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Stumpage Reports
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Thursday, June 05, 2003 :::
The Best Radio Station in the World
When I was growing up near Detroit, there were three rock and roll stations we listened to. WABX, WRIF, and the best radio station in the world: WWWW, or "W4," looking at their website now, it says it is at 102.9 on your FM dial. But I know back then (mid 70's to early 80's) it was at 106.1.
This was in the days before Clear Channel began their campaign of world domination. Of course there certain hits they had to play, but the DJs had a lot of leeway. Howard Stern worked there for awhile but I don't remember anything particularly wild or obnoxious about him. The resident bad boy there was Steve Dahl. I remember him making crank calls to Iran during the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979.
These stations played a lot of the stuff you would expect, "Stairway to Heaven" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" were staples. I remember a guy named Arthur Penhallow at WRIF loved the Beatle's song Hey Bulldog, an often overlooked little rocker, and you could count on him playing that at least once a day.
Bob Seger and Ted Nugent were always big, being local boys and all. Occasionally some Elvis Costello or Clash would get snuck in.
But the best thing about WWW, and the thing that makes them the greatest radio station in the world, was a program they did on Sunday nights called "The Seventh Day." Starting at 7 PM, they would play seven albums in their entirety with no commercials. They played all kinds of albums by Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, The Who, and then contemporary popular crap like JourneyStyxREOSpeedwagonKansas. For a kid who spent all his money on dope with a limited budget and a cassette recorder this show was godsend. I built up quite a library of tapes of 60s and 70s music that I and my friends got a lot of enjoyment out of as we cruised around. On Woodward Avenue, of course.
WWW went country some years ago, and I don't provide a link to their web site because when you visit it you are greeted by the demonic visage of Garth Brooks.
There was a good article in a local paper recently about how much Clear Channel sucks, the death of local radio, and what it means to local artists. You can read it here.
Quote of the Day:
Behind other islands we found wretched little farms, and wretcheder little log-cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or two above the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked, yellow-faced male miserables roosting on the top-rail, elbows on knees, jaws in hands, grinding tobacco and discharging the result at floating chips through crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of the family and the few farm-animals were huddled together in an empty wood-flat riding at her moorings close at hand.
--- Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1883.
::: posted by tom at 10:09 PM
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