When I was a kid, up at the cottage, my mom used to make me change the station when Dave Mickie was on.

"I CAN'T STAND THAT GUY!" she'd say.

If she only knew what would happen.....

Before I go, let me just say this:

I was at the doctor's office yesterday, and they had CHUM-FM piped in.

How anyone can listen to this garbage escapes me, it was certainly an eye opener. My gawd, this is what radio has evolved to?  <barf>

A montage of sounds that I personally recorded during the 80's quality varies from good to bad

Mainstream Rock WCMF/97 Rock 

CFNY
Guess the three announcers. One of them plays the Cowpunk band Rank and File and I may have requested that.

Oldies
Double shot of the Swinging Medallions.

WUWU/WCMF/WZIR
I mentioned the paisley underground up thread and you will hear some examples of that music being played on WUWU and WCMF. CMF features the legendary ( in Buffalo's and Rochester) Unkle Roger . Some comedy from George Carlin and a few zany commercials especially on WZIR, the likes of which I doubt we will hear on any radio station today.

Fitz wrote:

I keep coming back to this thread and apologies bc I know I have shared some of these clips and my radio recollections before. Having been on the forum for maybe 15 years I am guilty of repeating myself.. The mention of Rock 102 prompted this and it may be indicative of the fact that you can't necessarily pigeon-hold radio formats from those days. 

Here is a clip of Rock 102 where they play the Psychedelic Furs. Also some Q 107 and they play Chuck Berry:
Q107/Rock 102 1986

The  post below has a variety of material including the Spirit of radio in it's prime but the 4th clip has a very brief and poor quality segment of the automated rock 102 and the 5th clip has Rock 102 playing the Style Council and, unusual for commercial radio, announcement about production values at the end: I believe the Rock Radio Scrapbook has some more meaty air checks of Rock 102  but I know somewhere on the site I actually have something from the pre-rock WBEN

Wish I had some tapes of the early and automated WGRQ 97 from the early 70's as top 40 music then was generally  more interesting then the Rock 102 era.

Rock 102 etc
 

I think WGR became Top 40 WGRQ [Super Q] around New Year's Day 1973. The flip to AOR QFM97 came sometime in 1975, I think.

RadioActive wrote:

WGR-FM was an all oldies station until the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve 1973, when they added the "Q" and became a great Top 40 station. Here's the moment it happened, courtesy Dale Patterson's Rockradioscrapbook.ca. I believe the announcer who gushes about the "Q" is J.J. Jordan, one of the station's original DJs

 

I thought I remembered them playing a single by the Beach Boys that only charted at maybe around number 60 on billboard in early 73 and the reason I remember the station as automated is bc they had the same intro every time they played the track. When I read the dates above I thought my memory was faulty and so I went online and found this on You Tube. The chart in the clip is from Aug 73:
Edit: Just noticed that the format switch cliip has the date of Jan/73 and in the audio they reference 73 and so the clip must be from Dec 72.





 

Last edited by Fitz (January 19, 2025 10:55 am)

ERP 0W wrote:

Before I go, let me just say this:

I was at the doctor's office yesterday, and they had CHUM-FM piped in.

How anyone can listen to this garbage escapes me, it was certainly an eye opener. My gawd, this is what radio has evolved to?  <barf>

Music no good?

Just want to remind those two users about the "Inbox" feature at the top of the page. You can exchange information about addresses, phone numbers, whatever etc. in confidence without having to write it out in a public forum like this one. Please feel free to DM each other if this is really going to happen. 

Go to the bottom of the Inbox page, enter the user name, click on "Find User," then the user name when it comes up, and you should be able to send them a private email via the site. Just for those unaware of this freebie. 

ERP 0W wrote:

Fitz wrote:

BTW I would be interested in having a look at that Carver.

Heh! I was joking around when I said that. I was trying to illustrate how much I was disappointed in the radio of today.

But you know what? I don't think I could ever accept someone's money for it. It would embarrass me.

You seem like a guy who would give it a good home. Someone who appreciates its qualities.

You give me an address, I will send it to you. Might take a while, while I accumulate the various boxes and peanuts for shipping, but I can do it.

You let me know, OK?


 

Thanks very much for that. and very kind of you. Now that I think about it, I actually have a lot of vintage equipment already and that may be enough especially since there is not much to listen to any more on the radio. Have never owned a Carver but have read good things about them and a turntable hook-up might be an option. May reach out to you via a PM at some point if my Marantz gives up the ghost.