I Was A College Radio DJ In The 80's: Salem 66 - Pony Song

[out of print]

Salem 66 began as an all-female trio who named their band after the famous witch trials locale and Dylan's favorite highway. They released "Across the Sea" as a single in 1984. Then they added a male guitarist for their first album, 1985's A Ripping Spin. Those of us in the WTUL basement were already digging the Rainy Day compilation and LA's Opal. To our ears, this was another welcome addition to The Paisley Underground. But Judy Grunwald and Elisabeth Kaplan bristled when Spin Magazine made the comparison.

"We never were and are not a psychedelic band" Kaplan declared.
"Never will be." said the male guitarist
 Well...Grunwald admitted using the psychedelic description early on but that was before the LA scene.
 "So to use that word didn't really connote that you were best friends with (The Dream Syndicate's) Steve Wynn or something."
"It teaches you not  to label yourself ever." said drummer Susan Merriam.

Sorry we brought it up.

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I Was A College Radio DJ In The 80's: Paul Chastain: Halo

[out of print]

Champaign Illinois romantic Paul Chastain refused to hide the R.E.M influences on his terrific 1985 EP "Halo", released a few years before he teamed up with drummer Ric Menck and went all power pop on us in Velvet Crush. The man who produced those early R.E.M. albums, Let's Active's Mitch Easter, got out from behind the board to sing and play on the tour for their second album, 1994's glorious Teenage Symphonies to God. Sadly, there's not much of a market for power pop anymore. The group broke up and the name "Velvet Crush" was adopted by a Dayton Ohio 80's cover band.

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I Was A College Radio DJ In The 80's: Dumptruck - Back Where I Belong

[buy it]


Dumptruck, one of college radio's favorite jangly guitar pop bands, was formed by two Connecticut songwriters who met in Boston. Seth Tiven and Kirk Swan seemed to share an affinity for the dual guitar attack of Television and the morose lyrics of Joy Division.




For their second album, Positively Dumptruck, Tiven, Swan and their rhythm section teamed up with producer Don Dixon whose recent credits included R.E.M., Guadalcanal Diary and Tommy Keene. Great stuff! We played the very hell out of this album at WTUL, but if Dumptruck ever made it to New Orleans I missed the show.  I did see Dumptruck open for Big Time Records label mate Alex Chilton in San Francisco in the fall of '86.
    Must have been a dismal tour because when it was over...so was this incarnation of Dumptruck. Swan left. Tiven kept the name, recording an even better Dumptruck album in 1987, the Wilco-esque For the Country. In 2001, Dumptruck released a live album of recordings made in the mid-80's, Lemmings Travel to the Sea,  along with a disc of recent material.
   I can't vouch for that one but both Positively and For The Country are can't miss classics from an era when jangle pop ruled college radio.

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My Own Top Ten ( A List Made in 1984)

My top 10 albums as provided to WTUL's Vox Humana for the Spring 1984 edition, just weeks after I had joined the staff. I still listen to all of these albums.

1. The Beatles ABBEY ROAD

2. Talking Heads '77

3. Mott the Hoople ALL THE YOUNG DUDES

4. R.E.M. MURMUR

5 Otis Redding THE HISTORY OF OTIS REDDING

6. The Jam ALL MOD CONS

7. Bob Marley And The Wailers RASTAMAN VIBRATION

8. Al Green GREATEST HITS

9. T-Rex ELECTRIC WARRIOR

10a. Love FOREVER CHANGES

10b. Squeeze ARGYBARGY

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I Was A College Radio DJ In The 80's: Rage to Live - Enough Is Never Enough

Yet another band from Hoboken, the New Jersey city that gave us The Bongos, The dBs, The Feelies and Frank Sinatra, Rage to Live dropped its first album in 1986 ( well before anyone in the music biz used that annoying phrase "dropped"). The band was made up of  ex-Necessaries guitarist Ed Tomney and ex-Individuals member Glenn Morrow.  They played well crafted edgy power pop."Enough is Never Enough" even made MTV's 120 Minutes playlist.

 Their debut was the first album released on Morrow's Bar/None label. When the second album did nothing to lift the band's fortunes, Glenn became full time owner of Bar/None and signed a few artists you've heard of: 10,000 Maniacs, Alex Chilton, The Feelies, Freedy Johnston, Yo La Tengo and They Might Be Giants among many others.

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I Was A College Radio DJ In The 80's: Sex Clark 5 - I Want You Mine

[purchase]

A Southern-friend Young Fresh Fellows, The Sex Clark Five hailed from "Rocket City": Huntsville, Alabama.
In 1985, a copy of their 45-sized  EP Neita Grew Up Last Night made its way to the basement of the Tulane University student center. It was full of short lo-fi Beatlesque pop tunes like "I Want You Mine" ( now deleted) and "Red Shift". Naturally I played it every week.



The EP also caught the attention of legendary BBC Radio DJ John Peel who brought them in for at least one Peel session. A.C. Newman of The New Pornographers nominated the SC5 as one of his "unsung heroes" in a 2006 issue of GQ.

BONUS!

WTUL Promo: Mel Noonard "If"

My first promo for  WTUL was inspired by all the cool band promos we would get and Bill Murray's lounge singer routine. Not sure where I got the backing instrumental version of "If".

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I Was A College Radio DJ In The 80's: The Flies - Something Wrong With Me

In Which We Play A College Radio Nugget From the Mid-80's




The Boston scene in the mid-80's was full of reckless guitar bands that updated the garage rock sounds of the 60's.There were The Lyres, Dumptruck, Salem 66, The Neats, Dinosaur, Mission of Burma and The Volcanosuns among many others ( including google-proof Christmas, eventually made up of the Cudahy brothers, Michael and Nick, whom I went to school with ten years earlier)

Enter The Flies. In 1984 the practically foolproof label Homestead Records released the trio's LP Get Wise. It was as raucous as the rest of the Beantown bands but the lead singer, Nat Freedberg, had this quasi-Dylan, somewhat slacker drawl going for him. I guess the band broke up by the time I started cranking this song up on the progressive stereo found at 91.5 on the FM dial in New Orleans. But then, in New Orleans, every summer seemed endless.

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I Was A College Radio DJ In the 80's: The Wind - House on Fire

In which we play a college radio nugget from the mid-80's...



[out of print]

Back when Mitch Easter could do no wrong, he spent just enough time with Miami trio The Wind to record the 1984 EP Guest of the Staphs. Critics compared the dense pop sound to Easter's band Let's Active (naturally) and The Spongetones.

I played this track at Tulane's progressive college radio station WTUL-FM because, as hip as I've always  tried to appear, deep down I'm just a big fan of good three minute pop songs. And in 1984, with Easter produced R.E.M, The dB's and Let's Active records getting so much airtime, anything associated with Mitch Easter got some revolutions on the turntable.

Looks like the band got back together in '08. Still tight. Sounding great!

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#40 Translator - Everywhere That I'm Not, 1982

I was fortunate enough to be a college radio disc jockey at the dawning of "college rock". You young'uns know it as "alternative" now. But back then, in the early 80's, college radio stations began playing music the Top 40 and classic rock stations wouldn't touch. Crazy stuff like R.E.M, U2, The Smiths and XTC.
   I spent as much of the summer of 1983 in the air conditioned basement of WTUL.
I was drawn by the music, my new found friends and, this being New Orleans, the air conditioning. This was the summer of the Violent Femmes, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Big Country;  of Speaking in Tongues, High Land, Hard Rain  and Punch the Clock.
  But the song that takes me back to that musty basement is this one from 1982. San Francisco's Translator didn't exactly take over the world but for four minutes and three seconds, they created perfection and defined the college rock sound.

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