This first gig, at WABN in Abingdon, Virginia, was as the host of a nightly, call in Request Radio show. And I've written about at before, here and here.
But here it is. Warts and all. On a cassette. (And in a stream, below)
All things considered, it's not too bad. The mishap that happened off air is not heard on this tape. And I very consciously was careful to say as little as possible on my first day, exercising great caution so as not of make a fool of myself.
I recall that after this first shift, Rita, one of the station owners taught me a very important lesson.
She drew on a piece of paper. "What's this letter?"
"Dubya?"
"You pronounce it 'Double U.' Not 'Dubya' or "Double-ya.' The letter is two U's."
So on this tape, you can hear the one and only day that I went on the air and pronounced the "W" in "WABN" as "Dubya." I have strictly adhered to Rita's correction for following 19 years and 364 days.
To this day, if I hear another DJ on the radio say "Dubya-MVY" it makes me crazy.
I'm grateful to her, and her husband Craig, for the early guidance and shepherding. I honestly had no idea that a little detour into a part-time radio gig would result in a 20-years-and-going career.
And certainly nothing on this tape would suggest a bright future.
So, if you can bear it, it's all here. My first hour on the radio ever. It's an hour of requests and dedications on a Pop radio station, with Dionne Warwick and Ace Of Base (and surprisingly, some Grateful Dead!), and yes, the hit of 1994-ish, Beavis & Butthead with Cher.
Having grown up as the child of a teacher and a coach, it was not uncommon to see young adults come up to my Dad and thank him. They'd let him know that his guidance in math or sports really made a difference in their lives. It was something Dad is always quietly, clearly proud of.
While my job isn't as profound or important as a teacher, every now and then I get a taste of what my Dad experiences with each bit of gratitude shown to him.
I got this email on Wednesday:
Hi P.J.,
I found your blog a few months ago
by searching for the key words Whats The Alternative, WABN, 92.7, and
Abingdon. My friends and I grew up in Saltville, VA about 20 minutes
north of Abingdon. We loved WTA and listened to it regularly. To this
day I still listen to many of the bands that I heard for the first time
on WABN. The reception in Saltville was pretty bad so me and my skate
rat/punk rock friends connected tin foil and unraveled coat hangers to
our stereos and hung them from our walls and ceilings in an effort to
improve our listening experience and to record better quality tapes. We
had several volumes of tapes that we recorded from Whats The Alternative and traded them with one another. I was very excited to see
your blog and read some stories about WABN. I had always wondered what
happened with the station. I moved away in 2000 and eventually came
back and settled in the Tri-cities. To this day the area still lacks a
station that's like WABN. WABN was a huge part of my early teenage
years as it was always on in our rooms and on our car stereos. Again, I
enjoy the blog and I hope all is well for you. Attached are two photos
of a tape I recorded from the show. The tape will not play anymore due
to warping from sun exposure. It is dated 7/28/1995.
Take care,
Jesse Whitt
Mt. Carmel, TN
If you look closely, "Stutter" is one of the tracks on this casette. And if you search on the blog, you'll find that almost every other track listed on the cassette, has appeared as a fond memory/Weekend Post.
It was 50-50. Maybe I was going to be fine. But maybe I was going to have my body dumped in a ditch.
Just in case it was going to be the latter, I wrote a note and left it at the office.
"I got invited out to a listener's house for some beer and food. If I disappear, this is where I was headed. (address)"
I was the host of my own nightly Alternative music specialty show in rural Virginia. The program was a little oasis of modern music, for a niche of folks who couldn't find the stuff anywhere else.
Not long after my show went on the air, I started getting nightly calls from the folks in the kitchen of a local restaurant, who'd tune me in as they were winding down their night.
They were always boisterous and effusive, excited to be hearing some cutting edge stuff on the radio. Also, they were usually drinking while working. And drinking after work, as they'd call me from whatever house they were partying at, post-shift.
Over a short period of time, we built up some familiarity. But I figured it was in the DJ/listener kind of way. Not the "come hang out" kind of way. Until . . .
"Are you hungry?! You should come out to the house! What time to you get off?"
I hesitated.
I was new to the whole DJ thing, the being on-air thing. And I'd been warned that often the kind of people who religiously called the radio station, and wanted to "hang out" inevitably proved to be weird.
On the other hand, I was hungry.
I was only part-time, just making little better than minimum wage. There wasn't much food in the pantry. A free, hot meal sounded good.
I wrote my note and left it for my co-workers. When my shift ended at midnight, I got in my car and drove out across the Virginia countryside to the outskirts of town.
The directions sent me down an unlit dirt road. That couldn't be right.
There were the dark silhouettes of cows moving about in the field next to the road.
I was thinking that maybe I should just turn around, go home and eat another bowl of Corn Flakes.
But I could see a porch light. And then the whole house. A large, new-ish looking place, set back on a hill. And I could hear music.
What the hell, I figured. I'll go in.
There were just 4 people hanging out. But it felt like a whole party. Boisterous and effusive and happy and a little drunk.
They were excited to have a new friend to hear their old stories. We talked about music and food and not much else.
They made me some pasta, and when I started twirling the spaghetti on my fork, one of the girls said, "Oh God, you're Italian!" which theretofore somehow marked me as a gourmand---never again did they server me something as plebeian as pasta.
This house would be the future site of many a good party, a couple of fun hook-ups and the occasional scene of social drama. But tonight it was just music and food.
"Have you heard Sarah McLachlan?"
I'd heard OF her, but I hadn't heard her record.
We listened to "Into The Fire" and my personal chef/new friend gave me this "One Sentence Review" that was definitely not intended to be Dismissive, though I have used it on later occasions as a criticism not a complement.
The chef said, "It's like Joni Mitchell on Prozac."
And that pretty much summed up the night: weird and dark, but ultimately smoothed out. And not in a ditch.
What you don't get from one blog post, was the drawn out uncertainty of it all.
I was at WABN for 6 years. And every three months (if not more often) for six long years, we'd have another court date.
"This could be it," we'd be told by our lawyers. There was every possibility that the judge would take immediate and harsh action, either shutting down the station or removing us completely.
The family that owned the station would go to these hearings. Dress up. Look respectable and responsible. Do their best to convey the sincerity of their desire to just run the radio station and live in peace.
It was my job to hold down the fort.
The four family members would go to court, and I would go to the station and wait.
I might do my shift. Or I might let the automation system we had, spin its wheels.
Minutes ticked by slowly. Hours progressed at a glacial pace.
Every time the phone would ring, I'd lunge for it, hoping it was the gang calling from their way home from court with some kind of good news.
Lunch would pass. The many cups of coffee would sink in. Tension would mount.
Eventually, I would get a call. A brief overview of what had happened. And a promise of lunch to be brought to me soon.
Relief, tempered by the notion that the court session ended with the promise of a reconvening within a just a few weeks. And that we'd do this day all over again.
The night before each court date, I'd play "Bad Luck." It was my idea that if I played "Bad Luck" today, it would mean good luck tomorrow.
Mostly, it worked.
I was thinking of this song earlier in the week, because I'm playing the waiting game right now.
We still don't know when our last day on 92.7 will be. The signal is all but sold, just some paperwork has to be signed. And then we'll be off.
Unlike the WABN situation, there is a future for WMVY. We'll continue on the web. I'll continue to work. Stress about what is going to happen doesn't play a role here (just the "when").
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I was in a fairly religious spot in the country in the late 90s. But being an outlier on the dial meant playing songs that folks weren't going to hear anywhere else.
I can remember when this Jill Sobule song came out, I'd occasionally get calls from a Mom who let me know her kids listened to our station.
"I want you to know that I am praying every day, that you will stop playing this song."
Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.
Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show. They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.
Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.
WABN was going off the air. It was our last day. Goodbye. Gone. Kaput.
I'd been on the air for 6 years, from 1994 to 2000. Sometimes for 10 hours a day. I worked and lived with a close knit group of friends who'd become family. We'd fought for the station. But the fight was over and it was time to say goodbye.
I helped orchestrate the final run-up, giving every DJ and friend of the station one last chance to step up to the mic, say something that mattered, and play one last song.
I rehearsed, in my head, what I wanted to say, and how I wanted to leave the airwaves.
Six years earlier, I'd quit my job in television in a power struggle with the boss. He demanded that I leave my part-time job at WABN. I told him he couldn't tell me how to conduct my private life. My check-mate move, was to quit.
"Bold move," said Rita later that afternoon. "Now what?"
Rita and her husband Craig owned WABN, an AM/FM combo in Abingdon, Virginia. They literally did everything related to the station---sales, billing, maintenance, Craig went on-air, called local sports games. This was true DIY independent radio.
Part of the reason they were so fiercely independent, had to do with the mess they'd just come out of.
They had purchased the station several years prior, with a partner (a relative). After only a few years in, the partner tried to sell the station without their input or consultation. He had controlling interest. He fired Craig and Rita, and expected them to quietly hand over their stock. Craig and Rita were doing no such thing. What's more, the partner incorrectly thought he could sell the station without their consent. He was wrong.
A protracted legal battle began, for control of the station. Craig and Rita were barred from even entering the building. Two years passed. The station suffered from inattention, the partner tired of the fight, and finally, he turned control of the station over to Craig and Rita.
And that's when their troubles really began.
The damage had been done to the station's billing. They were deep in the red. The creditors were lining up.
When Rita said to me, "Bold move," she knew what might be on the horizon.
Shortly after I went to work full time at WABN, the station filed for bankruptcy.
Let me tell you this---I learned more than I ever care to know about bankruptcy court in the years that followed.
Craig and Rita scraped and fought to bring in enough billing to keep the station alive, while working tirelessly to come up with a plan they could present to the bankruptcy court for a way to emerge and go forward.
The partner, meanwhile, because he was a creditor, re-entered the picture to resume his efforts to sell the station to another party.
. . . Let me stop right here and say that the story of the 6 years of bankruptcy court is a long and complicated journey, that I hope Craig and Rita publish some day. Suffice it to say, that despite community support, a fight at the FCC level, arguments before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and a truckload of craft, smarts and passion, we lost this fight. The station, which had been an award winning community radio outpost, would land in the hands of a large radio group who would use the FM signal to rebroadcast their syndicated Talk Radio station. They would simply turn the AM off.
I could have walked out the door of WABN the day Craig and Rita told me they were filing for bankruptcy. But I didn't.
I believed in them, and I believed in their mission. I believed in a radio station that let teenagers call in and have their voice heard. I believed in a station that let the DJs pick the music. I believed in a station that talked to you, not at you. And I believed in Craig and Rita themselves---that their fight was right and that it was worth fighting.
We were winding through the final day at WABN. Friends of the station had a chance to pop on air and pick a last song. The part-timers were on now, with their last words. Craig and Rita's adult children (who made up the rest of the full time staff) would have their say, followed by Craig and Rita themselves. Then the transmitter would be shut off. Right before the family spoke, I would have my turn.
I had written out my speech. I wanted it to be good. I didn't want to cry.
I talked about how I had come to be at WABN. About what I had learned by living in the presence of people with dedication, passion and conviction.
I said that I learned the importance of fighting for something you believe it. The point is not to ask whether you can win, it's to stick with it if you are right.
And I ended my 6 years of independent radio the way it started. I played "Disarm."
That was 12 years ago, and it's still painful to write about. In fact, when I started this blog I knew that the "Disarm" stories were on the top of the list of posts I needed to write. I've been putting them off for 3 years.
Twelve years later, WABN FM still rebroadcasts Talk Radio. WABN AM is still silent. And the building where Craig and Rita and their kids and I worked for all those years, remains empty and unused, the fields around the brick building are overgrown, the whole thing abandoned.
Nothing has come to Abingdon to replace WABN (the Talk Radio station is located 20 miles away). No station does high school sports. No station has a request radio program. No station shows up at the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life or any of the other dozens of charitable events that WABN supported.
I don't live in Abingdon anymore, but I am certain that the community is less, for not having WABN.
But because of it, because of them, I am much more. And I am thankful for that . . .
There are songs that influenced my life, and there are songs that are a part of great memories, and there are songs that evoke emotions, but very, very few songs can be credited with changing the course of my life.
"What is this station?" I asked, surprised to hear a band like this on local radio.
"It's WABN."
"Man, if I ever worked in radio, it would be for a station like this."
Two years prior, in 1991, my college girlfriend and I graduated, and we ran off to Florida to start our lives. I pursued a career in TV production, making low-budget TV commercials. That turned out to be a flame-out for me. The girl and I broke up. I was unhappy. Lonely. Hated Florida. I was this close to moving back home with my family---I had a job lined up and everything---when I received a offer to join the creative services department of an NBC affiliate in Bristol Virginia. I took it.
Where is Bristol Virginia? I had no idea.
Bristol is in the most Western part of the state of Virginia. NASCAR is big. It is the birthplace of country music. It is far, far, far from any major city. Growing up in New England, having Boston within our reach, I was used to certain kinds of cultural access that did not exist in this part of the world
No Professional sports teams. No Dunkin' Donuts. And no modern rock radio.
I was riding with Brian, one of the NBC-TV station's salespeople. We'd just gone to meet with a client, and were cruising back to the office.
He was flipping through the dial when Smashing Pumpkins "Disarm" came on.
"What is this station?" I asked, surprised to hear a band like this on local radio. I'd been in Bristol for several months, and had only found Country, Classic Rock and Gospel on the airwaves.
"It's WABN."
"Man, if I ever worked in radio, it would be for a station like this."
"Huh. You know, they are one of my clients. And I know they need some part-time help."
In a few short days, I was in the office of WABN, a family-owned, independent AM/FM combo. They were looking for someone to host their 2 hour Request Radio program, 4 nights a week. I asked them if they had any interest in having me create a modern rock radio show---as this burgeoning genre (it was 1994) seemed to be gaining traction with young folks ever since Nirvana arrived. They were open to the idea, if I was willing to take on Request Radio.
I had never done radio before, but they were warm and welcoming and encouraging. I said Yes.
I'll write another post about the beginnings of my on-air career, but let's cut to a few days later.
At the TV station, my manager had poked his head in my office to ask me something, and before he left I said, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I picked up a part-time job for a few hours a week."
"Okay," he smiled. "I'll let the boss know."
The GM of the TV station was notoriously unpopular with the staff, but I hadn't had any run-ins with him in the 6 months I was on the job.
Until the next day.
He was passing me in the hall when he said brightly, "Hey, I heard you picked up a part-time job! What'cha doing?"
"Oh, I'm going to do airshifts a couple nights a week on WABN."
"Oh . . ." His mood turned instantly dark, and he walked away.
Later that day, my manager called me in to his office, to tell me that the GM did not approve of my new job and that I would have to quit.
"He thought you'd be doing some weekend work. He doesn't want you working on weeknights. He feels that you'd be wearing yourself out, and would be tired when you came to work here."
I calmly but quickly rattled off a bunch of reasons why this was ridiculous. Most notably, that adding 8 hours to my work week would still mean I was working fewer hours than the GM normally did---and I was half his age. But I was also accommodating. I said that I would we willing to do a 3 month trial---if my television work faltered due to my part-time job, I would quit.
The manager took this to the GM. The answer came back with another, No.
I asked for a meeting with the GM. I was told to come to his office at 3pm.
I walked into his office, promptly at 3. He acted surprised to see me, and said he didn't know I was coming. He asked me to wait outside his office. He kept me waiting for a while. I was young, but smart enough to know this was a bullshit power move.
We had a brief but friendly conversation where I reiterated my arguments, and my offer of a review. I told him it wasn't really his business what I did with my off-work time, as long as it did my work, and that I had respected the company enough to tell them about the job---something that deserved respect in return. He was resistant, but finally, he said he'd think about it.
I knew how this was going to go.
The next day I waited in my office. My manager came in. Not the GM. He said the GM had decided, I couldn't work both jobs and I would have to quit.
And that's what I did.
"Here's my key."
I had already cleaned out my desk and had my office key off its chain. If they were making me choose, I was not going to be bullied into that choice.
Was I nuts to quit a full-time, stepping stone job, with a national company, so I could make minimum wage for 8 hours a week?
Yes.
But I felt like I was in a power struggle where the struggle wasn't over the thing (meaning, could I have the job or not), but over who got to decided. The GM felt like he was in the ultimate power position, because he controlled my salary and my livelihood, and considered that his "checkmate." What he didn't count on, was that the ultimate checkmate move is to walk away from the game.
At 25 I was wise enough to know that there are only a few times in your life where you are offered the opportunity to make such a statement, to make such a stand. Today, at 43, there is absolutely no way I could do the same thing, because of the responsibility I have to my family, my mortgage, my creditors, etc.
That moment formed much of who I became. That choice to make a stand. To do the stupid thing, because I thought it was the right thing.
And it set the stage for the next 6 years.
All because I heard a song on the radio.
To be continued . . ."Disarm" Part 2 and what happened next, coming soon.
"What the hell happened to you?!" the kid behind the counter at Subway had apparently asked, with just a little bit of trepidation.
Looking at my roommate, it's not hard to understand why the kid would have thought a crazy, perhaps dangerous man had just been in the sandwich shop.
It had been a loooonng day, and it started early.
This was when I was living in Southwest Virginia, in the a big farmhouse called 7 Maples. Living out the post-college dream of being on the radio, drinking beer, staying up late, being with friends, watching a lot of sports and listening to a lot of music.
My roommate was both a huge Bob Mould fan, and (because he was an alumnus) a Virginia Tech football fan. And on a hot, hot fall Saturday, there was both a game, and a Sugar show to go to.
So we were up early, with his Dad. I didn't have tickets to the game, but I took the road trip two hours up I-81, to sit in a bar within earshot of the stadium to watch the game on TV, while they went to the game.
I knew it was going to be a long, long journey into the night so I sipped my beer slowly, as the frat kids around me got sloppier and sloppier.
The sight of my roommate after the game, made me laugh.
"You sat on the sunny side of the stadium, huh?"
Lane Stadium could be a cold, unforgiving place in November and December. But on this day, half the crowd was on a concrete cookie sheet baking in the sun.
And my roommate was quick to turn lobster red in those conditions.
We split with his Dad, who returned to Abingdon, and we traveled on to Chapel Hill for Sugar, who were touring behind "File Under Easy Listening."
The Cat's Cradle that night was like a convection oven---mostly airless, but except of gusts of hotter heat that swirled around the raucous activity of the crowd.
Sugar was just a singular kind of band. They had this focused, precise, tight type of anger---a really amazing mix of ferocity and control. And the audience acted accordingly, moving and swaying and sweating en mass, both exhausted and still frenzied.
With our ears still ringing, we started our long drive home.
We were both broke, having spent what we had on gas and beer, but we scraped together a couple of bucks as we pulled into a local Subway. My roommate offered to go in himself, while I kept the car running.
I wish I could have seen the look on the kid's face when this large, tired-looking, wrung-out red man, fully drenched in sweat, walked into Subway and said, "Can I have two Gatorades and a small bag of pretzels?"
But my roommate came out laughing, having been previously unaware at just how horrible and weird he must look to the rest of the normal world, a world that hadn't spent the day watching football, drinking beer, driving a few hundred miles, jumping around at a rock show and steeling himself for another few hundred miles of highway home.
The first radio station I worked at was a very small, independent, family owned-and-operated outfit. We did a lot with a little.
But in my early days with them, we didn't have the resources to be a 24 hour station. And since I worked the last shift, it was my job to sign off the air, shut off the transmitters and close down the building for the night.
On weeknights, I had an alternative music specialty show, that ran from 10 to 12, but on Fridays and Saturdays, I got to expand it to a full 6 hours---on at 8pm and off at 2am.
It was a joyful and exhilarating task, to build that much live programming, on the fly, playing CDs and keeping the night moving. By 2am, I was usually a little punch drunk.
I had a ritual to close out the night.
There was a checklist of things I was supposed to do throughout the building before walking out the door. Shutting down certain computers, turning of certain lights, checking certain locks, and finally, turning off the transmitter.
And I did it to the strains of Tony Bennett.
Tony Bennett isn't particularly alternative, but this was the little window in the mid-90s, when he had gone through an image rehab. He'd appeared with The Red Hot Chili Peppers and performed with kd lang and recorded an MTV Unplugged CD.
And let's face it, there just weren't that many people listening to an alternative specialty show on a 3,000 watt rural Virginia radio station at 2 in the morning. So why not do something weird.
"Fly Me To The Moon" the MTV Unplugged version, was about 2:30 minutes long, and when I hit play on the track, I had just enough time to walk out of the studio and weave in and out of the other rooms in the building, flipping switches and securing locks, all while singing along with Tony, at the top of my lungs.
My loop around the building would get me back to my chair just as the song was ending and the roar of the audience surged.
The album left nearly 30 seconds of clapping, where I had time to say something along the lines of:
"That's What's The Alternative? for tonight, I'll be back on Monday at 10pm for more. We'll be back on the air tomorrow morning at 6am. For now . . . you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. WABN concludes another broadcast day."
And I'd fade out the track, walk to the transmitter and shut it down, and then head out the front door and into the night, my throat a little scratchy from the Bennett-belting and my mind a little fuzzy from the fun.
My friend Lori had this up as a status on Facebook last week:
I was in my bedroom up sorta late listening to the radio when I heard
P.J. introduce a new tune from a new band that was fronted by that
stringy-haired guy from Nirvana. It was the first time he had played it
on the air, and I shared his giddyness. "This Is A Call." What a fresh
new sound: poppy, upbeat & full of frenzy. I must admit, I haven't
been too impressed with a Foo Fighters record in several years, but that
song, that night, ignited a spark in me that I haven't forgotten in the
15 years since.
She's writing about 1995, when she was a kid still in school, and I was the host of a nightly alternative rock show on a local radio station.
WABN was a small, family owned AM/FM. Sometime later I'll write the story of how I walked through their door, and was a DJ on the radio not long after.
Lori was an avid listener, who became a volunteer at WABN, then an intern, and then a board operator, then a fill-in DJ and by the time she was a senior in high school, she became the Saturday night host of my show.
Sometime later I'll write the story about how this little family-owned independent radio station ended, with all of us saying a tearful goodbye and turning the transmitter off, as the station had been sold to a larger group.
Lori posted the above last week, because it was the anniversary of that day when we all said goodbye to the only station in the small town of Abingdon, Virginia. The company that took it over used the FM signal to rebroadcast their syndicated Talk station, and they simply turned off the AM signal. 12 years later, the building remains empty and no one is covering local sports, or broadcasting from the Abingdon Relay For Life or bringing in local teens to train them to be the next generation of broadcasters.
So then it was a shot in the gut to hear the news, on the same day that Lori posted the above status, that WFNX in Boston had been sold to Clear Channel. Friday, I listened to Julie Kramer, who'd been on FNX for 25 years, play her last shift for the station and it brought back some pretty dark feelings.
There just aren't that many independent radio stations left anymore. And there are those who think radio is dead, or who want radio to be dead, or who don't give a shit if radio dies.
Why rely on radio, when there are iPods and Spotify and Pandora and Youtube and you can program all this technology with songs YOU want to hear?
And the answer is simple. It's in Lori's statement.
ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, fifteen years from now will say, "I vividly remember the first time I heard that song shuffle randomly on Pandora!"
I work for an independent radio station now, one that is struggling just like any other small business effected by the Recession. So I do take it personally.
But I also have some firsthand knowledge that most people don't have, or don't consider. I've seen what happens when a community, or an audience, loses an independent station in their midst.
Radio, even independent radio, is not perfect. Sometimes it sucks. It isn't for everybody.
But if you are a person that misses your local record store, because it's gone, or can't stand that the restaurant chains have replaced your local eateries, or have found that the places that used to have live music don't bring concerts to your town any more, or that you can't walk into a video store and ask a clerk for a recommendation because the damn video stores don't exist any more . . .
If you are that person, then this is a call.
If you love human interaction when you make a purchase, make a musical connection or want to put something in your damn stomach, then this is a call.
If you don't want to wake up one day and find that you and your neighbors have no participation in the process, the management or the creation of what is around you to consume, then this is a call.
Drive the extra mile for the cup of coffee from the local bakery, instead of the chain drive through. Spend the extra 2 bucks on the CD at a downtown record store instead of having some online service ship it to you. And support your local, independent radio station, by listening, by telling their advertisers when you frequent their business, by supporting their fundraisers when they have them.
There is so much human interaction slipping away from our every day existence, and people rarely celebrate it when it's here---they only complain when it's gone.
I can tell you that at no time in the last 6 months, did I hear anyone say "Thank God we still have WFNX." But the web was filled with anguished cries over its demise when it was announced. Too little too late.
My friends would jokingly call it "The Day Patti Rothberg Saved Your Life."
But the lasting effects of that day were less dramatic, if no less important.
I had been dispatched to Washington DC, because I had started a Rock The Vote chapter via our radio station in Abingdon. We aired PSAs and ran voter registration drives, getting young people involved and engaged in the political process.
Rock The Vote was holding an event on the National Mall in DC, and they had invited "local" chapters to attended.
We were only considered local to Washington, if you had never seen a map. In fact, it was a 6 hour drive from Abingdon to the Capitol. But I was up for the drive. (Besides, on the way home I could swing by Chapel Hill)
Patti Rothberg was the musical act. She'd just put out her major label debut, we were spinning it, and I was looking forward to meeting her.
I had packed a Sharpie and CDs by the bands I'd be seeing on my trip, because I wanted to get a personal connection.
Up to that point, I'd never been an autograph seeker. But this thought had occurred to me early in my DJ career:
I could play music by artists who sang about their most personal thoughts and feelings, but ultimately, there was no actual connection to the artist. The songs were a one way signal that only traveled outward. And literally, the physical CDs that contained the songs, were never touched or seen by the artist who created them. They were completely divorced from their origin.
To get the artist to sign the CD kind of pulled the connection full circle. They were singing the songs, they had held that disc in their hands.
Thinking about it today, I wonder if I would have that same impulse now.
Here in 2012, there seems to be greater access to artists, through social media and the proliferation of podcasts and youtube and music magazines and such.
But for me in the mid-90s, musicians that I loved were hardly more real than my favorite fictional characters.
There was a small stage set-up on the National Mall, really only a few feet off the ground, near the Air And Space Museum, and Patti Rothberg was scheduled to play, the Rock The Vote folks would make a few short speeches (and introduced us radio folk), and Jesse Jackson Jr. would give a keynote address.
So I got to hang out "backstage" (which wasn't really separated from anywhere else, as we were plopped down in the middle of the mall, with no fences around or anything), with my little cassette tape recorder, waiting for Rothberg to come off stage so I could interview her.
There were a number of technical/power problems on stage. At one point during the show, while Patti was speaking about the importance of Rock The Vote, her microphone went out, and in fact the whole stage lost power along the way.
I tried to stay out of the way as the tech folks scrambled to get things powered up and rolling again.
Patti finished up her set and retired to an area of folding chairs, where we could talk. It wasn't my first interview, but it was still early enough in my career that the whole process was almost surreal. The voice on the record was talking back!
I hung around while someone from Washington DC's alternative station WHFS asked a lot of the same question I did, but also got her talking about touring with Paul Westerberg, who was my absolute favorite songwriter. I was happy to eavesdrop on those stories.
Next on the event's agenda, was a speech from one of the Rock The Vote honchos, with radio folks like me standing in the wings to be recognized as volunteers and supporters.
I was leaning on the metal rigging, listening to the speech, when I felt a tap on the back of my leg.
It was Patti. She was down on the ground looking up at me.
"Hey PJ. I don't know if I'd stand there. They . . ." (she looked back toward the tech guys, still messing about with cables and wires), "don't really seem to have all the power stuff worked out. I wouldn't want to see anyone electrocuted."
I thanked her, and hopped down the little metal staircase to "safety."
Was electrocution likely? Probably not.
Did Patti Rothberg remember my name for more than another hour of her life? Probably not.
But for a small stretch of time, the one way feed from artist to listener looped back, and she was real to me and I was real to her and it felt like some kind of breakthrough in my relationship with all those artists that I was playing, day in and day out
I grew up in a family where Religion played a sincere and apparent role.
Meaning, we were good Catholics. We never missed Church. Religious discussions might come up at the dinner table. My father had been in the seminary and his sister was (and still is) a nun.
But when I moved into the South, it was evident that Religion played a much larger role in people's day-to-day lives.
Not so much in the morality or piety---I don't think people in the South had greater or better convictions than the people I grew up around. But that Religion was much more a part of the social structure.
Growing up, my friends were usually kids I went to school with. And my parents' friends were people they worked with, or were folks from the neighborhood.
But for many of the people in the town where I lived (Abingdon, Virginia), the people that they were more likely to socialize with, were the people from their Church.
Churches weren't just for Sundays. Churches organized picnics and trips and hikes and had classes/services on Wednesdays. A person's relationship with their Church wasn't just about Religious beliefs, it was about interacting with the world at-large---so much of what they might experience in a day could be filtered through Religious eyes.
I co-hosted a nightly call-in request program. It was mainly frequented by Middle and High School kids who wanted to send out dedications to their friends and such.
It was interesting to chart the reaction of the listenership to Joan Osborne's "One Of Us," which became an unlikely hit in 1995.
Some folks were horrified that we would play a song that suggested that God could be a "bum like one of us." That was practically sacrilege.
And others didn't really seem to hear what the song was about. They only caught the lyrics "God Is Great," and jumped to the conclusion that this was a Contemporary Christian song, singing the praises of the Lord.
It made me wonder if sometime being too close to something, prevented you from seeing it. If you focus on it being about God, are you missing that it's really a message about everyone?
Oddly enough, when I hear "See A Little Light" it takes me back to being in the dark. Literally.
Ah, to be young and single. There are so many aspects to the story that follows, that are so far removed from the life I have now . . .
Let's see, where to start.
I'm on a lawn chair, on the deck of a house that is not mine. It is after midnight. I am with a girl I like. It is completely dark.
Honestly, this scenario was not a one time thing. I often brought a girl to this very location.
I'm in my late 20s, living in southwest Virginia.
I live in a 100 year old rented farm house, known as 7 Maples, with two of my friends. The house is huge, the rent is cheap. We are all single and generally unencumbered (we own little and owe little). Beer and cigarettes and coffee and friends and dates come and go, frequently and at all hours.
I'm a DJ, working the evenings, which means I don't get home until after midnight, every night. So much of my social interaction occurs when most of the town has gone to sleep.
The farmhouse is on the road. A country road, but right on it. Walking out of the wood stove room/back door to the driveway in the back is a slight incline, which then become a steeper, brush covered incline. Cutting a path through the brush is a dirt road, winding its way up the hill. At the top of the hill, just before the treeline, is the studio.
The farmhouse is owned by a husband/wife artist team. They have just built this beautiful studio, for their expanding production. They bought the land to build the studio; 7 Maples came in the bargain, so they rent in cheaply. On the lower level, is her kiln and her rows of tiny, handmade jewelry. On the top level, are his looms for his giant, rich, wall hangings. And on their deck are a few lawn chairs.
It is not unusual for me to bring a girl up here. The landlords don't mind. Encourage it, in fact. Just pick up your empty beer cans. Otherwise, enjoy the view.
When I hear "See A Little Light," even today, this is where I am. On a warm summer might with a warm summer beer, hoping to impress a girl, and generally unencumbered by anything more taxing than that.
It seems kind of idyllic, and I could probably paper over the reality with nostalgia. But the truth is that what felt like freedom on a good day, felt like being set adrift, aimlessly, on another day. There could be drama and mood-swings and angst. Some of that generated internally, and some of that manifested in the people around me.
7 Maples, due to its fluid and welcoming nature, attracted its fair share of friends and hangers-on, drunks and lost boys/girls. People searching, or flailing, or failing. People who's only reaction to things that didn't make sense, was to curse the darkness and shout out into the night.
"Ahh, shit. I'd better go see what that is."
I reluctantly got up from my lawn chair, which had been pulled close to her lawn chair.
Remember in "Say Anything" when you first hear "In Your Eyes" and you just think it's the movie soundtrack, until they show Lloyd in the yard with his boom box?
At first I didn't notice the melody in the air for anything other than a soundtrack to whatever I'm sure I was going on about in an effort to impress this girl. But then I realized that Bob Mould was booming from my house, which was a good 300 yards away.
We ambled our way in the dark, down the hill and as we got closer to the house, I could see a little light, literally, from the wood stove room where the stereo lived and most of the beer was consumed. The stereo speakers were now in the window, and the stereo was cranked up to 11.
I walked inside, smoothly and succinctly, heading straight for the stereo to turn it down.
"It's a little loud," I said, with a cocked eyebrow.
There was no point in making a salient argument, or getting too angry. He was drunk.
He was a friend of one of the roommates. The kind of guest that doesn't leave, even after his friend has gone to bed (if the are still drinks to be had).
I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish by putting the speakers in the window and blasting Bob Mould across the hillside. And I'm fairly certain that he couldn't tell you either.
It was just the kind of thing you did when you were in your 20s, a little lost, a little drunk, a little in the dark, searching for some kind of answers.
In the Spring of 1994 I started my first radio gig, at a small independent station in Southwest Virginia. I had my own, nightly Alternative specialty show.
I think it's kinda hard to grasp today, just how weird it was to hear bands like Green Day and The Ramones and Sarah Mclachlan and The Cure, on a radio station in 1994. Maybe it was normal if you lived near a major metropolitan area. But for most of the country, those artists were sooo far outside the mainstream, that they just weren't going to make it on any radio station.
So my little "What's The Alternative?" program was, to some, a bizarre, welcome oasis. And the fact that I was the host, opened a few doors for me.
There was a great restaurant in town called The Starving Artist. Great, high-end food, in a casual, artsy atmosphere. Several of the people who worked there were well regarded local painters, visual artists and creators. They had a great scene unto themselves.
And because I got off the air around the time they were closing the kitchen, I'd get invited to the head chef's house on the outskirts of town, for a few after-hours beers, where they'd feed me (because I was an impoverished waif) and where we'd talk about and listen to music.
From the get-go, they were selling me on Southern Culture On The Skids.
SCOTS was a regional, hard-touring rock/rockabilly/country/semi-comic party-band, that was soon to be releasing a major label record.
And The Starving Artist was on the verge of celebrating their 10th Anniversary.
"There gonna play right here!" the chef told me, gesturing to his spacious living room area. "You gotta come."
Well, I think we've all been oversold at one time or another, on how great a party is going to be, only to show up and have it fall miles short of expectation . . .
So I said that Yeah, I'd try to come after work.
Let me tell you what I saw when I walked through the door, shortly after midnight on party night.
The room was PACKED with party-goers. 100 people in the living room? Probably.
The band was cooking, in a groove.
The chef was shirtless, in a tiger mask, doing an interpretive dance right in front of the band.
And then they introduced "8 Piece Box."
As part of their tour rider on every show they play, Southern Culture receives a bucket of fried chicken. It is set aside, for when they played "8 Piece Box." They invite a dozen or so girls up on to the stage and the girls eat the chicken while dancing to the song.
Normally (not that this scenario is "normal" by any standard in the first place), the girls stand on stage and vamp and maybe eat the chicken seductively (sexy carnivores!).
But this night, it was more like Velociraptors tearing into carrion.
I remember the maniacal, greasy faces of women with mouthfuls of chicken, tossing the bones out into the audience.
Now I know the bucket of chicken couldn't really have been that big, but when I see it in my mind's eye, dozens of bones flew back and forth above the sweaty, dancing crowd, like the chickens had been partially re-animated, and were trying (but failing) to fly.
Part of me was thrilled that I had somehow stumbled through the door of a secret sub-culture.
Though the really hungry impoverished waif DJ thought it was a big waste of perfectly good chicken.
He thought about it for a second and said, "Maybe . . . The Allmans?"
I was in my favorite local bar, about to watch my favorite local band.
Admittedly, both the bar and the band were a little dank, dirty and down-and-out for a date, but this new girl I was dating seemed game.
When she asked what the band sounded like, I said that their main reference was probably The Band. But she didn't know The Band.
"Take a load off, Annie, Take a load for free . . ." I sang, trying to rattle a memory that clearly wasn't there for her. "No, doesn't ring a bell?"
Nope.
So I asked the guy in front of me, and he suggested The Allmans, which was a reasonable second suggestion.
She nodded, approvingly.
True to form, Janie Grey came out and threw down a great bar-shaking set. And yes, in the model of The Band, three different guys in the band took shots at lead singing, some of the songs extended out, out, out in jam fashion, and they even did staples The Band were known for doing, like "Down South In New Orleans" and "Mystery Train."
She seemed to have a good time, trying groove along with the proceedings.
In the car on the way home, I asked her what she thought of the band.
"Oh, they were good I guess. Not what I was expecting."
"What were you expecting?"
"Well, based on that guy's description, I guess I was you know, expecting the white suits and the dance moves and stuff."
"Dance moves?"
Wait a minute.
"Are you confusing The Allman Brothers with The Osmond Brothers?"
"Oh! Yeah, I guess I am!" she said, cheerily.
(The post script, unsurprisingly, is that this relationship did not work out . . .)
Not for school, of course. No, just to visit a friend.
One of my closest friends went to an all Women's college in Roanoke, which was just about two hours away from Abingdon, Virginia, where I lived.
And, perhaps not surprisingly, I'd regularly drive up to Roanoke on the weekends, to a) see my friend, and yeah, b) hang out at an all girls school.
I was single, in my 20s. Where else would I want to be?
This isn't a post about girls or dating or flirting or getting drunk or acting like an awkward teenage boy who hadn't figured out girls when in fact I hadn't been a teenager for many, many years so why was I coming off like such a loser. This is a post about after that.
In those days, I was working nights. I'd get out of bed no earlier that 11am. To the radio station in the early afternoon. Off at midnight or later. And then I'd be up for several hours, drinking or writing or listening to music or watching TV or whatever, until 3 or 4am.
And if I had a Saturday off, I'd go an spend the night in Roanoke.
After a weekend of just being one of the girls, Sunday night would inevitably wind down, as my friend and her cohorts head off to their dorm rooms or study areas to call it a night. And I'd head home.
Getting in the car for a nearly 2 hour drive at 11 or 12 at night, wasn't an issue. I was awake, and happy to have something to do. Even if that something to do was just drive and listen to The Scud Mountain Boys.
My friend Teri had sent me a cassette tape of this band. They, like Teri's band Tizzy, were a Western Massachusetts outfit, a college student/graduate collective of musicians, making a record. Tizzy and The Scud Mountain Boys shared a producer, and that's how a pop-punk drummer heard about an roots/country band from New England.
The cassette combined their full length CD "Dance The Night Away" with selections from an earlier release called "Pine Box." And if I popped the cassette in, right as I pulled out of Roanoke and onto the ramp for Interstate 81, it would carry me all the way down the road, until I was on the exit ramp for my town.
I-81 is a truck route, and yeah, there isn't a lot of anything between Roanoke and Abingdon, except straight stretches, big skies and rolling, rocky farmland.
Much like the Vineyard, southwest Virginia is low on light pollution, and on a clear night (and when I was clear of 18 wheelers) you could see a million stars. It was dark. It was quiet. It was perfect for the Scud Mountain Boys.
The songs on "Dance The Night Away" are built around a slide guitar, slow gorgeous melodies and melancholy lyrics. Time flew by when I listened. Two hours seemed like minutes.
I'm not such an obsessive that I have an actual catalog of this information, but I'd wager that I have listened to "Dance The Night Away" more than any other album. Period.
The band issued one more record, "Massachusetts," and broke up. I did manage to see them live once (a story for another post), but was always bummed out that they didn't do anything else.
Of course, principle songwriter Joe Pernice has been very active, putting out Pernice Brothers records, solo albums and occasional one-off projects like Chappaquiddick Skyline.
But what a thrill to read, out of nowhere this fall, that Joe had reconnected with his old bandmates, and that they had agreed to do a handful of shows this winter.
I'll take the almost two hour journey up to the Brighton Music Hall, next Saturday night, January 14th, for what I hope will be a special night.
And yeah, if it's not too much, for the ride home, for old time's sake, I'll pop in the old cassette and let it carry me home.
The harsh light of day was not forgiving to The Omelet Shoppe.
I was used to coming to the only all-night place in Abingdon after a night out on the town, drinking and listening to music and such. After midnight, before sunrise. At night, the dark hid the dirt. And more importantly, I'm sure the dark (and the drunk) hid how ragged I looked at 3:30am snarfing on an egg sandwich.
But this day, I was here at a time that a big plate of eggs and waffles makes much more sense---brunch.
It was a goodbye breakfast. Goodbye to a girl with whom I'd had a brief, unusual relationship.
Two weeks prior to the breakfast, we'd met and hit it off.
"Figures," she said, "I'm moving in two weeks."
But for young, twenty-something single (and not-uncreative) me, I saw it as an open opportunity.
"Then let's enjoy each other, and skip any of the usual dating B.S."
I realized that we didn't have time, or need, to move cautiously. Or to say "I'll call you" and wait the appropriate number of days so as not to seem too eager. There was no need to present this false-ish "best behavior" version of yourself. Or to not say what was on your mind. It was an opportunity to really let go of the railing and run down the stairs.
There was no need to negotiate, calibrate, or obfuscate. It would be over in two weeks, good, bad or indifferent.
It was good. Skipping the B.S. allowed us to really get to know each other, and be open to each other in a way that other early relationships had never been. She shared much about herself, including her bitterness about her time in Abingdon. The idealism that had brought her to a public service job in the area, had been squashed by insecure bosses and small-minded thinking. And with no sentimental attachment to her time, she had been ready to leave and never look back.
But over breakfast, her car loaded up with all her belongings, ready for the highway, she did have a reason to smile and look in the rearview mirror when she headed up Route 81.
"It's like that Phish song, 'Down With Disease.'"
Uh-oh. I had had a long standing policy against anyone who explained themselves via questionable song lyrics.
What's the line?
"Waiting for the time when I can finally say / That this has all been wonderful but now I'm on my way."
She explained that she had hoped to stick around long enough that some element of her time in town was positive. And now she had.
I liked her philosophy and it made it easier to say goodbye, which we did not long after paying the check.
That was the day I let go of my prejudice against defining yourself through song, that she let go of her prejudice against Abingdon, and that daylight in The Omelet Shoppe was more forgiving that it at first seemed.
It was called "7 Maples" and it's where I called home for five years in that stretch of the 90s when I lived in the most western part of the state of Virginia.
The farmhouse had come with the acres purchased by our artist landlords, who had built a beautiful studio at the top of the hill. "7 Maples" was the original homestead on the land, with parts of the structure dating back 100 years.
It was called "7 Maples" because the land had 6 maple trees on it, but the original owners thought "7 Maples" was more poetic-sounding than "6 Maples."
It was rickety and rustic and just right for as a space for a pair of 20-somethings to live in. It wasn't too nice---we couldn't really do anything to ruin it. And it had space for me and my roommate.
And one more.
Throughout our tenure, we had a rotating array of 3rd roommates. They were always close friends, but always changed the dynamic from the consistence of the two of us.
The sprawling layout was charming in the daytime, and would have been as charming at night, if we'd never heard the story of the murder/suicide that had occurred in our front room, early in the century.
At night, when the mind plays tricks, the house could be a bit scary, with its creaky floors, and maple branches brushing the roof, and the quiet, quiet countryside of southwest Virginia.
And then there was the creepy appeal of the 2nd floor room that we gave to the rotating 3rd roommate.
The room itself was fine, but it lead to a large walk-in closet. The closet was only partially finished. And off the walk-in closet, was another totally unfinished space.
A room, within a room, within a room. Like a panic room. Or a place you'd hide a body.
As I said, Roommate #3 was always the wild-card. And one night, I came home to find a certain #3 passed out on the couch.
Not unusual. Roommate #3 liked to take a drink. Or five.
Climbing the stairs to my bedroom, I had to pass by her room. And from the room I heard breathing.
Not unusual. Roomate #3 liked to take a drink or five and bring home a guest from the bar.
I worked the night shift those years, and sometimes, on my way in well after midnight, I'd pass some stranger, on his way out.
But this one was breathing loudly. I shouldn't be able to hear breathing through the closed door, should I?
I inched closer to the frame. Heavy, heavy breathing.
Mechanized sounding breathing.
There was something strangely robotic about this heaving, in and out, in and out.
It's after midnight. It's dark. I'm alone, except for a passed out roommate on the couch downstairs, and whoever is behind the door.
In and out, in and out.
Breathing from the creepy room.
I'm a reasonable, rational human being. What is there to be afraid of?
I stood there for another full minute, hoping I could come up with a good excuse.
Failing that, I thought I'd better look in the room.
The hallway light was harsh, entering the bedroom that was completely dark, except for the tiny glow of a stereo light.
A stereo that was playing. Counting. Spinning on low volume.
I'd been haunted by the ghost of Southern Culture On The Skids album "Dirt Track Date."
At the very end of the album, when the title track fades out, you are left with a sound. The sound of a dirt track.
Cars, vroomming around the track past a microphone. The doppler effect making the pitch rise and fall.
It goes on for 5 minutes or so, this mechanical pulsating of cars roaring by, which, when turned low on your stereo, sounds a lot like mechanical breathing.
Jump ahead to 3:21 on the Youtube video, to hear the song end, and the cars/creepy breathing. (they fade it out; it actually goes on for 5 minutes on the record)
I'm the Program and Music Director of mvyradio, a broadcast and internet station on the Island of Martha's Vineyard. You can hear it here.
I've been in radio since the early 90s, programming shows. As Music Director, I receive dozens of CDs and songs every week, from Record Labels, Promotion People and Independent Artists. I try to listen to everything anyone asks me to.
So the old iTunes list is pretty long.
The idea of this blog is to go to that list, grab one (usually at random, but not always) and write about it. Every song has a story. How it fits into the artists oeuvre. What it meant to me when I first heard it.
I'll try to post the song in full, whenever possible, and I invite you to listen and tell me what it makes you think of.
And for more great music, you can stream mvyradio from anywhere in the world, here.
