A couple of weeks ago I created a playlist of songs that evoke memories of my days at SUNY Brockport, jockeying discs on 89.1 WBSU (now The Point). But my very first tentative squeaks over the airwaves happened at Adirondack Community College on 92.1 WGFR (known for most of my time as Power 92). Here again, it’s not a “10 best” list…it’s just 10 songs that take me back to that tiny studio complex in the back of the computer lab where so many crazy memories were made.
“Mercy Mercy Me/I Want You”, Robert Palmer
The very first songs I played on ‘GFR were by Mariah Carey and Wilson Philips, and…well…I can’t bring myself to post either of those here. But I did play this Marvin Gaye cover on my first shift in the spring of 1991, and many broadcasts thereafter. Jamey Greenough gave me my air name of “Dr. J” which became the name by which all non-family-members called me, until Kalin Krohe turned “Wenty” into a thing.
“Love Of A Lifetime”, Firehouse
We were quite the hit with the tweens, us WGFR jocks…the request line was always ablaze with folks wanting to send a song out to their sweet baboo or what-have-you. This song became such a popular dedication choice that, on my show and others, we would save it to the end of the night just before signoff and read all the dedications at once. Such was the chokehold this song had on us that when we did our own wacky “12 Days Of Christmas” song, five golden rings became “fiiiiive dumb requests”. On the last verse we sang “fiiiinally found the love of a lifetime!” We thought it was pretty clever.
Damn Yankees, “High Enough”
Another early ’90s rocker that we played quite a bit. Apparently Ted Nugent was in the band. Don’t that beat all!
Jane’s Addiction, “Been Caught Stealing”
WOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF!
Nelson, “Love And Affection”
Boy, the early 90s seemed to be the age of the “children of notable singers” acts. There’s the aforementioned Wilson Philips, and Ricky Nelson’s boys, Matthew and Gunnar. I got to interview these guys years (decades?) later when they made a trip to Chadron with their “Remembering Ricky Nelson” show. They played lots of Ricky’s hits, screened some old clips, and…yes…sang “Love And Affection.” The girls in the crowd went wild! (No…really. They hooted and hollered.)
Alice In Chains “Man In The Box”
This is one of those songs that came on a promotional CD…one track was the radio-friendly “buried in my spit”. One track was the radio-unfriendly “buried in my sh*t”. To my recollection I never played the wrong one. But I did, years later at Brockport, play the wrong track on a CD which contained the F-word. In my haste and terror to get it corrected, I myself dropped the F-bomb on WBSU. But another time…we’re talking WGFR here.
Led Zeppelin, “Stairway To Heaven” (Live Version)
WGFR was, as formats go, pretty loosey-goosey. The generally-accepted format was Top 40 by day, hard rock by night…but there was a lot of wiggle room. And there was always time for this live cut of “Stairway”…so ignorant was 19-year-old me of Led Zeppelin, the first time I heard the studio version of “Stairway” I was shocked by the absence of “Does anybody remember laughter!!?”
Three Dog Night, Our “B” Side
I only played this once on WGFR but I’ll always remember this song as emblematic of some of the absolutely bonkers things we did over the airwaves. Old pal o’mine Jason Rocque and I came up with a skit called “Crispy Critters”, where we would select a really awful 45rpm record from the library and destroy it in some humorous fashion. (We didn’t actually destroy records, it was done with sound effects…like using the record for skeet shooting, dropping it in a deep-fat fryer, etc.) Those WGFR years were unbelievably fun…at WBSU I also had a great experience but it was more focused…learning individual roles like sales, production, news, music, programming, etc. But WGFR first taught me that just because radio as a medium has changed doesn’t mean you can’t use the medium to spark the imagination.
Black Box, “Everybody Everybody”
As I mentioned earlier, WGFR in the days I was there offered pop by day and rock by night. And boy were the dance tunes big in the early ’90s. C&C Music Factory, etc etc etc. This was one of my faves.
Shanice, I Love Your Smile
One more pop concoction…this just screams “1991” to me.
There were certainly lots of other 90’s chestnuts I could have included…Marky Mark and his Funky Bunch…Snow and his licky of the boom-boom and so forth…Guns and Roses “Use Your Illusion 1 and 2” (a double album which, in a fit of delicious irony, was stolen from the music library twice). Another day perhaps. But probably not. So what 90’s tunes did I miss, Glens Fallsians? Hit me up in the comments!