The Golden Age of Alternative Radio - WMMR early 70's

[Number9Dream]

Click the link below to listen to what alternative radio sounded like before corporate play-list lackeys. Includes recordings of entire shows from WMMR-FM’s (Philadelphia) heyday as one of the country’s top alternative radio stations. The late-great Ed Sciaky, Michael Tearson, David Dye, and Luke O'Reilly. Check the excellent song lists.

http://berdom.net/audio/airchecks/wmmr/

[lib2DaBone]

1. Good memories.. thanks.. when music was king...

[90-percent]

7. Good memories

Of a simpler and gentler time in America when money grubbing Corporations didn't insinuate themselves into everything that generated money and ruin it.

-90% Jimmy

[Warpy]

2. WBCN in Boston was like that in the late 60s, up to about 1972

Then the Rover boys with their Nielsen charts took over and it showed. In addition, WBCN also played a lot of obscure blues, Euro music, and stuff most people attuned to pop culture would never have heard, otherwise. The Rover Boys stopped that and it became a corporate music outlet.

Oh, a few of the better ones used to slip in stuff like "Uranus is Rising," but I imagine they got yelled at for it.

If you're looking for a radio station with a truly impressive play list, look to Algeria. I'm not kidding about this one. A fellow DUer told me about it a month or so ago and it's at the top of my own play list for net radio: http://www.sing-sing.org/results.php?kbps=260.1 Use their own pop up player or Winamp.

[bananas]

3. Thanks! Gonna download those now!

David Dye produces "World Cafe" on NPR.

[safeinOhio]

4. Made me look over at my bookcase

and pull out my WABX "Official" Decoder and Identification Ring. Mint condition and in original box. Ohhhh Wowwww.

[FormerDittoHead]

5. Luke O'Reilly - wow, that's a memory. Thanks. n/t

[damntexdem]

6. I remember alternative radio from the early 1970s.

Excellent, wonderful, critical, and often funny.

It obviously HAD to be destroyed. ;-)

[Bonhomme Richard]

8. Hah, I grew up listening to WMMR. Pierre Robert n/t

[PJPhreak]

9. WNEW,WLIR,WBAB...

Album Rock,A concept that is Looong Gone!

A few others of the era...

News Blimps

Saturday Night Six Packs...I still have some of those on tape

The DJ's ALWAYS played Stairway To Heaven,Autobahn,Karn Evil 9 First,Second and Third Impression,Bridge Of Sighs, or some such at 2am...We always made jokes about "Doobie Breaks"

King Biscuit Flower Hour...Still have most of these on tape also

WBAB's Saturday night Paranormal Radio Show (The Name of this show escapes me at the moment) Long Before Art Bell and George Noory

WLIR Jello Jumps at Adventureland...For those who spent their teenage years On Long Island in the 70's

And for those who lived on Long Island in the 70's,who can forget these...

[90-percent]

10. and then theres

Don't forget the classic STONE MAN at WPLR in New Haven. Classic!

In addition to your New York list, I could also get Connecticut, being from Stony Brook on Long Island's north Shore.

I think Frank Zappa was an occasional guest DJ on WLIR? BAB? WNEW?

Loved Scott Muni in the early 70's when I came home from school.


-Jim

[PJPhreak]

11. I grew up in Garden City...

and Farmingdale so Conn stations never really came in well for us.

F.Z. was a guest DJ on WNEW if memory serves me right, tho don't quote me on this. My memory is a bit fuzzy because as they say "If you can remember the 70's,Then you weren't There.

And speaking of Scott Muni do any of these names ring a bell?

WNEW
Scott Muni
Allison "The Nightbird" Steele
Pat St. John,
Dennis Elsas,
Jim Monaghan,
Vin Scelsa...Idiots Delight
Pete Fornatale
Dave Herman

WLIR
Mike Harrison
Tom Calderone
Mark "The Shark" Drucker
Denis McNamara
Ben Manilla
Nancy Abramson

Hope this brings back a few memories.

[Berry Cool]

12. I grew up listening to WMMR's sister station, WMMS in Cleveland.

Now there was a station. Home of the Buzzard! Had great music, wonderful Coffeebreak Concerts that I listened to many a time when snowed in staying home from high school, amazing DJs all day long--from Jeff and Flash in the morning to Matt the Cat in midday to Kid Leo in the afternoon to Betty Korvan at night. Classic.

[argyl]

13. All those tunes and little repetition. Those were the days. Almost all big cities had at least one.