Rush and the Spirit of Radio

A buddy and I went to see Rush at Nationwide Arena in Columbus Sunday night. I saw them about 15 years ago at Riverbend in Cincinnati but was really looking forward to seeing them again because they'd be playing their best album in its entirety. Moving Pictures came out in 1981 right about the time I started paying attention to music (I was 10.) It contains their best known song, "Tom Sawyer," heavy use of synthesizer as well as Neil Peart's impeccable drumming. When it was released, Moving Pictures was all over the radio where I lived in western New York--probably because of its proximity to the band's hometown of Toronto. The show was fantastic and the band played for about three hours. No pictures because I forgot the camera in my car...what an idiot.

A Rush sticker from KSHE, a Rock station licensed to Crestwood, Missouri. This was to promote the band's 1996 Halloween-night show on the Test for Echo Tour in St. Louis. The piled rocks are the Inukshuk from the Test for Echo album cover but also features Sweet Meat, the pig which has been KSHE's mascot for decades.

The first song played Sunday night was "Spirit of Radio" which was written about Toronto's CFNY and uses their former slogan as the song's title. Here are the lyrics:

Begin the day
With a friendly voice,
A companion unobtrusive
Plays the song that's so elusive
And the magic music makes your morning mood.

Off on your way
Hit the open road,
There's magic at your fingers
For the Spirit ever lingers,
Undemanding contact
In your happy solitude.

Invisible airwaves crackle with life
Bright antenna bristle with the energy
Emotional feedback
On a timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price
Almost free

All this machinery making modern music
Can still be open-hearted
Not so coldly charted,
It's really just a question
Of your honesty

One likes to believe
in the freedom of music,
But glittering prizes
And endless compromises
Shatter the illusion
Of integrity.

For the words of the profits
Are written on the studio wall,
Concert hall --
Echoes with the sounds...
Of salesmen.

CFNY was a Progressive/Alternative/Freeform/New Wave station in Toronto starting in the late 1970s. The above "sticker" is actually a giant, three foot long car sunshield. I had to take a picture of it because it's too large to scan.



Today, CFNY is a much less adventurous Modern Rock station known as "102.1 The Edge."

I Am What I Play - WBCN

I watched an interesting documentary the other day called I Am What I Play.  In it, four fabled DJs from rock radio’s past recount sometimes parallel stories about a time when jocks were almost as well known (at least locally) as the bands they were spinning.  The four broadcasters are Meg Griffin (WNEW – New York), Pat O’Day (KJR – Seattle), Charles Laquidara (WBCN – Boston), and most interestingly (to me) David Marsden (CFNY – Toronto).  These jocks worked at a time when they were allowed great leeway, if not total control, over what music they played and what they said on the air.  I didn’t grow up listening to any of these guys so it was a strange feeling to be nostalgic for a time I never experienced but it was definitely a better time for radio than today.

104.1 WBCN (W Boston Concert Network) was a Rock station in Boston, Massachusetts from 1968 until 2017.  Past DJs include J. Geils Band frontman Peter Wolf, MTV VJ JJ Jackson, voice actor Billy West and the aforementioned Charles Laquidara.

Crap From the Past and KFAI

KFAI (K Fresh Air, Inc.--the nonprofit organization that owns the station) is a community broadcaster from Minneapolis, Minnesota which is staffed mostly by volunteers. They employ a block formatted schedule with a wide variety of eclectic programming. My favorite show on KFAI by far is Crap From the Past which can be heard Friday nights at 10:30 local time. Hosted by Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber, CFTP is "a pop music radio show for people who already know plenty about pop music." As taken from the introduction to each show, this would include such things as "funk, rock, Peter Gabriel singing in German, soul, old-school rap, ABBA singing in Spanish, glam, hair metal, Milli Vanilli singing in English, and, of course, disco." Themed shows have included songs with especially good bridges, songs that spent exactly one week on the Billboard Top 40 and songs that involve telephones (a two-parter!) It's weird, wonderful stuff and the best part is that every show has been archived all the way back to 1999 (with some internet-only and pre-KFAI shows dating back to 1992.) As a child of the eighties who used to listen to Casey Kasem religiously but was far more interested in the songs that barely flirted with the charts, this show is right in my wheelhouse. Gerber and I both lived in western New York around the same time and had a healthy appreciation for CFNY and Toronto record stores so maybe there's some kind of cosmic musical connection....all I know is I LOVE THIS SHOW! It's a graduate level course in pop music. Start earning your degree now! 

EDIT:  In the late summer of 2020 I received a radio ratings diary.  I don't know what Nielsen does, if anything, when people record out-of-town stations but it's certainly not helping Dayton radio when I list a Minneapolis station.  I also wonder what they do with the comments.  Are they given to stations as part of the benefits of subscribing?  KFAI is non-commercial so I doubt that they were informed of my comment about one of their shows.