It was programmed by. Oedipus (who had the first punk rock show in the country while at MIT's college station, WTBS) was hired first as a DJ in 1977, and then installed as program director in 1981, and helped to break The Ramones, The Clash, The Police, and countless punk and new wave bands out of Boston. Hes got a 13, the highest rating ever in the history of ratings. Just dont lose us the license. Suddenly for a week, it was amazing radio. A weekly journey through the wild and twisted mind of Mikey Adams. CHARLES LAQUIDARAAt WBCN:DJ, 196896, host of The BigMattress. Because the station got involved in giving these bands a higher profile, people could see them in clubs. The Listener Line had positioned itself almost as the Google of its time. Its characteristic blend of cultural chaos, including rock, folk, blues, and jazz, interspersed with news . Following the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which relaxed ownership rules for media, the station became just one small part of a vast empire at CBS/Viacom. BCN was part of the fabric of Boston. His guidance counselor said he should pursue an exciting career in retail, but he took a chance on radio instead. By the 1990s, WBCN was at a crossroads. Uploaded by The first song of that last hour was Cream's "I Feel Free," the first rock song played on WBCN in 1968, and the last song played was Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," followed by a much-used collage of songs with the line "They're really Rockin' in Boston" and station bits and ID spots used over the years, which then slowed to a halt. Worcester personality and deejay LB Worm paid tribute on his . Im absolutely positive of WBCNs legacy. Duane got 13. The duo formerly worked together at Atlanta alternative station WNNX. It happened! Eventually, Wolf had a crucial . I took the late-night shift, from 12 to 7 in the morning. Johnson remained with the station until 1967, just prior to the changeover from classical to easy-listening, and then to rock. August 1948: The first antenna is erected a 595-foot tower. Oedipus was orange. Hes singing about a prostitute! The Ramones, they play them at football games now. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. You didnt have someone playing Hank Williams then Muddy Waters then Van Morrison then Velvet Underground, in 15 minutes. There were all the artistsSpringsteen, Led Zeppelin, U2that the station broke and changed lives. One of the on-air personalities at that time was Ron Della Chiesa, who also served as the music host and program director. Here is a list of over 90 former and current full-time WBCN personalities. I remember we were doing this promotion for the Cars. Now they can actually afford to put out a halfway decent independent record which gets noticed by the major label, and now they get signed by the major label and become stars. With its audience aging, it risked becoming a classic rock-focused station and losing its currency as an outlet for new music. Is it possible that WBCN, the greatest rock n roll radio station in American history, died five years ago this month? I was put in charge of getting that up and running. Active rock accounts for all regular programming on the HD2 digital subchannel. The Del Fuegos is a perfect example, or O Positive, or the Blackjacks. There was coke residue on the records, and marijuana stems in the back. People dont listen to technology; they listen to content. WBCN air staff in the station's record library. All of the Amenities. Oedipus also hosts an annual Christmas Eve show featuring rarely heard Christmas songs. WWBX-HD3 airs "Tomorrow's Hits Today," a CHR format that focuses on the very latest hits prior to their ascension to the top of the charts. Memorable radio personalities from Cleveland's past. I can trace my success to BCN. 1 Draft Pick Feb 28, 2023 This is noise! As program director, I made sure we always had at least one local band in rotation. Darrell Blair-Edward Martinie[1] a.k.a. A native of Detroit, Toettcher graduated from Rollins College in 1997. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 's college station WTBS (today WMBR ). On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Segal's arrival was critical to the station's early development since he came in from Los Angeles and San Francisco, where he had been mentored by the legendary West Coast DJ Tom Donahue, who was credited with starting the very first underground rock FM station at KMPX the year before. But his 2004 arrest for having sex with a minor marked the end of his days on the air. Everybody listened to WBCN. Includes announcement that the format will shift from 97.3 to 106.9 FM. If you're a scraper, please click the link below :-) The jocks now are continually selling you something. For the radio station in Bangor, Maine, that used the WWBX call sign from 1995 to 2008, see, For the history of the "Mix" branding in Boston prior to its move to the 104.1 frequency, see, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "WBMX (Mix 104.1)/Boston Morphs Into WWBX", "Boston Emissions with Anngelle Wood 100.7 WZLX", "Rock of Boston to cease rocking on the FM dial: WBCN goes digital-only in August", "Jay Talking 2013 Abstract Foliage Photo Number 1", "CBS Sets Radio Division Merger With Entercom", "CBS and Entercom Are Merging Their Radio Stations", "WEEI parent company buys CBS' Sports Hub, WBZ in massive merger", "Entercom Narrows Down 16 Stations To Be Divested To Complete CBS Radio Merger", "Entercom to Divest 13 Stations in Exchange for Justice Department's Approval of CBS Radio Acquisition", "Entercom Swaps 98.5 The Sports Hub Boston To Beasley For Magic 106.7", "Entercom Trades Boston & Seattle Spin-Offs To iHeartMedia For Richmond & Chattanooga", "Entercom Receives FCC Approval for Merger with CBS Radio", "Robservations: Bruce Dumont retiring broadcast museum", "RIP Danny Schechter: Media Pioneer Who Covered Apartheid South Africa, Occupy & Kissinger", "Entercom Sells WAAF Boston To Educational Media Foundation", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WWBX&oldid=1141734739, Hot adult contemporary radio stations in the United States, Articles needing cleanup from December 2022, Cleanup tagged articles with a reason field from December 2022, Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from December 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from August 2009, All articles needing additional references, Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. Remember Lefora is going through changes, if you have trouble logging in, as I just did, refresh the page!!! Jackson was one of the first DJs to introduce Americans to The Who and Led Zeppelin. 1. WBCN Free Form Rock was formatted essentially the same as WBCN's 104.1 FM's 1968-88 incarnation (a great deal of rock, rock's related genres, and new music), different from the modern rock format that was carried on 98.5-HD2. B96 - WBBM 96.3 FM. That means I've been on the radio for 25 years. He would do all kinds of stuff. 3. J." For the first time, the owners of the station began to make a profit. Known as "The Rock of Boston", WBCN became a legend in the rock music industry for breaking many bands, most notably U2. The Police, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, and the Clash. BCN did that. Learn more about the people at WBCN: Carter Alan Andy Beaubien John Brodey T. Mitchell Hastings J.J. Jackson Sam Kopper Charles Laquidara ChaChi Loprete Maxanne Oedipus Mark Parenteau Jim Parry Al Perry Ray Riepen Joe Rogers Danny Schechter Steve Segal Ken Shelton Matt Siegel Debbie Ullman Norm Winer Peter Wolf Adam Carolla is an American radio personality and television host, comedian and actor. That does not exist anymore. If you're a human and see this, please ignore it. [1] He reminds me, every time I see him, that Id be nowhere without him. Mark Parenteau was up in the car, doing a live broadcast. By 1975, WBCN had gradually evolved from the underground/progressive format of the 1960s to the more mainstream album oriented rock format popular in the 1970s. Bradley Jay (later, he became host of the weekday overnight talk show, "Jay Talking", on AM sister station WBZ[12]) was the last DJ. NAME Years of Service Current Status, Bill Abbate 1988-Present Air Talent,midnight - 6AMKaty Abel 1982-88 Education Reporter WHDH-TV7(CBS) Producer for The Learning ChannelCarter Alan 1979-Present Music DirectorLorraine Ballard 1978-80 Living in PhiladelphiaAndy Beaubien 1969-77 PD at DC-101,WashingtonTony Berardini 1978-Present General ManagerJohn Brodey 1969-1979 GM for Giant Records in LAJudy "Scooter" Carlough 1982-87 Senior Acct. I remember when I first played Roxanne on the air, people thought it was the end of the world. If you needed a ride, well connect you. The women at WBCN, we had to carve out a place for ourselves. While it was automated most of the time, it was increasing its live weekdays, and hinting about the potential for more programming as listenership increased. WBCN holds a special place in history." Jon Abbott, President and CEO, WGBH "A team of young heroes, women and men, black and white, straight and gay, passionate, fearless and revolutionary, broadcast the music and ideas that shaped how every college kid thought, felt, and acted for the rest of our lives." The Rock of Boston. The protest got local media coverage and the attention of several well-known Boston-based music acts, including The Cars, Aerosmith, and Boston, who got behind the protest. I still cant go to an event without at least one person mentioning WBCN. Its studios are located in Brighton, and its transmitter is on the upper FM mast of the Prudential Tower. However, on January 29, 2016, "WBCN Free Form Rock" was dropped from WZLX-HD3 and flipped to adult standards as "The Lounge." The station broadcasts a Rock format and is owned by Beasley Broadcast Group. In 1966 he began his first job as district manager of Illinois Bell Telephone Company in Decatur, Illinois. [2] [3] By the mid-1980s, WBCN had successfully fended off a number of challengers (the hard rocking but tightly formatted WCOZ, Top 40 Hitradio WHTT, classic rock WZLX, among others) to become/remain the region's top rock station. Martinie was born on April 10, 1943 in Massachusetts and grew up in Illinois. Once Oedipus left, the station was kind of in a free fall. I didnt have $10. During his 19-year reign, Parenteau was instrumental in breaking musical acts like Bob Seger and the J. Geils Band. Suddenly, you can own multiple stations in one market. Exec at RAB in NYC Tom Couch 1976-82 Production Manager at WXRT,Chicago Peter Choyce 1978-88 Air Talent,Las Vegas Carolyn Fox 1991-93 Air Talent,Providence RI Jerry "The Duke of Madness" Goodwin 1977-81 Air Talent,WCGY,Lawrence MA Eddie Gordetsky 1978-82 Comedy Writer in NYC and LA Kenny Greenblatt 1968-1979 deceased Tommy Hadges 1968-78 President of Pollack Media Group in LA Tami Heidi 1977-79 1984-91 Air Talent,KROQ in LA John "Hoch" Hoccheimer 1972 Professor at Ithaca College in Itaca,NY Kate Ingram 1979-81 Harmonic Converge,San Francisco Eric Jackson 1973-75 Air Talent,WGBH-FM Boston J.J. Jackson 1968-71 Radio Consultant,LA Bradley Jay 1984-Present Air Talent Madge Kaplan 1986-1988 News,WGBH-FM Boston Lisa Carlin 1980-82 TV commentator in NYC Charlie Kendall 1978-79 Radio Station Owner in Mississippi Sam Kooper 1968-73 National Media Relations 1987-90 Spokeperson in Boston, Bob Kranes 1982-86 A&R,Polygram in NYC Charles Laquidara 1969-76 1977-Present Air Talent,6-10am Kathryn Lauren 1985-87 Air Talent,WHFS,Annapolis,MD Maurice Lewis 1989-91 Boston Food Bank Larry "Cha-Chi" Loprete 1982-Present Air Talent,Host of WBCN's "Get Back to The Beatles" heard on Sundays. They were totally my peers. November 29, 2020. It felt more like a bank. WBCN and the American Revolution Documentary Collection. His father was a Catholic and a psychiatrist and his mother was Jewish and a psychologist. And the Internets savage evisceration of the music industry finished off what was left. You were BCN. I was the rare DJ from somewhere else. In the period around 1975, John Garabedian, now recognized for the nationally syndicated "Open House Party" (which was once heard locally on WXKS-FM), was an afternoon DJ on WBCN. WBMX moved all of its subchannels with it from 98.5 to 104.1: "Mix" on analog and HD-1, "The '80s Channel" on HD-2, and "The Sky" on HD-3. They would be heard next to the great bands of the time. WBCN Free Form Rock Former WBCN disc jockey Mark Parenteau, who was a force on the Boston airwaves for more than 20 years but saw his career and life go off the rails after he was arrested for having sex with a. Parenteau is survived by a brother, Barry. The music meant something to the DJ, and to the moment in which it was being played. Funeral arrangements are not yet complete. During his time on Loveline, Carolla gradually drew an increasing fan base to the program. I would have paid to do it. Fred (Toucher) Toettcher (born 1975) is a Marconi-winning sports radio talk show host on WBZ-FM in Boston, co-hosting "Toucher and Rich" with Rich Shertenlieb.. In the early days, each shift was a DJ with a mike and three turntables and some cartridges, interacting with the audience on the phone. We would all play a consistent amount of new music, and then there were times every hour when you could go to the outer library, which was 30,000 albums. 0. Like the biggest rock bands, it began as an underground revolution, thenin a haze of sex- and drug-fueled mayhem transformed radio, went mainstream, enjoyed unimaginable financial prosperity, and was ultimately undone by that success, as its corporate masters foisted upon the Rock of Boston a series of edicts so stringent that it ended up as boring and pre-programmed as the AM-radio dinosaurs it had so creatively displaced. At the time, they were all Top 40. They are not radio, because there is not a human being there. Are you playing with a full deck? Literally. The station went on strike in 1979 because the new owners, Hemisphere Broadcasting, came in. The Rob Carson Show Every Weekday Noon - 3PM on WCBM! On December 19, 2017, the HD3 channel was removed. It was probably not OSHA-sanctioned. The call sign stood for the Boston Concert Network (along with Hartford's WHCN, New York City's WNCN, and Providence's WXCN). [4] When same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, Martinie and Boesel married. [22][1] As a result, the station added the "-FM" suffix on July 29, 2009, allowing CBS to temporarily place the WBMX call letters on the former WFNA (1660 AM) in Charlotte, North Carolina; additionally, during "Mix"'s final week on 98.5, it used the WBZ-FM call letters intended for the new station. Luckily Im still alive. Declining ratings and belt-tightening at the former Rock of Boston led to Parenteau being let go in 1997. [3][4], In the late 1990s, Martinie began easing into retirement. 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