, but they just did not know what it was!

 

Hello, would you mind contacting Bill Lichtenstein at LCMedia in Cambridge ma? Bill was "little bill" on WBCN. He produced the recent WBCN Documentary and is working together with me and Umass Amherst on the WBCN Archive. I'm sure they would love to have a copy of your WBCN tapes in the archives. [email protected]

 

Bill reached out to me years back when he was starting work on the Doc. I have seen the previews and hope to see the entire film. Sounded great on the preview.

 

Yeah we would still love to have files of your tapes to add to the WBCN archive. We don't need the tapes. You would be given credit for them. Nobody is profiting from it, just creating an archive.

 

Such great stuff. I had just started listening to Charles/'BCN around this time. For a 14 year old, pretty sheltered suburban kid at that time, this was a big dose of life changing stuff. Long live Chuck.

 

This. My older brother has some r2r tapes of Alison Steele (The Nightbird) from late 60s/early 70s WNEW-FM. I used to listen to them late at night to try and replicate the feeling he got when he taped them. Once I even timed playback to be simultaneous to the actual time on the clock that night!

Something about her voice and delivery was hypnotic in a dark room surrounded by only the blue lights of the stereo system. You're right, this was absolutely the closest thing to time travel imho.

 

Endlessly listenable--well, except for the Captain Squid part.

 

Hard to believe that Charles is now 80. I hope he's still living large in Hawaii.

 

I will reach out to Bill about the archive, don't think he mentioned it when we originally exchanged emails. Sounds like a great idea. What's in it and is there anyway we can access the content online ?

Incidentally when Charles turns the stereo feed off he is not sure how the signal went out as he only heard one channel on the monitor headphones ( not sure if that whole thing was a joke) but I am happy to report that my recording is off the air from 1971 and both channels were playing during the Dylan segment.